About an hour and a half later, Evelyn had finally taken Maya back home to take a nap, as the little girl was all but drunk with exhaustion after our meal, having tired herself out with endless chatting. Now that the world had been set back to normal for her, the child within her was finally beginning to re-emerge, and she was far more talkative with her mother by her side.
With Evelyn and Maya gone, Tampter bid his farewells as well, stating that he had a job to get back to, and that the ‘walls won’t watch themselves!’ which I found a strange thing to say. Still, I didn’t mention it, since I was practically itching by then to find a quiet place and dive into the Arte I’d been given.
Evelyn had graciously informed us of a place in the village where we could practice without worry of anything else. It was necessary, especially for me, as my Arte had the tendency to make a lot of noise, understandably. She’d also asked us to hide the physical copies of our Artes as best we could, on the off chance that a villager would recognize it and mistake us for thieves.
We were free to use the actual Arte’s in front of people though, as both of them had lesser versions available from the Tower, and people would just assume that we were using those, at least until we progressed much further down the road with them.
The place that Evelyn had told us to practice in was an inn of sorts, though offering temporary housing wasn’t really a priority for them. After all, the clan didn’t receive many guests who weren’t high-ranked enough to be placed in the proper guest houses. The main function of the place, however, was a training ground for the young warriors of the clan. It offered both arenas for spars and underground chambers built for the express purpose of training in Artes.
It cost to use the chambers, of course, but Evelyn had given us each a token to use to get in without paying.
“Wait, won't the Elders ask for some kind of explanation?” I asked, when she’d handed them to us.
Evelyn seemed touched by my concern, but she shook her head. “Something this small is unlikely to catch their attention,” she said, “if they hear about it all. The place should be deserted for the next while anyway, with the celebration that’s right around the corner. The only one who should be there is Leafstream, who is a close nephew of mine. He definitely won’t report the matter, likely won’t ask about it at all, so no one should find out about it.”
With that matter dealt with, all that was left for Ren and I was to throw ourselves into the training for as long as we could in the three days we had, and hope that we’d be able to understand something from the Artes before we had to return them.
Ren and I quickly made our way to the building Evelyn had marked on the map she’d given us, after having said our goodbyes to Tampter. The streets were alive as we made our way through the winding set of turns, the people all out and about as they rejoiced at and spread the news of their young princess’ mysterious return. So, the two of us didn’t attract much attention, even in our starkly different attires.
We made our way eventually to a long shack-like building. It was deserted, as Evelyn had predicted, with its batwing doors leading into an empty lounge and bar area. A single boy stood at the counter on the far left side, idly cleaning a glass with a small cut of cloth. He cast up a single bored glance at us as we stepped in, the doors swinging behind us, before returning to his work, seemingly entirely uninterested in our presence, despite us clearly being outsiders.
Ren and I shared a look before walking up to the counter and dropping our tokens against the wood of the countertop.
“We’re here for the Arte training chambers,” I said simply.
The boy nodded, placing down his glass with meticulous movement before turning around and grabbing two keys off the stand on the back wall. He slid them over to us and slid our tokens to himself. “Down the stairs, rooms 2 and 3. They’ll be on the left. Keep the keys till you're done with the rooms for good.”
I nodded in understanding. “Alright, thanks!”
The boy nodded back, returning the entirety of his attention back to his mundane job.
I took my key and started to move, unbothered and even happy with the boy’s utter disinterest in us. I really didn’t want to have to explain anything at the moment, when I was so close to learning my first Arte. I didn’t want to waste another second before starting, so I was already halfway to the staircase hidden away in the corner next to the counter when I realized that I’d left Ren behind. He was still standing at the counter, smiling at the boy behind the counter.
“Ren?” I called out in confusion.
“Coming,” he said, before sticking a hand out to the boy. “My name’s Ren,” he said. “What’s yours?”
The boy looked up curiously at Ren, as surprised as I was at Ren’s actions. “I’m Leafstream,” he said after a moment, his voice quiet and unruffled as his bearing.
“It’s a pleasure,” Ren said with a widening grin as they shook hands.
The boy inclined his head slightly. “Likewise.”
Apparently satisfied, Ren nodded and made his way over to me. I was confused, but I held off on asking until we made it to the bottom of the stairway.
“What was that?” I asked when we finally stepped down the last stair, finding ourselves in a circular tunnel dug into the dirt. It was entirely unfurnished, save for a few wooden pillars that held up the space.
“That guy’s special,” Ren answered. “I could feel it. He’s dangerous.”
There were doors carved into both sides of the tunnel, with metal numbers hung from each. We quickly found the ones numbered 2 and 3. They were directly beside each other.
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I hadn’t felt anything of the sort from the boy, which I’d automatically assumed to mean he was far weaker than I.
Ren nodded. “Yeah, definitely. Not dangerous like he could beat us in a fight – though I’d bet it’d be close – but dangerous in another way. More…lethal. I can’t really explain, it’s an instinct thing, y’know?”
I nodded in understanding. “That’s impressive. I mean, he didn’t look older than 16, maybe 17 at the most.”
“Exactly,” Ren agreed. “But, anyway, he definitely didn’t hold any kind of ill intent, so it’s nothing we really need to worry about.”
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I nodded again, before blowing out a breath, calming the excitement within me. “Alright then,” I said, “guess I’ll be seeing you around.”
Ren nodded. "See ya."
With that, the two of us unlocked the doors and stepped in.
The chamber was incredibly simple in design. It had a flat dirt floor, with a domed dirt roof and dirt walls. There were no windows or any kind of furnishings at all, save for an old rug that was placed on the floor. The place was lit only by a single candle that was placed on a metal dish just in front of the sitting mat.
Still, the lacking decor was hardly enough to stifle my excitement. The Arte in my hands was the gateway to something big, I could tell in a way I’d never be able to explain. A stuffy and uncomfortable room was hardly enough to dispirit my anticipation.
With a deep breath, I made my way over to the mat and placed myself atop it, sitting cross-legged as I opened the book and started to read.
‘Explosion Arte:’ read the first page, ‘a simple yet intensely destructive Arte with the potential to rival some of the greatest and most powerful Artes ever created, if cultivated to its utter peak.
In its most basic form, the completed rune will initiate a simple discharge of energy, in the form of a destructive shockwave. The size and power of the explosion will depend on the amount of Flux supplied by the user.
In the most advanced form it has ever been displayed, the rune was able to detonate an entire planet during the Great Elias War. The planet no longer exists.’
That was all the information regarding the Arte available on the first page, and though it was brief, what was there was enough to make my heart race with excitement. The next page had one simple line written across the middle, identifying the author of the Arte.
‘Created by: Scarlet von Gemsworth, Flame Sorceress of the Celestial Palace,’ it read.
The next few pages detailed how the completed rune would work and look exactly. The text answered a few of my basic questions about the workings of Artes, but nothing touched on the fundamental reason of why using the rune would be better than simply doing it myself, which I found confusing. I guess its just supposed to be common sense why using an Arte is better, I reasoned. I'll find out anyway, once I get a grasp of the Arte.
The way the Arte worked was much like the way Tara had explained. The completed rune was composed of smaller runic characters, three in the case of Explosion. They were interesting characters, unlike any language I’d ever seen before. But unintelligible as they were, there was an ancient feel to them, like they held unfathomable intricacies within.
Thankfully, it wasn’t my job to fathom anything of those intricacies – at least, not yet, anyway. All I had to do for the basic form was create each of the characters, in the correct order, with my own Flux. Upon completing it, the rune would spark the eruption, and I’d have my explosion.
That was about all the information covered in the first few pages, at least regarding the basics. And it was interesting, but not very helpful when it came to actually doing anything. I still hadn’t the first clue on how to actually begin making the rune.
Hoping the book would offer some more helpful information, I skimmed through the rest of the book, but only found information on more advanced versions and applications of the Arte.
With growing dismay, I flipped through every page of the book, until I came upon the very last page. The last page and the inside of the book’s cover were a deep, inky black, the darkness within almost alive and moving.
The darkness seemed to be calling out to me, in a way I didn’t quite understand. Still, I placed a palm on top of the page, acting as instinct dictated. The dark paper felt cool against my skin, and the darkness within seemed to contain some kind of suction force that pulled my hand in. Or, I realized, more specifically, it was attracting the Flux that ran within my hand. And the Flux inside seemed to be reacting too, gathering against the skin of my hand and almost asking for permission to leave.
Curious, I let the Flux travel out of my fingers and into the page, and immediately, like a beast let out of its cage, the darkness pounced out of the book. The darkness swallowed my vision whole, thrusting me into some kind of liquid dark abyss, before leaving as suddenly as it had come.
As the darkness receded from my vision, I found myself in an entirely new world. The stuffy dirt chamber was gone, replaced by a forest with the tallest trees I’d ever seen in my life. Each tree was easily taller than the hundred-meter mark, and their trunks were wider than I was tall. The trees were almost identical, with the same purplish bark and with no branches anywhere along the length of the trunk, only sprouting out wide at the top. The leaves were so high up the emerald canopy they made looked like the sky, with sunlight dripping down from the gaps in stunning rays. The underbrush was very sparse, though, and the spacing of the trees left plenty of room for a being of my size.
As my brain slowly started to catch up with everything, I stood up and did a slow spin, taking in the land. Everything was exactly the same everywhere, the forest stretching out as far as I could see in every direction. The only thing of note I found was arguably the most exceptional of all. It was, as best I could describe it, a silhouette I found standing behind me. It was a strange sight, a featureless silhouette of a human standing tall, with only its outline drawn in a thin, blazing line of flame. Within the transparent silhouette was drawn, in blue flame, a system of arteries that branched out to every part of the outline, down to its fingers. At the center of the silhouette was a glowing bright blue sphere. Using that, I assumed what the blue lines were showing to be the Flux veins within a body, and the glowing sphere in its chest, the Flux Core.
As I watched, the silhouette suddenly turned to the side and extended its hand out, pointing a finger to the far horizon. The blue lines in its body dimmed everywhere except its hand, and I could see the light draining from the rest and brightening the veins in its arm, eventually gathering at the tip of its extended finger. The fingertip continued to grow brighter and brighter, until the light formed a small ball around it, glowing a white tinged with blue that let off a gentle vapor.
When the silhouette was satisfied with the amount it had gathered, it began to draw in the air, using the fingertip as a brush as it moved in smooth, gentle strokes. The fingertip left behind streaks of light that floated in the air, like three-dimensional ink.
The rune the silhouette created was exactly the same as what I’d seen in the book’s introduction – three runic characters drawn within a circle – but seeing it in the book was nothing like seeing it in real life. The rune had a strange, ancient, ethereal aura to it, but that much I could tell from seeing it on paper. In the silhouette’s hands, though, the rune was far different, so utterly perfect in a way I could not explain. It shone with perfection, its very quality blinding and tyrannical.
I had no experience in Artes or runes, no education or qualification to really judge quality, but the Flux in my body cowered in the face of the pure perfection of the Arte. It was instinct, more than anything, that told me I was in the presence of something far above me.
Then, the silhouette completed the rune, and the aura of the thing suddenly exploded, the weight of its presence on me multiplying a hundredfold. My body was rooted to the spot, unable to move a muscle. It was as if all the Flux of the atmosphere had reacted to the completion of the rune, as if the very universe cowered in the thing’s presence. I was simply a bystander, not even an ant before the power held within the rune. Just a speck in the slice of the universe under the rune’s control. Just another blade of needle in the pine bed blanketing the floor.
I couldn’t even control the Flux within my body, much less the Flux outside. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to, so I didn’t bother trying much, my eyes glued instead to the glowing rune, the rest of the world dimming in comparison to the thing’s perfection.
Then, the silhouette moved again, splaying its fingers out as it touched its palm to the floating rune. Everything stilled for a moment then, my breathing, the sway of the leaves above me, the wind. All movement died away, as if the whole of the world was holding its breath.
Then, the silhouette pushed her palm through the rune, shattering it into a million glowing pieces of light.