The Beginning After The End (New Heights Book 2) (19 page)

I talked a bit more with my baby sister.
 
She was curious as to why Sylvie changed
appearance and why she was sleeping.
 
After explaining that she was tired from the Adventure, I realized how
drained I was.

“Mom, Aunt Tabitha, I think I’m going to head
up with Elijah as well.
 
I feel a
bit tired from the journey.”
 
Elijah
gets up after me.

“Of course.
 
Don’t forget to wash up before sleeping.”
 
My mother smiles at us.

“Goodnight Brother!
 
Goodnight Elijah!”
 
My sister chimes.

After excusing ourselves, Elijah and I head up
to my room.
 
“Elijah, you wash up
first, I’m going to organize my things.”

The maid brought the set of sleepwear I asked
for and I placed it in front of the shower for Elijah.

“Dude!
 
I’m naked!”
 
Suddenly
realizing that I had a full view of his ‘Elijah junior’ he covered his lower
body with his hands.

“Pfft!
 
Relax, I can’t even make it out because of the steam.”
 
I just grin before leaving the
bathroom.
 

Elijah comes out of the shower in the pajamas
with his hair still wet and glasses fogged up.

“Your turn.”
 
He says while drying his hair with a
towel.

The hot shower was bliss.
 
I carefully cleaned Sylvie with the damp
washcloth but it didn’t seem to bother her at all, still not stirring awake
from her slumber.

After both of us were clean, Elijah and I
talked on my bed, Sylvie in my lap.

“Do you think we’ll learn a lot at Xyrus
Academy?”
 
Elijah is trying hard to
keep from smiling.
 
It was obvious
how happy he was to be going to school.

“Who knows?
 
I imagine it’ll be a little boring
no?
 
Both of us are well above the
skill level of the first years there.”
 
I shrug.

Elijah continues, “But there will be people
from all those powerful houses.
 
I
imagine there will be a few who can be on my level right?
 
I’m really excited to learn how to start
controlling my powers.
 
I’m glad
that Xyrus has a lot of famous mages to learn from.”
 

“Yeah.
 
I think it’ll be useful learning more about Lightning and Ice attribute
skills.”
 
I look down at my
hands.
 
These hands have grown a lot
faster than I imagined.
 
Just a few
years ago, my hands were that of an infant, but it was now a lot bigger and
it’ll continue to grow, just like my powers.
 
I couldn’t help getting excited as well
at the future to come.

Elijah interrupts my train of thought. “So what
are you going to do about Lucas?”

I grow serious. “Lucas has no idea who I am and
until I’m confident that I can confront his whole house, I’ll have it stay that
way for the time being.
 
I need to
train harder than before.”
 

“Well you know you can count me in.
 
Lucas is probably going to have it out
for me when he sees me but he doesn’t think too much of me.
 
I can’t believe that jerk tried to
sacrifice us so that he could escape.”
 
Elijah’s fists turn white as he trembles from anger.

“I know.
 
He’s going to pay for everything he did, but no matter what, we can’t
act against him yet.”
 
I lay down on
the right side of the bed, placing Sylvie, who was curled up, by my pillow.

Elijah lies down on the other side of the
bed.
 
After a few moments of
silence, he turns his head my way.

“…”

“Hey Art.
 
Do you think I’ll find a girlfriend at Xyrus?”

“Pfft!
 
THAT’s what you were thinking of right now?”
 
I get into a fit of laughter while
Elijah blushes a deep red and starts kicking me from his side of the bed.
 
“I’m being totally serious man!
 
I hope there are a lot of pretty girls
at Xyrus.”
 
He sighs.

“For such a serious looking guy, you sure worry
about normal things.
 
Don’t
worry.
 
There will be plenty of rich
pretty spoiled brats at Xyrus to take your pick from.
 
Just wow them with your metal magic
haha!”
 

“Screw you!
 
I bet you won’t have trouble being
popular, with your prince-like features…
And
you know I
have trouble controlling my magic.”
  
He turns away so his back is facing me.

“Don’t worry Elijah.
 
We still have more than half a year
until school starts.
 
I’ll help you
get better control of your mana manipulation before then.”
 
I state.

After a brief pause, Elijah mutters a soft
thank you without turning.
 
What a
shy boy.

“Goodnight perv.
 
If you start coming unto me while you
dream about a cute girl, I swear I’ll shock you.”
 
I laugh, turning away as well.

“Pfft, don’t worry.
 
Goodnight.”
 
He retorts.

My mind, which was once filled with various
thoughts on the future, starts going blank as I nod off to sleep.

A dim ray of the rising sun managed to peek
through a gap in the curtains right into my eyes waking me up rather
pleasantly.
 
These days, Elijah or
Ellie usually wake me up so it’s been a while since I’ve gotten up before
either of them.
 

Sylvie, she ended up sleeping for 4 days
straight before waking up.
 
She
explained to me how changing her body like that takes quite a long time to
recover from, and she wasn’t able to do it often.

It was only a little past dawn so the manor
that was always bustling with maids and Ellie was still very peaceful except
for the few cooks in the kitchen getting ready for the day.
 
Not bothering to wash up, I made my way
to the backyard where I felt fluctuations in the mana.
 
As expected, my father was busy training,
absorbing the S class beast core I retrieved from the dungeon.
 

Not wanting to disturb his training, I found a
place to sit next to him and I began studying his aura.
 
My father, Reynolds Leywin, ex party
member of the Twin Horns, was stuck at a bottleneck, not able to overcome past
the dark orange stage.
 
I’ve spent a
lot of time overlooking the mana circulation in my father’s body, as well as
Elijah’s.
 

As expected, Elijah’s mana veins, the veins
responsible for absorbing mana from the surrounding atmosphere, were incredibly
wide.
 
My father, on the other hand,
as an Augmenter, had much more developed mana channels, the arteries that
allowed diverse distribution of mana throughout the body.

“Ah you’re up early today Son.
 
Why didn’t you say anything?”
 
My father got up, wiping the sweat off
of his face and neck with a towel he had on his lap.

“I didn’t want to disturb your training
Dad.
 
How are things going?”
 
I get up too and start stretching.

“I just finished absorbing the rest of the beast
core, but for some reason, the core didn’t crumble.”
 
He hands back the S class core to
me.
 
After the purified mana stored
inside the beast core is depleted, the beast core will crumble into fine dust.

Curious as well, I put it into my pocket to
study later.
 
After I got back, I’ve
been training my father and Elijah whenever I can while I train by myself at
night.
 
Until now, my father has
been busy absorbing the beast core but looking at his aura now, I could see a
noticeable change.

Noticing my inquisitive look, he shoots me a
smirk and tosses me his dirty towel.
 
“Your father has now passed the dark orange stage into the solid orange
stage.”

I laugh as my father starts flexing his muscles
in demonstration of his accomplishments.
 

“Congrats Dad.
 
Now that you’re at solid orange stage, I
think it’ll be okay to teach you something I’ve been messing around with.”
 
I hang the towel on a nearby chair.

Giving me a curious look, he beckons for me to
continue.
 

Focusing a tiny bit of mana into the palm of my
right hand, I will a small flame to ignite. “Here is the most basic flame
attribute technique you learn, Ember.”
 
I throw the small flame from my palm unto the towel that was hanging off
the nearby metal chair.

As expected, the small flame, by the time it
reached the towel, was so diluted that all it left was a tiny black soot mark
in the middle of the white towel.

“If you’re talking about mana theory, it’s not
anything new to me, Son.
 
For
Augmenters, since we produce mana from within our bodies, the farther the mana
travels away from us, the more diluted and weaker it becomes.”

“I wasn’t trying to demonstrate mana
theory.
 
That’ll be for next time
Dad.”
 
I wag my finger at him,
earning me a hard thump on my head for being a smartass.

Rubbing my head, I will another small portion
of mana into the palm of my hand.
 
I
ignite another flame but whereas the first time the color of the flame was
bright red, this time it was orange.
 
“Now watch Dad.”
 
I throw the
small flame, that was the same size as the previous flame, at the towel again
but this time, it burned a small hole through the towel.

My father didn’t show much of a reaction.
 
“Didn’t you just add more mana unto the
flame to make it stronger?”
 

Shaking my head, I explain.
 
“If I added more mana, the flame would
be bigger.
 
Dad, did you notice the
color of the flame?”
 

“Yeah, the color was a bit lighter, more
orange.”
 
He scratches his head,
trying to piece this puzzle together.

“That’s the key!
 
What I did just now was a technique that
is considered a high level spell by Conjurers to use only.”
 
I grew excited as I began explaining it
to him.

“You see Dad, fire’s temperature, or more
accurately, the rate of combustion depends on a mix of different things: the
amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, black-body radiation, the type of fuel
being burned, the oxidation of the fuel and so on.
 
The so-called ‘fuel’ being burned, in
this case is fire attribute mana.
 
What I discovered while playing around with it is how versatile this
‘fuel’ can be.
 
That orange flame,
Dad, was a flame much hotter than the previous one, making it even
stronger.”
 
I stop to take a breath.

My father gives me an expression as if I talked
to him in Hebrew but he understood the last portion of my explanation.
 
“So what you’re saying is that, by using
the same amount of mana, I can produce an even hotter flame for my
techniques?”
 
He fiddles with his
beard while pondering.

“Exactly!
 
Watch, it can go even further.”
 
I demonstrate again, this time producing a yellow flame, which left an
even bigger hole in the towel, with the ridges still aflame.

I don’t stop there.
 
The last demonstration takes a bit more
time, as I have to manipulate very carefully the fire attribute mana in my
palm.
 
After a couple of minutes, I
produce a dim blue flame, which makes my father’s eye go wide.
 
Upon throwing the blue flame at the
towel, the towel instantly combusts and the fire spreads rapidly, eating away
at the towel until only ashes are left.

“Are you sure you’re my son?”
 
My father gives me a suspicious eye
before smiling.
 
Smiling back, I
say, “I must’ve gotten Mom’s brain right?”
 

Elijah walks in, his head a bird’s nest and
glasses crooked, looking at me clinched in a headlock by my father who was
squeezing hard at my nose while I tapped in resignation.

“What are you guys doing
?...
”
 
is all he says while he rubs his eyes.

““Training.””
  
We say at the same time.
 
My voice nasally from having my nose
squeezed.

I give my father a few key pointers in
controlling the structure of his flame attribute mana so he could produce
higher-level flames.
 
“Son, why did
I have to become a solid orange stage in order to learn this though?”
 
He says while seated in a mediation
position.
 
Changing the structure of
the attribute mana is basically the essence of chanting a spell.
 
Using vocal incantations can condition
the brain to change the structure of the mana in the atmosphere to create a
spell.

“The higher your mana core stage, not only do
you have a larger pool of mana to draw out from, the mana itself becomes of
higher quality so you can have more control over the miniscule properties of
it.”
 
I clarify, turning my focus
unto Elijah.

Nodding in understanding, my father goes back
to training, holding his right palm up and willing mana into it.

Elijah’s training was a bit slower.
 
What I realized with Elijah is that his
control over his main element, Earth, is unstable, metal even more.
 
It’s not so much as a problem with mana
manipulation of the earth attribute mana but more so the quantity.
 
Elijah’s lack of control over the
strength of his power made it so he couldn’t make precise and coordinated
spells.

One thing that continues to baffle me about
Elijah’s magic is how unfair it is.
 
Earth is powerful, yet limited in the sense that Conjurers and
Augmenters alike can only make do with the earth that is around them.
 
Most of the time, that isn’t a problem,
but it still gives a certain amount of predictability in the attacks that earth
mages use.

Elijah, on the other hand, seems to have the
ability to change the structure of molecules and change it into earth.
 
The closest thing I could think of that
may explain it is something akin to alchemy.
 
Elijah, as an example, can summon earth
spikes from trees and buildings made of wood.
 
A limitation is that he isn’t able to
conjure earth spells from water or thin air, but his capability to so easily
change the structure of earth and its properties scare me.
 

When I think about the possibilities his power
has, I think of the spell petrification.
 
When normal Earth Conjurers use the petrification spell, it is actually
just using the surrounding earth to form around a human, “petrifying” him.
 
Elijah, on the other hand, if he became
adept enough, could literally change a human into stone.

I shake my head to dismiss those scary
thoughts.
 
I’m just glad that Elijah
is a friend, not a foe.
 
Elijah’s
practice consists of playing around with a small ball of earth.
 
He is practicing doing different things
with the small ball of earth:
 
Rotating it really fast, changing the shape of it, expanding it,
condensing it, splitting it into different pieces, etc.
 
This way, he can train both his mana
control and shortening his incantations by learning the so-called “theory” of
how the spells work.

I go back into my room, leaving Elijah and my
father to train.
 
Looking at my bed,
I see Sylvie still sleeping.
 
The
transformation still seems to have a small toll on her body.
 
She either takes longer sleeps at times,
or a separate nap.
 
Fortunately,
these periods of sleep have been getting shorter so I’m hopeful that in a few
weeks, she’ll return to normal.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I take a look
at the S-class beast core, probing it with a string of mana.
 
The mana inside has been depleted so I
was curious as to why it didn’t dissolve but upon probing a bit deeper, I feel
a sharp pain on my left arm that makes me drop the beast core.

“What the hell?”
 
I rub the tattoo that I always covered
underneath the feather of Sylvia.
 
Carefully picking up the beast core again, I probe it once more, even
more intrigued than before.
 
Suddenly, inside the vast black space of the beast core that I was
studying, the figure of the Elderwood Guardian that I almost lost my life to
appears
, bowing at me with its lance pointed directly
upward.

“A beast will!”
 
I tremble in excitement as I clutch
harder at the invaluable prize I obtained from the dungeon.
 
What would happen if I were to integrate
with two beasts?
 
Was that
possible?
 
Would I then have two? Or
would this one replace my Dragon’s Will?