The academy was quietening as the sky darkened steadily.
The silence plagued the glossy linoleum halls, leading into a classroom with a lone teacher.
A humanoid owl sat at a desk in the corner of the room, facing the rows of smaller desks, while a blackboard stood silently on the wall beside him.
Mr Wickerson was hunched over a book, a grey tome that seemed to blur at the edges.
"The great reckoning" lit up one side of the book in ethereal lines of glowing yellow dust.
Mr Wickerson possessed rank five magic, called "scholar magic" allowing him to access any information he learned in the form of books.
Currently, the book he semi-materialised was one he habitually flipped through.
This could be said to be the rarest piece of information in Mr Wickerson's vast collection of knowledge.
The book was practically page-less, with only a few pages inside, yet somehow the width of the book was impossibly the size of a watch.
On the outside, it looked like a regular book, with the 'many' pages visible on the sides of the book where the grey spine ended.
Yet as soon as the 'book' was pulled open, one could see these many pages were stuck together, not even resembling parchment in the slightest.
Though in the middle of this open book, with the length of a face, the width of a plate, the colour of dust, stood three pages.
Mr Wickerson had many books he could summon, most of the time he would materialise books that captured specific parts of his knowledge, like magic knowledge for example.
This way, he could study his own knowledge extensively, allowing him to greatly monitor his comprehension of skills.
It was because of that benefit that Mr Wickerson had mastered rank one wind magic, rank two wood magic and rank 3 snow magic.
Actually, it was already quite rare for a person to learn two types of magic.
Though with Mr Wickerson's use of scholar magic, his rate of improvement drastically rose, of course even with this rate this mastery still took him extensive time to learn each magic.
Not to mention each magic was a different type of magic.
Magic could be categorised into different groups:
Construction, liquid, energy, qi, morph, hybrid and special.
For example, Adrian's rank six lightning magic was classified as an "energy type"
Wind was classified as energy, wood was construction, and snow was hybrid.
These classifications were based on the properties of the magic, manipulating each magic was different but one could easily tell that magic with completely different properties were of different categories.
Learning magic types of different categories was normally discouraged, it was far easier to comprehend one magic type than to learn multiple in one lifetime.
In life, the mastery of a skill could sometimes crossover, a tennis player would find it easier to pick up badminton than boxing.
Only those with the time to spare and unmatched experience would even bother to muddle with different magic types.
This made Mr Wickerson's achievements even more impressive.
He read the few pages, studying and increasing his comprehension, his mind working with wondrous theories before-
Peck! Peck!
The sound of a dull thud against glass snapped his mind from the expanding web of thought.
His tiny hooked beak snapped toward the window, finding a longer sharper beak aiming at him through a window, belonging to a wondrous creature.
A red-feathered legend perched outside the window, red-ringed eyes wide and awaiting.
A burning flame Impossibly shaped into a rectangle sat between the creature's beak.
"A phoenix!" Mr Wickerson realised immediately, his extensive knowledge immediately capturing the thought.
This beast was one of the most mythical in the magical world, capable of wielding flames that could even mend the soul!
A flame that meant ashes were just another form to this bird, before it eventually rose from a dazzling red flame.
Here this grand bird was in front of Mr Wickerson!
When Mr Wickerson finally awakened from his stupor, he pulled the window open, welcoming the bird
The rectangle ran in an outline made entirely of flickering flame, with a near blank space where words hovered made from flame.
"Dear Mr Wickerson, I hope this finds you well, entrusted by my loyal messenger. I was told you held the formula to rank five spectator magic, I was hoping I could trouble you for that formula.
-Sol."
Mr Wickerson's beak snapped open with eyes like an alarm clock.
"Sol? As in one of the sun goddesses?" Mr Wickerson thought to himself, unable to comprehend the situation.
A god was reaching out to him personally!
He couldn't believe it!
Though this bird in front of him, was an undisputed symbol of proof.
Its red feathers sat grandly even as it perched leisurely on the open window.
Mr Wickerson had no choice but to believe this matter, after all how rare were phoenixes?
They were the only bird that could survive the flames of the sun, thus they were appropriately used as messengers.
Though this still raised questions in the teacher's mind.
"Why the use for spectator magic?" He asked himself internally, rank five magic could be seen as barely useful to a god.
Not to mention there was a magic type similar to spectator magic with a higher rank.
Rank seven - Observation magic.
There were rumours that Ra, another god of the sun, possessed this magic.
Supposedly out of all the gods, Ra worked to himself the most, with observation magic one could multitask and watch the world without stopping their work.
If Ra had this magic, why would Sol ask for a rank five magic from him instead of asking for a rank seven magic from Ra?
However. Mr Wickerson was just a school teacher, how would he know the personal affairs of any god?
He could only assume that if Ra did have this magic, Sol would choose to learn a rank 5 magic because it would take less time in doing so.
Unless perhaps Sol would rather not let the other gods know what she was doing, in the likelihood it would raise questions.
Though all of that was beyond Mr Wickerson, in this world of gods and monsters forsaken since the great reckoning, who was he to meddle in the affairs of anyone?
The great Sol was personally asking him for this favour, with his rank five scholar magic it was easier than baking a cake.
Swoosh!
Mr Wickerson materialised a new book in front of his hovering palm, the "Great Reckoning" copy inside his other hand.
This book he made had a far more solid imprint on existence, the previous one had more of an ethereal look, whilst this one looked as tangible as any normal book in the world.
It had a thick spine, with a brown and clean cover.
The words were etched in simple black "Magic knowledge"
The book itself was as wide as a mug handle's length.
Mr Wickerson peeled the book open and flipped through a hundred pages, skimming past all sorts of core moves on wind, snow and wood magic.
Countless magic formulas, written but not learnt, swept over in a few breaths before finally an image lay bare before Mr Wickerson.
The image was like a normal pattern of an eye, drawn in some blank ink.
Though the moment Mr Wickerson saw the page from the book, the lines immediately rose from the page, hovering in overlapping lines with a thin space between them like a spiral.
The page itself, like dried parchment, was now glossy and semi-transparent.
Its edges burned with sky blue neon light.
The ink was now a glowing ethereal trace of the same blue light as the edges.
The shape of the eye was now a three dimensional project, depicting the vibrational flow of mana as it weaved into a new magical form.
Rank five - spectator magic.
Once Sol received this page, she would study it carefully, reading the page like a map.
Each curve of the blue light red pressed the pathway the mana would need to take to shift on a vibrational level into the new form.
This would become the foundation for learning how to form rank five spectator magic.
Mr Wickerson held the page out toward the phoenix, one thin feather sweeping over its head as it leaned in.
It took the page, like paper made from a ghost, between its beak and then spun, flapping off into the dark sky.
It flew higher and higher, ascending above dark clouds, its red feathers still grand as moonlight caught upon it.
It drifted out of the atmosphere, where it suddenly burnt up into a ball of flame the moment it felt cold space wrap around it.
A bird of fire swept through the space, devoid of all light, as its bright flames burned hotter, scorching red as it tracked toward a grand ball of flame.
Beneath the phoenix now sat the earth, a seemingly motionless ball of blue and green floating in black space.
The phoenix flew faster and faster, before suddenly another red flame shot up from the earth behind it.
Another phoenix, carrying its own message, flew up beside this one.
The two flew along, like two balls of red flame, like two grand eyes of an invisible giant walking through space, all the way until they reached the sun.
From there, the two phoenixes split off, one breaking left whilst the other broke right.
This phoenix had one long red feather that swept over its head, flying right as it slowly curved around the grand ball of flame, eventually settling and sweeping past the surface.
The red ball of flame was immediately engulfed by the orange, visually dying the red flames until the red feathers on the phoenix seemed to glow.
It continued, flying deeper until it finally found a humanoid figure made of pure orange light, like the glow of energy itself.
The figure was feminine, with long strands of bright glowing hair almost as bright as the sun itself.
Her entire skin was like candlelight, illuminated from head to toe.
She sat cross legged, seemingly resting within the depths of her own mind.
When the Pheonix approved, Sol finally opened her eyes, revealing eyes without pupils but two blank shades of burning orange, slightly brighter than the rest of her body.
Two burning lights in her eye sockets where pupils and irises should've sat.
"It's here…" Sol breathed to herself, noticing a transparent parchment in the phoenix's beak like a page made from a ghost.
She took the page, it had an outline of glowing light blue that traced all the way around.
On the hollow inside was a grand image of a spiral rising up, made from twisting bright blue the same light as the outline.
When held in front of her face, with the appropriate angle, Sol could see the spiral was an eye.
Though the impossible tangle of lines made the structure itself hard to navigate.
It was a magic formula, with three dimensional overlapping lines to depict the instantaneous flow of mana.
To some, this would take perhaps a lifetime to understand the flow of the lines, let alone putting the understanding into practice.
Though to Sol, with a far greater experience of higher ranked magic, having lived for an eon of time, this was extremely average to her.
Though as she began studying the lines, she felt a presence moving closing toward her side of the sun.
Sol immediately hid the transparent parchment behind her back.
The pure flame surrounded her, showing another feminine figure slowly levitating toward her.
The figure was like a shadow in mist as it floated through the flames until eventually standing motionless directly in front of Sol.
The figure had long straight black hair like dripping ink , cascading over a semi-armoured body.
One shoulder held a square dark red shoulder plate, with a Japanese character painted delicately in black in the centre.
Her other shoulder was bare, apart from the stripe of a black vest, revealing a black tattoo.
A black square outline, like a window, something with glass.
A black katana running diagonally across the window.
Her eyes were like two black voids, emotionless just as much as bottom less.
She had a beautiful appearance, every feature was sharp, complementing the natural look of darkness.
"Amaterasu." Sol greeted in a plain voice.
"Sol." Amaterasu replied nonchalantly, like a dull blade.
"You also sent for a pheonix?" Amaterasu asked without a single shift in her expression.
Sol didn't reply.
"I'm heading out, I have business." Amaterasu said coldly without bothering to ask further.
Of course she didn't mean quite literally heading out, but rather using a shade, it was so obvious that Amaterasu wouldn't feel the need to specify that.
Instead turning away, her glance following Sol for a second, sharpening for a fraction before facing forward and drifting through the flame as soon as her body faced ahead.
End of chapter 34