The day seemed to drag on ever since the headmistress arrived. Everyone was on their best behavior, with nobody trying to gain any unnecessary attention.

After the day was over, no one lingered in the halls, everyone quickly returned back to their quarters.

The three boys were silent as they walked back, the crow was no longer with them. Eventually the silence was slightly broken. "Guys, I think this is the first time I realize our plan could fail even with the teleportation array." Cronix said with a quiet voice.

Lapsa nodded, he agreed today was very impactful on his hope for them escaping. Cayden already knew about mistress Amethyst's strength, but he didn't expect her to be back.

"I need to talk to Riley." Cayden mumbled, but right now wasn't the ideal time to try to talk to him.

When the three arrived back to the room, none of them wasted any time, each working on improving themselves. Cronix quickly sat on his bed, and began taking water elements into his mental expanse, before he went inside himself.

Inside his mental expanse the wraith's skin was only 22% complete and the eyes were barely even started.

Cronix stared at the blue mist that was now covering most of the expanse, this mist was the water elements, "This is the fastest way to get stronger." He gathered all the mist into a ball, but he stopped to think right after.

"Should I use the extraction technique or the way I did last time?" He pondered on this thought for a while, however he ultimately decided on the other way, it was easier than the extraction technique after all.

Several strands of mental energy started making their way towards the magic elements, trying to merge with it, but the moment they arrived to merge, the mysterious force arrived to stop it.

However the mysterious force was different from the previous time he did this, it was obviously weaker compared to the last time he tried merging the two powers.

Cronix frowned, but he didn't think much of it, and continued forcing the mysterious forces against the water elements.

While this did end up breaking apart the elements, it wasn't nearly as effective as the first time, and the mysterious forces were a lot more lenient when it came to his mental energy integrating with the water elements.

This only increased when he absorbed the mysterious energy, the forces decreased in power once again.

"This isn't going to work anymore." Cronix muttered as he frowned, he then left his mental expanse.

Cronix didn't know much about the mysterious energy, but he felt like if he absorbed too much of it in one sitting with his current strength, he wouldn't be able to take it, and he need to think more about the mysterious force.

The following day, it was more of the same, all the servants were quiet and the atmosphere was dreadful.

Mistress Amethyst and Onyx were sitting in her room, reconnecting as she's been gone for more than two years.

"Is that the bird you're talking about?" Amethyst asked, while pointing outside the window, at a tree. On a branch of that tree was the crow, she's been sitting on this branch since yesterday watching Amethyst's movements.

This was her way of scouting out the enemy.

Onyx looked out the window and nodded, "I haven't seen her in a while, I gave her an assignment after Ortan kept bugging me about it."

"An assignment?" His mother inquired.

Onyx began telling her all about what happened in the past few weeks.

After Cayden was done doing his manal labor around the manor, he snuck off. He was probably the only servant to be brave enough to do this while the mistress was in the house.

But honestly how could her mere presence stop Cayden, he dared to cause trouble when the head of the branch family was present.

Cayden slowly made his way to Riley's room with a cup of tea in his hands. Riley had holed himself inside his room ever since the mistress arrived.

He knocked on the door three times before Riley opened it. When Riley saw it was only Cayden, he was a bit relieved and let him in.

"How are you holding up?" Cayden asked as he passed Riley the cup of tea and sat on his bed.

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Riley shrugged, took the cup, and sat down on a chair, "I could be better, one of my stars is slightly damaged, but that could be fixed easily. The real question though, is how are you holding up."

Cayden frowned, he didn't really understand what he meant, "What do you mean?"

"Well think about it, her arrival really hurts your chances of escaping." The her Riley was referring to was obviously the headmistress.

"I mean you probably should've escaped once that array was done, at least there would only be one person at the Core Creation stage."

Cayden sort of agreed with what Riley said, but it was already too late, besides, "Cronix said the crow has a chance of beating both of them. Now for the matter at hand, the question I actually want to ask you."

Riley looked intrigued, "Ask away."

Cayden nodded, and asked what he wanted to say, "Why don't you come with us? I mean you really aren't going to be happy staying here."

Sadly Riley was already shaking his head before he finished, "I can't, if I leave, where would the place my brother calls home be?"

Cayden pursed his lips, "I think young master Ash would be happy to live wherever you are."

A small smile appeared on Riley's face when he heard Cayden's wording. While it may not seem like much, his brother was still the only person Cayden has ever willingly called young master.

But in the end, Riley still shook his head, "I can't start running from place to place like you guys."

"Actually, Cronix said we won't have..."

Riley didn't let him finish, "Cayden, the point is I can't leave, and the truth is I don't want to, I don't want to be buried in an unmarked grave like my mother."

Cayden slowly began to nod, he understood how he felt, but he couldn't stop himself from saying with a quiet voice, "You can't stay holed up in here forever, you'll eventually have to get out, and without anyone here...You'll be lucky if she only destroys all your stars."

"I know, anyways don't you have work to do?"

Cayden sighed one last time before leaving Riley's room. Riley slowly stood up, set the tea down, and walked to the window.

He silently stared at the carriage at the entrance of the manor.

There was a reason mistress Amethyst hated Riley, and that stemmed from his mother. Originally, his father only had one wife, mistress Amethyst, but after being pressured by the main family, he was forced to get another.

Which ended up being Tornic's mother, however that wasn't the end of it, there was a third wife. But his third wife was different from his second wife, because while his second marriage was emotionless, there were some feelings with his third wife.

If it wasn't obvious enough, the branch head's third wife was Riley's mother. While this was sort of acceptable to mistress Amethyst, this all changed when they had children.

Both Topaz and Ash, Riley's older brother, were born in the same year, with Topaz being older by about a week. While the two were born at a similar time, one was obviously treated with more attention.

Ash was born with the ability to manipulate the light elements, or in other words he was a light magic user.

Light magic was like what dark magic was to the 'demons', it was a special magic, so Ash was given more attention from their father.

Then when it came to Onyx and Riley, Riley was a bit more talented, so whether it was intentional or not, he was given slightly more attention than Onyx.

Riley sighed as he thought of these things,

Father, this is all your fault...

A day slowly passed since Cayden's meeting with Riley, and there was only one more day till the party. That day quickly turned into one more night.

During this night Cronix was making sure the teleportation array was fully completed, and going by his lines, he judged how long the array would last, "If this works, it should be able to last about one minute until it collapses on itself, so..."

Cayden cut him off, "If, what do you mean if?"

"There's no guarantee this is going to actually work, I have never made an advance formation before, so yeah, there's an if." Cronix said, before going back to what he was going to say before he was cut off,

"As I was going to say, if we're not inside the formation before the time is up, forget the Ayunas', the blast from the array would wipe us off the face of Uvira."

Lapsa's eyebrows knitted together, "Is it really that strong?"

Cronix nodded, "A formation with only 36 lines almost killed me, it almost killed a flawless three star Caster! A formation with 50 lines will definitely finish the job."

"Is there any way to increase the time?" Cayden asked.

With a shrug, Cronix grabbed the formation book, and began flipping through it, "I don't know, I could try adding more lines, but with only one night, I'll probably only be able to extend the time by a few seconds."

However a few seconds was better than no seconds, so Cayden told Cronix to get to work.

And with that, the night concluded, with Lapsa and Cayden absorbing magical energy into their stars, while Cronix improved the formation in any way he could.

...

At the same time of day, but a few days prior, a lone rider with a white cloak, and riding a unicorn, was near the outskirts of the kingdom.

The rider observed the mountains in the distance, just beyond the kingdom's borders, the mountain range was called the Thousand Demon Mountains.

It's name came from the fact that there was black fog formed by the dark elements surrounding the whole mountain range.

The Thousand Demon Mountains were located in the neighboring kingdom, the Divine Lightning Dominion.

If he was going to hide anywhere it would be there.

The rider was about to urge his unicorn onwards, but he suddenly began hearing the sound of hoofs. The rider turned back, and saw another unicorn with a white cloaked figure on top.

When the new rider got close they took off their hood, revealing a young face around 16, his long hair was black and his eyes were purple. His face, while young, looked tired, as dark circles were under his eyes, and his breath was heavy.

"Holy knight Ash, what are you doing here?" The rider asked the young man.

Ash tried to catch his breath and when he did, he said, "Holy knight Aaron I've been searching for you for three weeks, you've been requested to return to the sanctum immediately."

"The sanctum? Tell those old bastards I'm busy?" Aaron said, turning back to face the mountain.

Ash's lip twitched, and he sighed, "This was requested by the Grandmaster, as well as the king."

Aaron froze then cursed under his breath, he turned back to Ash and begrudgingly said, "Lead the way."