Deep In the night, after the party, Ariel was suddenly woken up from his sweet sleep by an unusual feeling coursing through his body. It was not pain, but just slight discomfort, like when you needed to do something, but didn’t remember anything about it. “What is wrong with me, I don’t usually have sleepless nights, much less being kept awake by something.”
No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t fall asleep. He only ended up lying there, fully awake. Letting out a sigh he decided to look at the moon for a while, to clear his thoughts, however, just as he cast his look outside the window, he saw something akin to a falling star quickly approaching the horizon. At least that is what it looked like, until Ariel noticed, that it had fallen down straight into the forest, behind his home, while letting out a bright light.
The feeling of discomfort has grown even stronger in his heart, as he watched the unnatural phenomena. Soon he heard many bone chilling howl echo’s through the forest, which seemed to originate from some kind of monsters that were fighting against each other.
After several minutes of thought, Ariel ended up at the conclusion that the feeling in his heart was connected with the unknown object, which has fallen from the sky, since it is the only possible conclusion, even if it sounded, a bit ridiculous.
However, no matter how rational Ariel appeared to other people, but the main way he acts when dealing with the unknown is by listening to his intuition. Quickly putting on his clothes which comfortable for going around the forest, Ariel sneaked out through the back of the courtyard.
Many of the guest that stayed after the party as well as the people who worked in the mansion, have fallen asleep as soon as they reached a bed, so it was easy for him to go unnoticed and enter the wilderness to look for answers.
While traveling through the familiar forest, Ariel still felt nervous, even tough he has went by here, many times, since he has never been here after sundown. The trees and sounds of wild life were even creepier in the night than in the day, as many nocturnal creatures have woken up. This only made him move with even more caution than before, which by all rights is always a good decision.
While sneaking through the forest, Ariel was thinking up ways how he will deal with all of the monsters that could pop out at any time. He will inevitably meet some and has to be ready for them, if he’s not, he may not live, to see tomorrow.
He might be a Middle level Acolyte, but his spell arsenal is quite pathetic. The only magic spells that he actually has, are the first spell he has ever used, that he dubbed Ice Spear and another spell he has created by a stroke luck Ice shield, which just like the name entails makes a kite shield out of ice that will hover in front of him.
This is Ariel’s biggest disadvantage from having a variation. He doesn’t have any books and people that could teach him, unless, he revealed it to public, which could also bring a lot of problems right now. However, it is already impressive that he was able to create even these two, basic spells, at such a young age. Making a magic spell is like programming, where every little detail has to work together, and as you perfect it further, it will continue becoming more powerful and more unique.
Of course this makes it not all bad, the spells that he can use might be little, but he can cast them instantly, without chanting. Over all, usually beginners never create their very own spells, and use chants to utilize the spells created from long ago, but chanting is once again comparable to using a program, where you have limitation to what it can actually achieve, while capability for casting spells without chants comes only when you understand the programming itself and can change it, as well as modify it at will.
Ariel knows these spells inside out, and he can continue perfecting them and utilize them in any way he wants. This can be a huge advantage against other mages that have to chant already known spells, which lack flexibility.
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While thinking how to best approach the problem of the lack of spells, the roars and howls of the beasts only intensified as he got closer to the general area, where the “Fallen Star” fell.
After about 10 minutes of walking, suddenly, a monster resembling a boar jumped out into his path from the shrubs. It had red fur and bloodshot eyes, although it did look intimidated, but Ariel already knew that this monster called crimson boar is only a Low level Acolyte level.
The boar appeared to be furious while casting a look at Ariel, with eyes that seemed to have lost all reason. The next instance it charged with great speed, trying to bash into Ariel’s body.
Unfortunately for it, his attack was too predictable. Ariel has casted an Ice shield, which quickly appeared protecting his body. Not having enough time to stop, the crimson boar crashed into it at full force, resulting in his long tusks braking off, as well as receiving some damage to his head.
Unluckily for it, Ariel wouldn’t miss this chance to finish it off, while not showing any mercy. He has long since understood to never take chances, because this day it might be him who was the winner, but the next day, it might be the boar that was piercing through his heart.
Before the boar could snap out of the confusion, Ariel easily stabbed through its neck with an Ice spear he manifested, almost instantaneously, leaving the monster only as a freezing corpse on the ground.
‘This boar seems to have been running away from several, more powerful monsters’ Ariel thought, while kneeling down and examining several different claw and bite marks on its body.
‘I guess I really need to find out what that thing is to make all of these monsters react this way, even if I have to pay a price for it’ While steeling his mind, he once again continued to move through the lonely forest, going towards the direct, where all of the commotion is being hear from.
It didn’t take long before Ariel saw a clearing right in front of him. Walking out of the woods, he found a convenient rock close to him, and hid behind it as fast as possible, before sticking out his head, to take a look.
The whole surrounding area has become a crater, all of the trees around it were destroyed, and all of the clearing was a huge mess, from what seems to have been a strong impact. However, this was the least disturbing thing in the picture, as the whole ground was covered by monster corpses and rivers of blood.
The monsters that were still alive looked to be quite powerful, and way out of Ariel’s league. On the other hand, they all were heavily injured and had their eyes on each others every move, not paying any attention to what was happening around them.
In all, there were three of them, a wolf that seemed to be a variation of an iron hide wolf, next there was a night panther, which when grown up to its full potential, usually reaches Early Disciple rank. The last one was a silver scaled viper that unlike the other two, which appeared to be of the same strength, was only at Late Acolyte rank.
However, the silver scaled viper cannot be underestimated, because it was part of a very rare species of snakes that have unique, extremely potent poison, which could lead to it becoming, the actual winner.
Knowing that it still wasn’t his time, Ariel stayed in the shadows of the rock he hid behind, while observing the fierce battle that is soon to come.
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