Jaylin stood up, patting the dirt off of his dark blue robes.
He scoured around the room, in search of any traces of his possessions.
There was signs of human presence in the footsteps littering the floor of his sleeping chamber.
Jaylin his all his stuff in small cave out of worry that someone would build something on the land above a ginormous cavern and everything would collapse in on itself, leading to the loss of his treasures. He was also unable to just reinforce the ground with mana. If someone noticed that the ground under their feet was harder than it should be, they would most definitely be suspicious.
Not to mention that it was harder to discover.
Who am I kidding? He just got lazy and chose the nearest large burrow he could find.
As for why the cave wasn’t decorated, it was because Jaylin was also too lazy to care about such trivial matters. He was a hoarder collector, but he wasn’t fond of aesthetics. This could be proven by the possessions that had previously been strewn across the ground.
Unfortunately, it seems Jaylin’s low effort plans didn’t work this time around.
His cave was infiltrated, his stuff was stolen, and- well yeah that’s pretty much it.
Jaylin was lucky to have been in his sealed of room at the time or the robbers may have come across a corpse with an unbelievably large mana crystal within it.
No doubt they would have looted his corpse and the God of Magic would’ve left the world without a word.
As Jaylin was feeling annoyed over his lost treasures, his mana storage had filled itself up to 0.1 . While this might seem fast, considering he needed to stay up for at least a century or two, it really wasn’t too bad. The first few twelfths of his mana storage always regenerated rather quickly. Not to mention only 0.1 of it.
“Ah. They even took the pine cone. The jerks.”
Having affirmed that literally everything was gone, Jaylin decided to seek out his stuff on his own. “Well, if we’re going in order of Importance it would probably be... the pine cone? No... hmm...”
“Oh right. Exilis.”
...
Jaylin put his hand on his temple
Am I absolutely sure about this decision...?
...
Pondering for a moment, Jaylin begrudgingly decided to go save his sword.
Jaylin has just stepped out of the cavern when he realized that he had no clue where in the world he might be.
He decided to just send his mana out to look for Exilis instead.
Jaylin activated the high level spell and felt half the mana he had accumulated go follow his orders. He had a feeling that the mana he sent would pick up some wandering mana clumps and get them to join the search party. Jaylin was well aware this happening could be dangerous, like the equivalent of a snowball rolling down a hill and getting larger as time passed.
Oh well.
Sucks for whoever kidnapped his sword.
Jaylin sighed and walked over to some tree stumps.
“Humans are so much more unpleasant than I thought...”
Jaylin reclined on a random stump.
He sighed tiredly and rested his chin on his hand.
Perhaps this was the time to go on a handy monologue detailing his life so far.
Not giving him the chance to consider the idea, his mana returned with directions to Exilis.
“Oh. Well that was fast.”
Jaylin chose to stop being lazy, and went to go find his sword.
Jaylin wandered through the town curiously. Tons more had changed then he thought.
The best houses he had seen when he was last awake were made out of clay bricks and wood. They were somewhat classy, somewhat vulnerable, and far too susceptible to hurricanes.
The houses he looked at now were, well, still made out of bricks, but they looked much more stable.
“Perhaps I should test whether they hold up against hurricanes as well.”
...
“Well, maybe that’s a tad bit cruel.”
Jaylin graciously spared this suburban neighborhood and continued on his way.
Capital City, Inzoscape, 2nd high school-
“Director!”
Salazar paused as his official title was called out.
“What do you want, Lucius?”
Salazar had no interest in talking to this particular student. The kind that pleases his superiors and exploits his underlings.
But he wasn’t quite influential enough to just ignore one of the top students. The only reason that he had been invited to this urgent meeting was because some of the more important magicians were out of the continent on errands.
Needless to say, he wasn’t quite in the mood to be polite.
Lucius felt miffed by the directors attitude.
There were few administrators who dared to be so impatient with him. Never mind his backing, you never know where he might go in the future. It was easier to curry favor while they were his teachers. It seems the director thought he was out of his league.
I’ll make him regret it someday...heh heh...
“Director you said-” wait where did he go?
......
“Director!”
“Wait!”
Lucius came barreling from around the corner.
“Damn it, he’s still here...” Salazar muttered under his breath.
“Later, Lucius. I have something important to go to.”
“S-sir...”
“What? Spit it out.”
Lucius, thoroughly annoyed by the directors words, put on his best aggrieved expression and continued.
“Sir.. you promised you would practice with us during the last class of the day...I was really looking forward to it...”
“You’re one of the top academics at this school, why don’t you give your fellow students some pointers?”
“Sir, my pointers would be nowhere near as helpful as a professional’s. Can you-”
“Lucius, my presence has been requested at a meeting with the elders of the High Magicians Tower. Unless you’d like to go over there and explain how much you want me to accompany you in a sparring match, I’d recommend going back to class.”
Lucius’ face flushed in shame. If the director didn’t feel the need to respect him, then picking a fight with the elders was equivalent to an ant shaking a tree.
“B-But!-”
“Go back to class Lucius.”
Salazar turned around, and made haste out of the school.
As soon as Salazar exited school ground, he mounted his sword.
Though he disdained wasting his mana on things as petty as traveling a bit faster, (though that may have been because of his average mana storage) certain situations called for certain measures.
Glancing at the electronic billboards as he flew his way to the elders tower, he wondered what the only meeting he had ever been invited to would be about. Perhaps there was some huge invention that they were debating on whether or not to patent and release to the public. Or maybe they’d reached a new level of mana converging and could now assimilate larger crystals.
“Ah. Well enough daydreaming, I’m almost there.”
The High Magicians Tower felt slightly unsuited to the city. The city, surrounded by technology, yet covered in greenery (those damn plant mage vandals.) had a ginormous tower right in the middle. Pitch black, covered by a Long Term Protection Seal, with no entrance save for a small opening that requires a Mana Scan to enter, technology only owned and used by the tower. The high magicians made it themselves. The scanner detects the size and shape of ones mana storage along with how and where it flows through their body. People who have access to the tower have their mana storage data documented in the towers database and can enter the lower levels of the tower where there are libraries, mana crafting rooms, sparring rooms, and even assessment floors where students took the final exams for first high school, the most prestigious academy in the continent.
If Salazar was the director of first high school, he would never have to worry about not being invited to meetings. On the contrary, he would receive worldwide recognition and praise for being able to foster such incredible talents. Unfortunately, that was not the case. As the director of second high, the best he got was the occasional admiration from some students and apprentice magicians. Now was his chance. It was possible that some powerful elder or high magician might accept him as their apprentice if they saw high potential in him. It was somewhat shameful for someone of his age to hope to be adopted as an apprentice, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.
He arrived at the pointy, ornate tower and landed at the entrance of the mana scanner. Two seemingly fragile doors blocked entrance to a small room. The room wasn’t connected to anything and anyone could easily make the mistake to assume it was pointless if it weren’t for the two bodyguards in front of the doors. This small room was the mana scanner.
He was thinking the bodyguards would ask him for identification or something, but they just glanced at him and looked away. He felt slightly embarrassed. The reason Salazar had his relatively high position despite his ordinary talent was because of his excellent skills of observation. He could feel the slight disdain they held for him when they noticed his expectations and how little he knew about the tower and it’s procedures. With his face lightly flushed, he hurried into the scanner. He now regrets avoiding coming to the tower for the lower and middle floors(the only floors he was allowed to on normal occasions). He stood in the small room and heard a beep, signifying the start the Mana Scanner. He felt like his entire body was going through a car wash. He didn’t know when he blacked out, but he woke up in a large lobby.
This was the one of the upper floors. He had never been here before but he heard that all that was up here was the personal rooms of high magicians and meeting rooms. It was clear that the rumors weren’t entirely true. He would have wandered around the beautiful lobby but suddenly an old man in some fancy uniform appeared.
“Director Salazar, is it?”
“ah! A-and you are?”
As soon as the words has come out of his mouth, Salazar felt like dying.
Who was this? The high magician, who, in his youth, shook the world with his incredible talent! He learned to control and converge mana at 10 years old!
His name?
...
Well... he wasn’t that influential, he was old and had barely made any achievements in the last 30 years, but he helped with the tower’s Long Term Protection Seal! He had the very important duty of making sure dirt didn’t get on the seal as it was being activated!
...
Well, point is, he was more important than Salazar.
“I assume you don’t need me to answer that, young man.”
“Um-“
“No matter, follow me to the meeting room.”
“Yes sir...”
Entering the meeting room through some glass doors, Salazar silently followed High magician What’s-His-Name nervously. His ambitions had severely quieted after meeting What’s-His-Name. If some high magician that he didn’t even remember the name of could intimidate him so much, imagine what the really important ones would do to him.
Soon enough, What’s-His-Name moved from in front of him and sat back down in his seat.
Salazar froze as the 6 high magicians sitting on the sides of the rectangular meeting table scrutinized him.
Before Salazar got the chance to nervously stutter out something stupid, a voice sounded from the far end of the left side of the table.
“For someone who barely got invited to this meeting, you have quite the audacity to show up late. Cocky much?”
The skinny, long-haired blond spoke rudely.
“I-I’m terribly so-”
“Oh, calm down Easel, he probably got so exited about being invited, he couldn’t sleep at night and woke up late.”
A chubby, red haired woman’s voice rang out from the right side of the table.
“Wait but I only got the message for the meeting 5 hours ag-”
Salazar was cut off once again by the blond haired man who responded angrily.“Izel. My name is Izel, Veronica.”
“Ohohohoho, I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten again!~”
“You!-”
“Can you weaklings shut your pie traps?”
Interrupted a short bearded man, sitting at the edge of Veronica’s end of the table.
“Mind your own business, midget!”
Izel retorted, enraged
“You! Don’t think I won’t shut you up myse-”
“Enough!”
The three magicians turned to see the man at the end of the table, who spoke sternly. They quieted reluctantly.
“You.”
The old man directed his attention to Salazar.
“State your name and official title.”
Salazar, who’s intimidation had been stripped away by the previous situation, that made him feel like the only adult in a room of toddlers, spoke. “Enzo Salazar, Director of 2nd high school.”
“Noted. Take a seat.”
Salazar sat at the end of the table, opposite to the old man.
After a period of silence, the old man, named Eden Merstyus, began the discussion. “I, and the mana storm sensors at the top of the tower, have detected strong mana fluctuations heading toward the capital. We lost it’s trace shortly after it started traveling through the capital.”
“Hah? Didn’t mana storm season pass already?” Izel inquired.
“It could just be one of the stragglers.” Said What’s-His-Name.
“Exactly.” Continued Izel. “Is that all you brought us here for?”
“Ignorant fool. Even if it doesn’t effect us, it will still harm the public.”
Scolded the midget.
Veronica cut in before the two could start arguing and said. “Sir Merstyus, how strong is it?”
...
“It’s stronger than the sensors could determine.”
There was a long silence.
Just as the magicians were on the verge of breaking out in a frantic discussion over what to do about a mana storm stronger than anything they had ever seen, a voice spoke out.
It came from the opposite end of the table to Salazar, from a youth sitting next to Merstyus, who no one had noticed unto this point.
“When was it found near the capital, Eden?”
The other magicians were so shocked at the young man’s informal way of address, that they didn’t pay attention to his question.
Not even they referred to this man, both the president of the High Magicians Tower, and the most powerful documented spell-caster currently alive on the continent, by his first name.
To their continued shock, Merstyus’ usual cold tone seemed to have softened.
“We scanned it moving toward the capital a few hours ago, when we suddenly lost track of it-“
The director of 1st high school, who had been silent until now, spoke.“Then do we still have time to pre-
The director, Ivan, was frozen by a cold glare from Merstyus, and Ivan realized he interrupted the man’s sentence.
“Ahem. We found it again. It was already in the capital.”
There were soft exclamations of shock all around the table.
“Was there any damage?” The midget asked nervously.
“Nothing happened.”
“What? How is that possible?” Izel exclaimed incredulously. “How could there be such a tame mana storm? Especially one of its caliber.”
It was clear everyone in the room was baffled by this information.
A well-endowed woman who, like the director of 1st high, had been silent until now, gave her input:
“Perhaps it’s a new type of mana storm, one that has intelligence?”
“That’s impossible, mana can’t have intelligence.”
Said the young ‘apprentice’.
Merstyus raised his hand and quieted the room
“I’ve alerted you all today to tell you to stay on your guard. This is something we’ve never seen before.”
Having received the message, everyone chattered back and forth worriedly.
Everyone was still discussing the issue while preparing to leave when Salazar suddenly spoke up
“But what if...”
Everyone looked at Salazar, the weakest man in the room.
“Yes, Director Salazar?
Asked Merstyus.
“What if... it wasn’t a mana storm?”
“What are you implying Director Salazar?”
. . .
“What if that was someone’s spell?”
. . .
then picking a fight with the elders was equivalent to an ant shaking a tree.
If some high magician that he didn’t even remember the name of could intimidate him so much, imagine what the really important ones would do to him
Oof