Obscurati (7.10.9973 AS)
It was Sunday evening; Lamia was sitting in the balcony in front of her bedroom. For a whole month by now she had been coming here every evening to talk to a picture of her beloved son. She did so, because she knew he was listening. As the head of the ‘Schatten’ clan her magical skill was close to peerless in Umbra. She was very good at detecting mana, so she knew exactly who was close by and who wasn’t. There was no way she wouldn’t recognize the mana of her little baby, when he was close by.
Tristan hid himself in one of the balconies one floor over Lamia’s bedroom. He used the ‘Illusion Magic’ he had learned in the school to become invisible. This magic was very weak, but no person would notice him unless they were searching for him with sensory type of magic. Although, Lamia could have discovered his hideout without much effort she decided not to, because she knew ‘they’ would get mad if the discovered her little boy was here. And maybe this time she wouldn’t be able to stop them from doing horrible things to her baby.
Instead of searching for her child, she would often just sit there and talk to him, when she discovered his presence. She would tell him how much she missed him and how sorry she was about their situation. She would tell him how much she loved him and sometimes even sing lullabies to him, like she was doing right now. Tristan was listening with tears in his eyes as far as he could remember this was the closest he had been to his mother all his life.
Lamia was interrupted by Ray. “What are you doing? I know you miss him. I too miss him, but we can’t change the fact he isn’t here anymore. We can’t change the fact we probably will never see him again!” –“Don’t say such ridiculous things he is here right now. I know he is here and I know he can hear every single word I say.”-“Please stop it already; your senses are clouded because of your feelings towards the boy. You want him to be here, I understand that. I want him to be here too, but he won’t come back and if he does, he will hate us, especially me, because I sent him to that military academy.”
Ray sighed exhausted. “You don’t know how much I am willing pay to have him back with us. To be a happy family, just the four of us, but even if we run away ‘they’ will find us and what then? Will we let them hunt them down because of our selfishness?”- “You don’t understand. He is here. I know he is listening.” Lamia replied with tears in her eyes.
Ray hugged her “No, he isn’t and even if he was. As the head of one of the ruling clans you can’t show weakness to the outside world. You can’t afford people to spread rumors about you’re going mad because you lost your child!” To keep appearances the Schatten clan had told the world their youngest heir had died in a tragic accident one week before his fifth birthday.
“Boy, if you really are listening, please understand I can’t allow her to come here to talk to you so often anymore. Sooner or later ‘they’ will get suspicious and then its game over for you and us. So please don’t hate her for not taking care of you. If you want someone to blame, blame me. Blame me for my weakness. Blame me for not being able to protect my fami-” – “He is gone” Lamia whispered. “So, this was the last time?” Lamia whispered while hiding her crying face in Ray’s chest.
Tristan’s Secret Base (7.10.9973 AS)
Tristan wiped the tears from his face. ‘How stupid, how come I always end up wasting my time visiting that woman? I should try getting stronger and stronger.’ Tristan walked towards the old table, he had found a few weeks ago walking aimlessly through the streets of Nocturnio. He really enjoyed walking through the city at night, it helped him relax and forget the world around him.
‘Who are ‘they’ anyways? I have no clue, but they must be pretty strong. Scaring the strongest female Demon isn’t a deed anybody can pull off. Are ‘they’ perhaps the ones Bella wants me do defeat? ... I don’t think so, but still every time I think about them, I get the feeling ‘they’ are someone I’ll have to face one day.’ Tristan opened a gate to his bedroom to check if the decoy was still fine.
He just had started to learn ‘Illusion Magic’ a few weeks ago, but he had already mastered every single spell from the book he was learning from. There were quite a few useful spells in the book, like the spell ‘Clone’. It allowed him to create a projection of himself. He used that projection of himself to make Nana believe he was still at home in his room. It was perfect for his purpose of sneaking out of the house during the night to train or to come up with ideas on how to make money.
Amongst others, the book also contained the spell ‘Invisibility’. He used that spell to move through the streets of the city without being found out. People would be suspicious if they saw a child walking alone at night. He had also used that spell every time he had visited his old home. The spell wasn’t really strong and anyone with a little magic knowledge could dispel it if they knew what they were looking for. But it fulfilled its purpose.
‘If I really want to face ‘them’ I will have to grow stronger than anyone. I’ll have to become the strongest Demon in the world. Then, yeah, maybe then I’ll be able to go back home!’ Tristan smiled with determination. ‘But to get stronger, I’ll need more items then just this old table.’ Tristan tabbed on the old wooden table.
From Ray’s last words, Tristan knew today was the last day his mom would be waiting for him on her balcony. He knew even if he went visiting her, she wouldn’t be there waiting. But he didn’t want to let go yet. He still wanted to feel the warmth he felt while listening to her lullabies. This feeling of not wanting to let go yet, had brought him an idea.
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In this world, there was no way of instant communication for civilians. The only way of communicating with someone far away was through the spell ‘Message’. The problem with said spell was the message would arrive delayed. Therefore, it felt more like writing letters to someone than actually talking to them.
The military used a specialized item, for instant communication between the units. The only problem with said item was the range: It had only a one kilometer range. So they could just use those items to communicate during the missions they knew, the units would stay together. To better their situation the military had already spent millions in the research of wide range instant communication devices, but there were no signs of success.
This was Tristan’s new goal. He wanted to create a wide range instant communication device. If he succeeded in doing so, he would become richer than anyone else in this world. He knew not only the military, but also civilians would go crazy for his devices. The only problem with his idea: He had no idea how communication magic worked.
Tristan opened a gate into the sixth floor of the library. In the past month he had not only spent a lot of time in the library during night, but also during the day. He already knew where to find the books he was looking for. The sixth floor was all about basic knowledge in different scientific areas. He looked through the shelves and finally found what he was looking for. He leafed through the book he had found and close it again. Thanks to his passive, that’s all he needed to, to know the contents of the book. He repeated this procedure with twenty other books.
As he got the feeling of being proficient enough with the basics, Tristan opened another gate. He went to the eight floor of the library. There he searched for books about communication magic and again, he leafed through them. After half an hour he had gone through all the books about communication magic in the library.
‘Well, there is really not much information about communication magic in this library. Considering this is one of the largest libraries in the realm… It either means no one even thought of researching this topic or the military doesn’t want to the public to know about it… The books mentioned the military were the ones the most interested in instant communication spells and items. They even managed to create those items with an extremely low range.’
‘Maybe I should pay one of their bases a visit. But which base, am I supposed to visit? In Nocturnio alone, there are over 2000 military facilities! I can’t possibly visit all of them! I should start where the possibilities of finding clues are higher. Sooo, where do I start?’ Tristan opened a gate to the tenth floor. The tenth floor of the library was all about cartography and maps. He searched through the shelves and found a map that showed all known military facilities in the city.
Tristan sighed. ‘As I thought, there are too many!’ As he looked through the map suddenly started smiling. ‘God, I’m stupid! Why didn’t I realize this sooner? If there is one military facility that bunkers knowledge, then it’s the Guardian Academy! I’m sure they use the University for Military Research, I bet the ones that discovered that shore range item were the researchers at the University of the Guardian Academy! It’s decided, I will start searching for clues at Guardian Academy.’
Tristan activated the spell ‘Invisibility’ and opened a gate to the library of the Guardian Academy. The library of the Guardian Academy was divided into four levels. The first level was knowledge everyone could access even the primary school students. The second level’s was knowledge only available for students from high school onwards. The third floor contained books and items only university students and their teachers could access. And then there was the fourth floor. This floor was reserved for teachers and researchers only.
Tristan had opened the gate directly to the fourth level. He looked around in the unfamiliar room. He went through the shelves. After half an hour he finally managed to find documents related to communication items. He leafed through the contents. What he found was not really promising. The researchers dropped the project of making long range communication items because they couldn’t get any results after five years of research!
‘Am I really going for this? With my abilities, I might have an edge, but I don’t have any resources.’ He looked again through the documents and opened a gate again. The gate led directly to the magic treasury of the Guardian Academy. He looked for the shelf on the tenth row. ‘Lucky me! The military sure likes to keep things orderly! They even numbered all items so even a five year old could find them!’ Tristan took a casket from the shelf and opened it.
The casket was full of small silver colored crystals. ‘Bingo! I guess this is my night!’ Tristan took one of them out and stowed it in his pocket. He closed the casket and put it back to its place on the shelf. He opened a gate and made once again sure his invisibility spell was still active before going through the gate.
As he returned to his dimension, Tristan took the crystal out of his pocket and started looking at it. He activated it. He expected the magic circle hidden inside the item to be a mess, like it usually was with the items he came in touch with. To his surprise, the magic circle inside of the item was perfect. He couldn’t find anything he to improve on. This was the first time he had ever seen a perfect magic circle embedded inan item before he was done with it.
‘Amazing! That’s the military for you! They sure know what they are doing… Am I really going for this? If they have people capable of creating this kind of item, it’s gonna be impossible for a greenhorn like me! All I’ve been doing till now, was remodeling existing magic circles thanks to my passive, but now I’ll have to create a new magic circle out of nowhere!’ I can’t do that! I don’t know how to create magic circles, let alone embed them in items! But this feeling I have. It tells me I will succeed eventually, I just have to try.’
Tristan knew he could trust in his premonitions, but he still couldn’t help but hesitate. He knew the task ahead of him was a ridiculous one. And did he really want to spend his precious time in creating one item?
‘I just can’t ignore this feeling! I even promised that woman to always listen to it!’ This innocent idea he had come up with had started giving him a headache. “AAAAAAAAHHHHH! Fine I’ll do it!” Tristan cried out, letting out all of his frustration.
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The sand from the magical hourglass on the table had run out. It turned itself automatically around and the numbers it was displaying changed from one to two o’clock in the morning. Tristan, who had watched the whole procedure and decided it was time to go to bed. No matter how developed his mind was, his body was still the body of five years old. He couldn’t go without sleep at all and the next day was a school day.