by Weiqi Wang
‘Really?’ Soarame couldn’t help being excited.
‘Really! We enjoyed listening to your ideas and hope you can tell us more later.’ The girls all nodded in agreement with Julia.
‘Really?’ Soarame was too happy to realise that he was repeating himself and not good at talking to girls.
The girls started chuckling. Julia approached Soarame. ‘Hey, can we friend each other on Libral Emblems?’
‘Huh?’ Soarame was puzzled, but soon he realized what Julia meant. ‘Oh, you mean open a chat channel?’
‘Yeah, exactly.’ Julia said; she actually looked shy at this moment. ‘May I?’
‘Oh sure, sure, sure.’ Soarame handed his emblem to Julia. ‘It’s just that I can’t really use it to talk.’
‘I know, I can’t either.’ Julia took Soarame’s emblem and injected her mind power. The crystal chip flashed for a second and a name emerged on the back — Julia Swift. The next second, an image of Julia’s face was emitted out of the emblem. A voice sounded. ‘Confirm?’
‘Yes.’ Soarame answered. He did the same thing to Julia’s emblem and Julia also saw his face and name appear — Soarame Jadeking.
Just like that, Soarame quickly made a lot of friends. One week quickly passed and the first weekend arrived. Soarame was excited because he could finally come to Dafinol for ice carving for the first time —
‘Hey buddy, there you are!’ Dafinol was waiting for Soarame by the door. ‘Ready to have some fun today?’
‘Can’t wait!’ Soarame cheered.
‘Alright, we are going to start with basics.’ Dafinol led Soarame to a table; there were a number of different engraving tools on it. ‘The first step for you is to know these tools.’ There were a variety of tools such as tongs, chisels, jigs, forks etc., and each of them had different subtypes, with different shapes for different purposes. Dafinol briefly went through those basics and gave a quick demonstration on how to use them on a cube. The engraving actually took time; by the end of the entire day Dafinol could only manage to finish the rough shaping. So Soarame came back the next day and finally got to see Dafinol finish this work — in Dafinol’s words, this one was just for teaching purposes.
‘How much can it sell for at an auction?’ Soarame was curious. In his eyes, the “rush work for teaching purposes” actually looked pretty good.
‘I don’t sell scraps like this.’ Dafinol shook his head. ‘My reputation was built on my elegant works. Selling stuff like this would make me look like a joker.’
‘But I think it looks great!’ Soarame was surprised to hear that. ‘What’s wrong with selling it?’
‘A real artist destroys dissatisfying work; a dealer sells it. I’m the former.’ Dafinol educated Soarame. ‘To settle your curiosity though, it can be worth up to 500 gold coins, because of Dafinol’s name.’
‘Seriously!’ Soarame was stunned. ‘And you want to destroy it?’
‘Yes.’ Dafinol fetched the work and tossed it into the trash bin. This made Soarame swallow — 500 gold coins! For god’s sake!
‘Don’t be surprised. My name is worth a lot more than that.’ Dafinol was amused to see Soarame’s expression. ‘My elegant work sells for at least 100 ruby coins per piece, and the reason is what you just saw.’
That was 10,000 gold coins, and that’s an “at least”? Soarame almost fell over. He took a deep breath and tried to make himself calm down. Thinking for a while, Soarame had to agree that Dafinol did the right thing to protect his reputation. But still, he was crying inside for that 500 gold coins — all that Filton gave him was actually less than that, so Dafinol had just thrown away the equivalent of Soarame’s total assets.
Soarame went back to his dorm as if he was sleepwalking. His entire mind was occupied by two numbers — 500 and 10,000. It felt absurd to Soarame that Dafinol actually made that much, yet he didn’t seem interested in money; his studio was pretty small, his clothes were very casual and he didn’t even have a helper, until Soarame showed up. Dafinol certainly could tell Soarame’s thoughts, and he told Soarame something that made the boy not sure whether to laugh or to cry — ‘a great wizard makes tons more! No wizard ever worries about money.’
Well, at least I’m a unique wizard, then. Soarame was teasing himself. The good news was that the future was bright, so Soarame had to re-order his mind and focus on study — the second week was starting the next day, and the boy had a strong feeling that more excitement was already on the way to him!
EGG, DRAGON&EMPIRES
Mixed with joy and annoyance, Soarame’s school life got underway. Thanks to Julia’s encouragement, Soarame attended every Water class and developed interest in it bit-by-bit. Although Nicole still tried to cut him off, from time to time once he began to discuss things a little too provocative in her opinion — ‘Boys are headaches, I just knew it!’ Nicole claimed in exasperation, but she still had to appreciate Soarame’s odd yet interesting thoughts now and then.
After class Soarame would go back to the dorm to learn Wind, or hang out with friends — Soarame had made quite a few friends, but his best friends were still his roommates, plus the four girls who flew with him. School isn’t that bad after all, thanks to them, Soarame thought. The frustration about being all alone had been diluted a great deal.
For most of the weekends, Soarame helped Dafinol with his ice carving, at the same time learning the skills. Soon enough, Soarame realised a very “bad” habit of Dafinol’s — this man threw away things, all the time. Most of Dafinol’s work ended up in trash bins and melted; Soarame was upset to watch roughly 5,000 gold coins became water and good for nothing but gardening, until he finally could not stand it —
‘Dafinol, isn’t there a better way to deal with this?’ Soarame stopped Dafinol from throwing another work away — it was named “horseman”, a knight riding a horse. It was so nicely done that it reminded Soarame of his fantasy years ago — himself on Richie when they both grow up; but Dafinol was still not satisfied.
‘Soarame, if you really want it, you can have this one.’ Dafinol looked at Soarame. ‘You can choose to sell it, keep it or maybe work on it — you mentioned you do want to make your own work one day, right?’
Soarame took over the work in an overjoy, but the next second he sighed — he certainly would prefer to sell it and get the money, but he couldn’t. Selling the “horseman” meant jeopardizing Dafinol’s reputation and killing his trust, so finally, Soarame left the work at the studio — he couldn’t keep the icework from melting in the dorm.
I need to do it faster. Soarame had to push himself. I can’t sell Dafinol’s work, but I can sell my own work if I can make a nice one. But carving is so hard… Soarame looked towards a corner of his table, where his work was sitting. He couldn’t think of a name for it, because even he could not tell exactly what it was. Carving demands hands that are strong enough, besides all the skills etc., but as a boy Soarame just couldn’t handle that. He had been trying to use Water magic for help, but it was too hard to control the frozen water elements inside an ice cube, simply because he was not that powerful yet.
I can’t make the water elements move in an ice form, I need to try another way. This day after coming back to the dorm, Soarame had to sit down and really spend time thinking. I have to do it step by step, by controlling them in liquid first… yes, that’s it!
Soarame jumped up and rushed to the living room — he finally had an idea. Soarame recalled that during his visit with Filton in Cylone City, there was a street artist painting by blowing ink on a canvas. Now Soarame was going to do the same thing, only that instead of blowing, he would use magic.
It’s the same as pouring beer into the bottle that day! How could I take so long to get here? Soarame kept berating himself while pouring some ink onto a piece of paper. However, the paper was too absorbent to keep the ink on the surface, so the ink got sucked in right away and formed a big splodge; when Soarame tried to drive the ink around the next second, it was already too late. Soa
rame tried several times and was disappointed to see that it didn’t work as expected, so he had to go buy canvas from a campus store. This time it was much better and Soarame could drive the ink on the canvas to make some patterns, yet it was still far from an artwork — or maybe too much of an artwork for people to understand.
That’s okay, at least it can work! Soarame was encouraged to see this happen; all that he needed to do was to keep trying. So Soarame spent the rest of the day painting by magic, until his roommates came back —
‘Soar, what are you doing?’ Kardiac came over and soon worked it out. ‘God, you are trying to paint with Water magic? That’s a genius idea!’
‘Thanks, I call it mind-painting, but it’s so hard.’ Soarame was tired. Kardiac wanted to try it himself, but he couldn’t perform Water, nor could Omifo and Halgon, so they could only offer some suggestions.
The news spread very fast. Soarame’s classmates came to visit days later, all marvelling at Soarame’s thoughts. The girls were all Water wizards, so they also tried it but found that it was incredibly hard. Finally, they all had to give up except Soarame, the unique wizard who needed money. Dileys’ crew also came to check out the mind-painting, and they had a really hard time trying to work it out too, even as Grade 3 or 4 students.
Soarame was not surprised to see this. After all, his mind power was actually at Adept level, higher than most of his friends. However, he was new to Water so he was in Grade 1 — before mastering Water spells at a higher level, he had to stay as a Grade 1, especially when no one knew about his unusual mind power.
‘Soarame, you must be insane!’ Realising Soarame was actually aiming at making an ice sculpture with mind power, the girls were perturbed. ‘How did you get this idea?’
‘Well, it’s a good way to practice Water at the same time as making art.’ Soarame shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t do it Dafinol’s way anyway.’
‘Dileys is a Grade 4; she’s the only one among us who can cast a freezing spell.’ Vivarin looked at Soarame as if she was looking at a monster. ‘But that’s just for freezing water to be ice; the shape of the ice is random.’
‘Vivarin is right, I can freeze water, but I can’t control the shape.’ Dileys nodded. ‘When I’m able to, I’ll become a Grade 5 or even 6 — but I don’t think that’s going to happen soon.’
‘I see.’ Soarame realised that he was aiming at a pretty ambitious goal. But so what? Soarame never took Grade 5 or 6 as a scary task, because that was still within Adept level. His goal was to become an Expert wizard as soon as possible, so that he could start looking for his parents on his own. Although magic was really fascinating him, he never forgot about this important task, which he had set himself when he was little.
‘But don’t give up!’ Jemario tried to encourage Soarame. ‘I believe you can make it sooner than we think, and maybe sell it at auction for a good price!’
‘Yes, you can do it!’ His roommates joined in to cheer Soarame up.
However, no one really believed that Soarame could do it, at least not in this school, before he graduated. Soarame also knew that he had to be able to master mind-painting before thinking about mind-carving, so he kept practicing hard every single day and became a little better each day. The story of Soarame’s mind-painting skills spread out wide on campus and amazed a lot of students — although they were unwilling to admit it, none of them could really do it.
****
Several months had passed and Soarame had been working really hard. He spent most of his time on Water, but only to find that his “capable” gift was indeed a merely “capable” — in sharp contrast to his Wind spells, which he found much easier to learn and master, he made little improvement in Water spells. Although Soarame had been practicing day and night, sticking to his mind-painting and all the efforts beyond that, he was still in Grade 1. He couldn’t even master the Grade-2 spells, regardless of how well he could control Water elements for mind painting, using his Adept-level mind power. As a comparison, Julia had been pretty much lying around and having fun all day, yet with a superior gift she had levelled up to Grade 2 already. Interestingly, the gifted girl seldom kept in touch with Soarame since then.
Soarame wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but fortunately he still had quite a few friends who didn’t change their attitude to him; especially Dileys’ crew, and particularly Jemario. Thanks to their continuous encouragement, Soarame kept trying and his efforts finally counted. One great day, Soarame graded up, which was still faster than average. As a result, his dorm now had a fireplace in the living room.
‘Hey, we heard that someone is pretty popular in the Water Department.’ Dileys’ crew were visiting Soarame’s dorm for congratulations. ‘Although he’s not the first one to level up.’
‘Really?’ Soarame was actually sick of his own catch phrase, but it slipped out anyway.
‘Yes, because he’s good at giving weird thoughts in class and saying “really”.’ Catheray teased. ‘What’s your most powerful magic now? This?’ A stream of water emerged from the tip of Catheray’s finger into a cup; she then picked up the cup and drank it.
‘Hmm… you heard about that, too?’ Soarame scratched his head while all were laughing.
‘Well, this is popular nowadays.’ Jemario teased Soarame. ‘Some girls even use it for showering if they have enough mind power.’
‘Well, glad to be of help.’ Soarame had to giggle.
‘What, you helped girls shower? That’s awesome!’ Kardiac knocked Soarame’s shoulder with his shoulder. He was about to carry on, but got shut down by Catheray’s slap on the head.
Just then, there came a knock on the door of their dorm. Soarame opened the door and was in overjoy. ‘Sachastain? Long time no see! I thought you’d forgotten about me!’
‘How could I do that?’ Seeing Soarame, Sachastain was very happy too. ‘Congratulations on your grading up!’
‘Thank you!’ Soarame hurriedly introduced Sachastain to his friends.
‘Good to see you making so many friends.’ Sachastain patted Soarame’s shoulder. ‘I’m here to give you a little surprise today.’
‘A surprise?’ Soarame was excited to hear that. Then, he noticed Sachastain was holding an ebony box, and its brownish-black wood emitted an ancient aura. The crew could tell from the box that there must be something special inside.
‘Oh wow, this is for me?’ Soarame was so happy. ‘Can I open it?’
‘Sure. But before that, why don’t you take a guess about what’s in it?’
‘Well…’ Soarame rolled his eyes and made his first try. ‘A magic wand?’
‘Nearly, but not exactly.’ Sachastain smiled at everyone. ‘You guys can all join in this game.’
‘I think it’s a gown for wizards!’ Kardiac couldn’t wait to speak.
‘Kardy, you are probably the only genius who could put a gown in a box of this size!’ Catheray made fun of Kardiac. ‘It’s more likely to be a necklace or something.’
‘Good try, Catheray.’ Sachastain smiled. ‘Again, nearly there.’
‘Earrings?’ Vivarin guessed; that was her favourite gift.
‘Seriously?’ Omifo teased. ‘Earrings as a gift to a boy?’
‘Of course it can happen.’ Vivarin blushed but wouldn’t give up. ‘Be more fashionable, boy!’
‘Not wand, necklace, or earing, but it’s still gonna be a magigear of some kind, right? And probably a Water magigear?’ Halgon was usually silent, but this time he wanted to talk. ‘Judging from the box, the gear is probably quite classical. How about a bracelet, like a replica of Undines’ Bless?’
Hearing Halgon’s guess, Sachastain was surprised. The Undines’ collection was a set of magigears from ancient times; not everyone knew about it — even Sachastain was not sure what exactly Undines’ Bless referred to, yet Halgon had just claimed it to be one of the bracelets in the set.
‘Halgon, right? I must say you guys know a lot more than I expected.’ Sachastain was happy that h
e had come to the right place. ‘I was never so lucky as to see something like the Undines’ collection in my life, not even a replica, but I think you will like this one better — it’s a magimal egg.’
‘A magimal egg?’ Everyone screamed; that was indeed a big surprise. The crew certainly knew some students here who had magimals, but none of themselves had one so far, and they had been jealous.
For a wizard, there were two things that are most wanted: magigears, which can enhance one’s magic power; and magimals, who can be bond with wizards and become their loyal friends. Just like the magic levels of wizards, a magimal or a magigear also had the same rankings: Novice, Adept, Expert, Master/Baron and even Legendary. On top of that, a magimal egg was usually more precious than a magigear of the same ranking.
‘Yep, a magimal egg.’ Hearing the commotion, Sachastain was quite satisfied. ‘As for what kind of magimal, you’ll find out for yourself. Now I need to go back to work; feel free to come to me if you need anything.’ Sachastain was about to leave, but was suddenly tugged back by Soarame.
‘No, Sachastain, I can’t take it.’ Soarame was anxious. ‘Thank you so much, but this gift is too much, I just can’t!’
‘What? You don’t say that to me, boy!’ Sachastain pretended to be upset and plugged the box into Soarame’s arms. ‘This gift is from me, so I decide who can take it!’
‘Yes, but…’ Soarame certainly wanted it — his top regret so far was that he couldn’t bond with Richie. However, he felt nervous at receiving such a precious gift, especially after his master had told him that magimals were always expensive and hard to get.
‘Months ago, a boy called Soarame protected the dignity of this institute and the reputation of my team.’ Sachastain looked into Soarame’s eyes. ‘Back then, I already started thinking about this gift, so I’ve been watching you ever since. To date, I’ve seen and heard enough about you and I’m convinced that you deserve it.’
