“Is there some that see him as a god?” Rev asks.
Paul signs, “yes unfortunately, some people worship him.” Paul says.
“Why would people worship such evil? Does Loka give them anything in return?” Rev asks.
Paul is silent for a moment before he responds, “He promises them a place in his new world to come. Many have lost faith over the years. His strength and knowledge of his rights are some of the most impressive in the world, but there will always be stronger people out there. And if he’s not at the top of it all, then he can not claim full god hood. It doesn’t make sense to be good and have your creations be stronger than you.” Paul tells Rev.
“He seems to be hated more than worshiped. Why don’t the stronger people just kill him?” Rev asks.
“It’s not that simple…I had told you that he had received one of the biggest blessing. That blessing seems to eternal life-“
“WHAT!” Rev exclaims.
Paul signs, “it is not fully confirmed, but Loka had lived a life as long as some dragons while he is only human. He had not aged a day. It is said that he does not have to eat, drink, sleep, or even breath. The source he has gathered is unclear, but some say it reveals the blessed elves.” Paul tells Rev.
“So no one has ever tried to kill him or have they all failed” Rev asks.
An unexpected smile appears on Paul’s face. “We’ll many have tried, and all have failed, but long ago, when Loka almost accomplished his goal, he was met by overwhelming defeat. He wasn’t killed, but it is said he ran for his life. That was the day he met the future elf king. This encounter put into question the full extent of Loka’s blessing,” Paul says.
“So he might not be as unkillable as he says he is—“
Rev is cut off by Paul. "Ok Rev, I think this is enough conversation on this topic.” Paul tells Rev.
“Ok…” Rev responds.
Paul gets, looks at Rev and smiles. “I have high hopes for your kid. Promise me you won’t get carried away.” Paul tells Rev before he leaves.
“Sorry….no more promises,” Rev whispers as Paul leaves.
Rev is left alone once more. Many thoughts of running through this head. He walks over to the window and looks below at the tree that started it all.
“How is this all so to end…” Rev whispers.
But he is met by silenced once more. Rev signs and takes a seat on the floor and practices his source control. He gets up and tries to pull the source coming off the tree towards him. He almost reaches it until he is interrupted.
“What’s are you doing?” a small girl calls out from below.
Rev is caught off guard. Then looks straight down below. “Why do you care?” Rev asks.
The girl looks up at him. “Are you that new elf that everyone is talking about? I heard he wears a black cloak.” The girl asks in responds.
“I guess….what do you want from me?” Rev says.
The little girl's eye light up. “Is it true that you managed to trap Bron on your first try?” the girl excitedly says.
“Yes, it's all true,” Rev tells the girl.
“Woah…you must be really strong then,” the girl says.
Rev is silent for a moment. “Not strong enough,” Rev responds.
The girl looks confused. “Why do you need to be any stronger?” She asks.
Rev glares down at her “Why do you ask so many questions” Rev says in an annoyed tone of voice.
“…sorry. I don’t get to talk to many people,” the girl tells Rev.
Rev scuffs, “I can see why,” Rev says under his breath.
“So um…did you want to touch the tree?” The girl asks.
Rev can’t deny it. He jumps out the window and floats down.
“Woah, it really is true,” the girl says.
Rev ignores the girl and walks over to the base of the tree. He presses his hand against it and watches the source get pulled towards him. He looks up, seeing the fruits of the tree, how densely packed they are of source. He reaches his hand up.
“No, you can’t!” The girl warns Rev.
“What's the problem?” Rev asks.
“You aren’t allowed to touch the fruit or eat one without permission from the overseer.” The girl tells Rev.
Rev stops and retreats his hand. He signs “fine…” he says under his breath.
Rev notices the girl staring at him. He glares at her.
“Woah…your eyes..” She runs up to him for a closer look.
Rev is taken off guard by her sudden advance.
“Stay back.” Rev says.
“Come on…your eyes are so…pretty,” the girl tells Rev.
Rev can’t believe what he's just heard. “What did you say?” Rev says as an uncomfortable blush sneaks up on his face.
The girl doesn’t stop as she gets closer, backing Rev up against the base of the tree.
“Stop covering your face. Let me see” The girl is a persistent.
“stop…” Rev can barely form a single word.
“Woah, your hair is so ruff, but so white and your skin is a darker grey than a cyclops,” the girl says.
All the sudden a door opens to the garden. “Let the poor boy go Lilly”a soothing voice says from behind them.
Lilly stands up straight and runs to the voice. “Hello momma”
“Hello child. Sorry about her, she doesn’t get to talk to many people. Am Rebaca, what is your name?” Rebecca asks.
Rev takes a breath and clears the blush off his face. “Am…Rev” he says.
Rebecca smiles “Rev…your that dark elf everyone is talking about. I heard your very capable. Come on, Lilly, did you even introduce yourself properly?” Rebecca says.
Lilly comes out from behind Rebecca. “Sorry I forgot. Hello am Lilly,” she says.
Rev can’t even bring himself to look at her. Rebecca smile “Am sorry again. Lilly is only 11 years old…How old are you? I know elves age differently than humans do.” Rebecca asks.
“I don’t know how old I am,” Rev responds.
“Oh…” Rebecca turns to Lilly. “Come on Lilly, let leave the boy alone.” Rebecca says with a smile.
“Come on momma…” Lilly rebels.
Rebecca looks a Rev then at Lilly. “I think he would like to be alone,” Rebecca tells Lilly.
“Alone…is that really what he wants” Rev thinks. Lilly looks sad then looks at Rev. The looks in her eyes he's seen it many times before, but never so close up. Then he feels the stare of another. It's the girl's mother. She seems so loving on the outside. Her voice is warm and inviting, but Rev has felt this stare before all too familiar. Hate no its fear. An uneasy fear lies in that stare, a fear of the unknown. Despite that, the look in Lilly’s eyes was not the same. She was too innocent for this world.
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Rev signs, “It’s probably best if I am alone”
Rebecca seems to relax a bit. “You heard him. Come along now.” Rebecca tells Lilly.
“But…” Lilly looks over at Rev one last time before leaving with her mom.
Rev is now alone again and turns to the tree. Looking up at the fruit, he scuffs and walks away. Then a flower catches his eye. He walks over, seeing its bright red color and long wiggle peddles. With a bright white center. He touches the flowers, feeling its soft and surprisingly tough feeling peddle. Rev walks around the garden. It's as if the garden itself is in its own little bubbles. It's weirdly warm the further Rev goes into it. Rev explores the garden further as the day runs out. The sun is now soon to set. Rev makes it back to where he started and wind blast himself back to his window. He then feels the cold wind come through it and chooses to close his window shut. He walks over to his bed and lies on top of it and wraps to blanket around him. He is fast to fall asleep.
-Day 2 of the mountain palace
-5 days until second encounter.
Rev is again woken up by the ringing of the bell. He gets up and head out the door, following behind the others again.
“How’d you sleep Rev” Shane asks.
Rev glares up at him “…Fine” he responds.
Shane gives an awkward smile. “That's good.”
They make it to the courtyard where Bron is waiting with a wide smile on his face.
“LINE UP” Bron yells out
“Are we ready?” he asks.
“YES SIR,” the students respond.
“Good, this time Shun, you will be the target.” Bron says.
Shun nods and they begin. Rev is quick to action with Bane behind him while Shane, Pine and Shun stay back. Rev creates stone traps at Brons feet and Bane takes Bron's head on holding him down. Pine charges up a large vine net in preparation. Rev creates pillars around Bane and Bron.
Rev looks over at Pine, seeing he's charging something up.
“DO IT” Rev yells out.
“How did he?” Pine thinks, but doesn’t have time to question.
He cast the large vine net above Bron and Bane. Rev looks down at Bron and is unsatisfied.
“STOP HOLDING BACK OLD MAN” Rev yells out to Bron.
Bron smiles as he locks arms with Bane. “was it that obvious? You have to forgive me. I havn’t had any student to push me this far in a while,” Bron tells Rev.
Rev scuffs and prepares himself. He Rushes back to Shun side and cast large source net.
“What are you doing Rev” Shane asks.
“Just sit back and wait,” Rev says.
Bron headbutts Bane and elbow charges him right through the stone pillar. Bane isn’t giving up, he doesn't fall. He cast a stone pillar at his chest and quickly expands it forward, pushing Bron off of him. Rev makes the net thicker and thicker. Weaving more and more source into it. Bron smiles now that he forces Bane into creating distance between them. He doesn't have to hold back. “I trust you’ll stop it,” Bron thinks. He flashes through hand signs and crosses his arms with his elbows now in front of his face. Rev watches the casting of the art of seeing a depiction of a unfamiliar beast with a large horn on top of its nose. The stone head of a rhino is created around Bron he then send the windblast he's been charging up and down to his feet. Rev isn’t gonna let this happen he send the source net at Bron and it absorbs the wind blast the second they go off. Bron is stagnate. “What happened” He thinks. Rev smiles. The net is so thick it stops any movement that Bron attempts to make. It’s as if he's trapped in an invisible web. Rev blast forward and anchors the net to the ground and starts to compress it around Bron. The stone starts to crack, the horn is first to collapse under the pressure.
“What's going on?” Bane asks Rev.
“I trapped him in a source net and now am squeezing it until the beast he created is destroyed.” Rev tells Bane.
“what a source net?” Bane asks.
Rev looks over at Bane. “It's a net like the one Pine made earlier, but this one is made completely out of source, not transformed into anything….Ein taught it to me,” Rev tells Bane.
“Oh…Bron hasn’t taught us anything like that yet. He says creations of pure source are complicated to teach.” Bane says.
Rev is focus on the task at hand. He feels Bron's resistant come to a stop, but it doesn't bring him comfort. Bron suddenly breaks out the top of the rhino's head. He can feel the net and grabs it and pulls it apart. Rev quickly retracts the source net, he then uses it to cast a large stone wall splitting the court yard in half. Maybe not the best use of source,but it slows Bron down enough for Bane to get back on him. Rev then dashes against the wall, running on it and coats it as he goes. Bane tries to take Bron ahead on again. People start to watch once more looking at the marvel of a wall created by Rev. Lilly, takes a spot by the window and looks down at amazement, barely being about to see glimmers of Rev as he dashes around.
“He's so fast, momma,” Lilly says.
“Come on, Lilly, we have things to do,” Rebecca says.
“Momma, just look,” Lilly protest.
Rebecca signs and looks out the window down below at the courtyard. They now watch Rev together. Seeing his fluid movements and quickly casting. Bron makes quick work of Bane. He is no longer waste time entertaining such things.
“Come and get me old man,” Rev taunts Bron.
Bron pays him no attention. He knows the true goal of the game. Wind blast right over the wall then creates a stone staff and sends it right at Shane causing him to run out of the way. He watches the stone pillar come crashing down onto the hard court yard ground. “Is Bron lost his mind” Shane thinks. Rev is waiting above. He rips a piece of the wall off and sends them flying at Bron. Pine creates a thick wood cage around him and Shun. Bron is forced to dodge Rev’s attacks. Rev attacks lead him away from Shun. Bron creates another staff and blasts it towards Rev. Rev simply moves stone chuck in the way to block it. In this time of Rev had made a self created blind spot, Bron makes a dash towards Shun. Shane luckily interject with a powerful wide spread wind blast. That pushes Bron back.
“No more playing around,” Shane tells Pine and Shun.
They nod and Pine takes Shun away. Bane seems to be out for the count. This leaves only three to defend. With Shane and Rev currently on Bron. Rev continues to send attacks at Bron. He slowly creates a circle of stone boulders around him. Bron coats the boulders around him and sends them all flying up at Rev. He doges them effortlessly. Shane is going all out now. He rushes down to Bron and engages in hand to hand. Quickly weaving in and out of Brons' attack. His speed increasing more and more. His punches start to leave a mark behind. He land a sound shattering spinning back kick on Bron, sending him straight on his back. “What was that? I didn’t see any source in those punches of kick,” Rev thinks. Shane's breath is heavy and his vision starts to blur slightly. Bron stands up and looks at Shane.
“Well done. THIS LESSTION IS OVER,” Bron announces.
“WHAT!?” Rev exclaims.
“Ok, now it’s time to go,” Rebecca says.
“Ok” Lilly says
She takes one last looks at Rev floating down from the sky before she leaves. Pine picks up Bron and helps him walks.
“Am very proud of all of you. The point of this exercise is practice for a real encounter. To push you to your limits. Force you to preform underpressure.” He looks over at Rev. “I believe you all just needed a little push. Someone who wasn’t scared to go all out. To properly set an example.” Bron tells the students.
Rev scuffs. “Thank you, Rev. I know am not as good as a teach as Ein was and I can’t push you as hard as he did, but I hope I can at least try to be as great as he was.” Bron sincerely tells Rev.
Rev is silent “Let's just run already…” Rev responds.
Bron smile. “First, let's clear the courtyard. Any rubble that can’t be used will be thrown off the mountain.” Bron tells the student.
After words, they begin their run, with Shane not taking a leading spot.
“Are you ok?” Shun asks Shane.
Shane's breath is still heavy as he runs “yeah am just a little tired” Shane says.
He watches as Rev takes the leading spot. He seems to have to signs of being tired at all.
“I don’t know how he does it,” Pine says.
“The training Ein must have put him through must have been quite brutal,” Bane says.
Shane laughs. “Well, am not gonna let him beat me this time,” Shane says as he increases his stride.
The others look and follow after him. All of them pushing forward to reach Rev. They almost mange to keep up with him for a full lap before they start to fall behind.
“Elf, dark elf, I don’t care. He’s still a kid and we can’t even hope to keep up with him.” Bane tiredly says.
Shane laughs. “Your wrong. If we couldn't even hope to, then we wouldn’t of tried in the first place. Hoping to catch up is the only thing we can do right now,” Shane says.
Bron appears behind them. “That's the spirit” Bron says.
They all take a breath and look at Rev in the distance. “Let go get him,” Bron says.
They start their run. Rev completes the three laps and waits for the other to do the same. The other finally finishes their laps after Rev. Then they go into source control.
“We will take it easy from here. You guys have earned it,” Bron says.
They do simple push and pull training. Making sure to take a breath and rest. Once over, they head to the dining hall.
“How did the training go?” Clare asks.
“It went fine. Could I have some soup?” Rev kindly asks.
“Of course you can. We are all out of mushroom, but we still have rabbit soup.” Clare says.
“Ok, I’ll have some of that.” Rev says.
Clare hands him the bowl “Thank you” Rev says.
“Your very welcome,” Clare responds.
“I didn’t know Rev was friends with one of the food works,” Bane says.
“Yeah, it’s kinda weird seeming him so polite,” Shane says with a chuckle.
They sit down next and across from Rev, but he pays them no attention as he focuses on eating his food.
“That you twin god for the meal we will not let it go to waste,” Pine prays.
Rev is already halfway done. Rev looks around the table and thinks back to something Ein told him one night.
“You must learn to excerpt people into your life. Do not make villains out of those who could have been your allies,” Ein says.
“Well…I need stronger allies then this…they would only hold me back…there no reason for me to ask them to put their lives at risk for someone else when they can’t even defend them self…” Rev thinks.
This leads Rev to ask a question. “how long have all of you been training” Rev asks.
They seem to be happy that Rev is already trying to make conversation.
“I’ve been training for 5yrs ever sense I was 16 years old,” Shane says
“Same for me,” shun says
“Yeah, me and Bane have been training for 4 years sense we were 18 years old, but we started learning about arts when we were about 17. That’s what inspired me at least to become a warrior. How about you Rev, when did you start and what made you wanna become a warrior?”
“…we’ll I’ve probably been training for a little over half a year, but I learned to fight and cast wind blast before I ever met Ein. He was the one that lead me here.”
They looked shocks at his responds.
“I thought you would have said you’ve been training all your life for how refined some of your skills are, not to mention your stamina,” Shane says.
“So you really learned to cast an art without any help?” Shun asks.
“Not really. I saw an elf guard do it and I just copied what I saw,” Rev says.
Shane laughs. "Of course I forget you can actually see source. Can you tell us what it looks like? Is it like what the visionaries described? A floating light like the ones in the sky at light?” Shane asks.
“Yes, but it’s usually not as bright as any of the lights in the sky. The more someone has in them, the brighter they are to me,” Rev tells them.
They continue to talk over dinner and grow ever so slightly closer. They return to their rooms upstairs.
“Good night guys,” Pine says.
“Good night,” the rest of the guys respond.
Rev is silent in this and makes it to his room. He sees that the window is opened, and he quickly takes a look out to the garden below before closing it shut. Rev is alone once more. “That was a lot,” Rev thinks as he collapses onto his bed and quickly falls asleep.