The waterfall cascaded its violent torrents in a loud pouring noise. The trees danced happily to the song of nature as the wind blew its kind breath on the forest. The birds sang, the rabbits leapt, the boars squealed in fear as tigers ran after their meat. The whole forest was teeming with all sorts of life.
Behind the curtains of the flowing waterfall was a cave hidden from view. Inside this cave was a young man. It was River. River sat on one rock while closing his eyes in meditation. Anyone who practiced sage craft had developed extrasensory powers to sense nature’s energy to a degree beyond that of ordinary humans. River, being an honorary sage, similarly had the ability; hence he would often practice it when he had free time.
River had decided to accept his father’s offer because this was a chance of a lifetime. Even if the possibilities were very slim, he was willing to take the risk. It was for his dream: to become a magalogist, an inventor and an innovator. People had already thought his fate was sealed because he was an invalid, yet there were things only the invalid could pursue; hidden strengths that those with abilities would never even imagine of.
A man without hands piloting a flying ship with his legs, or a blind man creating the most beautiful mosaic; a man deaf to the sound of music playing the most beautiful tune with his violin, or a blind man finding his way in the most complex labyrinth—the point is, the weak had always found strength in places where the strong would never ever find them. Wherefore, being an invalid wasn’t River’s weakness—no, it was his ultimate strength.
Tomorrow would be the day he would be leaving for the City of Gold to take the entrance exams for the prestigious Winnow Academy. Everyone whom he would meet there would expectantly be unbelievably power; hence to survive, he must cultivate the abilities he had discovered no matter how weak they seemed.
Usually, for ordinary humans, nature’s energy would just circulate around them since their magical veins were blocked to contain their own energy. Even if a mage were to open his veins to try and take in nature’s energy, it would have still been useless; after all, magical veins of mages were very thin. If they were not thin, mages could not efficiently control the enormous energy within themselves.
Sages on the one hand worked hard to destroy these magical veins and leave only a few ones open; then they would cultivate to widen the size of these veins to allow nature’s energy to pass through more readily. In exchange for this pursuit, much of their orb energy would gush out of their bodies and dissipate into nature, slowly shrinking its size, thus forever crippling them from doing magic.
River was not an exception. Right now, instead of the millions of veins that should have existed within him, only a hundred and fifty were left. Currently, he was cultivating to lessen their numbers to at least half—that would give more room for the veins to expand their openings.
Ordinarily, nature’s energy should have just passed through a practitioner of the sage craft, passively entering and exiting his body; in River’s case however—
Nature’s energy swirled inside his body in a storm, trying to escape the prison it had just entered. River had just forcibly closed his magical veins—a feat impossible even for mages. Mages opened and closed their magical veins involuntarily; when they would cast magic, it would open, when they would not, it would close. River, however, through sheer hard work and training, could easily close his magical veins according to his desires. Their small number also contributed to the ease, since it lightened the load he put on finding and locating the vein’s passage ways.
When nature’s energy had spun violently to its limits, River instantly released it outwards; then—
Something moved.
There was no magic, no casting, no materialization of a spell’s effect, nothing, nil; yet why did the pebble move? The pebble that had sat peacefully before River rolled a few meters away from him.
River smiled.
“Finally,” he muttered, “I was able to move it farther this time.”
Whatever River was experimenting on, one thing was for sure—it was nothing like people had ever seen before.
Having finished his exercise River stood up and walked through the cascading wall of water. As he passed through the raging waters, the weight it bore on him alarmed his senses of extreme pain. He was only able to neglect the pain simply because his body had hardened through intense training. It wasn’t something people would easily notice, since his bulky musculature was streamlined and non-excessive, which was easily concealed under his clothes.
The question now remained: would his training serve him well?
***
The next morning, River had his breakfast early, eating nothing more but scrambled egg paired with sausages—some would argue he should have eaten a more healthy diet; he would argue, the healthy part would be later, that is, in the afternoon. Morning was for stretching, not intense training, hence River allowed himself to lighten on his choices of food for breakfast.
He was eating alone, since his Aunt Melinda had already left, attending a business meeting held at the capital. River stood up and washed the dishes himself—he knew the servants were already bogged down by a lot of tasks so he didn’t want to pass on this simple meaningless work to them. So he washed them sparkly clean. Afterwards, he walked out towards the gates of the manor.
Beyond the arced gateway was a carriage—no, not the kind that had horses towing it in front (something only the poorest of the poor could afford), it was the kind that ran on liquefied battery crystal. The battery crystal was a naturally occurring mineral that absorbed a lot of nature’s energy. Inside the crystal, nature’s energy would slowly condense to form tiny orbs, which were of similar structure to human’s orb energy. The crystal would then be liquefied and used to activate runes. Runes were spells that were converted into written symbols embedded on objects, a task that even non-mages could do—unless if you’re an invalid of course.
River got onto the backseat and wiggled for comfort. The cab-driver took a small circular orb, the size of a marble, and placed it on a hole just in front of him. Once he injected his own orb energy to the marble in a specific pathway only he knew, the runic engine at the back started crackling and bursting in explosive noises. The engine had started.
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“Please sit back,” said the cab-driver, smiling through the rear-view mirror with a smile that appealed to costumers, “And enjoy the ride.”
The driver held the steering wheel and stepped on a pedal, which propelled the auto-carriage towards their destination.
***
It had taken them twelve hours to reach the capital city of Gold, where Winnow academy stood in all its pristine nobility. The carriage went on towards the academy, the journey of which filled River with intense anticipation. If he could enter the academy—just if—then maybe—
He could see Runia again.
‘I wonder what she looks like now.’
Minutes later, the cab-driver pulled the brakes, halting the carriage to a full stop. “We’re here!” tooted the driver energetically. River got down and turned to walk away when suddenly, the driver called him out.
“Hey!” he said, now changing his friendly demeanor to a spiteful one. “Your payment brat!”
People immediately turned their heads towards River’s direction, staring with expressions of surprise—a commoner just came down a cab? Most students here were nobles; there were commoners, yes, but usually they had to be a cut above the rest for them to be specially recruited by the school itself. All eyes stared at River.
Was he someone with special skills?
Or was he another failure: an arrogant commoner who had suddenly decided they had the skills to enter through Winnow’s gates?
Though technically, River wasn’t a commoner, nor was he a noble at the same time. He was, to put it simply, a noble without a title—that meant his name held no authority nor power. Thus, River was somewhere in between. He was a title-less noble. The passersby only assumed he was a commoner because he took a cab to get here instead of a luxuriously designed carriage.
To avoid any more attention, River gave the cab-driver money.
“Sorry, Sir!” apologized River, scratching his head awkwardly. “I thought my aunt already paid for me.”
“And she hasn’t,” rudely spat the driver, taking the money then zooming his vehicle into the distance.
‘Phew~’ huffed River, ‘that was intense.’
River walked on, pretending he didn’t care, although his heart was beating fast. He despised attention, he did not like people staring at him, most especially in a crowd. The moment this did happen, his body would lurch and his walking would turn awkward, hence—
People were snickering behind his back; they thought he looked like an imbecile. The more he caught wind of their gossiping the more he became awkward. He wanted to get out of this place!
‘Help me!’
Then and there someone grabbed his arms in an embrace.
“Brother!” cried Mara, “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“O-Oh!” River let out. Finally, some familiar face, this would help him relax. “How are you Mara?”
Mara beamed a cute smile towards her beloved brother. “Fine as always!”
The people peeking at River were astonished.
“Isn’t that Mara,” one person asked. “Scion of the Pace family?”
“Yeah, that’s her isn’t it? Who’s that guy she clung to? Is he her boyfriend or something?”
“He’s my brother!” growled Mara at the nosy passersby with a loud huff, pouting her lips then thumping her feet on the ground.
Everyone who heard it were astonished. They never knew that the Pace family had a son! Of course they wouldn’t know, River was exiled at such a young age that only old men could possible recognize him.
The onlookers quickly strode their way, not wanting to provoke the one-in-a-million genius scion of the Pace family, Mara Pace. Mara immediately pulled River by the sleeves of his grayish robe, tied at the waist with a leather belt.
Mara was a beautiful girl, shorter than River by a foot. Her hair was as blue as the cerulean skies, taking the same color as their mother. She wore a white one piece dress with a frilled skirt. The two pony tails on her head swayed errantly behind her, as she adorably dragged River to the location of their first exam.
River was behind by a year, so he would be entering as a first year, which meant River and Mara would become batch mates. The first exam was a simple test: inner orb appraisal.
Wait what? An appraisal? H-how would River pass this one?
***
A crowd of students gathered before a raised platform placed at the center of one of the academy’s open fields, the one right beside the first-year campus. On the platform stood a teacher, wearing a lab coat while holding what appeared to be a bracelet attached to a metallic box by a long, slender cord. The box was placed right beside the teacher; its iconic feature would be the huge orb embedded on its top. The orb was a projection crystal which would project the results of the appraisal.
The purpose of the box was to calculate and translate the orb energy of a person into readable data. Since a person’s orb energy was condensed inside his body, what the box did to translate this into numerical information was to estimate the size his orb energy would take should it be thinly expanded. For this to happen, the person must inject his own energy into the runic computer, hence the bracelet.
River and Mara walked towards the registration table at the corner and signed their names. They got their numbers: River was last and Mara second only to him. Thence, they walked their way towards the crowd. It looked like they were already at number 205; apparently the queue wasn’t that long. More numbers past, and more students passed and failed.
“Number 301!” called the teacher. “Come up now.”
That number—
“I’m here!” shouted Mara, as she climbed up the stairs of the platform. She walked towards the teacher and cutely reached out her right hand. “Here professor, I’m 301.”
The professor blushed. Nonetheless he was a decent man so the professor immediately composed himself. He took the bracelet and placed it around Mara’s wrist. The machine beeped and clanged, tooted and fluted.
*Ding*
The results came out and the professor as well as the surrounding students raised their eyebrows in shock. What just happened?
The numbers that came out on the holographic projection were astounding. Mara Pace, at age eighteen, was already—
“A Class C mage!” cried the professor. “At such a young age your inner orb’s diameter has already reached the 300 meter mark.
Mara giggled. “Well, father said it’s not unusual in our family.”
“Not unusual? What family do you belong to?”
“Pace.”
“Pace?” the professor froze. “As in one of the five great noble clans of the kingdom, that Pace?”
“Yes.”
“Oh dear,” purred the professor. “I’ve never seen this much power since Runia—”
“You mean Big Sis Runia?” asked Mara. “I think hers was greater than mine, Professor, I heard she broke the 350 mark right off the bat. She basically started school as a Class B mage.”
“Ah that’s right,” muttered the professor, scratching his head. He could never understand how the minds of these high-leveled aristocrats worked, they acted as if their level of strength were nothing to be alarmed about. Scary—
“Anyhow,” added the professor. “Please come down Little Miss; others are waiting.”
“Alright!” giggly replied the energetic girl.
Mara came down as instructed and walked towards River’s side.
“So Brother what do you think?” she asked, flexing her non-existent biceps. “I’m super strong aren’t I?”
“R-right…” River nervously let out. He was sweating profusely. He was scared. He didn’t want to be appraised. The trauma would haunt him back; but he steeled himself and balled his hand into a fist. There was no time to dally, no time to hesitate. He must regret trying rather than regret not trying.
“302!”
Everyone looked at River, as he walked nervously towards the stage. He took the first step of the stairs, then the second step, then the third—thereafter he walked towards the professor. The same procedure happened, and the machine beeped and tooted.
*Ding*
The results came out.
There were two kinds of people that the crowd remembered the most: those who were the best, like Mara who had astonishing level of strength; and then there were the worst.
“Oh my goodness!” exclaimed the professor in shock. “In all my years of experience as a mage, a teacher and a proctor, I have never seen such pitiable numbers.”
[Five Inch]
“What’s your name?” inquired the professor.
“River…”
“Surname?”
“Pace—River Pace.”
“Pace? You mean commoner Pace?”
“No, I mean Pace—one of the great five families.”
“Great heavens! Stop lying!”
“I am not!” retorted River in a loud shout.
The professor didn’t believe him and quickly unstrapped the bracelet. “You failed,” he curtly said.
“Not only are you so miserably weak,” the professor added with a scowl. “You’re even trying to fake your identity. How despicable. Hence with my authority as the proctor, I pronounce that you fail this exam and cannot anymore proceed.”