(Me) ”so where are you headed?” 

The cyan mage besides me look confused for a second, before realizing that he was the only person I could possible talk too. Apparently he had been deep in his thoughts.

(Cyan mage) ”oh, I’m heading for Balmas, there is a mage academy I plan to visit. ”

(me) ”wait... Does that academy happen to be named Omo?”

(C. mage) ”how did you know?”

The mage looked surprised

I searched in my package and found a brochure and handed it to him. It contained information on the hotel I was staying in, as well as the nearby points-of interests, one of them being the old mage academy named Omo.

(me) “I’m staying in this hotel, and I noticed there was an academy being nearby.”

(C.mage) ”what a coincidence!  It’s truly a small world we live in; we might even run into each other. ”

(Me) ”yeah.. Guess it .. Im Matt by the way”

(C. Mage)  “you can call me Djonson”

We exchanged a quick, but firm, handshake.

(Me)” Soooo Djonson .. Care for a card game?”

As we chatted I found out that there would be a yearly one-week Market/festival event in the nearby city, and Omo would let its areas be public during that time. That sounded like fun! It Seems like I was lucky with the timing of the holiday. 

Djonson dint know how long he would stay at the academy, apparently he had some business with the rector at the academy before he could move onward. He didn’t know how long time it would take, but he would leave as soon as possible. He said it was some mage business, so I guess it had something to do with developing a spell, or whatever mages do for a living. Even in the modern days mage had a reputation for being secretive, although it generally wasn’t as justified as before.

When I asked about his family, he seemed rather vague and evasive, so I choose to not pursue it further.  He did however said that he looked forward to seeing his niece again, he appeared to be rather fond of her.   

Oh, and by the way: We played a game called “Casino” and he won 3/5 times, but only because he got lucky!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Some days later, at an unknown time…

Somewhere within one of Omos grand corridors, Djonson was unwillingly kneeling, desperately trying to stay conscious as the mana exhaustion was taking its toll on him. A runic entrapment circle was quickly magically being created around him. The symbols were  glowing in a dim Crimson red, faintly enlightening the dark corridor. What appeared to be the silhouette of the academies rector was standing just outside the circle of light.

(Silhouette ) “you know; to be able to locate this place, purely because of me reactivating the ley-line connection is quite an accomplishment, I must admit I was quite impressed, even worried, when you showed up”

(Djonson)  “it’s easy when you know what you’re looking for, especially when a mana-storm is created as a side effect.“

(Silhouette) “I can imagine, unfortunately you won’t live long enough to use that information for anything”

(Djonson) “Don’t underestimate me…”

He was performing a complicated series of hand moves, and a attack spell quickly began to form between his hands”

(Silhouette, coldly)“Oh, I’m not underestimating you…”

He raised his hand, normal people wouldn’t be able to see it, but what he did could only be described as a “shattering” the mana around him, brutally and unnaturally disrupting it with what appeared to be dark lightning erupting from his hand. Djonson screamed out in pain as his spell, canceled midway, blew up between his hands. The silhouette continued:

“…it’s actually quite the opposite… I overestimated you”

Djonsons eye widened as he recognized the spell.

“That spell.. It’s you.. I dint recognize you in that body, just how wicked has your powers grown to be able to possess such a powerful man?”

(Silhouette) “Apparently more than you, my dear friend. Who would have thought that our reunion would be so anticlimactic? It’s truly pitiful” 

Showing no sign of said pity; the man raised his arm to finish the job. 

(Djonson)" It’s not over yet.” 

With the very last of his powers he grasped a scroll from his pocket, and teared it apart:  

“LAZARUS” 

He disappeared from the place.

A black vortex of energy hit the place where Djonson had been just a moment before, and dug dozens of meters down before it finally stopped.

The man, who appeared to be the rector of the academy, but wasn’t, stood silent for a few moments:

“Seems like he was right,  I did underestimate him. Typical for him to always have a trick up his sleeves…”

He dispersed the runic circle, and created a simple illusion to cover up the damages. In a mage academy it was bound to be detected sooner rather than later, but he had other worries at the moment. He slowly turned around, and walked back to where he came from, to resume his acting as the rector of the academy.  His movements and appearance were calm and dignified, but in reality he was burning up with anger over what just had happened.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

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Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away, at some unknown and unpopulated place, what remained of Djonson was laying down. Due to lack of mana he had sacrificed large bits of his body, aura, and spirit to fuel the Lazarus spell. As he felt his consciousness drift away he could only hope that somebody would find the knowledge-shard he had left behind, as he wouldn’t wake up before the Lazarus spell had restored him, and that would most likely take a very long time.

_______________

4 days after arriving at Balmas:

I was having a blast! The hotel had turned out to be just as luxurious as I had imagined, good breakfast, pool, mini-bar, and so on. The main thing wasn’t even the hotel. Just outside there was a miles long tropical beach! I had already used quite some time at it, there was some springboards and water-slides set up. 

Too the “left” of the beach there was a jungle just full of plant and animal life I had never seen before, including a small oval transparent yellow fruit, growing on some bushes. They had a nice sweet/sour taste.

To the “right” of the beach there was a city, it began as a nice cozy town, but if you moved a little further in it quickly became comparable to a capital city. I had already tried a little taste of the night life, and planned to fully try it later. Located at the edge of the city, there was the castle-like academy building of Omo.

The different people, food, plant life, and architecture was altogether the best thing about the holiday, it really gave the feeling of being far away which was one of the things I enjoyed the most.

I had bought a small book containing guides to a few aura techniques, as well as tips and trick on how to improve or vary them. It was quite interesting! I definitely wanted to go back into it again.

Similar to me, Mathilde had also bought a small book. It was a spell book containing some beginner spells and training guides; she had decided to only look in it when she had mastered the light emission spell, and she worked hard at reaching that point! 3 days after we had arrived she had almost reached that point. She could now more efficiently decide whatever she had to use the mana on light, fire or heat emission. Duo to the same amount of mana being used more efficiently the spells now seemed more powerful than before, compared to when it was all being used at the same.

She could now decide whatever or not to make her hand appear as a second sun, release a tower of fire, or slowly make the water boil around her hand. There was only a few flames flickering when she was casting the light spell.

Her magnitude of power naturally forced her to practice outside, which of course drew a lot of attention, but even if she didn’t practice I still saw a few persons who commented her mana pool. It was most likely some of the students and teachers of the academy, such people were bond to have a heightened sense for mana, and was thus able to approximate her amount of mana. The problem was solved with the magic suppression ring from the airplane! It still worked a little outside the plane, and it was only impossible to take it off within the airplane. With it she was able to “disguise” herself as a person with a somewhat smaller mana pool, at least compared to that before.

I was currently browsing the market near, and within, Omo.  I had an advantage that I didn’t have in my previous visits to other marketplaces: Tons of money! Remember how we, along with the holiday cost, had won some money? Well aside from a small budget it was split evenly between the family members and there was still a decent amount left for me! There were quite a few things being sold, most of them where different magic related things, such as scrolls for various purposes, Spell books, Mana shards, and mana potions. The other potions, such as the generic Health and stamina potions were significantly more expensive. I guess it is much easier to create a potion that simply infuses you with mana, rather than making a potion that activates and speed up the complex biologic progress of healing a body, WHILE the potion optimally, instead of the body, provides the energy and nutrients needed for such a progress. I decided to buy a few mana and health potions. Health potions were something everybody had in their own little private Pharmacy at home.  

There was a few “fun” things such as glasses that would let you see the world trough a filter, one of them would literally let me see the world as if it was an anime, even those small emotes thing showed up. When I saw the shop owner had a pulsing vein emote in front of her anime face I quickly realized I had spent too much time at her shop without buying anything, so I decided to put the glasses back and move on, without buying anything of course. Those things were fun, but it wasn’t something I needed. Did that make me a douche bag?

20 minutes later I encountered “it”. There it was, somehow yet not bought, laying right there.

I could just feel it call to me, what a beauty! It looked so freaking awesome!

(me)  ”wow!, I definitely “need” this! ”