The Academy

by Colin Daumen

  The group jogged towards the lake they had previously walked past. It wasn't too large of a body of water, and could accommodate about 20 different animals for drinking at a time. The water glistened in a green light, and shadows of fish could be seen darting across. They walked slowly and carefully as they got closer to the lake, making sure they made as little noise as possible.

  *ROAR* *AWOO* *AWOO*

  "What the hell," Favian whispered as he looked at the two others. He could hear some sort of commotion close to where he was right now. Favian was pretty certain that there must be some beasts fighting in the vicinity, as he heard two distinctly different animal sounds.

  Licht and Dunkel stared at Favian, blank-eyed. "What's wrong?" Licht asked.

  "Didn't you just hear that? It sounds like some beasts are fighting near us!" Favian replied, shocked that she hadn't heard a single thing.

  "Uhm, I think that's just you bro. I don't hear a single thing," Dunkel said. "Are you alright? I mean I know this is your first time in a beast range, but there's no need to be so scared."

  "What? No! Seriously, I can hear some beasts fighting, they're so close to us. Just follow me!" Favian was slightly embarrassed, but he trusted his instincts. 'Why can I hear the commotion but they can't?' he thought to himself. ‘Has my second core finally given me a new ability?’

  Quickly Favian weaved through the woods, taking what he felt was the most effective route towards his destination. He could hear the beast roars even louder now, but they were nowhere to be seen. They had already travelled for a whole kilometer, and there was nothing in sight.

  "Hey man, are you sure about there being be-" Dunkel couldn't finish his sentence because now he could also hear the roars of different beasts. The wooded area ended about 100 meters away from where the group stood, replaced by the scorching desert. "Shh, follow me," he said, as he motioned the two to walk quietly with him towards the edge of the woods.

  Once they reached the edge, Favian could make out what was fighting. There were four wolf-like animals, with reddish-brown skin and huge fangs, fighting against a lone elephant beast. The elephant had long tusks and brown fur, making it resemble an ancient mammoth, and despite it towering over the wolves, it couldn't seem to get the upper hand. Whenever it would stomp at a wolf or try to impale them with its sharp tusks, they would be able to move out of the way in just the last second. The wolves weren't small by any means, each reaching 2 meters whilst on all fours. The elephant was simply gargantuan, towering over them at about 5 meters.

  "What should we do?" Licht asked, ready to charge in at any moment.

  Favian wasn't experienced in battling monsters yet. He had learned much about the theoretical side during lessons but didn't have any relevant practical experience, besides from killing a few rabbits. He therefore looked at Dunkel for answers, as he also took the same lessons on monster hunting, but had prior knowledge in battling creatures.

  "I've got an idea, it shouldn't be too risky either. We'll wait for them to damage the elephant to the point it can't run away, and then we attack the wolves. Two birds with one stone," Dunkel said.

  Favian immediately agreed with the idea, not wanting to prematurely enter the battle which would mean they'd have to fight both the wolves and the elephant at once. The group waited for 30 minutes under the cover of the edge of the woods, before finally, they saw their signal to go. The elephant's legs were slowly starting to buckle, and it was only a matter of seconds before it would fall in exhaustion.

  Licht charged into the fray, somehow making the 100-meter distance between the woods and the beast fight within 6 seconds. Her heavy armor seemed to be of no detriment to her sprinting speed. Her sword and shield in hand, Licht slashed towards the closest wolf, catching it off guard and slicing away one of its legs. The wolf howled in pain, causing for the others to quickly bring their attention to the intruder.

  Chapter 26 - First Hunt

  "AWOOOO," the wolf screamed, as it hung its head into the air.

  Just as another wolf was about to flank Licht, Dunkel reached out from his raven feathered bow, which he had conjured prior to Licht's charge, and flung a large arrow made out of dark energy at the wolf.

  The arrow crashed into the wolf, severing its head from its body, as it was jumping at Licht. The wolf's carcass fell onto the ground behind her, its eyes still open in shock. The two other wolves noticed their slain companion, and decided to retreat for the moment, leaving behind their legless friend to fend for himself. Beasts that lived in these ranges, which were filled to the brim with arcana, had extremely good instincts. The quick thinking of the beasts would usually have secured their safe retreat, however, today wasn't their lucky day.

  Licht charged forward, cutting off their escape route, after which she cast a barrier around herself and her enemies. The barrier was 10 meters in diameter and glowed green. The wolves attempted to jump out of it, yet their bodies were flung back as they impacted against the barrier.

  The wolves finally realized that they couldn't leave without defeating Licht. Snarling, they both charged head-on at her. As this was going on, Dunkel decided to disperse his magical bow. "I think she's got this on her own, only two of them can't hurt her," he said nonchalantly.

  The fight ended soon, with Licht overpowering the wolves quickly, having used magic to sap away their agility. Even without this, Licht was just as agile and fast as them, so there was never a situation where she would have lost against 2 healthy wolves and a disabled one.

  Favian proceeded to remove the magical cores from the beasts, after Licht killed the collapsed elephant. The magical cores of these beasts were useful for meditation, and could speed up the intake of arcana by many times the level of the atmospheric meditation. Unfortunately, cores from beasts weren't the only ones that could be utilized for meditation. There were various underground organizations that supplied human, elf, dwarven, and many other races' cores to the highest bidders. It seemed that those cores were the most effective, outside of those from legendary beasts.

  "Well, I did so much work here," Favian joked, feeling slightly left out as he wasn't able to contribute to the fight. He tried to make up for that by recovering the beast cores in their best conditions, however, he managed to destroy two of the wolf cores by accident. The rest he was able to keep spotless.

  "Don't worry about it buddy. You're the whole reason we found these easy targets. Keep the elephant core, Licht and I will keep one of the wolf cores each," Dunkel said, patting Favian on the shoulders.

  "Yea don't worry too much, you'll get to show just how powerful you are sooner or later. In the meantime, wanna help me skin this elephant? The luster coming off its fur tells me that it'll act as the perfect defense for our tents against the cold of the night," Licht said.

  Just as Favian was walking towards Licht to help her, he suddenly heard a loud noise. What followed felt like an earthquake, the ground trembled under the force of an even larger, gigantic elephant. The elephant made a deafening trumpet with its trunk, as it charged towards the group. It was enraged, seeing Licht cutting into its child.

  "Fuck, RUN!" Favian screamed as he sprinted off towards the woods, only 90 meters away. Favian sprinted with all his might, however, his speed wasn't as fast as Licht and Dunkel's, who had already made it to the boundary between the desert and forest, whilst Favian was still 50 meters away.

  The adult elephant was getting closer and closer to Favian, at a frightening pace. He realized that he wouldn't be able to outrun the animal, so he stopped in his tracks, and started chanting.

  'I know that there's some god of luck somewhere out there, and if you can hear me, please, please, please let me cast this spell before I'm trampled to death,' Favian thought to himself. He'd made the choice to stand and cast in a split second, however, his processing of information was already at a level that it only took him that long to recognize the disparity between his speed and the elephant’s, knowing that he wouldn't make it to the forest in time.

/>   Favian had yet to successfully cast any of his spells, ever since he'd formed his second core. There seemed to be some sort of issue with the way he was forming the energy, and it would always fizzle right at the last moment. To him, it felt like the energy wasn't integrating properly with his body, whenever he tried to summon the arcane particles from it. This time Favian tried something new, out of desperation.

  Instead of trying to project his arcana out of his body via only his first core, this time he let the warm particles flow from his first core, into his second, before letting the energy out of his body. Favian felt ablaze from deep within, after which something burst inside him with a PUH, resonating throughout his body and projecting his magic outwards.

  "Time Stop!" Favian shouted as he thrust out his spell. This time, the spell didn't fail. Favian's surroundings turned blackish-grey, with purple wisps floating around wherever he looked. As the spell was cast, something completely out of his expectations occurred. His second core became agitated, before it flew out of his body, into the surroundings.

  'Finally, I did it,' he thought to himself, rejoicing that he could cast spells again. Time was frozen around him, and he could see that Dunkel and Licht were looking at him with fear on their faces. The elephant left a trail of dust behind it as it stood motionless, with two feet in the air, about to stomp the life out of Favian.

  Favian ran towards the woods, which only took a couple of seconds. He heaved and puffed as he finally made it out of danger, and tried to deactivate his spell. He kept trying, again and again, however, he couldn't make time flow normally.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something peculiar. He saw a shadowy figure standing by a large oak tree. The closer he walked to it, the more he felt connected to the shadow. Something was calling from within him, asking him to connect with the mysterious figure, which just stood there, unmoving. Giving it a closer look, the figure seemed about his own height and build, and its hair mirrored his own, just instead of a dark purple color, the hair was completely black. Everything about it was similar to Favian, except for it being made out of what seemed like shadows.

  Favian released some energy from himself, trying to connect it with the shadow. It took him a couple of tries to successfully grasp onto the shadow, which was weaving away from wherever his magic was concentrated. The moment he came into contact with the shadow's arcane core, he felt his head split. His mind was torn in half, but then regenerated itself quickly.

  "AHHH, what the hell," Favian screamed.

  "AHHH, what the hell," the shadow screamed.

  ... (Insert surprised Pikachu face) (Insert Spider-Man meme)

  'Is that... me?' Favian asked himself, baffled by the outburst the shadow had made at the same time himself. He quickly spoke more words and did other actions, and as he expected, the shadow mimicked everything he did.

  'Interesting, what happens when I try this?' he thought, as he attempted to replicate what he'd done in the peculiar dream he'd had yesterday.

  He found that his second core was within the shadow, so he poured some mana into it. Nothing happened. He continued pouring more mana in, but still, nothing happened. It was only when he had poured exactly half of his total mana in that his theory was proven correct.

  "Woah this is insane," Favian felt his mind sync with the shadow. It felt weird being in control of a foreign entity, however, it didn't take too long for him to get used to it. At first, it felt like walking in thick mud after it had rained, whilst carrying an aggressive lion on your back. Now, it felt more like walking through mud whilst riding a pet lion, he still wasn't perfect at it, but it was substantially easier.

  His thoughts were present in the shadow, and he could control it. It was more of an extension of himself, rather than a copy. He didn't need to focus his attention on embodying the shadow, because it was a part of him.

  The purple wisps of energy left Favian's vision, and the vibrant color of the world returned as his Time Lock finally ran out of power. Quickly, Favian ran to his friends and pushed them further into the woods with him. Once they had reached their camp, the group finally was able to catch a breather.

  "Woah, that was close. Wait, what the hell, Favian how did you do that?" Dunkel shouted, still not able to believe his eyes. First, he remembered seeing Favian running away from the elephant, about to get crunched underneath it, and the next second Favian was running at them from a completely different direction.

  "You idiot. Shouldn't we be asking about WHAT THE HELL THAT THING IS?" Licht pointed at the shadowy figure that was chilling behind Favian.

  Chapter 27 - The Shadow

  Only now did Dunkel realize that there was something stood behind Favian. He'd been so busy running for his life that he didn't pay too much attention to his friend. Now that he looked at what was behind Favian, he saw what seemed to by an apparition cloaked in shadows. Its form wasn't solid or corporeal, it looked more like a spirit or ghost that he'd heard about in the stories his grandma used to tell him. Curiosity got the better of him, and, seeing as it didn't look hostile, he slowly walked up to it.

  "Wait, what are you doing?" Licht asked, however, the question fell on deaf ears.

  Dunkel pushed his hand into the shadow. As his hand went into its body, he could only feel a cold sensation and nothing else. He then wiggled his fingers around, trying to see if there was anything inside it.

  "Hey, that tickles!" Favian shouted. The moment Dunkel put his hand into the shadow, the tickling feeling came to him. It felt like somebody was tickling the soles of his feet, however, now the feeling was all over his body. Favian was now hugging himself trying to stop the laughter that was rising out. "Seriously st-stop it."

  Dunkel finally gave up on analyzing the shadow when he found that he couldn't understand it. "So... Favian. Wanna explain something to us?" he asked.

  Favian scratched his head as he tried to figure out how to explain this situation. He made his shadow mimic every action he did, whilst letting it take the lead with speaking.

  "Well, uhm, yea. This is me, well a part of me I guess. Or half of me? I don't really know how to describe it," Favian's shadow said, its voice the exact same as Favian's, except it sounded a bit deeper and muffled. The usual body movements the two had come to recognize Favian by, they now saw reflected on the weird specter.

  "It's part of the technique that I practice. Some forbidden stuff I'm pretty sure since nobody on the continent really knows about it. Anyways, sorry to have kept this from you, but I didn't really know this was going to happen either. It just kind of took me by surprise," Favian, this time, said.

  Licht and Dunkel were shocked at first, however, they were able to come to terms with the concept soon enough. They lived in a world filled with magical beasts, ghosts, demons, and all sorts of other mystical entities, so they were able to accept this explanation quickly.

  "I guess we have a group of four then," Dunkel said. This comment made Licht fall into a fit of laughing, and not long after the trio could be seen laughing their heads off at their camp.

  "Okay everyone, let's not attract too much attention to ourselves here. We don't want any monsters hunting us," Favian said.

  The group proceeded to each take the beast cores that they'd gotten as spoils of war, and enter their separate tents before meditating with them. Usually, they would have had one person stay as the lookout, as they'd been taught at the academy, but Favian was adamant that his shadow was up for the task. Soon, nighttime fell, and the previously beautiful woods became much darker and ominous.

  Favian's arcana and mana pool were now halved, at least for as long as he sustained his shadow. He'd tweaked around with it for a bit whilst he was in his tent, but he realized he could turn the spell on and off at will. Whenever he turned it off, half of his total mana pool was rejuvenated. He could even swap positions with his clone, which he did, to his dismay, unknowingly. The shock he received from jumping through space was enough to make him more careful in the probing of his new
skillset.

  Even greater news was that he could cast the only two spells he currently knew, Time Stop and Net of Shadows from his clone. The different tactics that this allowed him to come up with were endless. All he had to do now, was put them to the test.

  'It's a shame that my shadow's range isn't unlimited. Seems like he can only move about 1 kilometer away from my body before he starts to disperse. But that's still a freaking huge distance,' he thought. This meant that he could teleport a whole kilometer away if he was in danger, as long as he planned this prior to encountering the danger.

  'The only downside right now, is that I have absolutely no offensive ability. I'm pretty much stuck with being utility personnel in this party.'

  After spending half the night practicing with his newfound ability, Favian finally decided to absorb the energy from the beast core he'd plundered from the elephant. The core was rather large, about the size of a baby's head, and it glowed in a brown light. Different beast cores all had varying effects on a user when absorbed, depending on what element the beast was most proficient in. A brown core signified that the beast wasn't particularly good with magic, however it was very good at absorbing the arcana in the atmosphere to strengthen its body. This meant that as Favian absorbed the beast core, he could feel his vital stats increasing steadily.

  Absorbing the energy gave him a nauseous feeling, as it felt like he was eating food whilst already full. He could feel his muscles expand as he absorbed the energy, thus, he relented against the uncomfortable feeling and continued. After absorbing about a quarter of the core, he was unable to find any space in his body to let the energy flow into. Suddenly, an idea sprung into his head, and he summoned his shadow from its patrol.

  He handed the beast core to the shadow, which was able to grasp onto it firmly. It would only solidify when Favian wanted it to, which was why Dunkel had been able to put his hand into it as if it was invisible. In the same manner as he had done previously, the shadow absorbed the energy into its body. However, it had no physical body, so the only place where the energy could flow towards was its arcane core. The energy filled up the core quickly, sucking dry the beast core it held, and causing it to crumble into dust.