by Weiqi Wang
‘Halgon sent me a gift?’ Kardiac puzzled. ‘He didn’t mention that yesterday?’
‘His family came to pick him up overnight because they prefer to take care of Halgon by themselves.’ Gazbell smiled at the kids. ‘Halgon didn’t want to wake you up, so he left the gift to me.’
‘He’s off campus now?’ Soarame was surprised; the friends didn’t want to bother Halgon when they came here, so they were not aware of his absence. Soarame and Rodka glanced at each other; both seemed to get something. After all, Halgon’s secret identity was not going to be an easy matter.
‘Yes, but don’t worry, he will be back soon.’ Gazbell clearly didn’t know Halgon’s secret at all. ‘The reward from the institute is that each of you can have a magigear of Expert level, of your own choice. It can be anything in this booklet.’
‘Wow, Expert level?’ All were celebrating already. ‘That’s awesome!’
‘Enjoy your gold-mining.’ Gazbell was happy to see their reaction. The crew checked through the booklet and found a lot of options to choose from, covering all kinds of magigears and even magimals.
‘There are magimals too?’ Omifo was delighted. ‘I will definitely pick a magimal, then!’
‘Take your time.’ Gazbell smiled at Omifo, and handed over a box to Kardiac. ‘This is the gift from Halgon; he said you would like it.’
‘Cool!’ Kardiac opened the box and found a magimal egg with a familiar mark on it. ‘The lost duckbear egg? We got it back from MagiMax?’
‘More than that. Thanks to you all, MagiMax’s property was taken over by the city and the institute.’ Gazbell was happy. ‘We knew that this was Halgon’s property, so we got it for him; but Halgon wanted you to have it, Kardiac.’
‘Wow!’ Kardiac jumped around like mad. ‘We Got It Back! We got it back!!’
‘Well then, each of us has a magimal now.’ Soarame was so happy for Kardiac. ‘What about you, Rodka? You said you wanted a magimal too, right?’
‘Yes, but not this time.’ Rodka pondered a bit. ‘I’ve decided to go for a defensive magigear. The one that Max was wearing was way too useful.’
‘Me too!’ Alicey agreed with Rodka. ‘I’ll get one too!’
‘Smart move, you two. Soon you will find you need the defensive gear a lot.’ Gazbell nodded. ‘Especially Rodka, since you are approaching Expert level yourself, then you will need to go for your Expert trial soon; there you will find the defensive gear more useful than anything else. Plus, you may be able to get a higher-ranking magimal yourself during the trial, so you don’t need to choose one now.’
‘Exactly. That’s my plan.’ Rodka replied. ‘I am graduating and leaving soon, so it will be inconvenient for me to take a baby magimal with me.’
‘You are leaving?’ Back in Soarame’s dorm, Dileys was pale. ‘When?’
‘Maybe by the end of this month. I promised the Deans.’ Rodka saw Dileys’ eyes redden and realised something. ‘But don’t worry, I will come back to visit you guys.’
‘You guys?’ Dileys had a bitter and sour smile on her face. She sat back down and lowered her head. After all this time, I’m still just a part of ‘you guys’? Dileys suddenly began to hate herself for being a coward — she had always believed Rodka was too good for her, and until this day she still did.
Finally, the time is coming. Dileys was feeling so miserable. Why is it so quick?
The girls stared at Rodka with discontent; Rodka finally understood what was going on. He had noticed that Dileys felt good about him, but he didn’t think about it because he was very focused on magic practice. Now that he was leaving, he probably should do something instead of just saying goodbye.
From then on, Rodka began to talk to Dileys more and hang out with her in private. Rodka was surprised to find that he actually liked Dileys more than he thought. However, he was still going to graduate and still wanted to experience the outer world, just like both of the Deans had been persuading him to do. Especially after the fight with Max, Rodka found himself no better than Halgon or Soarame in a real battle, and that was a source of great shame to him. After all, he was always the star of Libral and he was a Grade 6 tri-lineager, yet he didn’t make much contribution that day in the battle when it really counted; instead he relied mostly on Sachastain, Halgon, and Soarame! Other than the part that he didn’t pass out, he made almost no difference compared to Kardiac, Omifo and Alicey!
I have to go! I must become stronger! Rodka clenched his fists. Sorry, Dileys…
DO YOU LIKE ME?
Rodka had finally decided to leave.
‘Rodka, take care!’ This early morning, with the dawn barely arrived, the crew came out to the silent Libral Gate and sent their wishes to Rodka. ‘We will miss you.’
‘You too, guys.’ Rodka looked around at his friends. ‘Where’s Dileys?’
‘Dileys said she already said goodbye to you last night.’ Catheray answered. ‘She doesn’t want to see you off and cry here, you know?’ With that, all girls looked at Rodka in a strange way; they seemed wishing to say more but stopped on a second thought.
‘I… I see.’ For some reason, Rodka lowered his head at the girls’ gaze and seemingly blushed. ‘Please tell her I said goodbye then.’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after her.’ Vivarin stared at Rodka. ‘Don’t forget to visit us some time.’
‘For sure, good luck, my friends!’ Rodka walked away and waved back several times until he disappeared from the crew’s sight.
‘I thought he would fly away instead of walking.’ Kardiac tried to amuse everyone, but nobody cared to take the joke.
‘Soarame, how hard is flying?’ Jemario asked. ‘Even Rodka is not able to fly.’
‘Well, I got that purely by luck.’ Soarame scratched his head. ‘Flying seems to be really hard if one practises in a normal way.’
‘That’s why there are only two people who can fly here!’ Kardiac instantly cut in. ‘Guess who they are.’
‘Soarame and… you! Of course.’ How could Catheray miss this chance to tease Kardiac?
‘I didn’t know you were a smart girl!’ Kardiac teased back, but got a knock on his head for his troubles; so he complained. ‘What? That’s not true?’
‘It’s true I’m smart, but prove that you can fly too.’ Catheray curved her lips.
‘Bingo, watch carefully!’ Kardiac was just waiting for this. The next second, a blast of air came out of nowhere, and Kardiac rose up into the sky.
‘What?’ The girls were all dumbfounded, but the boys knew the secret already so they were all chuckling.
‘Kardy can fly too?! How is this possible?’ Catheray said to her friends.
‘What? What does that mean?’ Kardiac complained from the sky. The next second, he started screaming. ‘Guys help! I lost control!’
‘Clang!’ With a nice landing curve, Kardiac fell down on his bottom.
‘I told you not to do this until you’re proficient!’ Soarame shook his head. ‘But you are lucky that you lost control so fast, otherwise when you fly up high…’
‘What’s this?’ The girls exclaimed and came to check Kardiac’s cloak. ‘Don’t tell me it’s the famous Flightcloak!’
‘Where did you get it?’ Catheray questioned Kardiac. ‘Only Grade 5 and above can use it!’
‘Only Grade 5 and above can buy it from the school because it’s an Expert-level gear, so Kardy picked it as the Principle’s award.’ Omifo corrected Catheray. ‘But anyone can try to use it; you already saw what happens if you are not powerful enough, though.’
‘You guys stop laughing at me!’ Kardiac got up. ‘At least I can fly!’
‘Okay, okay, you can fly.’ Catheray chuckled. ‘You know the best part of the cloak, though? It has a hood to cover your half-haired top.’ With that, Catheray put the hood over Kardiac’s head.
The crew wouldn’t know that right at this moment, a figure was floating in the cloud above them, watching.
‘Thanks for doing me such a big fa
vour, Soarame.’ the vague figure inside the cloud muttered with a sneer. ‘Mercy of the Demiurge, finally… Don’t worry Max, I’ll find you soon, from our little friend!’
The figure was holding a crystal chip in his hand, inside which there was a photo of Soarame — it was the very crystal chip from the old lady the other day.
Right then, a breeze came and puffed the cloud away, so a beam of sunshine was cast on the figure’s face. If Soarame had seen, he would be surprised to recognise this face; although it looked like a 40-ish-old man, it was extremely alike the young Wind wizard from Scankeen’s memory crystal ball, where Scankeen showed his battle against a magimal to teach Soarame in his very first lesson!
‘Crack!’ The figure crushed the crystal chip into debris with his fingers. ‘I hate sunshine!’
Thanks to Kardiac’s flight show, the sadness of seeing Rodka off was diluted quite a bit. The crew went back to Soarame’s dorm and suddenly realised that this dorm building had been a gathering point for a year already. Ever since Soarame had entered the school, he had been fortunate to meet all these friends, and share fun and tears with them. Now that Rodka was gone, it was a good bye to the past and a hello to the future —
Speaking of the future, Soarame certainly wouldn’t forget that Snower’s true identity was still a mystery; Gazbell actually performed an identification check for Snower in person, yet the crystal ball showed no match at all. This really bewildered everyone, because it hadn’t happened for centuries. Considering that the ‘cure’ from Snower was actually comparable to dragon blood, Soarame was actually facing the almost unthinkable possibility that Snower might be even more powerful than a dragon when she was fully grown!
Besides that, Scankeen’s legendary stories were appealing to the friends, although everyone made their promise to keep his name confidential. Then there was the mystery of Chelonad’s true face — Soarame had asked Gazbell, but he refused to talk about it. Therefore, it seemed that Aertiuno was Soarame’s only hope because they seemed to know each other well, but this persuasive-whisperer was just as mystic. Furthermore, Soarame began to doubt Sachastain’s words; this man couldn’t be as simple as he claimed — his skills were so similar to the young warrior in the biography; there must be something he wasn’t telling!
Soarame actually still cared about the Dragon&Empires team that he wanted to form; it seemed that this plan could be executed sooner than expected — after all, he had witnessed a real dragon and he was able to fly now. Soarame really wanted to see Dafinol’s face after he got to know that his assistant had accomplished his dragon dream, however, he knew more clearly than everyone else here that this secret was top class and could not be leaked.
Although capable of flying, Soarame still wanted to be recognised as a Water captain for Dragon&Empires, and bring glory for all his friends in Water. Therefore, Soarame went on with his mind-painting and carving again soon; hopefully he could make it to the auction hall before long. Oh yes, Soarame didn’t forget Robert’s duel promise either, but that boy seemed to be very busy since Soarame’s Wind magic became well-known; Soarame could hardly find him anywhere now — funny, huh?
‘Guys, check it out!’ Omifo went to his bedroom and came out with something in his arms.
‘What? What is that?’ The girls were agog. ‘Don’t tell us that’s your magimal?’
‘Mr. Principal just helped me bond with him. His name is Pipi.’ Omifo was caressing a little baby monkey in his hand. ‘The Principal suggested him because a teacher in the school just discovered him during his trial and adopted him as an orphan.’
‘Peepee?’ Vivarin stared at Omifo. ‘You are really good at giving names.’
‘No, not that Peepee!’ Omifo quickly spelt the name.
‘Thank god. Hey Pipi, it’s okay, we will take care of you.’ Vivarin lowered down her head to watch the baby monkey. ‘From now on we are a family!’
Snower walked over and sized the monkey up, full of curiosity. Icer and Niuniu followed her everywhere so they came too. Halgon had left campus, but he deliberately left Icer with the crew so that the baby firntiger could play with the family.
Pipi looked very shy, but at the same time he was curious about these new friends of similar size to himself, so he looked back at them, scratching his head. Soon enough, the baby magimals got familiar with each other and began to play together. Snower was already holding Pipi in her arms and licking his head, while Icer and Niuniu were wrestling again — with Niuniu winning again.
‘Pipi is so funny, isn’t he?’ Catheray was watching the baby monkey and Kardiac. ‘Especially when he’s scratching his head, it looks exactly like Kardy.’
‘Shut up Catheray, unless you don’t want the gift that I got for you.’ Kardiac was really emotional while thinking through all the scenes of the past year, so he decided to speed up his plan. It was a plan that Kardiac had just started plotting, but now he didn’t want to wait because this seemed to be a perfect time already.
‘What?’ Catheray was in overjoy to hear this. ‘I like gifts!’
‘It’s this one.’ Kardiac handed over the duckbear egg from Halgon.
‘What?’
‘What?!’
‘Ah!’
‘Ahh!!’
‘Ahhh!!! — ’
The boys were stunned, the girls were screaming like mad, and Catheray was totally beside herself. ‘Really?! But no, you can’t! This is Halgon’s gift to you!’
‘Not exactly. Halgon left it to my charge, so it’s up to me what to do with it.’ Kardiac was praising inside, so grateful for his brother’s consideration. ‘And the seal was removed so it can be hatched now — Catheray, it’s yours now.’
‘Oh my god!’ The girls all looked crazily jealous. ‘How unbelievably awesome this is!’
‘If I can have my full hair back, that’d be even more awesome.’ Kardiac teased himself and handed it over to Catheray. ‘Do you like me?’
‘Yes yes, of course!’ Catheray responded without hesitation; she was too excited to listen carefully.
‘I like you too!’ Kardiac followed up right away, staring into Catheray’s eyes.
‘What?’ Catheray had just realised that Kardiac had played a trick on her; she tapped him on the head right away. ‘You bad boy!’
‘Wow, Kardy!’ Soarame was completely stunned. ‘How did you come up with that?’ He felt that he had learnt something real. Surreptitiously, Soarame glanced at Jemario, finding her not looking back at him, but looking straight forward at somewhere else. Jemario seemed focused, as if there was something really interesting, which reminded Soarame of his own odd behaviour when he saw magic elements as a little boy. However, Jemario didn’t have special eyes, so she was probably staring blankly; and for some reason there was a blush on her face when Soarame looked again.
‘It’s called magic.’ Kardiac gave Soarame a wink. ‘Plus, I can fly!’
(To be continued)
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
While people may think ‘magic fantasy authors’ are the opposite of ‘scientists’, Weiqi Wang preserves his own opinions. As a D. Phil (Doctor of Philosophy, but it actually means a scientific doctor) on bioengineering graduated from Oxford University, Weiqi loves to be both. After all, philosophy is to explain the world; some choose to use scientific languages, some put it also in fantasy.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book had been written in the UK when I was studying in Oxford, and I only wish self-publishing services were available back then. I’d like to especially thank Prof. Rene Banares-Alcantara, and also Prof. Zhanfeng Cui, both of who were my D.Phil. supervisors, for supporting me on this book.
The cover picture of the book is drawn from scratch by Mr. Jiawei Wu from Dalian Info Tech Ltd; I highly appreciate his excellent work and skills. I’d also like to give special thanks to Xiaoqian Xu, Xin Zhang, Chao Ren, Yiwen Fang, Lilith Chou and Shen Yuan for helping on the book cover matter.
There can be more than one type of philosophy to explain the world
One of them is called science
Another one is spelt M-A-G-I-C