The Beginning After The End (New Heights Book 2)

by TurtleMe

  “S-sir? You will be personally examining this participant? I apologize if this sounds presumptuous but is there really a need for an AA class to lower himself to test an examinee?

  The scarred examiner is visibly baffled by the fact that Kaspian will be the one to test me.

  An AA class! The difference in levels grows bigger as the ranks get higher. Being an AA class Adventurer signifies that you have the strength of ten A class Adventurers, and that’s just a rough estimate.

  He should be one of the pinnacles of strength amongst humans. Even Gramps would be considered only AA class after going into his second beast form.

  “His sponsor has deep ties with me so I feel obligated to test him personally.” He chuckles as his right hand reaches towards a thin rapier on his waist.

  “Let us begin.”

  Chapter 28: Changes In Dicathen

  I unsheathe the short sword and hold it in front of me with one hand. The various sounds around the coliseum are soon drowned out as I focus solely on the opponent in front of me.

  He’s making figure eights with his rapier while his left hand is in his pocket. Yet, he has no openings. He’s not even trying to hide his killing intent while he’s smiling innocently at me. My mind flashes back to my old world’s dueling arena. I didn’t think I’d find someone like him so soon, someone capable of making me excited. This should be different from sparring with Gramps.

  “Please prepare yourself. I wouldn’t want the person Miss Flamesworth is sponsoring to lose too quickly.”

  He blinks and instantly closes the gap as his rapier cuts a few pieces of hair above my left ear.

  “Nice dodge.” He winks as he recoils his rapier, preparing for his next move.

  *Clang*

  I block his second thrust with the end of my handle, using the momentum to spin my body.

  Kaspian leans back, dodging my swing but a small cut appears across the tip of his nose.

  He looks surprised for a bit but instantly regains focus. Not giving him a chance to fully recover, I follow up with a roundhouse kick to his leg.

  *BOOM*

  His sheath stops the force of my reinforced kick. In that split second, he was able to use his other hand to reposition his sheath to block my attack.

  The force of my kick to his sheath creates a small dust cloud around us and he uses that opportunity to gain distance.

  “I must apologize for underestimating you. I shall be a bit more serious now.”

  His innocent gaze gleams a bit with murderous intent as his rapier glows with a silvery hue.

  He lunges at the air in front of him and all of a sudden I’m hit in the arm with something hard.

  “You managed to partly dodge that as well. Seems like Miss Flamesworth has picked up someone worthwhile.”

  I look down to see a gash in my left arm.

  He was aiming for my heart! I only managed to dodge on pure instinct. He’s releasing too much of his killing intent. Is he doing it on purpose?

  I curse at my body. Every time I fight, I still can’t help but feel restricted.

  He lunges his rapier two more times, but I know what’s coming.

  *Fwoosh* *Fwoosh*

  He’s creating spears of wind with his thrusts. The difficulty in dodging it comes from the spears being close to invisible. I’ll have to rely on sound and timing to dodge, but I have to decrease the distance between us while doing so.

  He had the advantage of a longer reach and a much bigger mana supply than me. In this body, I’m not confident enough to even say that I have the advantage in terms of technique. My body just doesn’t listen to me as well as I want it to. The only advantage I could think of was my body being a lot tougher than his thanks to assimilating with Sylvia’s Dragon Will.

  I dodge one spear of wind while the other one lightly grazes my right arm as I close the distance between us.

  It’s evident that both of our sword techniques consist of speed and agility.

  I embed my shortsword in fire, releasing an arc of flames with my swing.

  With a simple swing of his rapier, a gust of wind blows the fire away, but that’s what I wanted him to do.

  Flicker Step.

  A technique focusing fire affinity mana into the sole of your foot in rapid succession, gaining instantaneous acceleration.

  I arrive in front of him while his rapier is still swung up next to his shoulder.

  His brows rise in surprise as I use my free hand to push his hand up so he can’t swing down his rapier.

  He will just blow flames away so I coat my sword to an extremely high temperature.

  Superheat.

  “Vortex.”

  Suddenly the momentum from my flicker step is thrown off and a force pushes me into the ground.

  I jump back to gain distance and see that there’s an intense swirl of airstream coming out of him that’s strong enough to create cracks on the ground around him.

  He widens his stance, recoiling his rapier back with his left hand stretched out, resting on the blade.

  “Heaven’s Rain”

  His arm and rapier turns into a faint blur as he produces a succession of countless thrusts.

  This was an exam right? Is he actually trying to kill me?

  Fuck it.

  “Thunderclap Impulse.”

  One of the few techniques I managed to develop while training with Grandpa. A technique using lightning affinity mana to run currents of electricity throughout my nerves, quickening my reflexes a couple times over. If the average human has a reaction time of around 0.3 seconds, there are trained fighters that can get it down to 0.2 or even 0.15 seconds.

  With Thunderclap Impulse, I can quicken my reaction time to 0.05 for a short period of time.

  My pupils contract and the hairs on my skin stand up on end due to the electricity.

  I can hear the spears of wind shooting towards me as I prepare to dodge them.

  “Release!”

  His skill dissipates and my hair is just blown by a small draft.

  Releasing my skill as well, I look at him quizzically. Before I had the chance to ask him, Jasmine is already by my side, staring daggers at Kaspian with her two blades in her hands.

  “I may have gotten a little carried away.” He just shrugs nonchalantly.

  “It seems you wish to hide much of your ability. I can only imply that you wish to be placed at a lower rank. Note. B class.”

  Before walking off, he stops in front of the corridor. “I assume you have no problem with this?” He turns his head a little to look at me.

  I just nod in agreement and he disappears from sight walking down the hall.

  “That is the last examination for today! Please go to the front desk to receive your Adventurer’s card. Everyone is dismissed.” The Augmenter examiner shouts before he and the other examiner both rush after Kaspian.

  KASPIAN BLADEHEART’S POV:

  I arrive to my desk and before I even have the chance to take a seat, the two Adventurers in charge of today’s exams bombard me with questions simultaneously

  “Sigh… George, Emily, take a seat and don’t talk all at once.” I sit down and lean back.

  “Sir! What was with today’s examinees? Three B class Adventurers right off the bat in a day? This kind of situation is unheard of. Not to mention that two of them were kids! Dark yellow at the age of 11... Has that ever occurred amongst humans? ” Emily nods fervidly in agreement.

  “Do you remember what happened half a year ago here in Xyrus?” I throw them a question.

  “Around 6 months ago was the first tournament that was held for all three races right?” Emily answers.

  “Correct. The Adventurer guild workers will all know soon so there isn’t much of a point in hiding this. I was just notified of this a couple of weeks ago as well. The ban on elves and dwarves becoming Adventurers has been lifted and today’s batch included some of the representative examinees.”

  “S-sir, do you mean to say that all three of t
hem are either dwarves or elves then?” George’s jaw is slack as he’s saying this.

  I pull out a small file of papers from my desk.

  “Lucas Wykes is a half elf that has been residing in the Kingdom of Sapin. The information on his birth is classified but if I had to guess, he was probably a product of an elf slave. The Wykes family has always had a bad reputation for dabbling in nefarious ways to create better mages for their house. He’s an unusual case though, being able to be so adept in flame affinity, despite his elf lineage. He awakened at the age of 8, which is fast even amongst elf standards and was sent here for a sort of trial run. The Wykes no doubt expended a lot of money into buying beast cores and other supplements to quicken his growth.” I flip to the next page.

  “Elijah Knight. He’s quite the mystery. According to the file, his origin is unknown. He was, however, raised amongst dwarves since a young age. He was sent as one of the first representatives from the Kingdom of Darv to assimilate into the human kingdom.

  “How come he wasn’t tested Sir? The clerk only told me to just put him into B class.” Emily leaned forward from her seat.

  “Elijah awakened a couple of months of ago, so he’s only now barely reached the Dark Red stage. As for why he was allowed to be a B class Adventurer probably has to do with the person backing him up. I don’t have any say in his case so we can only let him be. I’m curious as to what his abilities are.” I shake my head.

  “As for that masked Augmenter from today, to be honest, I have no idea who he is. He wasn’t recorded as one of the representatives on the list. I was simply curious as to what kind of person Miss Flameheart would be willing to sponsor.

  “Flameheart…as in THAT Flameheart house right? The famous house that is known for birthing the strongest fire attribute mages?”

  I put away the file and look at them seriously, adjusting my glasses. “I told you all of this because you will find out soon anyway. However, I trust that you guys will refrain from telling others until the announcement is made across the country.”

  I dismiss them as soon as I receive confirmation that they’ll comply.

  I ponder over today’s events. That masked Augmenter. His techniques were not the standard skills that most fire attribute mages use. Even his style with the sword, it was something that made me shiver. But somehow, I get the feeling that he wasn’t at his optimal state. That somehow, he was being restrained. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it but his movements were awkward at times, as if he wasn’t used to his own body.

  I dismiss my thoughts and start going over the pile of documents.

  I can’t help but grin to myself. This continent is changing. There will be a lot interesting events happening from now on.

  ARTHUR LEYWIN’S POV:

  The same clerk that led us to the examination site hands me my bronze-colored Adventurer’s card at the front desk.

  From E class to B class, the card is a copper color, where starting from A class, it’ll change to silver, then gold for AA class, then white for S class.

  “Do you have a close relationship with Kaspian, Jasmine?” I ask after putting away my card, Sylvie asleep on my head.

  “He’s an acquaintance of my father.” She says simply under a cold expression.

  I don’t dig for any further answers. She obviously doesn’t have any sort of positive feelings about all of this.

  Changing the subject, I ask Jasmine, “So what should we do next?”

  She ponders for a bit. There were several options. We could do missions that were at or below our rank. These missions included a variety of tasks, from guarding, to acquiring specific items. We could also transport ourselves to the Beast Glades and explore while hunting down mana beasts.

  “Dungeon exploring.” She answers, a soft smile on her face.

  Chapter 29: Sword and Body

  Sylvie lets out a ‘kyu’ in excitement at the idea of exploring a dungeon but I stay silent, looking at the two swords strapped to the back of my waist.

  Today’s battle with Kaspian confirmed a lot of things for me. I’ve spent too much time adjusting to and learning this world’s magic system. Assimilating with Sylvia’s Beast Will, honing my Lightning and Ice Attribute techniques along with all of the other elements. I was so engrossed in the fact that this world made it capable to produce physical manifestations of elements that I neglected my foundations, the very thing I was best at, which was my body. In my past life, I used the simplest techniques to utilize the most of my small ki pool and with just my sword; I was able to rise to the top. This world offers so many more possibilities but if I am to truly excel and become the best in this world, I’m going to have to not only use my gifts in this life, but my experiences from my previous life.

  In the midst of my thoughts, I feel someone bump past my shoulder. Looking up, I see the blond boy named Lucas walk past me with his entourage of guards and servants.

  “You’re not bad for an Augmenter, but that’s it. Don’t get cocky because we happen to be in the same class. Even in the same ranks there are levels, and you would be at the bottom. Cheh! Know your place.”

  The blond boy just smirks while intentionally leaning his head back so he can look down on me. The fact that his height was a fair bit shorter than mine just made him look silly.

  What a cliché behavior for an annoying side character.

  Not even bothering to argue with him, I just face back to Jasmine, “Let’s go to the portal.”

  ________________________________________

  Crossing through the teleportation gate, my senses jolt from the scenery. The City of Xyrus has the most teleportation gates among the cities since that’s the only way you can enter into it, it being a floating city and all. The one we crossed led us directly to the front entrance of the area known as the Beast Glades.

  Hearing the chirps of birds and occasional cries and roars of beasts, the constant sound of water flowing filling the background created a natural symphony. The sight of tall trees and numerous hills filled with different plants reminded me of anything but a dangerous landscape crowded with monsters that can kill even the strongest of mages. Only lower rank beasts inhabited the outskirts of the Beast Glades, where the natural resources were the least plentiful. The deeper you go in, the more mysterious the landscape turns into, with caves and hidden entrances to unexplored regions of the continent.

  I take a deep breath, with Jasmine soon following up through the portal after Sylvie and me.

  Suddenly, Sylvie hops off of my head and scurries off, as if chasing something.

  Dumbfounded at this event, I just yell out, “Wait, Sylv! Where are you going?”

  Sylvie just sends me a vague response, saying she wants to train too.

  “…”

  My pet dragon has never left my side ever since she hatched but she suddenly leaves? I was uneasy at first, but I realized after a bit that I could feel where she was.

  “I think she will be fine. Mana beasts have a natural instinct to get stronger after a certain period of time. She must’ve felt very suffocated being in a sheltered environment all of her life.” Jasmine says, walking next to me.

  Putting her hand on my shoulder, she signals for us to start moving. “There is a place I wish to visit first before going to a dungeon. We have to hurry though; it gets a little more dangerous at night.”

  Willing mana into her body, Jasmine bolts off into the distance, with her wind attribute mana propelling her even faster.

  I follow suit, forming two gales of wind below my feet before I dash after her. I made sure to keep tabs on Sylvie but it wouldn’t be much of a problem since both she and I were mentally linked. Even as the distance grew between us, the connection remained strong and I was able to sense that Sylvie was catching small prey, her ecstatic mood affecting me as well.

  The journey lasted a couple of hours and it was growing dark. The only reason I was able to keep up with Jasmine, even when she was a dark yellow stage, was thanks to the use of m
ana rotation throughout the way. This skill has become almost second nature to me now, and I use it unconsciously whenever I exert mana.

  By late evening, we cleared through a dense forest and arrived at a small clearing. Surrounded by trees, there was a small field of grass with a stream of clear water flowing through it.

  “We’ll camp out here tonight and stay here for a few days.” She announces while setting down her bag and taking out a couple of things.