The Academy

by Colin Daumen

  "Eris calls," The female voice said. She now looked at Favian, and he could see her crystal blue eyes piercing through his soul. She slowly walked towards an altar, which was shaped to be a statue of a woman holding two moons in her hand. Chaotic energy undulated from within the statue, and the two moons were colored black and red respectively, one a blood moon and the other a black moon.

  "The goddess is furious that you stole a precious asset away from us. The gall of a mortal like you, to sin against the one and only true ruler of this world. You shall not be forgiven," her voice resounded throughout the cavern, and rage was evident on her face.

  "You have two choices." She stopped talking, contemplating for a moment. Her icy blue eyes were far from inviting as they rolled into her head.

  "She has spoken. You will divulge all the information from the text you have stolen from her rightful ownership, or face imprisonment for eternity." A crazed smile was visible from beneath the hood, yet her face had still not been revealed.

  Favian was starting to feel completely helpless. It seemed that he had somehow managed to make enemies with a goddess within the first couple of days spent in this new life. Bad luck could not describe the predicament he was in right now.

  [Ding! New quest available: 'Escape time lock'. Your mind is currently being held hostage in a time-lock. Would the user like to accept the quest? – 5000 experience reward.]

  The rays of hope which Favian had been looking for finally descended towards him in the form of a quest. He knew from his previous life that video games would usually only give out quests which the players were currently able to carry out, and that there were hard level caps to acquiring them. This meant that somehow, he should be able to leave here alive.

  Favian tried to rack his brain to find an answer as to how he'd escape this time locked zone. It seemed that his body was currently still falling from the cliff, however, his mind was currently being held captive in a zone where time did not move forwards. Therefore, his body was fine for now, all he had to worry about was getting his mind back to his body.

  'Usually, in games, there would be some sort of object or person which would need to be destroyed so that I could leave. Thinking about how great of a disparity in power I currently am in, I bet it is the former, and that I have to find some object to release me from here. But what is it?' Favian had his hopes reignited after receiving the quest and tried to put together the limited pieces of information he had. His information stemmed solely from the game system and how cliché video games usually are.

  'System are there any hints or tips you can give me right now to complete the quest?' he quickly asked. Only a few seconds had passed since his jailer had given him his ultimatum, yet he didn't want to keep her waiting too long, lest he ignite her wrath. He needed to find some answers quickly.

  [Ding! The system can give a hint however this will cost 50% of the total experience yield from quest completion. Would the host still wish to receive a hint?] it buzzed in his head. Before it even finished talking to Favian, the game system was interrupted by the loudest 'YES' that Favian had ever shouted in his mind.

  [Ding! A sacred object of a goddess is currently trapping the host in a time-lock. Find and destroy this object to complete the quest 'Escape time lock' – 2500 experience reward.]

  'Of course,' Favian thought to himself, 'it must be the altar that is keeping me trapped here.' Favian quickly realized what he needed to destroy, but he didn't yet know how to destroy it.

  His only spells were bend light, net of shadows and necrotic touch. Bend light was an auxiliary spell that didn't deal any direct damage, and net of shadows was a spell that only immobilized an object or entity. Necrotic touch was his best bet to destroy the altar, yet its range was only as far as his hand could touch. The altar was 5 meters away from his cell; thus, he had no means currently to destroy the object.

  Out of desperation, a plan slowly started to unravel in Favian's mind. He needed every part of it to work perfectly or else he would most likely be eternally damned to rotting in this cell. He would need to have a lot of patience for it to work, and as his only option, he decided to follow through with it wholeheartedly. 'I will definitely escape.' he thought to himself with conviction.

  "I will comply with the request of your holiness. Please do have mercy on me, I didn't mean to sin against the greatness that is Eris." Favian spoke these words through gritted teeth and knelt on the floor in a kowtow motion. He knew that he needed to stay alive for as long as possible and try to deceive this woman into thinking that he had already given up all hope of escaping.

  The woman looked less crazed now as she stared at Favian, trying to ascertain whether he was speaking the truth. Seeing that this young boy looked to have given up any hope of fleeing, she smiled and brought out an empty book and an ink pen. The book was roughly the same size as 'Darkness and Shadows', which was filled with thousands of pages of writing.

  "Write down everything you read in the book and don't even think about filling the pages with nonsense. There will be repercussions!" she exclaimed frantically. She knew that her only chance of getting this information was from this magic initiate who was seen stealing the book. She wouldn't be able to kidnap Aria or Egast at all, so he was the only hope in recovering a semblance of the book. And even if he knew nothing, she didn't care about killing a mere initiate level magician.

  After she passed him the items to write on, the woman took a step back towards the altar and knelt down. The woman then removed the hood from covering her face and began to pray fervently at the altar. Favian could finally see the image of his captor, however, what he saw completely dumbfounded him.

  'Hadn't I just met this person earlier today?' he thought, utterly puzzled at the sight.

  Long hair fell all the way to her waist, revealing obsidian curls from root to tip. A scar pierced across her face extending all the way towards her lips.

  'Isn't that Evelynn?' the shock in his mind was extreme, but after calming down he realized that the scar on this person's face was on the opposite side to Evelynn's. Hers had been on the left side of her face, whilst this woman's was to the right side of her face.

  After ascertaining that this wasn't Evelynn, Favian went on with writing down in the book he had been given. For now, he had no other choice except to wait until his plan finally came into fruition.

  Chapter 10 – An eternity later

  1 year had already passed by, with Favian stuck in his prison. Despite being locked within time, he found that he could still meditate and increase his magical capabilities. Favian spent a lot of time meditating and absorbing elemental particles in secret, and it took a whole year for him to see the sweet fruits of his labor.

  [DING! Upper initiate magician level has been reached. User advancing, stats increased.]

  He had finally reached the upper initiate level. His body and mind were feeling more in sync with each other, and he could feel the particles of energy around him more clearly than ever. Favian had hoped for his plan to come to fruition once he became an inner initiate level, however, he found that he wasn't able to learn any new spells from that level.

  'System, show my stats.'

  [User stats – Constitution: 1.4, Strength: 1.4, Intelligence: 4.0, Agility: 1.4, Arcana:5. Mana pool 500]

  It seemed that after every breakthrough of a stage within a level, for instance, from inner to upper initiate magician, Favian's Arcana stat would make the biggest breakthrough. It surged from 1.4 at his lower initiate stage, all the way to 5 once he reached his upper initiate stage.

  He had now received three new spells again, being a light, dark and shadow spell each. The light spell was called 'Cure Minor Wounds' and it would give him the ability to heal himself of non-critical damage; it would be completely useless if he was suffering from a fatal injury. The dark magic spell was 'Rending Claw'; this spell would let him project a claw of dark energy that would deal damage and could travel as far as 50 meters.

  The shadow spe
ll had been the most interesting spell he gained and was the reason why he could still see some light in this dark tunnel that was his captivity. 'Time stop' was the spell he received and would allow him to stop time for up to 3 seconds twice a day. Yet, what came as even more of a surprise, was that this spell had levelled up naturally due to his captivity in a time-lock, and thus it had already reached level 10. This was mind-blowing, each level up increased the duration of time stop by 1 second and the radius by 10 meters.

  'System bring up information on spell Time stop.'

  [Time Stop (level 10) – 150 mana. Pauses time in a 100-meter radius around host for 13 seconds by placing host into the shadow realm. Max level reached. The shadow realm acts as a separate plane to the material realm, thus the host cannot be affected by the material realm once he enters the shadow realm]

  Favian had spent a whole year writing up half-truths about the book 'Darkness and Shadows'. He didn't want to give away all of the secrets he now possessed; he still had to convince Neith that he was writing up the truth. It took about 12 days to finish writing 100 pages worth of knowledge, which included various detailed graphs. This was the only reason he was able to stall for time, as the book contained almost 6000 pages.

  Neith truly was what you would call bipolar. One moment she would be completely sane and have good conversations with Favian, and the next she would start cackling like a mad witch, and froth from her mouth like a rabid dog. Favian realized that he could use this to his advantage as it seemed that the sane Neith had warmed up to him. He had been able to prolong his imprisonment to a whole year by faking symptoms of burn-out, a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. This usually garnered sympathy from Neith whenever she wasn't a mad dog and let Favian level himself up very slowly.

  'All of my preparations are complete. I'll go through with my plan now.' Favian was sure of himself to be carry this out to perfection. He had already spent a whole year meticulously carrying out his plan, and now was the time to finally release himself from this prison.

  The first thing Favian did was to quietly shred the words he had spent a year writing up in the book. After he had done this, he immediately cast Net of Shadows on the now sleeping Neith, who quickly became immobilized in a dark black substance. Before giving her any time to wake up he cast Time Stop. Wisps of purple energy lit up through Favian's eyes as he cast this spell, and the surroundings all became the blackish grey with purple wisps floating around. He felt a tiny wave of exhaustion take over him as he had just used almost half of his whole mana pool in one go.

  '13 seconds left,' he thought to himself.

  Without waiting, Favian gathered energy into both of his hands, and let the dark energy particles seep through his body onto the surface of his palms, forming into claws. The claws continued to grow in size until they were the size of a head, and he unleashed them at the altar of the goddess. He continued casting more rending claws until he was completely out of mana and then waited for them to finally impact his target once the effect of Time Stop wore off.

  'CRACK' 'BANG'

  The altar was hit by four rending claws, and broke into smithereens. The noise woke up Neith who looked in shock at the altar, rage quickly appearing on her face. However, it was too late for her to change anything. The time-lock had been broken, and Favian collapsed onto the floor after having used too much magic in a short period of time. Yet, as he collapsed, he also vanished from the prison.

  ….

  Favian woke up on a bed, in an unknown room. The room was lit up by a window next to his bed. There was a cupboard, a desk and chair, and some books on his desk. There was even some food left on the desk as well.

  "Where am I?" he asked himself, still groggy after waking up.

  Favian walked to the desk and started to munch on the fruits and bread that were left there, as his stomach was howling at him to eat something. 'It's been a year since I had some food to eat.' he thought to himself.

  The books on his desk were labelled 'Meditation Techniques' and 'Introduction to Dark Magic'. These two books were pretty hefty, and each weighed about a kilogram. A letter and amulet were laid next to the books. with the letter reading, 'Use the communication device once you wake up'. That was all it said.

  Looking at the amulet next to the letter, Favian guessed that this was the communication device. Picking it up in his hand, it felt pretty warm and was almost weightless. 'System, scan object.'

  [DING! Communication device detected. User must first input some arcana into it before it can be used. Would user like to imprint themselves onto the device?]

  'Yes.' Favian suddenly felt that some of his essence had left his body and entered the device. He could now feel that the device was currently linked to one other person's device.

  'Bring up my stats,' he commanded his system.

  [Constitution: 1.4, Strength: 1.4, Intelligence: 4.0, Agility: 1.4, Arcana: 4.5 (5), Mana pool 450 (500). Host imprinted on communication device, which costed 0.5 arcana. Rest will restore these temporarily lost points.]

  'Ah, so that's how arcana points work. So I'll get them back after resting. I wonder what other uses it has except for imprinting onto a communications device.'

  [Ding! User successfully completed the quest 'Escape time lock' – 2500 experience received. Total experience: 3000.]

  Favian became elated at the noise, this meant that he was finally out of danger and could rest. The imprisonment had taken a huge toll on his mind, and he wanted nothing more than to continue resting. He then wondered how long he had been out of the time lock.

  'How much time passed since I left the prison?'

  [Ding! 336 hours 10 minutes and 17 seconds.] it loyally replied.

  '2 whole weeks? I must have missed so much by now.' His body felt renewed and not at all stiff like he would expect himself to have been after a 2-week long coma. 'It's probably best that I get on with things quickly here at the academy. I don't want to be left behind by my peers.'

  With that, he then activated the communication device. "Hello, can you hear me?" he spoke into it with a small voice. It seemed that his body hadn't fully recovered after his coma.

  "Oh Favian, you're finally awake" he could hear a female voice through the device which sounded as happy as possible. "Okay I'm going to send you the directions right now, why don't you come to meet me at my office. I know you have a lot of questions right now, and I promise to answer as much as I can."

  "How are you going to send the ma—" just as he was asking, he could feel an incoming wave of information entering his brain. He now knew exactly where to go.

  Chapter 11 – Rumors

  Favian quickly took the last bite out of the apple he'd been eating before rushing through the oak door of his room. The hallway that he was greeted with was littered with portraits which had some words written beneath them. One such picture was of a very old black man, wearing a suit and holding himself up with a cane. His eyes seemed to follow Favian wherever he moved, almost as if he was watching him intently. Written underneath this man’s portrait was, “Here rests Baron Samedi, loving and caring father of two. His achievements in magical research shall always be remembered, may he rest in peace.”

  After looking at another ten of these pictures, Favian followed the directions imprinted in his mind. The interior of the part of the academy he walked through seemed pretty drab and boring, stone walls covering the whole pathway. There were no windows, and the only lighting inside was from candles placed on the sides of the walls and some chandeliers on the ceilings.

  This building seemed to have a common theme with medieval architecture, however, the differences were that magic was woven into it. For example, the candles that were on the walls were actually levitating next to them when Favian took a closer look at them. Likewise, the chandeliers weren’t hung up against the ceiling but were rather levitating very close to it. The flames would also never go out unless a powerful magical influence was used t
o forcibly extinguish them.

  After Favian had walked for roughly ten minutes, he came across a courtyard with a fountain placed in the middle. Beautiful shrubs and plants of a spectacle of different colors were placed near the fountain, and a single path led towards it. The path was made up of golden sand. ‘Looks like something I would find at a beach in Santa Monica back home on Earth,’ Favian thought.

  Even though he had previously been in a rush to get to his destination, maybe because of the nostalgia caused by the sandy path or the beautiful and magical vibe the area surrounding the fountain was giving off, Favian decided to take a detour and walked along the path. Sounds of birds chirping soothed his ears as he went closer to the fountain, and a soothing fragrance entered his nose. Favian felt completely at home here, and memories from his past life slowly started to reappear in his mind. He had tried so hard to shove down the memories of his past life once he emerged into this new world, as he had realized that surviving would require all of his energy and willpower. The thoughts of his past life would just inhibit his performance was what he thought. Yet here, he was finally able to reminisce about the times he went to the pier with his father, or when he would play at his mother’s boutique.

  The memories flooded his mind along with tears which wouldn’t stop cascading down from his eyes. He had felt so alone in this new world and had nobody to rely on other than himself. This was something he knew very well, and would be the crux of his power in the future. He could never trust somebody else to do what he needed to get done, and he needed to work as hard as possible to be able to find a place in this life for himself. This didn't mean that Favian was opposed to trusting others, rather, he could be said to be way too trusting of those he held dearest.

  Favian had been sat at the edge of the fountain just now, looking down at his reflection as the tears slowly stopped flowing. Just as he was about to get up, Favian heard a voice calling to him. “Are you alright there?” a deep male voice asked.