Minutes after the first group had arrived came the next batch, this time consisting of Bahu, Selene, Mavion and Zirsto whom just like the first also found their gazes drawn to the statues.
"Ohhh~" Selene mused to herself. If she had been a little apprehensive before of coming here, now she was a thousand and one percent on board, perhaps interesting things could be found in abundance here.
"Now that's odd".
Their heads snapped to the left of them to see the owner of the new voice floating there with a hand under his chin and his head titled a little to the side.
But feeling the piercing gazes at his side brought him out his thoughts as he faked a light cough and raised a shy "hello" to his friends.
"Noctis?" She called out which caught his full attention as intended.
"....Boo!".
He looked confused for a second but then just burst out in a small laugh, for a moment there he had thought it would be something serious or a little important but, he was fine with the bamboozlement too.
"By the way, where are the rest of you guys" Selene questioned upon realizing it was a bit odd only he had arrived.
Noctis turned to his left and raised his hand up as he began a countdown "in 5....4....-
"Ah, we should probably make way a bit".
He pointed up at the skies above where something like a blazing meteor could be seen making a beeline straight for them, with no need for any confirmation of the sort everyone had already deduced that it was none other than Sarang.
And with a light collective sigh, a pathway was cleared and on the onlookers below erected mana barriers around themselves to brace for impact. The sky above got so blindingly bright, just for a split second before he crashed down to the ground with monumental force causing a deep tremor accompanied by rounds of powerful shockwaves that spread for miles on end.
When the dust settled, all could see clearly that everything around them had remained relatively undamaged, not even the grass beneath his feet fell to harm serving as a testament to his newly evolved sublime control and rising up from the earth was the towering visage of a six foot and eight inches tall anthropomorphic lion with obsidian black fur and strands of gold interwoven into his full and healthy dark mane.
Power in it's purest essence radiated off him, sending shivers through the core of every onlooker present and then came a very calming wind that washed over the area bringing a familiar feeling to Noctis and the rest.
"And there he is".
Materializing from the windy currents was Shen looking mildly annoyed "tsk, so noisy".
His attention was drawn to the statues too just like the rest but having been in such a sour mood all morning, he had no time to really ponder or appreciate the discovery.
Sarang looked up at his peers above and grinned, displaying his sharp fangs as he flew up to meet them "hahaaa, quite an entrance I made huh".
Shen clicked his tongue in annoyance again "let's just go already" he urged and began dematerializing again but stopped halfway upon feeling the hand of Noctis upon his shoulder.
"What really is the problem, there's annoyance for having to attend here and I know that one but".
"What is the other thing that angers you so, I'm way too sensitive to these things so I can tell how deeply you're suppressing it".
Some moments of silence passed between them and unfortunately before they could get a response, a golden streak of light far off in the horizon caught their attention and in half a millisecond after they had detected it, the entity was already flying past them.
Their perception of time slowed to an incredulous degree as they got a good look at the familiar face of the boy encased in tiny golden particles and seemingly asleep as his eyes were closed. But what was most eye catching was the little lion cub with obsidian black fur resting in his arms, it's two pairs of eyes locked with theirs for a moment, it's head titling a little towards the side in reciprocated curiosity before shooting past them and coming to a stop.
The eyes of every onlooker present was tightly glued to him and one could not fault them for that, standing in the presence of the tied champion was quite a surreal experience. But more than that, some of the most brutal displays came from the fights he was involved in which imprinted heavily into their minds and the nature of his powers which gave quite an eerie feeling.
All had heard him clearly in that moment where he declared it,
An already scary concept by nature of what it was, but although everything has looked okay with the world for some time now and all wounds seemed to have healed, one look underneath the surface would reveal just how scarred and terrified everyone still was of it's greatest enforcer the realm had ever known.
It had only just been a little over four decades since he left, a little over four decades to get over eons worth of terror and pain, with almost everyone here having families who lived through the more docile ages of his reign on this world and even then still losing some.
Emrys, completely unaware of the unpleasant memories he had revived in the minds of everyone present simply flew down and began walking while keeping an eye out for the person whom was to be his guide.
'Ah'.
He spotted her in moments, a slightly chubby figure in heels and a white satin blouse rushing towards him as quickly as she could in those pencil skirts of hers and upon coming to halt, she looked to be almost out of breath but still in her eyes he could feel the sheer excitement as she looked up to him.
Sunkissed fair skin, auburn dark hair wrapped in a messy bun evidence to her hurried state, round glasses and lively green eyes unlike any he'd ever seen and an adorably round face blessed by the faintest amount of freckles.
He scanned her from head to toe, she reminded him of a particular feline animal he had seen once, a lynx. The clumsy and disheveled exterior of her current self did nothing to hide the innate grace he could sense sprinkled within her every move.
She gasped "Oh dear, where are my manners".
"It's a pleasure to meet you, your highness".
"I am Esme Ravencrest, your guide".
She gave a small bow and jumped a little upon feeling the cub's paw resting on her head, in the rush of it all she had failed to process the information that the cub had been in his arms the whole while. And in an effort to correct her poor display she quickly recovered her bearings and smiled, but before she could carry on with the introductions-
"Please lead the way" Emrys interjected, flashing a small smile of his own in return.
Esme bowed again, her smile beaming even brighter "yes of course, this way your highness".
Both began walking and soon they were out of sight to the onlookers present...
"He....he didn't even turn to look at us one time" Sarang looked on in surprise, turning to his peers whom all heaved a collective sigh.
Noctis shrugged "ah well, we should go in now and meet the others".
They teleported away to their relevant destinations leaving the onlookers present to resume their halted activities, with none sensing the last arrival who flew past just minutes later.
And now half an hour into their tour, they were finally approaching it's end. Every piece of information deemed important and including those deemed as minor had be passed on to him, all relevant facilities and staff or students to keep an eye out for had been learned, all that remained were the housing facilities which was exactly where they were at current.
He noticed she looked a little jittery and somewhat evasive as she introduced the place to him but couldn't put a finger on why, still he wasn't curious enough to ask for reasons so it was left alone.
"And that's all your highness".
"Oh right, just in case you might ever be in need of my assistance for anything down the line".
"Use this and I'll be there as quickly as I can".
She handed him a little red crystal which he brought up to his face to examine and upon seeing nothing out of the ordinary with it, he turned his gaze back to her in hopes for an explanation which she easily obliged to.
"It has two functions".
"The first is for communication so you just need to infuse a bit of mana into it and you will get a projection of me".
"The next is for emergencies, you only need to crush the gem for that".
He gave a nod of understanding and sent the crystal into his soul space, now with all that settled it was time to get answers to something that had been nagging at him a bit.
"Miss Esme, do you serve under the banner of my aunt?".
...."Eh?" Her eyes sprung wide in surprise and for a few good seconds she could not find herself able to formulate a response which all but confirmed it to Emrys.
"Hm, please do not look so lost Miss Esme".
"It's not like I plan on revealing this to anyone, obviously".
"Knowing my aunt, it simply made sense to me that'd she'd have someone long established here on the inside already".
"She wouldn't just appoint a random stranger as my guide either".
He heaved a small sigh "and I am sure your original purpose for being placed here precedes the plans for my arrival".
After her long period of silence she finally managed to come out of her stupor and smiled warmly at him, already he could feel the air of clumsiness around her dissipating a bit as vestiges of the real Esme began showing up through the cracks.
"You have a wonderful intuition, your highness" she praised in earnest.
Emrys smirked but shook his head "I do not doubt that I do".
"But I don't think this came from that".
"This is more so what my common sense has been warped to become from experience".
She giggled a bit and then gave a short bow "I shall be leaving now, your highness".
"Hope your first day here goes well".
At that she turned on her heels and began walking away, fading out of his sight after ten paces into the wind. Now by his lonesome again Emrys heaved a small sigh and ran his fingers gently through the cub's silky smooth obsidian fur, feeling the feline rub it's head against his chest in satisfaction and earning a ticklish chuckle out of him upon feeling it trying to nibble at him.
"Let's go Reign, I'm sure we're already spectacularly late as it is".
He rose into the air and flew towards one of the floating main buildings, if there was one way he could describe the inside it would be the word spacious. That was pretty much it, a whole lot of space with little to no people clamoring around and doors with stairs leading up or down to said doors which were either in the air or on the walls
It looked chaotic upon the first glance but a closer look behind unraveling the order to this madness, one thing made easy was that each door had a number on them and students would pick the one corresponding to the number they received.
Emrys found the one corresponding to his and began walking up the stairs, upon reaching the door and stepping into it he found himself in a new place entirely.
It felt like he was back outdoors with lush vegetation about and a couple of trees surrounding them, but unlike the outdoors it was much more limited, measuring up to about 500 meters worth of space in total and then there was the barrier he could feel encircling the place cutting it off from the outside completely, even the door behind him faded away to just reveal more space behind him.
Of all the settings he had imagined for what it would look like, they never came close to this. The students either sat or lay on the grass, on smaller beds or levitated around and even some hanging out in the trees as they paid attention to the teacher who was a two tailed fox beastman in mostly human form standing meters away from them in a mages robe surrounded by some magic circles and with a humongous white board floating behind him with writings or images constantly moving around as he taught by demonstration.
It didn't take him long to spot some of his peers in here sitting on quite a huge bed, namely Noctis, Rozaria, Velkos, Sarang, Bahu and Ishmael.
Upon spotting him also Sarang began waving and motioning for him to come over to their side, Emrys hesitated for a moment contemplating whether or not to but upon seeing that the energetic Beastman wouldn't be giving up anytime soon he finally gave in and teleported onto the bed right between Sarang and Velkos.
"Now back to this point".
"Creating a spell is basically like writing a thesis and presenting it to the Arcane in hopes that it would be accepted"..
"And if it did then your created spell becomes part of the Arcane forever as it gets added to one of it's many branches".
"Sometimes for the for the extremely lucky few, they even get to have personalized branches thereby making said spells difficult to be learnt by anyone else".
"It's quite an incredibly crude summary as it skips quite a bit but that's basically the best way I can put it for now".
The teacher smiled as he stepped forward a bit and snapped "but, there is also a second way".
"Not just a second but a third also although this one is almost like a myth".
He waved a hand to the board behind shifting the images around to form a full humanoid with a little core right at it's center.
"The second one is simple and yet more difficult than you could imagine".
"What if you can skip the process of presenting your thesis to the Arcane".
"What if you can skip the Arcane entirely and let yourself become a branch, your own originator".
"To do this the answer lies in your very own soul".
"You see, after completing your thesis and capturing the effect of what you're trying to manifest into the world–
He paused for a moment and took in a deep breath then exhaled "before I continue let me tell you another thing".
"Every thesis you write so long as you've been meticulous with it and have captured the effect of what you're trying to manifest can be cast as a spell successfully".
"In fact it needs to be cast successfully in the first place for you to know that it wasn't a failure and what you present to the Arcane isn't just an incomplete defect".
"And you can even cast said spell another time again if you so wish".
"But let me tell you the catch here, the problem is every last word of the ancient tongue that you speak has to be spoken out loud in the clearest diction possible".
"Every effect you've captured has to be recreated all over again".
"There's also no room for flexibility, you can't fix this".
He smiled "now with the Arcane though, this becomes an entirely different conversation".
"The benefits of getting your thesis accepted by the Arcane are as follows:
–The captured effect remains a permanent feature.
–It shortens cast time tremendously and a name is granted unto it for even easier activation.
–The spell has no set base or ceiling.
With a snap of his fingers the board changed once more "now, there's a bit more but that's all for the ones pertaining this context".
A gentle hum rang out through the space before he could carry on any further with his teachings.
"Oh dear, it seems that's all the time we have for today".
"Next time we'll complete the rest and even touch on the rare creatures who awaken with some innate spells granted unto them by the Arcane".
"Bye now".
He waved as the space around the students spun around and with a snap they were gone, finding themselves in an open field that seemed to be riddled with endless battles from the past.
Everywhere they looked all they could see were corpses, limbs, broken weapons and armor laying around, the dried skeletons of their former inhabitants and users still present within, the bodies piling up to a mountainous height in some places across the field and impaled high upon some stakes in others with an extremely unnerving aura radiating off of these specific bodies, almost like they were actually still alive and watching from the dark abyss of those empty eye sockets.
And then from out of nowhere came a large diagonal cut across the fabric of this space which expanded a few meters wide as the unknown entity stepped out of it, he stood at a height of a two meters wearing what seemed to be a blood stained dark robe that extended a little beyond his own body and dragging across the floor as he walked.
And on his back were a large pair of greyish white wings curling over at his sides and his head was that of a flaming skeleton burning with a dark green hue, it's eye sockets were empty and devoid of life and in his hands was a sword with a blade much longer than normal.
They could feel him staring at them, even though nothing was present in those eyes they could feel it quite clearly and it unnerved them even more than that of the corpses hung upon those stakes.Then his head turned to the side as he stared off into the far nothing.
'Right, I'm supposed to teach this batch of newcomers'.
He heaved a sigh which came out in the form of pure boiling hot steam, his gaze was pulled back to the students as he swung the blade ridding it of the blood and then returning it to his pocket space.
'Oh well, at least this batch is going to be the best one I'll ever have without a doubt'.
'So much raw and untapped potential'.
Raising his feet slightly above the ground, he tapped tapped it. A pulse of mana spread outwards to ends unseen as the realm began undergoing some changes, flames began rising up from beneath the earth engulfing everything and eliciting reactions of worry from the students who tried protecting themselves and protesting as to what was going on but upon finding themselves unharmed by the flames though their protections failed they began calming down and watched as the flames grew by magnitudes into a spiralling vortex that swallowed everything whole.
Soon the flames began receding back into the earth and all they could see now was a desolate wasteland with no signs of life or even lives lost, except for one very big oddity. Behind their teacher was a tree easily measuring beyond 500 meters in height and it's trunk easily reaching up to a width and thickness of more than 50 meters.
But what was even more peculiar was the fact it's branches formed in such a different way, every last branch, or leaf or thorn on it were all curved sharply upwards and inwards with no exceptions. And sitting before this tree now in an armchair fitting for his size was the teacher, his wings now retracted into his own being and his attire now consisting of a white robe as he poised with one leg crossed over the other and a finger scraping along his bony temple as he watched his students.
'Hm, indeed'.
'Alright then, let's get this over with'.
Finally after the long awkward pause he finally got to introducing himself to the students–
"You may refer to me as Morrison".
"Morrison Crowe".
"And from this day onwards I shall be the one responsible for teaching you combat theory and applications via training".
"You may take your seats on whatever or wherever you like".
Students began making themselves comfortable in whatever way they preferred, some either choosing to levitate or resting on something pulled out of their pocket spaces.
And once he saw that everyone had settled, he began his lessons–
"Let us touch on the styles of combat pertaining to each class".
"I'm sure you all have the general idea for some but nonetheless, it goes;
-The close combat mage.
-The masters of range.
-The hybrids.
"These are the general three main styles all Mages inevitably fall under".
"Now the close combat mage is self explanatory".
"And I have seen arguments that it can easily intersect with the hybrid style of fighting thereby calling into question it's redundancy".
"It's all a fair argument from a certain standpoint but soon you'll come to understand why it's remained a major style given definition".
"But we'll get to that later".
"And then there are the masters of range, self explanatory in itself also"
Four cards noticeably larger than normal were summoned before him all steadily spinning around in a circular motion and flipping over as he narrated-
"And now to break things down even further, we have subclasses under the general three styles"
"Namely;
-The masters of delay.
-Chain reaction magic.
-The whisperers.
-The brutes.
All cards went up in a blaze of flames which also in turn were manipulated into different figures, then in an instant it all became exactly like little creatures of flesh floating over his hands rather than a simple construct.
"For this one I shall delve in a little deeper".
"Masters of delay, also sometimes referred to as the masters of preparation".
"One could say that in a way they are some of the purest Mages".
"They are what they are due to making some extremely extremely efficient use of one very simple spell".
<
"The practice of casting a spell beforehand and placing it in basically suspended limbo on a timer to be eventually released at an opportune moment is quite an annoying way of combat".
"But if that was simply the gist of it then it'd be quite an easy to counter their preparations with detection or search and destroy spells".
"No, what it means to be truly a master of delay is the art of being near absolutely undetectable".
"Throwing in the art of deception too, fakes to be discovered and even willing to use some real ones to be sacrificed just for the sake of winning".
"Learning how to let your opponent underestimate you or present yourself as more confident than you really are".
"Sneakily implanting suggestions".
"Be a little silly, get in the head of your opponent".
"All of this.....all of this just to lead them by the hand into their own damnation".
"That, is what it means to be a master of delay".
"It is the most patient and yet the most spontaneous form of combat".
Morrison snapped his fingers and summoned a house imp through a magic circle which he then relayed some information to before releasing the little creature and carrying on with his lessons.
"And now for Chain reaction magic".
"There's really nothing much to say here quite honestly".
"It's a style known all too well for it's simplicity mixed in with some cunning at times".
"The idea to simply never give the opponent room to breathe, always initiating an attack in one form or another which then transitions into another round of continuous bombardment followed by another and so on".
"The more they try to escape that chain or even thinking themselves free of it in disrupting the chain of attacks by successfully countering one or two or multiple will be the moment of their downfall".
"Sometimes if necessary this style is mixed in with actually giving the opponent some room just to bombard them again".
"Sometimes this can also be done through making the trigger for the chain reaction be the opponent's very own attack or even their inaction".
"Heck, said attack can even in turn sometimes be used to attack or trap the opponent".
"It is a wholly spontaneous form of combat, 99% of the style revolves around this".
"And it might sound simple to do in theory because it's quite a common ability to multi-cast spells if your skill level is high enough".
"But trust me, trying that poor man's version of what you think it is will lead you to utmost embarrassment or even quite possibly your death".
"If there is one word I could describe this style with it would be....Overwhelm".
The imp returned with a mask in his hands and a slightly weighty rectangular box in the other which he then handed over to his master before leaving as it came, Morrison placed the box down on his legs and put the mask over his face which immediately began undergoing a transformation as the flames began receding and nerves, muscle, flesh and finally hair began regrowing onto it in a most unsettling scene.
Once the process was done he removed his hands from his face and opened his eyelids to reveal...nothing, absolutely nothing in those eyes but still emptiness, a sharp constant to the charming face he now wore.
He took the box from his legs and opened it to retrieve a custom made tobacco pipe resting in it's padding, crushing some strange materials into it and then giving it a light, then with a few puffs he was raring and ready to go.
"And now onto the next".
"Whisperers, quite a messy one".
"It encompasses basically anyone who's affinity lies in being terribly blessed with mind magic, curse magic, soul attacks or even attacks from the astral plane and all the likes".
" It's got quite a collection under there".
"The rarest of their kind being those blessed with a gift for word magic".
"Prefer not to spend too long on them as one can't ever fully explain this one, only teach it to you in practice".
"But one thing to note is this, they're just basically the most perfect assassins and manipulators you'll ever know".
He repositioned himself in his seat and leaned slightly forward "and finally, let's talk about the last one".
"The brutes".
"A title most misleading in truth to what it actually represents".
"First of all you see, a brute isn't a style you adopt or learn or become".
"A brute is something you're born as or awaken as, it is your entire existence at it's core".
"Now let me explain clearly what I mean".
"A brute refers to someone whose entire existence immediately invalidates near half or even the entirety of your tool kit".
The moment he said this Noctis could feel eyes of his peers all turning to him and not knowing what else to do, he could only swallow hard and clear his throat in a fake cough.
"Yeah, that is what a brute is" Morrison continued, having noticed the small event at the back and chuckling to himself internally.
"They are beings born with an absurdly high immunity, that's the best way I can describe it".
"It's worse also because the immunity isn't simply specialized or limited to a certain area".
"It's always encompassing a wide array of things in general".
"And then there are the even worse variations though extremely rare who can add to their immunity if they experience something existing outside the naturally wide array of things they already encompass".
"Then if we talk about their magic also, now that's an even scarier discussion".
He leaned a little more forward and focused his eyes "have you ever cast a spell or launched an attack and watched it.....die, right before your very own eyes".
"Not just reflected or blocked, countered or even absorbed no, I'm talking about it dying right before your eyes".
"If any of you ever get to experience this very phenomenon I refer to, on that day you come to have a renewed understanding of the word....hate".
"Of that I can promise you".
"There is no style more hated in the world than this in particular".
Morrison leaned back into his seat with his legs crossed and took a few more puffs of his pipe, closing his eyes as he drifted off into the unknown leaving the children confused on how to proceed.
Minutes passed yet there remained no signs of him continuing the lecture, he just lay completely still and then all of a sudden his eyes sprung open.
"Class ends here for today, go home".
"Now".
He pulled the mask off his face, taking along with it the flesh, blood and muscle as his skull was ablaze with flames once more. Both items in his hands were placed onto the armrest of his chair as he stood up and released his wings, spreading them wide as he took off into the far beyond.
Just as he left their sights they found themselves flung out of the space and back onto the outside amongst where other students roamed or chatted leisurely.
"Well, that was quite an abrupt ending" Ishmael stretched his limbs.
"Anyways, do you want to spar with me later" he turned towards Emrys and asked.
Before he could give a reply his attention was drawn towards Velkos upon feeling the intentions transmitted towards him "you too?".
"Hm, sure".
Ishmael was about to finalize a date and time only to be interrupted by Sarang raising his paw high, no words were needed to discern what he wanted so Emrys agreed to his request also.
The date and time were finalized, with that done they began leaving to their different destinations, Noctis and Bahu having teleported away before the conversation even began leaving only Emrys and Rozaria at the scene now.
"Is that your familiar" she suddenly asked just as he was about leaving.
Emrys looked down at the little cub in his arms and back up at her "no, just my avatar given life somehow".
She raised a brow in confusion "your avatar?".
He knew where her doubts arose from, she had been there eight years ago during his awakening and the only Avatars she knew of were the ones she saw on that stage.
"Not those ones, they're different".
"This one is born from my Darkness or maybe from my race who knows, call it an innate skill if you will".
She nod her head in understanding and asked "did you give him a name then".
Emrys smiled which caught her off guard for a moment "yeah".
"Reign".
"Abaddon - Reign".
Rozaria gave a warm smile of her own back in return as she reached out to ruffle the little cub's fur which it gladly accepted with a playful growl causing her smile to widen a little more "Hm, it suits him".
"Bye then".
She waved to which Emrys responded to with an awkward wave of his own which visibly elicited a small laugh out of her. And soon she was out of his sight leaving Emrys now to his lonesome, he looked down at the little cub once more and smiled as he began walking away.
EnD.