POV Hannibal Redwood

How could this have happened?! Hannibal sat in his favorite armchair, gazing out the window into the back-garden. Everything had been planned correctly. The servant had given Aron the poison. His agent assured him it had taken effect. Yet somehow the cockroach had survived! Not only did he survive, the hired servant had somehow vanished as well!

Hannibal couldn’t wrap his head around it. How could have his plan gone wrong?! A chosen’s core inhibited an enormous amount of energy, there should have been no chance of survival! Now Hannibal had to worry about Aron talking about the incident! On the bright side, nobody should believe him. Everyone would think he tried to escape responsibility. Yet the missing servant made his stomach ache.

“Solus, the servant signed a contract, right?”

Hannibal’s Shadow moved and his bodyguard and most trusted henchmen stepped out of it.

“Yes, she did. The only possibility for her to break would be due to massive torture. It is highly unlikely for that to happen.”

“Good, have you cleaned up all the tracks? Nothing is allowed to lead back to us.”

Solus nodded. “Yes, young master. I have, everything has been cleaned up. The people privy to dangerous knowledge had accidents one way or another. Nobody else knows about this venture.”

Hannibal relaxed. His father had been gone for the last few days on important business. It was better for him not to be here when his old man returned. Fel-Ganis sounded like a great idea. His father had tried to push him into joining the warrior-academy in the past. Hannibal had refused until now. He preferred to mingle with nobility. But things had changed. His father would undoubtedly understand the reason for Aron’s sudden core-burnout. Fel-Ganis’ far away location would shelter him from his father’s wrath or any other repercussions.

_______

POV Aron Brightcloud

I heard our classmates before they came through the door. They loudly boasted about their heroic exploits.

Stonewall’s and Nightshield’s group returned in one throng. The noise suddenly quietened when they saw me and Anna sitting together.

My old adversary, just about to make a scathing remark when Teacher Monrose’s voice interrupted his plans.

“I see everyone has returned. Take your place and be quiet.”

Stonewall send a superior gaze in my direction before he followed Teacher Monrose’s instruction.

“During the next three weeks you will further improve your spells and experience in the dungeon and during classes. Until the end of this time period I would suggest you stay in your already built groups, earn experience and make yourself comfortable with the new lifestyle. At the end of the month we will go on our first excursion to the nearby city.

Your introduction to dungeon diving will have ended at that point and you will either join the adventurer’s guild and search for a dungeon-dive group or write yourself up at the military branch. They will supply you with a diving group and plan your further advancement.”

Teacher Monrose took a breath and resumed his speech.

“If you join the military, they will support you with men, potions and a salary. Yet at the same time you will be forced to follow their orders during the time you don’t study. So chose wisely. Anyone that still has questions can remain. For the rest, class dismissed.”

I had questions, but not the sort the teacher could answer. Standing up, I turned to Anna.

“See you tomorrow.”

Her hand moved and grabbed my arm.

“Aron, I plan to train some more. Want to join?”

Surprised, I looked at her. It seemed she had decided to invest more into this friendship.

“Sure, but where? I prefer to train apart from our friends here.”

With a glance in Stonewall’s direction, she understood my problem.

“Yesterday I’ve come by some empty training-rooms in the catacombs. We can use them for training.”

I nodded. “Sounds good, let’s go.”

We made our way out of the main-building towards our destination. The weather outside had changed. The sun mostly vanished behind the faraway mountains.

Walking down the stairs, we vanished in the caves below the academy. We reached the abandoned rooms Anna had spoken of.

They were mostly empty apart from some tables, chairs and training dummies at the other side of the room.

Yes, here we could train. “Good choice, I like the place.”

Anna nodded happily in reply.

I walked over to the tables and set them up farther away from the dummies. This would give us an area to test our spells and a place to study theory.

“I think the priority should be to focus on how to conjure spells faster or use less mana. What do you think?” She gazed at me questioningly.

I nodded. “Yes, my thought as well. Especially because of my inferior quality core. It is important to use less mana per spell or make it stronger while using the same amount of mana.”

She grinned, “Let me show you some tips my mentors have taught me before I arrived at the academy.”

It seemed she still felt indebted and wanted to return the favor. Naturally I agreed, any help was welcome.

She made herself comfortable on one of the chairs before she continued.

“Your normal spell is akin to a sheet of paper. It’s initial size, big yet unstable. You can tear it apart easily. To improve its strength, you need to fold the paper. The more you fold it, the higher the resistance gets. Use your willpower to do so. The energy possesses a certain entropy. It will fight being compressed. During impact this additional force will lead to more damage to the enemy. Do you understand what I mean?”

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Her words made sense. Especially as I had practiced a similar idea during the last hour. Anna didn’t need to know that. I felt happy she shared the knowledge on her own. It would move us closer together as we both invested more of our resources into each other.

Nodding to her I called out my element. Following her instruction I folded the energy, compressing its size more and more. Only at the end did I force it into its usual shape.

My arrow now only a quarter of its previous size. The turquoise color had increased, which was logical as the pressure on the energy had risen. Leading to a higher control-difficulty.

I could have forced more pressure into it and made the leakage less pronounced, but I stopped myself. Observing my new friend covertly, my goal had been reached. Her awe at my arcane manipulation clearly told me I had risen once again in her value ladder.

The idea was to improve my image in her eyes to a level where she was willing to invest more time in me, yet not enough to make her suspicious about my mastery. The manipulation rune in my core needed to stay hidden.

“Wow, that went quicker than I thought it would. Try it out at the dummy!”

The condensed arrow followed my order and buried itself in the target. Ripping out a sizable piece of wood, drilling its way deep into the dummy before the energy exhausted itself.

As soon as the first arrow flew, I conjured a second one and let it loose at the target. Observing the damage both arrows made, the difference was obvious.

Compressing my magic was going to be one of my aces to counteract my low mana capacity. It made them smaller, yet stronger. I should also try out a bullet version of the spell as well as spinning the projectile. I promised myself additional piercing damage if done correctly. Naturally, I wouldn’t try this out now.

“Thank you, Anna. This helps immensely! Let’s practice some more.”

Anna returned the smile I gave her. In companionable silence moved back to train, improving the speed and control over our compressed arrows.

To the side, Fenrix and Olivia relaxed themselves, passing their time as we improved our spells. The vixen lay on her side while Olivia kneaded her muscles, walking over her entire body. The eight legs a clear advantage for such an occasion. The unlikely pair had become close friend quickly. Bones floated in the air in his cloth form, sleeping contently, not paying attention to us or the spirit beasts.

An hour passed.

It seemed Anna had more problems with the technique. Her arrows only shrank to half their previous size before they became unstable. Her combative spirit awakened she pushed herself even more, trying to reach my results.

I looked at her provocatively and showed off my now near instant version of the compressed arcane arrow. She tried it herself but failed to reach the same effect. Hers markedly weaker than mine.

At first she seemed annoyed, but then suddenly smiled. Before I caught on to her plan, a huge lightning arrow appeared between us. She didn’t even try to compress it and let it loose at the dummy.

Half the target’s chest gone, Anna grinned victoriously at me.

“Hey, that’s cheating! You know I don’t have that much mana, you don’t have to rub it in!” I replied half outraged, half laughing.

Innocently she stared back at me, “I don’t know what you mean, I think the results speak for themselves, no?”

“Okay, your win.” As the more mature person, I naturally stepped back. It had nothing to do with the fact that I most likely would have needed half of my mana to force out such a big sized arrow. Not mentioning the damage I would have done to my body due to energy-leakage as I flushed and over-saturated my entire root-system in the left part of my body before the amount I needed to create such an arrow had reached my hand.

“What a coincidence! It is time for dinner. Let’s take a break here.”

Anna laughed, ”Are you running from your defeat?”

Putting a righteous expression on my face I replied in dignified manner, “Naturally not, as a noble it is my duty to take care of young ladies like you. Dinner is important for your body. We don’t want you to be weak and malnourished, don’t we?”

Having troubles hiding her laugh, Anna smiled at me.

“Okay, you gentleman, let’s go and eat something.”

We grabbed our stuff and left the room.

“Sore looser.”

“Did you say something?”

“No, you must have misheard.” Anna’s innocent face did little to convince me.

While we grabbed our stuff, the dummies slowly mended themselves. Soon all the damage was be gone and the practice could start anew. Magic was awesome.

Smiling, we walked in silence, enjoying each others presence. The night had arrived as we stepped outside the catacombs.

Not long later we had reached the canteen. I pushed the double doors open, entering the wide hall packed with chairs and tables, Anna in tow. As most of the students had already eaten, only scant few tables were occupied. We had more than enough space to make ourselves comfortable.

Putting our bags onto some chairs in one corner of the room, we made our way over to the food-panels. They were filled with a variety of delicious dishes. From filet to salmon or vegetables for the fussier ones, captivating our eyes.

Yes, studying could be tough. But at least we got the best food possible to revitalize our hurting bodies.

We were in the middle of our healthy dinner when Anna’s sister entered the canteen. Scanning the hall, I had a hunch who she was searching for. Seeing her eyes lighten up when she found my fellow eater, I knew I had been right.

Jane stomped with a serious expression in our direction.

“Looks like storm-clouds are rising, Anna.”

The young woman regarded me with questions in her eyes.

“At the door.”

Turning her head, she realized what I was talking about.

Groaning lightly, Anna turned back to me.

“I have to go. I enjoyed our study lesson very much, we have to repeat that in the future.”

I nodded, “Yes, thanks for the theory lesson as well, helped me a lot! But next time no cheating, understood?”

Grinning she replied, “What cheating?! I only remember that someone had loading problems. That’s not my fault!”

Not deigning her low comment with an answer, I motioned towards her incoming sister. “You should go now. Leave your tray here, I will take care of it. Hush-hush.”

With a waving motion, I signalized her to intercept her family member before it was too late.

Still smiling, she took her bag and joined up with her visibly agitated sister.

______

Some time later, after I had taken care of the food waste and had returned to my room, I sat at my desk. I contemplated the happenings of the last days. Bones had found himself a body, he could even slip in and out of it. Combine this with his other abilities it made him into a very flexible and potentially powerful being.

After the dinner I had told him to test the changing process. I wanted to know how quickly and how often he could change between ghost and warrior form. Depending on the answer, we could develop new battle strategies.

The result was encouraging. Every minute he could swap once. The downside of it showed itself in an additional stamina cost when he did it repeatedly, making him tired and weak.

This was the reason why my little skeleton was currently lying on my bed, snoring loudly. Uncaring of the fact that as a skeleton it shouldn’t be possible to snore and that most wizards in the vicinity would love to dissect him if they found out of which plane he came from.

Observing him, I replayed our past interactions. When he had saved me I had felt his loneliness and the sadness. Since I bonded with him, he had been more a little child than anything else. Without even realizing it, I had moved more and more into seeing myself as a big brother and father figure. I enjoyed his antiques very much, giving me a break of my own serious and callous self.

His peaceful countenance moved something in me, raising a protective streak I had only possessed for my little sister so far. I didn’t know from what hellhole my little brother had come from. Having had to break through a wall to reach him, it was safe to assume that he hadn’t been on that forsaken rock by choice. That made it even more important to find out about Bones’s race. Not knowing it made me feel like we slid toward an abbys, eyes closed.

Another part of me simply wanted to let it lie. Maybe my little brother would find out by himself? Somewhere deep down in his soul, the knowledge had to be buried. Yet knowing Bones, he would most likely manifest his powers at the most horrible moment, plunging us into an utter disaster. He had an affinity for that.

I needed to be more careful with Anna. She had her heart at the right place. The longer I interacted with her, the more I liked her. Her future was bright. If nothing bad happened, she would grow up into an outstanding leader, shaped by the virtues she lived by. Yet that made her also prone to do the right thing instead of the healthy one.

I gazed back down at my little troublemaker.

Bones’ legs straight, his skeletal arms folded over his ribcage, he could have come right out of a coffin. I didn’t know which race he belonged to, but he was my little brother now. I would protect him at all cost.

I leaned my head back. The chair would be my bed for today.