by Weiqi Wang
‘See?’ Kardiac was proud of himself, even though he began to wonder why he was all good other than half of his hair, and how come Halgon was so badly burnt.
‘Soarame, I heard you actually flew in the end?’ Alicey was waiting so long for this question; she was furious that she had passed out and missed a lot of splendid scenes. ‘You are a Water student, aren’t you?’
‘How come you can fly? Can you show us?’ Everyone was very confused and at the same time eager. ‘People saw you flying and they are putting it in the Cylone Times!’
‘Guys, give him a break.’ seeing Soarame at a loss for what to do, Rodka cut in. He was really in a good mood — everyone had survived the crisis; what could be better than that?
‘Sachastain came over by the way, he said he will visit again later.’ Omifo said. ‘He seems to be fine and is already out of the hospital.’
‘That’s great! Sachastain is the real hero here.’ Soarame explained hurriedly. ‘If not for him, we wouldn’t be able to sit here and talk to you guys again!’
‘Really! It was that bad?’ The crowd didn’t fully comprehend the danger of the battle yesterday. ‘Tell us more!’
Soarame and his friends stepped out of the room to leave Halgon in peace and had a pretty long talk about everything, including Soarame’s sudden capacity for Wind magic. Dileys’ crew was there the entire time; they kept checking their friends, with deep worry in their eyes. When the sun was about to set, the big crowd was finally satisfied by the story and headed off, leaving only the closest friends.
‘So Alicey, can I try your earring?’ Coming back into the hospital room, Kardiac hesitated but finally had to ask. ‘I really want to see how it feels to get a bird’s eye view of the structure of a building.’
During the previous conversation, the crew had learnt that Alicey could lead the way out of the maze because her earring was actually an Epic magigear that provided some kind of perceptivity of the surroundings to the brain. Magigears with special functions like Scankeen’s token and Alicey’s earring were usually of Epic level and hence very rare, compared to those that cast spells such as Saja’s and Casavin’s. From this, the crew could hazard a guess that Alicey must be from a big wizard family.
‘You really want to wear a girl’s earring?’ Catheray teased Kardiac. ‘Plus you heard her; it’s an Epic magigear so only she can use it!’
‘But how come an earring provides vision?’ Seeing Alicey chuckle, Kardiac had to scratch his head, but accidentally touched the burnt part. “Ouch!”
‘Because it’s called magic.’ Halgon opened his eyes. ‘You guys finally finished with the crowd?’
‘You mean you were faking the coma?’ Everyone was in overjoy. ‘It worried us!’
‘I’m sorry guys.’ Halgon sat up in his bed. ‘Thank you guys for saving me, you know what I mean.’
‘Sure, you’re welcome.’ Soarame winked. ‘Thank you for saving us too, you know what I mean.’
‘What do you mean?’ The girls were lost. ‘We don’t know!’
‘Ha-ha-ha, let’s just go back to the dorm first.’ Rodka laughed and grabbed the shoulders of Soarame and Halgon. Just then, Halgon whispered in an extremely low voice to the two of them. ‘I know you’ve all been wondering about me, but I can only say that my mom is a human wizard, but my dad is not. Keep it to yourselves, okay?’
What! So his dad is a… dragon? Soarame and Rodka were both astonished; they looked at each other in silence. But this is absurd!
Although they tried hard to act normal, they were thrilled — it sounded like Halgon’s father was not restrained by the Grant Migration Pact for some unknown reason, just like Halgon himself; if this was true, it would be the most explosive news in the world and could easily terrify every single human being, especially the Sunrise Alliance!
If one thought deeper about it, Halgon’s parents had actually committed a grave crime; humans and dragons were mortal enemies! Thinking about this, they finally understood why Halgon always tried to stay low key and had little trust in the public; if he hadn’t had to help Snower and repay Soarame’s rescue in the beetalbull nest, Halgon would probably never have gambled like this.
And the duckbill egg — no wonder Halgon could tell the swindle right away; the seal that his father had put on was probably some kind of dragon seal! So Halgon could tell the fake one at a glance, whereas no one else could, ever! And that’s probably why Halgon was never worried that Max would break the dragon seal!
Oh yes, Halgon actually spells as half-dragon! Thinking through everything in a flash, Soarame nodded in silence. Just like Filton named me after the ‘soaring flame’; I should have thought of that!
Wait, aren’t dragons supposed to be dangerous? Soarame and Rodka looked at each other again. Crap, Halgon is our brother, regardless! After a moment, the two boys reached the same conclusion. After the deadly fight shoulder-to-shoulder against Max, they had witnessed Halgon’s sacrifice for them; there was no reason to doubt their sworn friend.
‘Hey, you boys, we are not done yet.’ Vivarin crossed her arms before her chest. ‘Omifo, you want to say something? What do we not know?’
‘Errr… I don’t know either.’ Omifo shrugged his shoulders. ‘They fell in love with each other?’
‘Poochee!’ The three suddenly choked while the others were laughing.
‘Guys, I’m sorry that bad things happened, but glad to see that you are alright.’ on the way back to the dorm, Chelonad’s voice sounded out all of a sudden. ‘For some reason I can’t leave this campus, so I didn’t know what had happened until a whole crowd of students asked for directions to the hospital today.’
‘Oh hey, Chelonad, thanks for scaring us.’ the crew teased. ‘Chelonad, we are always curious — where are you? You are not doing mind-talk right now, are you?’
‘No, I’m much more special than that.’ Chelonad’s voice sounded proud. ‘And I’m always beside you, everywhere on campus.’
‘But can we see you face-to-face?’ Alicey asked.
‘No. You better hope that day never comes. Later guys, good luck!’ Chelonad’s voice was gone just as quickly as it had arrived.
The crew scratched their heads, trying to understand Chelonad’s words. Chelonad refused to respond after that, so they had to keep guessing, although the answer could never be confirmed.
Back in the dorm, Halgon went directly upstairs to his bedroom. ‘Guys, I’m actually not fully recovered yet. I just wanted to come back here first, but I will still sleep for a while.’
‘Okay.’ Rodka remembered reading that dragons heal themselves by hibernation, so he could roughly understand what Halgon was going to do. Meanwhile, it seemed that Halgon was facing a really big headache on how to explain things thereafter to so many friends; he certainly need some time to sort it out alone.
‘Take care, have a good rest.’ Soarame had heard the same hibernation story from his master, so he was not surprised. However, the others were all worried about Halgon, so Halgon had to promise them that he would tell them everything after he felt better, and the crew promised not to interrupt his rest.
‘So, what now?’ Kardiac asked. ‘We are all set? No more fun?’
‘You mean fun that knocks you out, or burns you dry?’ Catheray said. ‘I can do it if you need help on that.’
‘No, no, not for now.’ Kardiac waved her away hurriedly. ‘But maybe we can upgrade this house a bit more? I still have two turns saved up, plus with you guys we can do a major upgrade! Shall we try making it triangle shaped?’
‘Yeah sure, so that you can live with Rodka, because there are only three corners left.’ Soarame teased. ‘How did you get such a genius idea?’
‘No, I mean Halgon can live in the middle and we surround him to protect… Wait, what’s that?’ Kardiac stopped laughing and pointed at the dinner table. ‘There’s a crystal ball there. Since when?’
‘No kidding, we never had such a thing.’ Omifo checked the crystal ball and frowned. ‘It
better not be Max! He had so many just like this in his room!’
‘Damn it, let’s move!’ Soarame dragged his friends and tried to run. Suddenly, the crystal ball began to light up, and a figure was cast into the air.
‘Watch out!’ Rodka dashed forward and shielded the others. Soarame grabbed Jemario and covered her with his body; Omifo and Kardiac did the same thing to the girls too.
‘Soarame, I already know what happened.’ a voice came out from the figure. Hearing the voice, Soarame couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Master!’
‘That’s your master?’ The crew was surprised, but relieved. ‘Mr. Swineflu?’
‘Yes!’ Soarame quickly introduced them. ‘Master, these are my friends, Kardiac, Omifo, Rodka — ’
‘But I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there in person to help.’ Scankeen continued without responding to Soarame’s words. ‘However, I know that you and your friends did an amazing job, and now you should be all safe.’
‘This is a recorded live scene.’ Rodka was the first to get the picture. ‘It’s not a real time communication.’
‘My boy, I know you were probably wondering who saved you, and I can only wish that it was me — remember Volsta’s story? You were almost there.’ Scankeen looked thoughtful when he was talking, and only Soarame could understand the meaning behind the words. ‘It’s a great shame that I couldn’t be there, but fortunately, someone offered his help to you and delivered this message for me. However, for that I had to promise him I don’t say who he is.’
‘One thing I can say, though, is that you may try asking him about your parents, if he ever decides to meet you one day.’ Scankeen’s words kindled something in Soarame all of a sudden. ‘Besides that, you should stick to the plan and improve all your three lineages to Expert level. Then you can report to the Sunrise Alliance; there you can get to know a lot more about everything. I have faith in you! Good bye, my boy!’
‘Master!’ Seeing Scankeen’s image disappear, Soarame ran over to fetch the crystal ball. However, the crystal ball also disappeared into thin air.
The crew watched Soarame in silence. They were all wondering what the message really meant, as there was quite a lot of information that they didn’t have context of. However, they knew it was not the best time to pursue it.
‘Soarame, why does your master look familiar?’ Rodka asked after a while. He thought this might be a proper question to ask.
‘His honour ought to be someone in the Sunrise Alliance.’ Dileys reminded Rodka. ‘so you may have seen his picture somewhere before.’
‘Dear lord, no way!’ Rodka seemed to catch something. ‘Is it really him?’
****
The next morning, the crew rushed to the library. Along the way, many students looked towards them and whispered with excitement —
‘Look, that’s Soarame!’
‘And Rodka! They were on the front page!’
‘Cylone Times, man! That’s crazy!’
‘See? I told you we are heroes now.’ Kardiac waved at the students and whispered to Soarame.
‘We? Are you included?’ Catheray enjoyed teasing Kardiac as always. ‘I only heard two names?’
The crew spent time among the library books looking for Scankeen’s picture but couldn’t find it, until Rodka used his privilege of Dean’s assistant and got access to a restricted collection. With a big blast of ‘wows’, Soarame, for the first time, learnt his master’s true identity —
‘Master Scankeen Hollen, Legendary Master, Board Member of Sunrise Alliance. Note: Master Scankeen Hollen is the last apprentice of Master Stanfaul Libral.’
‘Are you kidding me? Apprentice of the Great Libral?!’ Soarame felt like he was living in a dream. ‘He never told me this, I swear!’
‘And His Honour is titled Legendary!’ Rodka’s eyeballs almost popped out. ‘That means he’s one of the most powerful Masters in the entire world, among all human Masters and magimal Barons!’
‘Soarame, how could you ever get his name wrong? Swineflu? It doesn’t even sound right!’ the girls kept blaming Soarame for this. ‘Do you even know what this means — the last student of the Starter of History?!’
‘It’s really not my fault…’ Soarame was trying to clarify, but was lost for words. Under the glare of all his friends, Soarame was desperate to explain that he didn’t mess up his master’s name, but no one seemed to believe him — Soarame had a reputation for having difficulty with names ever since he met the crowd of Water girls, so it was well known.
‘Okay Soarame, Omifo, Kardiac and Alicey, it’s time to go. The Principal is waiting for us.’ Rodka cleared his mind from the total shock. ‘We’ll kidnap Soarame and question him later.’
The friends who were there in MagiMax had all received a message from Gazbell this morning, summoning them to his office for a private meeting. The meeting was to privately reward Soarame and his friends for being brave in countering evil and revealing MagiMax’s true face. The most important reason, however, was that they had coincidentally found a clue to the Mercy of the Demiurge. This was kept strictly confidential, so Soarame and his friends didn’t really know the truth; Soarame actually wanted to ask his master about it, but the crystal ball wasn’t a real-time communication.
What they didn’t know either was that, yesterday, after Gazbell returned to campus from MagiMax, he instantly summoned all of the Deans of the institute and held an emergency meeting announcing the matter of Max’s escape. Besides telling the story of Soarame and his friends countering Max, Gazbell shared the clue about the Mercy of the Demiurge that he had obtained from Soarame.
‘What! It was Max? That clown?’ all the Deans were totally shocked. ‘How was he capable of escaping from the Druids?’
‘Mr. Principal, are you sure it’s the Mercy of the Demiurge?’ Dean Romboton couldn’t help asking.
‘Take a look yourselves.’ Gazbell showed the two mind-painting works from Soarame — one was from yesterday and the other one was the dream-painting work. The delicate painting works amazed everyone; Gazbell pointed at the canvas. ‘See the letters on the space-ring? It’s indeed Naclad’s space-ring, but god knows why Max was wearing it.’
‘Maybe he was hiding it at Max’s place?’ Dean O’heven came up with a thought. ‘Remember, years ago? Scankeen did say that he couldn’t find Naclad’s space-ring after the bloody battle, so he had to let him walk away due to lack of evidence.’
‘No way, it’s Mercy of the Demiurge, the legendary defensive Godmade!’ an old Dean said, trembling. ‘Naclad stole it at the risk of his own life, and then left it to Max for all these years? If he had started the war between Druids, Elves and mankind, he’d at least make it worthwhile for himself!’
‘Agreed. Druids and Elves wouldn’t believe this either.’ another Dean added.
A Godmade referred to a superior magigear that was made by someone of the next level above Master and Legendary. Because no one knew what exactly that level was, wizards called it Halfgod. Even Scankeen, called Legendary, was not a Halfgod yet. But there used to be a number of Halfgods existing in history, according to some ancient books. However, those were top secrets even for the Sunrise Alliance, so very few people knew about it. What they did know was that, due to the existence of those Halfgods, there were some Godmades left over in this world. The Mercy of the Demiurge was one of them — actually a top-tier one, even among the Godmades.
‘We’ll find out the truth after we get back the Godmade. The good thing is that Aertiuno is here, so he can help explain it to the Elves and Druids.’ Gazbell looked at the green-cloaked blonde man with long ears on the upper ends. ‘The priority now is to release a “wanted” notice in all four continents of mankind. We need to recapture this important property for the Sunrise Alliance at all costs!’
‘Notify the Sunrise Alliance immediately; send out Max’s images, live scenes and voices to every corner of the human world!’ There was flame in Gazbell’s eyes and in everybody else’s. ‘I want this fraud
to be known by every single one on the four continents! I want his true face to be revealed to the entire world, and I want to make sure he has no place to hide, no matter where he flees!’
‘Ping-ping’. The knock on the door woke Gazbell up from his thoughts — Soarame and his friends had arrived.
‘Soarame, come on in!’ Gazbell gave a big smile to the kids. ‘Thanks to all of you for everything that you’ve done, at the risk of your own lives.’
‘It’s a pleasure, sir.’ Soarame answered. ‘To be honest, we didn’t know things would turn out to be that bad and didn’t plan to risk our lives.’
‘Well, fate is always unpredictable.’ Appreciating Soarame’s honesty, Gazbell laughed. ‘I’m summoning you all because I want to reward you for what you’ve done, including Halgon and Sachastain after they fully recover.’
‘First of all, I’d like to say I’m very proud of you all.’ Gazbell said this in a serious tone; this made the crew feel good. ‘Especially Soarame, you surprised all of us! How do you feel to keep your Wind secret for so long?’
‘Err…’ Soarame was a bit shy on hearing this. ‘It feels hard.’
‘Ha-ha, the hard feeling paid off with your survival, though.’ Gazbell was amused. ‘From now on, you are registered to be a Wind student too; although we need to give you a test to see if you are a Grade 5 or a Grade 6 already.’
‘What!’ Omifo’s eyes widened. ‘Soarame can be a Grade 6?! Like Rodka?’
‘No, I’m still far from Rodka; he’s Grade 6 in three lineages!’ Soarame made a dismissive gesture. ‘I still have a long way to go for my Water and Lightning.’
‘Oh dear, we all forgot you are a Lightning wizard too!’ Kardiac clapped his forehead. ‘You are a monster, Soar! What are you made of?’
‘Kardiac, I heard that you tried to protect your friend Halgon with your own life, and I’m very proud of you.’ Gazbell interrupted Kardiac because he didn’t want this topic to go on. ‘And for that, he has asked me to deliver a gift to you, besides the rewards from the school.’
