Frey and Marv were trekking through the swamp-like ecosystem of the plane, surrounded by tall trees, reaching high up into the sky.
Even if there was a sun in this world, the ground would still be covered in shadows.
Their surroundings were nearly pitch black, but like Kassan had explained, they encountered many of the ‘Delightful Death’ fruits, without them, they would have had a much harder time avoiding the murky green water.
From the water rose a thin veil of fog, almost like steam, hinting that the liquid was warm, perhaps even hot, but neither of them dared to make any physical contact.
Both of them felt two pairs of eyes rest on them at all times.
Although their observers kept their distance from them, it was never to the point where Frey and Marv felt like they were alone.
Outrunning and leaving them behind appeared to be impossible, one wrong step on their path, that consisted mostly of slippery roots, and they would likely have a bigger problem than a lack of privacy.
Roughly two hundred meters around the main outpost had been cleared of vegetation, the flow of water blocked off with big stones, but beyond that point nature once again reigned supreme.
Whenever Frey observed the nature particles around him, his mind twitched.
The slithering inheritance inside of his head had calmed down, and no longer moved since he received it, but he yearned to look at it, to study it, make the contents his own, but to do that he would need a quiet and peaceful environment.
“By the way, what is your element Marv?” Frey asked while on the move.
“It’s not officially considered an element... but it’s blood.”
Frey stopped abruptly, he flashed Marv a scared, but curious look.
“I know what you are thinking... ‘Blood magic sounds cruel’, am I wrong?”
Frey shook his head, “No, you are right. The name itself sounds scary.”
Marv chuckled, “You are too honest for your own good. Blood magic is a very small and rarely utilised aspect of water magic. My family just happens to specialise in it. And no, we are not being ostracized for it.”
“What can you do?” Frey asked, his curiosity started to outweigh his fear.
“Pretty much everything a water mage would do with water. However, there is one really cool thing about blood magic people rarely consider. They hear the word and think of the blood inside of their body being manipulated, but that is actually really hard to do... what I mean is the art of healing!” Marv’s passion for his spells became apparent in a heartbeat.
“I mean... I am no combat medic, but I like to think that I can make a difference when it comes down to it. My father is my idol in that regard. His skills have gotten him friends across all sorts of families. I’d guess no matter what rank I end up at, we wouldn’t have too many problems.”
“Yours is earth, right?” Marv returned the question.
“It is... how did you know?” Frey was baffled.
“There is probably no one in this competition that doesn’t know. Your master is a renowned earth mage, and the conflict between him and the Ironhoofs is a hot topic in most places. Many are looking forward to the outcome of the competition, to see what will happen to all of Aventia.”
“I am betting that Aventia has some allies, secret ones perhaps, but the greater the ranking of the Ironhoofs, the less likely they are to extend a helping hand, lest the Ironhoofs turn towards them next.” Marv voiced his thoughts and the general consensus.
“They don’t even have a rank three mage, what makes the Ironhoofs so scary to others?” Frey inquired.
“Heh, you might not know, but there actually are rumours of them having some relation with a rank three mage. Although that is the primary reason, the amount of rank ones and rank twos in the Ironhoof family is greater than others, so a direct war would result in any family’s downfall, or at the very least great amounts of damage to their foundation.” Marv explained.
“What’s stopping them then?” Frey stopped moving forward.
“His Majesty. Well, his own strength is one thing anyone must consider before making their move, but what I mean is his arsenal of rank three mages, and supposedly there is an entire treasury of artefacts somewhere within the castle.”
“Reall-” Frey blurted out in surprise, but Marv covered his mouth as quickly as he could.
Marv’s hand pressed against Frey’s lips tightly, making sure that not another peep would escape his mouth.
Frey got ready to defend himself, but Marv stopped moving entirely; he wasn’t being attacked but protected.
He turned his head slowly, and his eyes fell upon a bright yellow glowing sack of liquid, similar to the ‘Delightful Death’ fruit, only that this one was attached to a creature.
Frey had no idea what the locals of this plane looked like, but even without that knowledge his mind screamed ‘Flyer’.
Aside from its glowing stomach, the Flyer had a pitch-black head, eyes like a snail, its mouth wide open, even without making any sound, except for the flapping of its wings.
There weren’t any teeth within its mouth, but from its behaviour, it looked like it didn’t need any either.
The Flyer slowly descended just a few meters ahead of Frey and Marv, its open mouth ingested some of the swamp water during a single swoop, then picked up its altitude again.
Without an aura, there was only its flapping to alert the two, a valuable piece of information to acquire early on.
Marv slowly removed his hand from Frey, then gestured with his hand and fist to show his intent of crushing the creature.
Neither of them knew how good this thing could see, smell, or hear, so even these small actions were already a great risk.
Frey locked gazes with Marv for a moment, they both came to a silent agreement.
Soon the Flyer descended towards the water’s surface once more; at the same time something began to move within the water, something large, it pushed the water out of its way while travelling forward.
Ripples appeared on the surface, and the Flyer noticed in time to alter its trajectory.
An earthen spike protruded from out of the water, the distance between it and the creature much greater than anticipated, but Frey wasn’t out of options just yet... with a thought the spike exploded into tens of tiny pebbles, they launched into the rough direction of the yellow glowing target.
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Small stones struck its head and wings, but caused close to no damage, only those that hit the yellow belly managed to pierce into it, “Got it!” Frey shouted; his heart was beating quickly.
Though this wasn’t his first battle, the stakes were much higher, and that much more adrenalin surged through him.
The yellow liquid within its belly dripped out through the openings, a sizzling sound could be heard as it met the water below.
“It's not dead yet!” Marv shouted as he made a small cut on his thumb using a knife, a single drop of blood was drawn out, then assaulted by many of the blue particles in the air to form one big, red, arrow.
The Flyer’s open mouth shook, before a shrill scream filled the boys’ ears.
Frey covered his ears, his face flashed with pain, Marv gritted his teeth and focused on guiding his arrow.
The surface of the mix of blood and water rippled, seemingly about to burst apart, but it managed to strike the creature’s weak point before doing so.
The shrill scream ended as abruptly as it had started after the arrow blew open a wide, gaping hole in its formerly yellow belly.
Lifelessly the Flyer fell out of the sky, dropped into the water, and soon disappeared within.
Marv grabbed Frey’s wrist and began to pull, “Let’s get out of here!”
This creature’s scream was supposed to draw in even more locals, so Frey knew better than to question his ally’s decision.
The two of them hurriedly left the vicinity, but stayed within range, to just narrowly see through the fog and watch the response of the creatures of this plane.
They wanted to see for themselves how many the scream would attract, if it was just one, then they could certainly try their luck against them.
One silhouette approached the source of the sound momentarily after the two had left, then another, and another.
They appeared without any warning, no sound, like the fog gave birth to them there and then.
After the count of silhouettes exceeded ten, Frey and Marv looked into each other's eyes, they could see the other’s emotions and thoughts clearly.
They were unsettled, this many creatures, comparable to rank one mages, had been close enough to their fight to appear within just a few minutes.
Kassan’s words of getting ganged up on was an understatement!
Without a plan, one would certainly get overrun and killed before even reaching the natural border back to the camp.
... ...
Cykrus was strolling through the royal castle’s basement while carefully examining the walls, paintings, and various other objects he passed, like a tourist.
The general lack of guards confused him, but considering this was the home of King Lysander, he doubted that anyone else would be foolish enough to go wherever they pleased.
He tested his luck on every door he passed, surely one of them must lead to this library that Daren mentioned to him.
Cykrus wasn’t planning on breaking in, but if a door happened to be open, why should he not peek inside?
Sadly however, all of them appeared to be firmly locked, and beyond that, Cykrus felt a bit of an aura at every door, leading him to believe that they were equipped with some sort of security mechanism.
At the end of his current hallway stood a large metallic double-door, engraved with various signs, which were structured like a sentence, only the language itself eluded Cykrus.
“How curious. Reminds me of my treasury back in Aventia... could this be it?” he approached and placed both of his hands onto the metal.
He closed his eyes and focused, every few seconds he could feel a wave of energy push against his hands, like an impulse, probing the door.
“Why does this seem so awfully familiar?” Cykrus removed his hands, then stared down at his palms.
“There is no way... right?” a peculiar thought entered his mind, struck by curiosity Cykrus pulled out a knife and made a shallow wound across his hand, then placed the bleeding palm back on the metal.
He waited for the pulses, and sure enough, there was a reaction...
The door greedily absorbed the red liquid, and once its hunger had been sated, some mechanism within clicked.
Cykrus ears began to buzz, he became lightheaded, and the rational half of his brain screamed at him to leave, but every other part wanted to find out where this lead, and why the door reacted to his blood.
He wiped the blood off his palm using a handkerchief, then pushed the doors open.
Both of them opened with ease, within was nothing but darkness; Cykrus took some steps inside, his depth perception warped, and the metal doors behind him slammed shut.
Suddenly a light began to shine on the ceiling of the room, it illuminated the contents of the place Cykrus had just entered... shelve upon shelve revealed itself, an entire new row appeared with every subsequent light that went on.
The shelves were filled with objects, some were tools, tomes, weapons, armour, while others had much more peculiar shapes.
Cykrus walked closer, awe-stricken he stopped in front of the first shelve, the ground below him began to glow in a dim blue light, as did the entire isle of artefacts he stood in front of.
“Hm. Came to return that artefact you borrowed, Aster?” an ethereal voice called out behind him.
Cykrus jumped in surprise, his mind raced, but he managed to remain somewhat calm, as the voice sounded friendly.
The artefacts on display were thrown to the back of his mind, he turned around to look upon the illusory figure of a young boy.
The boy was somewhere in his late teens, he wore a black robe that reached all the way to the ground, his hair too was long and black, but an odd speck of white was moving throughout it, aimlessly like a fish in water.
“Did that scare you? I thought you would be used to it by now.” the boy spoke in a playful but mocking tone.
“Who are you?” Cykrus asked plainly, the door unlocked for him, and this boy somehow recognised him... something was wrong, very wrong.
“Huh? Are you playing games? Or did you hit your head too hard while testing out the artefact in a fight?” the boy tilted his head and placed his index finger onto his cheek, like he was seriously considering the options.
“No, I mean it. I don’t know who you are, or who this ‘Aster’ is.” Cykrus answered.
“How strange.” the boy caressed his furrowed brows, “You look just like Aster of Aventia. Your blood is his too, yet you claim to not be him. Are you sure this is not a trick to make me hand out an artefact to you again?”
Cykrus spaced out, the words he heard made him feel incredulous.
“Aster of Aventia... is he one of my ancestors then? How long has it been since this Aster borrowed from you?”
The boy tilted his head to the left, then to the right, “Hm... probably... yeah... I don’t know. I don’t know how much time has passed, since I can’t really tell anything from within this room.”
“You are locked in here?” Cykrus inquired.
“That is one way to put it. Anyways, do you have the artefact with you or not?” the boy asked again.
“Which one?”
“The one you borrowed.”
Cykrus rolled his eyes, “I told you; it wasn’t me who borrowed it."
“Yes. But it was your family, and you are part of your family. Therefore, you must have my artefact.”
Cykrus rubbed his temples, “What is the artefact’s name, what does it look like, what does it do... can you tell me things like that to help me understand what you are looking for?”
“Why didn’t you say so earlier!” the boy threw his hands into the air.
After briefly displaying his annoyance, an object that was just as illusory as the boy himself appeared in front of Cykrus, the very same dagger he had given to Frey just a day ago.
“This is the ‘Aura-Smith’. An artefact of rank three, created by Master Calamor when he was still young, imbued with the magic of chaos to give the wielder themselves physical strength the equivalent of a rank three mage-” the boy explained, but was interrupted by Cykrus, “-at the cost of their lifeforce, yes, I know its power.” he nodded his head in understanding.
The young boy frowned once again “This is the first time I have heard of such a thing. My master’s creations have no such flaws, even if they were created before his prime.”
“Wait, wait, wait. What is chaos magic? And who is Calamor?” Cykrus held his palms out to stop the boy in his tracks.
“Who is... what?” the illusory boy took a moment to process what he had heard, “...but I thought that Master became an existence at the level of King Astafor...? How could you not know him?”
“Calamor is a god?” Cykrus breathed deeply, his ancestor had some sort of relation to the figure in front of him, perhaps even a rank six mage on top!
“So, you have been alive since the late King Astafor’s era?” Cykrus followed up with another question.
“What? No. I am not that old, well, I might be old, but not that old. Master created me during the rule of King Ronnoton Van Tale. Since then, it’s been... what... five generations of Kings? Anyways, not that long.”
“Not that long?! Five generations of kings means about 500 years!” Cykrus burst out.
“Meh. Long for humans perhaps, but I don’t really notice the passage of time.” the boy shrugged his shoulders.
Cykrus held his forehead in shock, “What exactly made you believe that my ancestor from 500 years ago was still alive?”
“...True. There is no way that scammer would have gotten as strong as Master. Can you blame me though? You are the first of your family to appear before me in that same amount of time! It’s like you forgot about me and the artefact you are supposed to return!”
“That reminds me, there is a reason I came here, I wanted to ask about a certain artefact, or perhaps spell-”
“Don’t you owe me enough already?!” the boy’s anguished shouts interrupted Cykrus.
“No, you understood me wrong, I just wanted to know whether you were aware of an artefact that could create a rank two lightning mage, at a desired location, perhaps even ahead of time?” Cykrus had most certainly found the librarian Daren spoke of, now it was just a matter of how deeply his knowledge ran.
The boy considered for a moment, although he looked young and naive, hidden within him was a collection of information that had gathered over the last few centuries “Your description meets the rough criteria of two separate artefacts. One I have here in my home, and the other I exchanged with the artefact of an old man, some rank one mage that went by the name of Ironhoof.”