Early the next morning, when the sun had just risen, Narvari was in Rahsun Forest with Pheera and Yanvirrak. Servin stood before them, a mischievous glint in his silver eyes. Clearly, the man did not like wearing shirts.
“So what do you want to talk to us about?” Narvari asked, folding her arms. Servin had made it seem like this was an emergency when he sent for them.
“We are here to train,” he said. “Trixan didn’t want you kids slacking off while she’s gone. She asked me to keep you busy. This is how I’m keeping you busy.”
“What do you mean Trixan’s gone?” Narvari asked. “Where did she go?”
“Rhodine.”
“Rhodine?”
“It’s in Agon,” said Yanvirrak. “It’s the headquarters of the Order. They call it the City of Vanquishers. Very impressive city.”
“Yeah, well, you think your stick figure drawings are impressive,” said Narvari, “I can’t take you seriously.”
Yanvirrak grinned. “Don’t be jealous because I’m fucking Picasso.”
Narvari grimaced. “Oh, god, I never asked about your sex life, Herpes.”
“Oh, yeah? And you — “
“Okay, enough, you two,” said Servin snapping his fingers. “Jeez, doesn’t it get exhausting being around them, Pheera?”
Pheera gave a small smile. “It’s calming, to be honest.”
It was? Pheera didn’t speak much when she was in a group. She always seemed to be lost in her thoughts, as if she was all alone in the world. She opened up more when she was alone with Narvari, something Narvari was truly grateful for. But sometimes, Narvari wished Pheera would trust her enough to talk to her without reservation.
“Today,” Servin interrupted her thoughts, “you begin your elema training.”
“Yes.” Yanvirrak’s dark eyes twinkled.
“About damn time.” Narvari huffed.
Pheera simply made the day brighter with that dazzling smile. Everything she did was an art. Hell, Pheera was an art. All one had to do was look at her once and they would they would get lost in her alluring ambiance. Narvari’s lips quirked in an awkward smile when Pheera caught her staring. She quickly glanced at Servin, ignoring the heat burning in her chest.
“You’ve already mastered your sacros,” said Servin, “And since Trixan doesn’t want you repeating Farouk’s mistakes, it’s best if we started.”
“What mistake?” Narvari raised a brow, glancing at Yanvirrak but he only smirked.
“I think of it as a lesson, not a mistake.”
“Okay, so what’s the lesson?”
“This very lesson, Ex-rookie. Now focus.” Servin folded his bulky arms. Then he went right on to his lesson. “You’ve all seen my wind elema, Hurricane. Just like Hurricane, every elema takes the form of a unique element.”
“How did you awaken elema?” asked Narvari. “That’s what I want to know.”
“Going straight to the point, huh, Ex-Rookie.”
Narvari sighed at the new name nickname. At least he was no longer calling her Rookie. It was a promotion.
A tiny vortex of wind appeared on Servin’s hand. “There are two methods of awakening elema. One, the difficult but safe way, and two, the easy but dangerous way.”
“Hmm.” Narvari rubbed her chin. “How easy is it?”
“You should be asking how dangerous it is.” Servin’s tone hardened. He clasped his palm around the vortex, snuffing it out into nonexistence. “To put it mildly, it’s life-threatening,” he said. “In the best-case scenario, your body will be damaged, taking anywhere between a few days to several years to recover. In the worst-case scenario, you’ll be dead.” He paused, gazing at each of them as though to let his words sink in. Then his silver eyes pierced through Narvari like a dagger to her chest. “I strongly recommend not to use that method.”
“I was just joking.”
He shook his head, smiling. “What you should be interested in is the difficult but safe method. It’s difficult because it will be the hardest and longest training of your life. We awaken sacros naturally without training. But elema doesn’t work that way. If you don’t consciously try to awaken your elema, you’ll never awaken it. Well, unless you use the dangerous method I just told you to stay away from.” He gazed at Narvari again, “Which you’re going to stay away from.”
Yanvirrak chuckled. Narvari sighed. Why would she put herself at risk if she could gain elema through good old-fashioned training?
“Now the first step to awaken elema is choice,” said Servin. “Before anything else, you need to first choose the elema you want to awaken. It makes it easier to train for it. Think about that one thing you want. Anything at all. See in your mind’s eye precisely what you want. Be unique and creative.”
“Just like your wind elema is unique and creative?” Yanvirrak asked.
“Precisely.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“And yet I feel complimented.”
Narvari and Pheera exchanged amused glances.
“What do you have in mind, Ex-rookie?”
“Huh?” Narvari tilted her head.
“Your elema,” he said. “Which one will you awaken?”
This had never crossed her mind even though all she ever wanted was to awaken more powerful forms of sacred energy. To be fair, she had only come across two types of elema; Servin’s wind elema, Hurricane, and Azmel’s silver elema, whose name she didn’t even know. She was not even sure what kind of element Azmel’s elema was. Was it actual silver in liquid form? Was it mercury? She had no clue though she had been on a mission with Azmel several times. He never talked about himself and she never asked.
What kind of elema did she want? She didn’t know how many kinds of elema there were out there. But Servin did say it could be creative and unique so probably there were countless number of them beyond the basic four elements of wind, water, fire, and earth. She couldn’t just carelessly choose one without doing research. She needed to know what her options were.
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“I don’t know yet,” Narvari finally said. “I have to think about this very carefully.”
Servin nodded. “And you should. There is no rush. You need to be absolutely certain of your choice. Without certainty, it’s impossible to awaken it.”
“I’ve always been certain of my choice.” Yanvirrak shrugged, casually caressing his gloved hand.
“Really?” Narvari said. “And what’s that?”
“Flame elema. I trained hard to awaken my flame elema without Trixan’s knowledge.” He shook his head as if he could not believe his stupidity. “But when I ordered up nothing happened. I guess I burnt myself for nothing.” He chuckled.
“You did what?” Narvari’s eyes widened.
Yanvirrak grinned as he slowly removed the silver and gold glove from his left hand. Narvari gaped at the sight of the charred hand. “My lesson, everybody,” said Yanvirrak, waving the burned hand.
“Damn. What the hell happened to your hand?”
“Training. Trixan wanted me to undergo regenerative surgery but I decided to keep the scars to remind myself to never give up. Plus, I like the glove.”
“Wait, so you burnt yourself on purpose?”
“Well, no. That was an accident. But I trained with fire. It was the only way to awaken flame elema.” Yanvirrak put his glove back on.
What the hell? Narvari gaped at Yanvirrak, but he looked completely unfazed. She turned to Servin, silently asking for an explanation for this madness.
“Elema training involves a lot of visualization and realism,” Servin said. “Since Yanvirrak wanted flame elema, he had to use real fire for his training until it became so real to him that he could physically conjure them with his mind.”
“Even if it meant being burnt alive?” Wasn’t that too extreme? Narvari thought.
“Well, yes,” said Servin. “But Yanvirrak was an idiot training behind Trixan’s back without guidance. It took me years of facing powerful winds like hurricanes and cyclones until I awakened my wind elema. And I had a lot of guidance in the beginning.” This time Servin’s piercing eyes were on Yanvirrak. He paused. “It takes a lot of pain and effort but the rewards are abundant. For starters, you will automatically order up your savaz two orders higher as soon as you awaken elema”
“Wait really?” Narvari raised a brow. “You’re saying if I awaken elema, my savaz will increase from fifth-order to seventh-order?”
Servin nodded. “Precisely.”
Narvari whistled. The reward was indeed appealing. If she had a combined power of elema and a seventh-order savaz, it wouldn’t be long until she became a senior vanquisher.
“Pheera, do you have any elema in mind?” asked Servin
“Water and ice are natural elements among Zoleris.” She paused, her eyes falling Narvari. “But I want something different. Anything but water or ice.”
Narvari wanted to pull Pheera in and hug her. Pheera had the warmest eyes Narvari had ever seen, but whenever, she talked about her family, those blue spheres turned cold, devoid of emotions. What had those bastards done to her that someone as sweet and kind as she wanted nothing to do with them? Narvari clenched her jaws.
“Well, then,” said Servin, pointing at Narvari and Pheera, “your assignment is to find the elema you want. I’ll send you a comprehensive list and you can make a choice. Once you do, I’ll give you a training regimen.” He nodded at Yanvirrak. “As for you, Farouk, you’re not new to elema training so I’ll simply give you some pointers on how to train better.”
Yanvirrak’s eyes lit. “Yes.”
“But that goes without saying… your previous training was reckless. You should have listened to Trixan. What you did was dangerous.”
Yanvirrak nodded. “You’re right. Sorry.”
Servin grinned. “Don’t get me wrong, I think it was brave. Stupid. But brave. I respect that.”
Yanvirrak smirked. “Thank you. Well, not for the stupid part, but thanks.”
Ah. Narvari shook her head.
“I guess we have nothing more to — “
Servin froze, as his orange sacros suddenly appeared around his eyes. He gazed at the bright blue skies and his face paled. “Oh no.”
What’s wrong with him? Narvari narrowed her eyes. Why did Servin suddenly turn on his sacred vision? She quickly turned hers on and followed Servin’s gaze. Her eyes widened, jaws dropping. Where the hell were all the shield rays?
Ever since Narvari learned to use sacred vision, she had gotten used to the shield rays running all over the school in a grid pattern. There were three colors in all, each of them with its own function. Red rays prevented demons from entering or leaving the school, white rays cloaked the school from the outside world and blue rays prevented unauthorized people from teleporting into the school.
Trixan had told her that this security system was foolproof and had been in use for centuries by the Twelve Schools to keep their schools safe. Every so often, the most excellent engineers from Agon would update the technology to make it even more powerful than it already was. So what had gone wrong? Why were the white shield rays the only visible rays?
“Servin, what’s going on?” Her heart hammered in her chest. Where did the blue rays and red rays go? Those were the same shield rays keeping the school from intruders.
From demons.
Suddenly the alarm blared throughout the school like a dying siren.
“Intruders.” Servin clenched his sharp jaws.
“How’s this possible?” asked Yanvirrak. “Only Trixan can lower the shield rays.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Servin. “We need to leave. Now.”
In a flash, Servin’s orange sacros appeared around him. “We have to get back to the school quickly. Something is happening.” Servin took off.
Narvari and her friends ran after him.
Trees blurred past her as she ran. She dodged low branches and jumped over twigs. Servin was the fastest, however, Narvari and her friends kept up with him. Suddenly, a shadow overcast them from above the tall trees. Without breaking her momentum, Narvari gazed upwards. Something was headed right towards them.
Narvari swerved out of the way in the last second, closely following behind Servin. The thing crashed to the ground with a loud boom. The ground trembled and trees swayed as a small crater separated Servin from Narvari and her friends.
A tall humanoid creature with overwhelming demon energy and murderous golden eyes stood in the crater.
She bit her lips, as a pit formed in her chest. What was a ninth-order demon doing in Draghein School? And why should it be today of all days when Trixan was not here?
“Go now,” Servin said to them, not taking his eyes off the demon. “I will handle this.”
“But — “
“Now, Ex-rookie.” Servin’s playful banter was completely gone. He was in protection mode, Narvari could sense it.
The demon cackled.
“Shar, let’s go.” Yanvirrak released his purple sacros.
“Come on, Narvari. Let’s go.” Pheera nodded at her before her blue and white sacros appeared.
Reluctantly, Narvari’s black and red sacros engulfed her body and together they sped from the scene. But suddenly a demon kicked her in the abdomen. She paled, her body soaring through the air before finally crashing into a tree. The tree felled.
“Narvari.” Pheera skidded to a halt lunging toward her.
“No, Pheera. Don’t come closer.” Narvari raised a hand. She tasted blood in her mouth. Had her sacros not fortified her body, she could have died from that impact. This was not a joke. “Yanvirrak, you two need to get out of here.”
Pheera’s intense blue eyes gazed at Narvari. She stood still. “I’m not leaving.”
“Pheera. Please. You need to leave.”
“Farouk, get Pheera out of here.” Servin’s voice came from behind.
Yanvirrak took Pheera’s hand and tried pulling her along. Pheera wouldn’t move.
Narvari smiled at her softly. “I’ll be fine. I promise.” Finally, Pheera nodded, then ran after Yanvirrak. Narvari sighed in relief, scrambling to her feet. She glared at the demon, who seemed bored by the whole thing.
“Who said you could leave?” The demon dashed after Yanvirrak and Pheera.
Narvari sprung from her position. In mere seconds, she appeared before the demon, blocking its path. With the quickness of lightning, while targeting the demon’s weak spot, Narvari sent a sacred kick into the demon’s chest with such force the air seemed to be cut in two by the sacros around her leg.
“And who said you could leave?” She balled her fist.
The demon grinned as blood oozed from his mouth and gaping chest. The large wound in his chest regenerated at a visible rate and soon, it was completely closed. Narvari shuddered. Such fast regeneration.
A mighty ring of hurricanes surrounded Narvari and the demon. From her peripheral vision, within the ring, Servin faced the other demon at the other end of the ring. The hurricanes raged with fervor. Trees that got in the path of the hurricanes splintered to pieces.
Damn.
“Ex-rookie.” His voice boomed despite the howling of the mighty winds.
“Yes.”
“These are ninth-order demons. Can you handle one on your own?”
Narvari clenched her sacred fists. They came here for a fight. She would give them one. It didn’t matter if a ninth-order demon was beyond her right now.
“The better question is,” she said, fuelling her rage with her fear, “can one of them handle me on their own.”
Servin laughed heartily. “Excellent, Narvari.”