Sun hung high above, its rays devastating the deserted plain below. Dunes covered the otherwise flat emptiness, some rising to mountainous heights. The warm orange sand stretched high and wide, creating an ocean of sand with dunes as its waves.
Stub stub, in the middle of the eerily silent desert, walked a man, producing the only sound present with his every step. His footsteps could be traced back for kilometers as there were no winds blowing to erase their existence.
The man was draped in a thick scarf that covered his entire body akin to a robe and hugged his head. His hands were clasped together as he walked, “Amen”, his voice came behind his mask as he finished his prayers, asking Gods’ blessings for his journey.
“Sinners' blood shall paint our glory.” his words whispered through the empty plains, for no one but him to hear.
…
Isaiah boarded the mana train and walked through the long corridors till he made it to his exclusive VIP room.
He put his backpack that he had prepared for the journey to the side then sat on the comfortable red sofas. The green walls created a nice contrast with the red sofas, the copper exterior adding to the color harmony.
He took out a newspaper from the lower compartment of the coffee table in front of him and began to read it with his legs over one another, “Oh, they seem to have all three Empires’ newspapers.” Isaiah was pleasantly surprised as while the really important news traveled across the Empires’, the local news didn’t.
Just as he thought of ordering some drinks to go along with his reading session, a knock was heard coming from his unit's door, “Please come inside.” Isaiah gave his permission.
His door slides open by the delicate hands of a woman, “I hope you are enjoying your journey so far, Mr. Isaiah.” She put her hand to her chest, “My name is Arel, I will be your personal attendant during this journey.”
Isaiah couldn’t help but glance at her body, which was curvaceous but also lean which caused her uniform to look extra professional on her, giving her a different kind of allure. She was clearly hand selected for this job.
Isaiah extended his hand to shake hers, which was unusual for patrons to do hence taking Arel a few seconds to react, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Arel. Now would you mind getting me a cup of coffee?”
Arel quickly nodded as he let go of her hand, she didn’t stand for much longer as he had gotten frustrated from Isaiah’s actions, her cheeks had a pink tint to them as she left, “Hehe, still got it.” Isaiah chuckled to himself. He couldn't help but wanna tease her the moment he saw her overtly professional attitude.
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It had to be said that while Isaiah was somewhat handsome, it was the subtleness of his actions that had this effect on her. While she might have served dozens of patrons before, he could bet that none was approaching their 2000th birthday soon.
Isaiah, having had his fun, turned his attention to his palm. Formation after formation formed on his palm, each shining with a warm orangish yellow hue. They stacked atop each other till there were dozens resembling a tower made of formations.
He moved the formations closer to each other, shortening the tower. Mana tendrils started to connect each formation, CRACK CRACK, large amounts of mana gushed towards the environment as his formation was broken.
He was practicing his Blinding Sword Formation, it was a single formation made of smaller parts. While unsuccessful to actually materialize the said sword, he had noticeably increased his casting time down by a few dozen seconds.
He could now cast all the sub-formations needed for it and connect them to form the main formation in just below a minute, “Not bad, not bad, though I might need an actually useable version during my journey”
He took out his notebook, where he had all the sub formation noted down. He picked a few of the most crucial ones, 6 in total. Each providing a different effect like stability for the mana, increasing mana’s potency, increasing mana efficiency, one cable formation which connected the rest of the formations, control formation which acted as the main formation in this case which all the sub formations connected through the mana cables and last but not least another stability formation but this time for the mana that made the formation rather than the sword, both stability formation achieved different results.
After he finished the design of this temporary blinding light formation, he opened his palm as 6 formations stacked atop one another. Tendrils connected each formation merging their mana flaws, while not each formation connected to each other, all the sub formations connected to the main control formation.
As his mana flowed into the formation, a sword made of pure light appeared within his palm. The formations acted as its hilt, and the sword's body came atop them.
It was incredibly stable, not leaking any light acting like a void of white instead of a light source. He put the sword next to his arm, the heat radiating from it made his arm turn red, “Hohoho, how amazing. I can’t imagine how much better it will be once I get the hilt made.”
“A shame there is nothing I can test it on here.” While he could just cut the table in half like he usually did, it was redundant at this point as the outcome was certain, “Guess it will have to wait till I get my feet onto the desert”, the formation deactivated as the mana dissipated.
His door was knocked as Arel’s voice came behind it, “Sir, I have brought your coffee”, hearing her voice, Isaiah’s hand moved in a swirling motion clearing the oppressive mana within the room due to his experiments, “Please come in.”
Arel came in and put the coffee cup onto his table carefully, Isaiah thanked her with a nod and held his cup. He took a sip as his gaze wandered towards his window, the mountain plains transitioned into desertous dunes, “Seems like my stop is coming soon.”