“ W-who could do something like this,” Brodin said, “There shouldn’t be anyone capable of this..”

Alex didn’t know how to respond, he was still frozen in place. To be able to cause so much destruction in such a small amount of time, without alerting the military, was something that they couldn’t comprehend. 

They heard the sound of people from not too far away, and among the voices was someone Alex recognized. He immediately ran to their direction and was calling out,

“Hey! Mr. Blake Celeste?? Is that you?” Alex continued to call out with no regards for his safety, he was still in shock and thus wasn’t thinking straight. Eventually, the two were able to see each other and the other group quickly made their way to Alex and Brodin.

“Is that you Alex?” Blake said as he got closer.

“Yes! What happened here? Who were those people that attacked?”

“We know as much as you do, that’s why we are here,” Blake said, “Are there any other survivors besides you two?”

Alex and Brodin brought Blake and the group to the school and all of the survivors were put in a big truck. Blake explained that they were sent by the King to investigate what happened to this town, and told them that they would be brought to Xanthos First High to be questioned as well as to be enrolled. Due to the attack, they needed as many fighters as possible to prevent such a thing from occuring again.

Along the way, Blake asked some baseline questions. Nobody there knew anything about what happened and why, so there was not much info gathered. Alex was also able to calm down during this time, and beat himself up over losing control when he saw what happened to the town. He was lucky the attackers weren’t still around. They drove for another day before they arrived at Xanthos First High. Before them was a massive wall at least 50 meters tall with countless guards along the walls. Beyond those walls was Xanthos First High and it was basically a city of its own. The gates opened and everyone was brought inside. Before them was a beautiful city. Buildings of over 20 stories were everywhere, and there were countless people walking around the perfectly clean streets. Every building was white, with golden highlights. Many stalls were set up along the streets, and some stalls were even selling magic items. Everyone looked on in awe before more guards showed up.

The other survivors were brought to the hospital due to their mental state, while Alex and Brodin were brought to their housing and they settled down. School wouldn’t be starting for a few months, so most of their time was spent with questioning from the military and wandering around the city. The events were still on their minds and made them slightly depressed due to how weak they were, and most of their time was starting to be spent at the training building.

The questioning was eventually stopped when they realized that the kids genuinely knew nothing, as well as after Blake had gotten a little angry at them for pestering the traumatized kids. Alex was spending quite a lot of time training, but he seemed to have hit a bottleneck. No matter how much he trained his core, there were no improvements. He even tried to train his black orb, but there were similarly no improvements. 

All that was happening was beginning to eat away at Alex, he felt powerless and like he was back to where he was before. That was when he remembered something. He ran as fast as he could to the training building and grabbed a pair of chained gauntlets. The orb didn’t pulsate like before, but it still seemed excited. He spent the next few hours training with the gauntlets, but besides the increasing excitement of the orb, nothing happened. He trained until the building closed and he was forced to head home. He felt better after that, as he released a bunch of pent up stress with that training. 

When he got home, he ate dinner and took a quick shower before going to sleep. When he tried to sleep, he felt his consciousness being dragged away before he woke up surrounded by black. He was unable to feel any part of his body, or it would be better to say he had no body. The darkness seemed to be infinitely expanding, and eventually a single star appeared in the darkness. Alex seemed to be pulled into the star, and a bright light enveloped his vision.

When the light disappeared, Alex found himself running through a jungle. No matter how much he tried, he did not have control of his own body. Alex seemed to be chasing a giant tiger, and the tiger found itself at a cliff's edge. The tiger turned around and swiped its claws at Alex and a streak of air continued flying towards him. Alex crouched down and stabbed his fingers into the air and pulled up creating a black void similar to the orb on Alex's lung. It looked as though Alex had ripped apart space itself, and when the attack sent by the tiger hit the void, it disappeared. Alex charged at the tiger and around his fist a gauntlet made of the same void formed. When Alex struck the tiger, any part that the void touched disappeared. A massive hole appeared in the tiger and it collapsed, dead. Alex felt his consciousness being pulled away again, he tried fighting it but he awoke in his bed. He jumped out of bed with sweat running down his back, he began moving around and determined that he was back. What he experienced was still fresh in his mind and he tried to relive it over and over. 

The more he recalled it, the more confused he was. There was no mana where he was in that ‘dream,’ so how was he able to do what he was doing? The man Alex was spectating used attacks that looked eerily similar to the black orb that Alex had, and there was no way it was all a coincidence. They were connected and Alex wanted to know how. After that dream, Alex felt that the mystery of the black mana ran much deeper than he could’ve ever thought. The man was able to use those powers without mana, yet Alex was still able to feel the black ‘mana’ running through his body when he used the void attacks. He felt that calling the black energy ‘mana’ was wrong, but he didn’t know what to replace it with. It functioned similarly to mana yet originated from his body and was not anywhere in the space around him. He kept racking his brain over it until a knock came from his door. He went to go answer it and Blake was there,

“Hey Alex, I’m going to need you to follow me. It’s time for you to meet your team with the First Combatants.”