Return of the Fallen Vol1 Ch11
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Author: Blue_Rat
ch11
An explosion rocked the sky and tore the air asunder.
*BOOOOOOOOM!*
The 24 summoned heroes grasped their ears in pain as several fell to the ground in terror. The soldiers on the other hand simply stood shoulder-width apart with hands behind their back. Their calm appearance was the ideal of a true soldier.
Kazuki, Sam, and Shin were seemingly the only ones unaffected by the explosion. Instead, their gazes all concentrated and focused up above them at a single spot in the sky.
The figure of a single person could be seen slowly descending from above. From this distance, not many would be able to see who it was but with Ki flowing throughout Kazuki’s body, his senses were increased by manyfold. Scrunching his brow he glanced curiously at the descending mage.
(A woman?)
Just before this mage touched the ground, she waved a black staff with her hand and a crystal at the tip of it lit up and glowed.
“Bow.”
A gust of wind pressed down on top of all of the summoned ones forcing them to their hands and knees. One by one the heroes collapsed to the ground, however, when it came to Sam and Shin, with their strong bodies, they managed to resist slightly longer than the rest before they too collapsed to the ground.
Kazuki could feel the pressure on his shoulders but with ki circulating in his body, he could easily resist it but with eyes watching, he faked weakness and collapsed with everyone else.
The soldiers were left unaffected, for the spell was not aimed at them but some still felt slightly annoyed that this mage just had to make such a grand entrance. If they weren’t told earlier who the mage was then they too may have freaked when that large explosion went off.
This mage hovered a few inches above the ground and grinned from ear to ear with self-importance. Seeing the summoned heroes being forced to bow beneath her power felt very pleasant for some reason.
(Hmph, having to rely on these children, just what in the hell is the King thinking.)
A moment later a soldier approached her cautiously.
“Madam.”
The mage scoffed at the soldier.
“I know.”
Landing softly like a feather on the ground, the mage cut her power and the pressure atop the heroes ceased.
A few struggled to their feet initially, but eventually, everyone stood up while huffing and puffing out of breath. It was only now that everyone caught sight of the young female mage.
Standing at average height and build, the young mage had fierce black eyes. Her brows were thick and her hair was dark blonde almost brown and in a pixie cut. With a small nose and tender lips, her cute face was easily overlooked due to her rude entrance.
Standing with her arms crossed, no one had been introduced but this young mage already seemed pissed and prickly to the touch. Covered in a purple mage robe, lined with a golden thread that swayed gently in the wind, the mage seemed almost ominous.
Finally, someone with courage gingerly raised a hand and the young mage barked at them.
“Yea, what the hell do you want?”
The courageous person started to shiver from that curt response and timidly asked.
“I thought Sir Garn was going to be teaching us, he was the one who called us here, after all, right?”
The young female mage’s expression turned sour.
“You think I want to be here? Sir Garn has business with the King himself and has little time to be dealing with you brats.”
Once more the courageous person raised their hand again but the mage just gave him a look that said just hurry up and ask your stupid question already and so he did.
“Um, you called us brats but aren’t you around the same age as us?”
The mage said nothing but instead, the crystal at the end of her staff glowed and she pointed it at the young man who dared ask her about her age.
“Don’t you ever compare yourself with me, you cheats from another world.”
The young man gulped hard and quickly looked away doing his best to avoid her eyes. Intimidating a future hero felt incredible and caused this unstable young mage to calm down a bit, with it her staff returned to normal and glowed no more. Clearing her throat, she purposely added magic to her voice and boomed out an introduction, once more hurting the summoned heroes’ ears.
*Ahem*
“My name is Alice and I am a 3rd rank Mage. I will be your teacher until Master Garn has some spare time. So you worm’s better pay close attention or else I’ll crush you.”
After that brief introduction though there were more questions then answers and the few brave ones in the crowd began to murmur and whisper to one another.
This is something Alice did not appreciate and she showed how she felt about it in kind.
*BOOOM!*
Lightning struck out in front of the young adults nearly scorching a few that were closest to it.
“Why the hell are you all talking?”
A soldier ran up to her side and whispered a few things into her ear. Seeing as the summoned ones were terrified of her, the soldier overheard their questions and decided to give them a helping hand. After a moment, Alice rolled her eyes and looked at her audience in contempt.
“What, none of you know about a mage’s rank. You’ve already been in this world for two days and you’re already behind. Slow, way too slow.”
Seeing her audience grow irritated, she knew they were getting just as impatient with her as she was with them.
*Sigh*
“Fine, I’ll go through this one time so you’d better all listen. Don’t blame me if you’re all too stupid to understand after I’ve had the grace and decency to tell you once. Alright, everyone gather around me and have a seat.”
The 24 young men and women all cautiously and carefully gathered in front of Alice. A few at first were upset at having to sit on the dirt-covered ground but after a cold glare from Alice, they resigned themselves to their fate and popped a squat.
Alice didn’t even fully wait for everyone to sit down and started into an explanation.
“Once we’ve identified what tier you mage core is then we will easily be able to determine at which level your difficulty in training will be implemented at and we can focus on your abilities allowing you to soar from a pebble to a Roc. After that when you increase your magical knowledge and power you can become an even more powerful mage unlocking even more incredible abilities…”
Alice paused for a moment and looked at those around her. With the dumbfounded expressions spread across their faces, she knew she had lost them. Rubbing her temples in frustration she spoke through gritted teeth.
“What part did you all not understand?”
One by one dozens of hands went flying up and before she could call on anyone particular, question after question came flying out.
“Tiers of a mage core what does that mean?
“Yea what she said.”
“Not only that, when you said soar from a pebble to a Roc was that a pun?”
Alice almost choked on her own words as she screamed.
“SHUT UP!”
The crowd went from shouts to a murmur, to complete silence within mere seconds.
“Okay, you guys obviously know nothing but shit but the main question you’re all wanting to be answered is the mage cores and mage’s rank. Fine, I’ll start from the beginning…”
“Firstly, a mage core is something that all mages have. It is non-physical and resides somewhere between the chest and stomach. It is a part of the mages themselves and stores all of their magical energy.”
Everyone looked on with intrigue as Alice continued.
“Most people are not born with mage cores but in rare cases, it does happen. I know what you’re all thinking. Then how does one get a mage core you might ask. The answer to that is slightly difficult to answer. Everywhere that life and death exist there is magical energy. In the air that we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat, everywhere.”
“This energy slowly but surely seeps into our bodies naturally and gathers in our very center condensing the energy on its own until a mage core is formed. The environment you’re brought up in and your own bodies composition also factor into what tier mage core your body will form.”
“So if you are raised near a dirty water source that you drink from and the air is smog due to pollution and the food you eat is of inferior quality, then the mage core your body forms will be of a lower quality, a lower tier. Opposite of that if you drink clean water every day and get crisp pure fresh air and eat superior quality food as you grow up, then it’s almost guaranteed that the mage core your body forms won’t be trash.”
“All the way from birth until the end of puberty, your body will naturally absorb this magical energy all around you as it tries to produce a mage core. After puberty though if your body has not made a mage core, then it never will. Why this happens we still don’t know but once you reach that cut off time your future prospects in life become very limited.”
“Now as for the tiers, they are actually quite simple. There are four in total and goes as follows.
Low Tier: Is, of course, the lowest and when it forms inside of you it has no color and it rotates within you like a small lazy windmill.
Medium Tier: half red & half blue mist or fog like bits similar to condensation collected on a window. This mist rotates as well, like a passing storm. Sometimes it rotates faster while other times it slows almost to a halt.
High Tier: Its color is purple and its shape is like a body of water, like a lake. It no longer rotates but instead, it’s surface ripples like true water.
Superior Tier: Forms an orb of purple with lines of silver light. This orb expands and shrinks as though it is breathing.”
“Finally, you may all be wondering if you even have mage cores and the answer to that is simply yes or rather you have something so similar that the difference between what you all have and the mage cores in this world are minimal; they are basically identical.”
Kazuki was the only one who knew what she meant by that.
(Master had once told me that every living creature back on earth has a bit of ki within them and the only way to store ki is to have a Dantian. I had guessed this early on but it seems once people from earth come here, their Dantian gathers magical energy at a rapid rate. It gathers and condenses it into a mage core so fast in fact that the young man with glasses had his form in only a day, allowing Garn to unlock his power in front of everyone.)
With Kazuki’s thoughts bouncing around, convinced his guess was right, Alice breathed a long tired breath.
*Phew*
“That basically covers Mage core tiers, now onto Mage ranks.”
Before Alice could continue though, another hand came flying up. Alice who was starting to lighten up, turned sour once she saw there were still more questions. Gritting her teeth she asked the thin young man slowly as to not explode on him.
“What…is…it?”
The one who had raised his hand was the thin, glasses-wearing young man who had his energy unlocked yesterday. He felt a little more confidence feeling power course through his body but still he couldn’t help but stammer a bit, asking this mad rabid young mage.
“This may seem like a dumb question but as of now, no one has told us. Mage Alice, um… What is this world called and the continent as well? We know the kingdom we are in is called Treia but besides that, we don’t know much else. How many other countries are there and how many continents. I looked at the map that Garn had shown us but it only showed one continent, are you telling me this whole planet is just one big continent, how can that be.”
Alice slapped her own forehead.
(Really Master, you didn’t even tell them that. Does the investigation have you that busy and distracted.)
Alice pulled a small crystal ball from her pocket and threw it into the air. With a bright flash of blue, a holographic image of a beautiful blue and green world floated above everyone.
“This is my world. This is Gordonia.”
Alice waved her hand and the planet began to rotate. A continent filled the holographic image.
“This is the continent we are all currently on, it’s called Feya, meaning land of the blessed.”
The image then zoomed in showing The dark miasma on one end and three large kingdoms on the other.
“On this continent, there are many small kingdoms and countries spread everywhere but the main three, the ones that will do the majority of the fighting are of course my home Treia and we are located in the north. The other is called Jin and lies far, to the east. Lastly, there is the kingdom of Maoudou, which is separated by a large desert in the southern part of the Feya continent. These two kingdoms are our greatest allies and they will march with us to the west to destroy the Azirian’s once and for all, and without you people’s help if I have any say.”
The holographic image continued to rotate and two other continents started to come into sight but Alice cut her energy from the crystal ball and put it away refusing to answer any more questions on the subject.
“I’m tired of answering all these stupid questions. Let’s move onto why I’m really here so I can go about my day.”
Alice stood up and pointed her staff at everyone and shouted.
“Everyone line up at once, I’m going to unlock your power.”
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