The light was dazzling. It was in the form of a tornado. Or rather a galaxy. A billion light particles enveloping Kiara. She looked serene and otherworldly. All the lights entered her body and the white glow vanished. Kiara stumbled and fell. Aarav ran to her to check on her. Near her, was the mystical tree without any light. It had turned into a dried and old tree with none of its previous elegance remaining. It had become nothing more than a dead tree.

Kiara was unconscious. The serene and tranquil atmosphere of the garden started changing. The earth started rumbling, there was thundering and lightening. Soon the scene became chaotic. He was holding Kiara in his arms, befuddled; he didn’t know what just happened. But he was sure that they were in trouble. Out of nowhere, Shula in his dragon form, came to them scooped them in an instant and flew with them breaking the barrier of the dimension. They flew far off to the horizon, leaving the chaotic place behind. Behind them, the dimension of the mystical garden collapsed. People ran out of it. Luckily the town was intact. Otherwise, a lot of people could have lost their life.

Aarav looked behind and saw the collapsing of the mystical garden. It shattered like glass pieces and vanished into thin air as it never was in that place, to begin with. Does this count as a crime? They unknowingly destroyed a part of a town and now they were running away. And the real culprit is sleeping soundly with no qualms in the world at all. After flying quite a distance in the night sky, they finally stopped and got down on the ground.

“What happened_”

“I know what you are wondering. I can tell you one thing that is Kiara somehow obtained the power of the deity that was in that tree. And yes, she destroyed that place while doing so. I don’t think she was aware of it. And you shouldn’t tell her about it too for the sake of her sanity. She will be shocked to know that she destroyed such a beautiful place and endangered so many lives. Do you get it?”

“Hmm…. Ok. Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. She is just sleeping.”

…..

A certain dragon was penniless.

“Aren’t dragon supposed to have a lot of gold and riches? Then why are you penniless”

“Mm, They do. But I’m different. I collect weapons”

Saying that Shula rained down a lot of weapons of every kind. Every kind of swords, spears, bows, even modern weapons like guns, rifle. He had every kind of weapon of all ages in his arsenal.

Aarav picked up a gun. He admired its beauty. It looked like a desert eagle except it worked with a magic crystal. There were few guns which worked with bullets made of gunpowder. But they were not many and they exhaust very soon too. They were impractical.

After a day Kiara regained consciousness. She didn’t remember anything related to that night. She felt refreshed after waking up, a cool sensation was enveloping her. She could not understand why she was feeling such coolness…

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Aarav and Shula hid the fact about what happened to the Jeiti town. They gave her a vague explanation that somebody reported about Shula being in the temple. So they had to leave the place.

Kiara didn’t believe them but whatever. They had to move ahead and leave for the Caito City. Aarav was learning some fighting skills from Shula and he was getting thrashed at it.

“I want to try that too.”

“Try what? Getting beaten into pulp?” Shula replied while pushing down Aarav on the ground for the umpteenth time.

“No. That move, you have been trying to teach Aarav,” Kiara said.

“Martial arts? That’s not suitable for you. I don’t know any healing spells. It would be troublesome if you twist your ankle or something.”

“What? I won’t twist my ankle. I want to try.” She mumbled the rest, ‘I don’t want to be the only one protected. I want to protect too,’

“….Try this”, Shula took out a clay tablet from thin air and threw towards her.

“What’s this? A tablet. Did you steal this from some museum?”

“…That doesn’t matter. Try to learn that. You will be able to.”

Kiara looked at the clay tablet, the size of two palms, which had something written on it in some strange language. It looked like hieroglyphs from the Egyptian civilization.

“What language is this? How will I learn this?”

“Just focus on it. You will be able to.”

“Focus. It has like one, two, …twelve characters on it. It doesn’t even look like a full sentence. Shouldn’t you be giving me a book instead of this piece of …clay”

“…”

Shula didn’t reply instead went ahead with his sparring with Aarav.

Kiara looked at the clay tablet. The characters were something she had never seen. ‘What does he suppose me to do? Decode it. Whatever just try to think what these symbols mean.

The first symbol looked like the symbol Phi. That shouldn’t be so complicated. It’s on a clay tablet. The last thing to write on clay is a mathematical symbol. Think more basic. A leaf. A blowing leaf.

As Kiara contemplates on the symbol, she realizes that her surrounding had gone still. She was feeling a cool wave surrounding her. Something very cool was emanating out of her. A gust of wind came over her bringing a silver leaf. The silver leaf circled her. It was beautiful. She tries to catch it. It slips away from her hand. She chases after the leaf and finally gets hold of it. The leaf breaks into shiny specks of dust and seeps into her hand.

She opens her eyes. She realized she had been in trance. She looks into her hand, there was a silver leaf.

“Congrats. You nailed it”, Shula spoke from nearby. Shula and Aarav were resting and looking at Kiara. The day had turned into night.

“Wow. Does that mean she evolved into superhuman?”

“Well, kind of. But not exactly”

“So is it yes or no,” Kiara enquired.

Shula shrugged his shoulders.

“I want to try that too.”

“You can. But you don’t have an affinity for the kind of magic, I can teach. Try if you want. I don’t have many tablets like that. It’s for single use only and it will break as soon as you fail.”

Kiara didn’t have the tablet with her anymore. She realized she had absorbed it. So, she cannot give hers to Aarav.

Shula gave a similar tablet to Aarav. Who knew, he might succeed. He asked Kiara, how she did it. Kiara gave a very vague explanation as she didn’t understand how she did what she did.

She had given meanings to the symbols and obtained their power. Aarav tried to do the same.

The first symbol was a leaf. Nothing happened even when he thought about it. No cool sensation came to him.

He was good at decoding cryptic messages. He quickly found out what those symbols meant.

First was wind, the second was water, then Earth, Fire, Light, Lightning, Ice, Space/ Void, Time, Metal, Wood, and last was darkness or shadow. As he decoded the final character, the tablet broke into pieces and vanished.

“You failed”

“…”

“Don’t be disheartened. Elemental magic didn’t suit you. You can learn other kinds. You are already good with martial arts. Come on. Cheer up.”

Shula was mean to Aarav for most of the times but he was comforting him for the first time. It doesn’t matter. If he can’t learn magic, so be it.