I have hobby of reading novels. Thanks to it. I can predict how thing will end up with. Using naive way I can succeed with all of my plans but at same time risk of complete failure will rise. As for being cruel, change of succees will rise but I will loss something.

Unlike other spirit fire and ice are special. They have seen me all of their lives. They have read the same stories as I. They know the best how I feel. They weren´t against me because they hated me. They know what I would loss if they were gone. They were distant because more closer we are more harsher the loss is going to be.

Why couldn´t I see this before? They aren´t asking my permission. They are saying good byes. If Ice spirit isn´t strong enough then Fire will help too. They must have known this was going to happen. They must know everything that is going on. Why didn´t they tell me? Is our thrust this small?

”I didn´t understand you at all. Why would you risk all for me?” (Ari)

No one told me anything. They must have known this before. I was left out. Don´t underestimate me. I have experience of one life behind me. Do you think that I can´t take on difficult decisions? I´m not the same person as past me. It might be because I´m young again. I feel like I can do more. I was only logical in my past life. I didn´t do anything unordinary. Maybe this was why I read the stories where main would take stray cat to home and raise it. I couldn´t do anything like it. I want to be that kind of person in this life. I was happy and I´m going to be happy in different way now. I´m logical person. I can´t get rid of it then I won´t try.

”Please help me. I don´t accept failure and lossing you is the worst failure of all. You have no choice but to succeed.” (Ari)

They all came silent. They must have been suprised. I´m too but this isn´t the time to waste time.

”We will succeed.” (Ice spirit)

She is such reliable ally.

Some of my headache has calmed down. At least I can move now. Animal instinct has been reacting so attack is happening soon. I don´t need mountain essence. I can deal with this. I came back to my seat. Tyr was waiting for me.

”You took long time there.” (Tyr)

”Someone is going to attack the train.” (Ari)

I whispered as small voice as I could. If panic arises before the attack then something unexpected might happen. I can´t deal with unexpected thing as I´m now. I must fight with my own rules and not with the enemy.

”What are you talking about?” (Tyr)

He must have understood. He was as silent as I was. For in case Wind spirit was using spell silence around us. It was on for nothing. So I cancelled it. I need all the mana as I can get.

”I was testing my beast magic but it was reacting to strong murderous intent. Do you remember the gorge yesterday? It starts one more kilometer away. That is perfect place to take hijack on.”

I gave him an explanation. I hope he is going to believe me. I couldn´t tell him before otherwise he would have asked more questions which I couldn´t answer. After we all survive I can tell I hit my head so I don´t remember anything.

”What should I do?” (Tyr)

He was more prepared than I thought. In my mind I was thinking what if he is with them. It was unnecessary thought. He is better friend than I thought. What could have happened to him in my past?

”I need you to gather all the passengers to front cabin. There is artifact which produce strong defensive shield. You can hide behind it for more than a day. Unfortunately it can only be activated by engine driver in normal circumstances. Terrorist must be targetting him first. Changes of him surviving are slim. If he dies then you have to activate it on your own.” (Ari)

”How can I do it? Why can´t you do it?” (Tyr)

”There is notes for manual activation next to it. You must have seen it before. As everyone are coming to front cabin please read them meanwhile. You can do it. I must be elsewhere to make them concentrate on me. I will arrive later. Since you are activating it, you can allow some people enter after activating it.” (Ari)

He nodded. He rose up and started to go to the front to read the notes. It would have been dangerous to go there but my plan was based on essence collapse cancelation. If I´m going to survive then both engine driver and Tyr are going to survive.

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I have to choose my retreat road. River, tunnels, mountains, lake and forest which would be the best choice. As beginner neutral essence magician the best place would be far away from the enemy. Being surrounded would be the worst case. River, tunnels and lake are out because of it. In the river attacks would be coming from both shores. In the tunnel everything is going from one direction without change of retreat. In the lake it is easy to trap me against it. If I had strong water, rock or earth magic then I would consider. Mountains and forest are my only choices. My magic would be stronger in the mountains but it give enemy empty line of sight. I could take cover in the forest.

I have to choose depending on what kind of magician is against me.

At that moment I noticed change in mana around me. One trait of it was strange to me. It wasn´t offensive spell. It belonged to supporting kind. It was magic which cause magical artifacts to malfunktion.

I get it. Its purpose is cause defensive artifact to malfunktion which causes explosion. No wonder everything was kept hidden from the people. Low lever magic which can cause artifacts to explode would change market of artifact heavily. People trust artifacts very much but if there is found way to use them against the people how own them then it causes panic and unrest. This was wanted to avoid.

There was still one trait which was weird to me. It wasn´t using any common magic. It was one sect od dark magic called as necromancy. Biggest weakness of neutral magic in battle against other magic is necromancy. Necromancer can bring to life death people as mindless being. For this reason their magic become extremely weak compared to their alive once. Neutral magicians are big exception to this. For this reason necromancers are hunting strong neutral magicians as they pleases.

In my past rank 4 witch was necromancer. She wanted to buy my death body to her research. She was the reason why I wanted desperately cremation. I wasn´t neutral magician back then but I was close to it. For this reason she had big fascination for my body. That sounded so wrong but that is the most correct answer.

”This is going to be bad more than one way.”

I have seen necromancers to stop their work if they found promising neutral magician. It isn´t no suprise that there isn´t any neutral magic witches. They won´t live old enough to become one´s.

”Neutral veil.” (Ari)

I used spell neutral veil. It was unique magic which belonged only to neutral magic. It was middle rank spell which produces defensive veil around target. Once casted it doesn´t spent or disappear until it takes enough damage. It also doesn´t spent lot of magic. Unfortunately it was middle class neutral magic. So it was stronger than my capacity. Nevertheless it caused essence collapse which caused necromancer magic from targetting artifact and also defended artifact from activating for a moment. Thanks to it I know now were the enemy is and also which class of magic is used against us.

Squeak!!!

Trains engine was overheating because of violent magic use. I have to shout to warn the people.

”Group of people are running right towards us! They must be going to hijack the train!” (Ari)

Scream!!!

Panic rised up fast. I have no time for them. My headache was getting worst all the sudden. I don´t notice any magic use against me. Sealed gate must be reacting even stronger. I have to trust Ice spirit and others.

”Hurry up and go to the mountains!” (Beast spirit)

He must have noticed something. There isn´t moment to waste. It doesn´t matter that window is in my path.

Crash!!!

I jumped out of the window and I spun along the road without looking behind me. I was going toward the mountains. No enemies were in front of me. There must have hardly any participants on this mission. Otherwise how would leave other side of tracks unguarded. Well, it works for me.

There was three mountains in front of me. Should I rise or circle them?

”You must rise up.” (Mountain spirit)

I see. There must be traps in pass. Unlike Beast spirit Mountain can give advises ahead of time before Beast. There isn´t hardly anything which can be hidden from them here.

”Forget passengers. Go capture the fugitive.” (?)

It was voice of young woman. She must be close to my age or older. She must be the necromancer. Plan to distract was huge success. Only thing I have to do it to survive about six to twelve hours. It is easy, right?

I´m so happy how my fitness is. It isn´t as good as my prime one but it is way better than my final years. I can rise up without getting winded. I can concentrate how things are behind me.

”How things are behind me?” (Ari)

”It looks good. There is good distance between us and the enemy. She is necromancer how is commanding close to 200 basic level zombies. Most of them concentrate on strenght but there is few how are spellcasters with fire offensive magic. There is also 20 mid level swamp rats and finally one mid level spear master. Spearmaster is close to the necromancer, swamp rats are trying to siege you from the flanks and zombies are mindlessly chasing you while keeping spellcasters save.” (Fire spirit)

Fire spirit gave out exactly the information which I wanted. It was usual formation against people how are escaping and are needed alive. I have seen this formation many times. The fastest are going for the flanks. The weakest are keeping target in constant move. Finally strongest one keeps caster save and deals finishing blow.

It was simple but it works because it is simple. Only weakness that I can see is lack of flying creatures. In this case open mountain is way better place for battle than forest. Of course this would be the case if I could take everyone of them on. I´m not strong enough to kill all of them. My body isn´t used to fighting. Even if I have knowledge of martial arts, I can´t show them at the level they used to be at.

I might be strong enough to kill spearmaster but surrounding zombies will take me in return. Good thing that I don´t need to kill them. I have to just survive without getting captured. At least there is one category where I´m way stronger than she. That is experience.

Being young and experienced in battle can make me overpowered against young enemy. I will challenge you to battle of survival.