Chapter 18

Nate walked down the streets of Asylum heading towards the Humane Society. His mind was still reeling from the events that happened yesterday. He realized practicing magic was dangerous without proper guidance. It wasn’t like his telekinesis, where experimenting brought no harmful effects.

What was most frightening about the whole experience was the black sea his body was drifting on before Aiden’s voice called him back to the surface. He’d never felt anything like it, it was like being in a vacuum where time meant nothing. Is that what death’s like?

Nate shivered at the thought. He’s never been particularly religious but his mother was a believer. He didn’t care to guess what happened when someone died but that black sea had traumatized him. If that’s what deaths like I never want to die.

“Nate?”

Nate awoke from his musings as a familiar voice said his name. Nate looked up and saw a familiar black dude. The one he met on the first day, a fresh prisoner like him. “Jody?”

“Haha, was good fam?” He said clasping Nate’s hand and enveloping him in a hug. “It’s good to see a familiar face.”

Nate was surprised. He was sure Jody had died that night after seeing those werewolves roaming the streets at night. “Jody what happened?” He asked when Jody let go.

“Man you’d never guess the shit I been through.” He said as he stared blankly at Nate, as if his mind was somewhere else.

“What happened that night you left?” Nate said after a few seconds of eerie silence. Jody looked at him as if he didn’t know who or where he was when suddenly his expression turned normal.

“Holed up somewhere when night fell, but enough about me. What’s good with you?” Jody said quickly taking the focus off himself.

Nate felt like something was up but he didn’t know Jody well enough to pry. “Left ‘Little Africa’ after seeing through their bullshit. Came to the city and decided to survive on my own.”

“Glad to hear that bro, yeah I knew there was something up that first day. Them dudes were acting real shady ya know?”

“Yeah I know what you mean. But tell me Jody, how’d you get the collar off you?” Nate said, it was the first thing he’d noticed and although Nate didn’t want to pry that question was just burning a hole in his brain.

Jody’s face changed as if he went back to that dark place. His whole face paused for a second before returning to normal, “I gotta get going, I’ll see you later fam.” Jody said as he walked past Nate. Nate turned and watched as Jody flipped a hood over his head and hunched his shoulders.

“Strange…” Nate muttered before turning away. A few steps later he felt someone enter into his awareness range. Nate looked up and saw a spiky blue haired youth staring down at him from atop a two-story building. He gave Nate a brief disdainful glance before turning his gaze towards Jody. Suddenly the blue haired kid disappeared from view.

“What the hell is going on?” Nate wondered. He would’ve followed the kid using his ‘Ghost form’ but he feared leaving his body out here exposed on the street would invite all sorts of trouble. Putting Jody and the blue haired kid out of his mind Nate continued making his way towards Humane Society.

It took him about two hours to travel all the way there. When Nate entered the building he was immediately guided towards Kiru’s office in the back of the building.

“Nate, surprised to see you here. We don’t leave for the Academy for another two weeks.” Kiru said glancing up at him through those white locks of hair.

“I had a question.” Nate said as he sat down in the vacant seat across from Kiru.

“Don’t we all? Ask me your question and I’ll see if I can answer it.” Kiru said leaning back in his chair.

“You said the diagram would normally shatter when enough energy was absorbed. But what about if it doesn’t?”

Kiru raised an eyebrow at that. “All diagrams outlined in chalk and other material things will shatter. They cannot channel the world magic for very long. What’re you really asking?”

Perceptive bastard. Nate knew he couldn’t tell Kiru everything. Kiru had clearly stated that only demons can use telekinesis the way he could so he was fearful, telling Kiru everything would lead to… Nate couldn’t even begin to imagine the time of mess that would get him into.

“Well let’s say a mage like you, who’s been practicing magic for dozens of years, will they use the same chalk outline a beginner like me would use?”

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“Ah, I see. You’re an ambitious one aren’t you?” Kiru chuckled.

No, I just don’t want to kill myself next time making a diagram out of mental energy, Nate thought.

“Well experienced mages can handle world energy far longer than beginners. There are various methods we can use to extend the amount of world energy we receive. For example, some mages might construct a diagram made of gold or silver, good conductors for world energy. Others might create a more complex diagram, like this one.” Kiru stood up and shooed Nate away.

Nate got up and stepped to the side of the room away from the carpet on the floor. With a wave of his hand Kiru made the carpet slide to the corner of the room, revealing four diagrams positioned in a diamond formation with an open space in the middle.

“At home I have a diagram made of gold but here I have to settle for this. Notice the diagram is similar to the one I showed you, the only difference is three more diagrams and the connecting threads that bind them all together. I gotta tell ya, drawing this everyday just to get my share of world energy is a bitch.”

“What would have happened if I tried to use this diagram?” Nate asked.

“You’d probably die.” Kiru said casually as he stood up and returned to his seat, waving his hand making the carpet return to its place.

Nate returned his chair to its place and took a seat. “More detail please?”

“Look Nate, I can see that you’ve been insecure ever since I told you Arcane mages were weaker than elemental mages. Don’t let that get to you, okay? Once you go to the Academy you’ll see Arcane mages are more valuable than regular elemental mages.” Kiru said trying to comfort him.

You’re missing the point! Nate wanted to pull his hair in frustration. He had to carefully guide the conversation in a way Kiru would answer his questions without Nate having to reveal his telekinetic power.

“I’m just curious, if I sat in that circle or in a diagram made of gold, what would happen to me?”

“Well like I said. You’d probably die a horrible death. That euphoric feeling we get when absorbing world energy would make you blind to the approaching danger. There was one time a young kid, probably in his mid-fifties, tried absorbing world energy from a diagram made of silver. To say he painted the walls red would be an understatement. The room was completely covered in his remains.” Kiru said shaking his head.

Nate gulped in fear, completely ignoring the fact Kiru, who looks like a man in his late twenties, called a fifty-year-old man a young kid. “What would’ve happened if he stopped himself?” Nate asked.

“I highly doubt one can cut himself off from world energy, it takes a lot of self-discipline and mental power to be able to do that. If someone would’ve knocked him out the diagram he might’ve survived but in that case I imagine his blood would’ve received so much world energy that he’d be in pain for the next few years. After that, who knows? Maybe he’d recover, maybe he’d become an even stronger mage? At this point it’d be pure speculation as to what would happen.”

Nate did feel different after his little accident. Casting the Impetus spell now was much stronger than before so he felt his bloods been altered or changed by receiving such a large dose of world energy. At the same time he was afraid to create another diagram, especially after what happened.

I’ll use chalk from now on. But I’ll have to practice cutting myself off so that I can use telekinetic energy instead of chalk to create my diagrams. With a plan firmly in mind Nate felt a little better.

“Can you teach me more spells?” Nate asked.

“Really? I can’t teach you another wind attributed spell, the one I taught you was the weakest one.”

“So?”

“So? How do you expect to learn a more powerful spell if the weakest spell was a problem?” Kiru said leaning forward, his lips suddenly quirked up into a grin, “Your Impetus spell was Impotent…”

Nate felt strange as Kiru stared at him with a large grin. When Nate didn’t laugh Kiru’s wide grin began to grow smaller, eventually disappearing. He cleared his throat, “Yes well as I was saying, I can’t teach you another spell. Just wait until we reach the academy, Arcane spells are attribute-less and with those you’d have a better chance of casting them successfully.”

Nate wanted to cast the spell just to show him his improvement but before he could a loud bang sounded from outside.

“Ahhh!!!”

The loud scream made Nate and Kiru both jump out of their seats and rush for the door. “Stay here!” Kiru said to Nate before pushing past him.

Nate stood in place but used his ghost form to venture out, following right beside Kiru. He was aware of his body leaning against the wall and the ethereal tether binding him to his body as his ghost form moved farther and farther away that tether grew taught.

The lobby of Humane Society was chaos. People were running, screaming, pushing each other over trying to get away from the entrance to the building. At the buildings entrance stood several figures very familiar to Nate. It was the ghosts again, they were lined up right at the entrance to the building, surprisingly they didn’t try to come in.

“Mage! We’ve come for the wretched demon, drop the wards and stand aside!” The ghost in front said.

Jesus, its these guys again. Do they have a hard on for me or something?

“What is the meaning of this?!” Kiru yelled at the ghosts, fury evident on his face.

“If you insist on protecting the demon then we’ll-“

“Ventus circumdatos!” Kiru yelled cutting the ghost off mid-speech. Kiru’s white locks of hair were thrown back as a pale green wind sprung up around him whipping at his clothes furiously. The green wind formed into loosely shaped swords that sped towards the ghosts.

There was no sound as the pale green sword pierced through the ranks of ghosts. It easily cleaved them apart not leaving a single ghost behind. Kiru didn’t stop there, he rushed forward and went past the entrance of the building easily dispatching all thirty-seven ghosts easily.

Nate recalled his ghost into his body and went to the lobby. “That was amazing!” He shouted as he drew closer to Kiru.

“Didn’t I tell you to remain in the room?” Kiru said barely paying attention to him.

Nate went out the door and joined him at the steps. “Well I only came out after you took care of them all. Where did they come from anyways?” Nate asked although he knew who those ghosts were. He remembered some of the people he killed from the Wilderness game.

“I don’t know, but they messed with the wrong mage if they think they can get away with this.” Kiru stood up from where he was and took out some glowing black discs. He began to chant which lit up the writing on the black discs but before he could finish the space in front of them distorted before a black portal appeared.