In the morning, no one wanted to wake up.
But not everyone could choose.
Adam, and his partner in despair, Parcas, layed on their bed and stared at the ceiling. They didn't want to leave the comfy sheets and go outside, but the time in their cosy lair got more annoying with each minute.
For most of the night, Adam was too tired to notice, and Parcas just hid under the blanket and between his Master's legs. But now, as the mage got some quality sleep and woke up, the cat also peaked out of the covers. He listened with his owner to the annoying, blood-boiling sound coming from the other side of the room.
There, Max slept quite comfortably, for him that is. For others, his constant loud and inconsistent snores made the morning a nightmare. A moderate one.
Eventually, Adam got fed up and acted his frustration out.
“Arghh!!” Screams of surprise and horror escaped the metal mage's mouth, unbecoming of one of the noble lineage.
He turned around, facing the other side of the room, and staring intently at the assailant, asked.
“WTF?!”
Adam just looked at him blankly, raised his arm and sent a slow-moving [freeze] towards Max’s torso.
The noble quickly got up, dodging the frosty bullet, he was holding his back all the while, massaging a cold spot there.
“What's your problem? Why do you have to wake me up like that!” Max bellowed angrily.
“You snore like a dragon, I wouldn’t be surprised if girls heard it in their room” Adam retorted, while petting his cat. “Either way, we have to get up, it's quite late already. You especially, didn't you get any advice on how to practice from your father?” Adam added, changing the topic towards the object of his curiosity.
Max, sat on his bed, while wrapping himself with his covers, to ward off the coldness of the room and replied, not so angry anymore.
“Not exactly, there isn't a way to increase the speed of advancement, and even if there is, it's certainly not in our kingdom. What he gave me were the guidelines for the ascension ritual, and things I have to practice beforehand.” He replied.
“Meaning?” Adam probed further.
“I'm not telling, it's not my knowledge to share. I can tell you though, that the conversation my father had with the king was somewhat successful, you have much to look forward to.” Max decided to raise expectations of his friend a bit, despite knowing the conversation was supposed to happen only about now, during breakfast.
Adam’s eyes widened, and he threw his arms upwards in joy.
Stopping his outburst of happiness, Adam quickly put Parcas aside and stood up to change clothes into something more fitting for a citadel city located in icebound mountains. Also, he found it weird that such a cold region was called the Fire Mountains, contradicting its nature.
“Hop hop! We have to eat something before we depart to find Mister Edgar, so hurry up!” Adam shouted at his companion while putting a cat into his pocket.
—--------
Apparently, to eat breakfast, they had to find a food distribution centre nearby. There were too many people in the fortress for it to function normally, so everything was made in bulk, the same applied to food.
Coming out of the tower, the boys woke Cynthia and Sylvia up, having remembered that they wanted to go with them to visit their friends from the army. Who Adam forgot about again, when he shouted at Max in the morning.
His goal of seeing the master mage, and confirming Max’s words had to be postponed, unfortunately.
In its place, a visit to friends he hadn't seen for about a week, returned.
The meal was filling but was only slightly better than plain rations.
After quickly ending their stay at the canteen located slightly below the tower, the four mages headed even lower, towards an office located near one of the gates.
There, they planned to find out where the warriors were stationed, or which homes were chosen for them.
The citadel city was bustling this morning, not only people looked around for their friends and walked around with baggage, finding a good place for it. But also there was a third group of people, ones relocated. Earlier that morning, scouts riding dar ahead of Duke Malcolm's caravan arrived at the citadel city. Thus announcing that the western lord recognized the danger, and was heading this way.
Because of that, management of the fortress had to make space for another, third city worth of people to stay in the humongous structure.
It was a perilous task, as even now, most of the people had an order to stay at their accommodation, with only soldiers and those with other tasks such as managing inventory going outside. Apart from those who were currently relocating there were no de facto civilians on the streets.
The whole capital, the eastern city of Harop, obviously governed by a family with the same name, and a few big towns were already residing in The Fortress. Even though the numbers suggest most of the town governors didn't depart after seeing the 'second sun', three cities' worth of population in combination with some big towns made up a few hundred thousand people, nearly half a million, even. That number equalled roughly half of the kingdom, which would be very hard to accommodate in only one fortress.
For now, the problem wasn't that big, as in preparation for incoming disaster everyone was given food and accommodation for free, only being expected not to hinder the work of Master mages, as they prepared the citadel's defences.
But the huge issue would arrive later if they manage to survive. Keeping nearly five hundred thousand people in this citadel city was impossible, and the return to their original homes was also a pipe dream.
Even though Adam was aware of the issue, he didn't care about it. Not that he was heartless, or didn't care about the wellbeing of the civilians, but rather he was deeply conscious of his powerlessness in this situation. And also that it was a problem for the future, for now, they had to survive.
As they neared the housing office, they were greeted by the clerks who recognised the insignia of Steelarms on Max's robes and offered their services.
After a quick skim through the books, they found what happened with the boys' comrades.
Berta was stationed on the walls, on the lookout along with Iller. They were assigned for morning duty, so seeing them wasn't a good idea.
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Kyll was sent to serve Max's mother, as he was primarily the Steelarm family's butler before a warrior at the army's pay. They would also leave him alone, he had too much on his hands already as he had to take care of Ms. Steelarm, who hated going out of capital.
That left them with Monica and Watt.
Monica was also on guard duty, along with Berta and Iller, but today, she was granted leave. At her mother's request. They were said to leave the citadel and stay in the snowy plains just outside of the gates. The clerks didn't have any information on why did they leave, unfortunately.
On the other hand, Watt was non-existent in the records. There was no mention of him entering The Fortress.
Shocked, Adam questioned the officials, and the officers responsible for writing down the names of the entrees, which gave no result. Watt was either missed by the guards or truly didn't reach the citadel.
Max's father was also supposed to be outside, in the plains, so they decided to pay Monica a visit. But before that, Adam asked the clerks about his uncle.
Derek Puffypaw was apparently hosted in a private house of a wealthy noblewoman. Who took her friends inside to keep them out of common accommodations. She fortunately had a house here, as her deceased husband was a proficient trader, who sometimes wentured into the empire with his goods.
Confirming that his uncle was okay, Adam and the rest went out, towards the gate nearest to them. The centre gate.
From there, they walked through the bridge and the bastion, arriving outside of the fortress.
The mountains loomed over the valley, encased in snow and blinding in the sunlight. Between them, a massive wall was being built, as if rising from the ground.
It was the master mages, especially Edgar Steelarm, The King, and another one who specialised in earth magic. They manipulated the ground and created a gigantic hill which closed one side of the valley's passage from the outside, and steadily progressed towards the other end, to close the vicinity of The Fortress like a bubble without a roof. There was an exception though, they didn't manipulate the ground around the road, streaking across the plain, as they still waited for Duke Malmond's convoy.
Adam had to restrain himself, almost physically, not to go in the masters' direction immediately and assault them with a barrage of questions. Unfortunately, it wasn't a time for this right now, but he would definitely seek out the answers in a few hours, or less.
Now though, they headed towards the mountain located to the right of the citadel, where Monica and her mother were supposed to be.
There, the four mages found a small grove. Trees there were scarce, and the end was visible from one side to the other. Inside, few figures stood.
After walking for a while, Adam and the rest found themselves amidst the trees, where the sight was much better than before.
The group was composed of three people, two women and a man.
The man stood to the side, leaning on the tree, looking around and talking with the older of the girls.
The women, on the other hand, sat on the ground, cleanly scraped off from the snow. Earth around them was arranged in some sort of formation, looking like figure eight, which had one bigger and one smaller circle. from the digit, some runes were going out, like tentacles.
One of the girls, Monica, sat in the middle of the bigger circle. Her supposed mother located herself in the other, smaller one.
"I don't think we should distract them, let's stay here and wait for them to finish." Cynthia gestured for others to stop walking, as she said those words.
"Why? You know what they are doing?" Adam asked her in response.
"Do you know if her mother is capable of using aura?" Cynthia responded with a question of her own.
"Yeah, I think she does. Monica told me that her mother was a famous adventurer before settling down with her father, so she surely has the ability to handle aura." Adam told her, with a somewhat questioning look on his face.
"Then I do. They are performing an ascension ritual. Monica is becoming a beginner warrior, a human in the second realm." Cynthia finally explained.
Adam was shocked, but was only him. Sylvia and Max didn't show any peculiar reaction, to them the news wasn't that astonishing.
"Wait, wait, how? Is she that talented?" He asked with wide eyes.
Sylvie eyed him in annoyance.
"You are the one to speak, mister 'I am already at the peak! But I unfortunately haven't created my absorption technique yet...." She said.
Cynthia sighed and came to Adam's rescue.
"Warriors have a different ascension process than mages, especially during the first ritual. While we have to learn a complex technique and familiarise ourselves with mana, they just need to nourish their body beyond normal limits." Cynthia was the only mage in the second realm here, so her word did mean a thing, especially concerning ascension rituals.
"How do they do that? I mean, how can they nourish their bodies so much during only one ritual?" Adam's curiosity unveiled itself, once again coming out of its cocoon.
"Through aura, and I guess mana would work too.' Cynthia shortly explained. After looking at Adam's pleading eyes, she continued.
"They perform the ritual with someone of their bloodline who can control aura, and slowly strengthen their bodies. If they don't have anyone like that, there are more complex, and material-heavy solutions available."
The nature witch stopped her monologue, but someone else picked up after her.
"They also don't have any requirements before the first ascension happens, apart from the ones involving the process of the ritual, which Cyntia mentioned. Lucky bastards can have their ascension just a few days after the New Year's celebrations. And that's accounting for the fact that they have to get accustomed to the mana flowing through their bodies, however small it is." Sylvia said with a tingle of jealousy heard in her voice.
"So, why don't they do it earlier? It is nearly four months after the new year started, and only now is Monica undergoing her ascension ritual. Not to mention Watt, Berta and Iller, they are still in the first realm despite the ability to go higher." Asked Adam, clearly confused. If he had the opportunity to perform a ritual, he would do it immediately, he could not understand why would someone remain in the first realm, which isn't even a proper realm, instead of going to the second.
"What about that guy named Kyll? What about him?" Sylvia noticed that Adam didn't include that one.
"He is older than us by about a year, and he is already in the second realm. Before today, I thought it was impressive." Answered her Adam, with some disappointment in his voice.
"Oh, to answer your earlier question, they wait quite long because of a few different reasons. One may be that they don't have relatives with aura, and have to save up enough money for the ritual. The others may just be scared of the aura strengthening their bodies, which is a rather common problem that makes people leave the army in favour of becoming craftsmen or farmers.
Another one is that just like mages, warriors prefer stability over speed. And as such, they first train to their peak in one realm, before moving ahead. That way, they get used to their new, enhanced bodies, faster." Sylvia was apparently quite knowledgeable in the subject, which isn't surprising, considering that her magical talent was a huge shock to her family. they surely made her learn all manner of things about being an aura warrior, just like most of them members of her lineage.
"Oh, that makes some sort of sense." Said Adam, mostly to be nice, as he still couldn't comprehend the concept of postponing an ascension.
"Well, it looks like we have to wait for some time," Max said, looking at the girls in an eight-shaped formation, who didn't look to be finishing any time soon.
In response to the metal mage's words, Adam cleared a patch of snow from around a tree and sat down. Then, he took a cat out of his pocket and started petting him.
"So, what about your families, girls? Max's and mine are here, in The Fortress, but what happened to yours?" Adam asked when everyone sat down, to pass the time.
Sylvia looked in the direction of the citadel, while Cynthia just looked at the ground with thought.
"Mine is there also, we lived very near the capital and they quickly found out about the citizens' departure. they travelled at the back of the convoy the whole time." Sylvia said, still looking towards the monumental structure located a few hundred metres from them.
"Did you meet them yet?" Adam questioned.
"Yeah, yesterday after Max came to the tower. My family owns a house here, just like nearly all other noble families." Clarified the fire mage. "What about you?" She turned towards her female colleague.
Cynthia raised her head and looked around.
"I'm not sure, my father travels a lot so I don't know where he was at the moment the 'second sun' appeared. I'm sure he headed toward the capital immediately after seeing it, but afterwards... I don't know." She seemed sad, talking about her father. Cynthia was the young lady of the house Jaston. Or rather, the only lady. Apart from her and her father, no one else survived a plague that spread in a seaside town which belonged to the house. After they lost their relatives, Cynthia settled in the capital, and her father started to wander around as some kind of mage mercenary.
"I'm sorry to hear that. He will surely arrive with Duke Malcolm's convoy.' Adam assured her.
"Yeah.." She answered, unsure.
The four mages sat under a tree for some time, watching the scenery, and two women sitting some distance before them. Monica's dad, who stood guard around his wife and daughter, noticed the mages as soon as they arrived but didn't do anything, seeing they didn't disturb his daughter's ascension.
Soon though, one of the women in eight-like formation stood up, and the other fell face first to the ground.
Monica finished her ascension, and maybe, but only maybe, Adam finally could go question Master Edgar about the process, after nearly half a day of gruelling wait.