Arthur woke up early the next morning. Truth is he barely got any sleep. The sun has not risen yet and it was completely dark outside. Arthur took off the blanket and silently sat on the bed in complete darkness. He was given an extra room which was not in use for a long time. The room only had a bed and chair in the corner.
Dust was on almost everything in the room but Arthur was so tired from fight the previous day that he didn't even think of cleaning.
Thoughts filled Arthur's mind in the dark room
"Ned, Mom. I will find the person who killed you and make him pay for what he had done. My only drive at this moment in life is revenge and I Arthur Vryheid will take it in this same lifetime"
Arthur affirmed his intentions to himself right when he woke up. He closed his eyes in the dark and focused his thoughts together. By this time the sun had risen up and its rays gently fell upon Arthur's face through the window making it shine red and golden.
Turning his brown eyes to that of light golden colour which made his medium long hair stand out.
With this Arthur opens the door and leaves for outside. He reaches the living room expecting atleast Gideon to be already awake only to find out that no one is up yet. He roamed through entire living room, looking at strange things kept there.
Books, pages with strange symbols which Arthur thought to be arrays and weird looking bottles.
The bottles caught Arthur's eyes the most.
Their exquisite design made them look weirdly beautiful.
Arthur took one of the bottles sitting on the table and uncocks it "surely, just smelling it won't be that bad" Arthur was careful but he was only a seventeen years old teenager. With no knowledge of potions whatsoever.
He gently smells a pleasant odour coming out of the bottle. "Hmm, what is this? It's so pleasant" Arthur whispered softly. He picks up another bottle and hurriedly uncocks it to smell it too, only to be greeted by odour so bad that Arthur almost puked himself.
"I guess, not every bottle have good odours"
He placed both the bottles back on the table and moves towards the main door to exit outside.
He pushed open the gate and was greeted with fresh morning air. Trees and a small pond in front of the house seemed to greet him. He took large steps to stand on the boundary of the pond. The water surface was calm enough to act like a mirror. Showing him an image of himself in loose dark clothes.
"This brought back some unpleasant memories" Arthur thought, remembering his encounter on mount Oros. He turns around to leave but suddenly something grabs Arthur's leg.
"Huh..What?" Before Arthur could think anything he was dragged deep into the water. The tentacle slowly grew in number as they grabbed Arthur by the neck and started choking it.
"Shit, what do I do" Arthur was slowly losing consciousness.
In the dark below him he saw two terrifying eyes which glowed in the dark.
He was just about to lose his consciousness when a loud whistle came from outside the water. At once the tentacles slowly loosened and even took Arthur to the surface.
Huff huff…. Uggghhhh
Arthur vomited a lot as soon as he came to the surface. Water entered his stomach in large amounts that he felt nauseas and couldn't keep it in.
A gentle hand lightly tapped on his back to give him comfort. It slowly rubbed up and down to make him know that someone is here.
Arthur turns to see a girl his age, golden hairs and white pale skin. She was the same girl that Arthur saw earlier.
"I am sorry, are you alright?" Emeliya asked worriedly as she bent down.
"Get away, there is something in the water." Arthur hurriedly grabs her hand and makes some distance with the pond.
"Wai…wait. Reila is domestic" emeliya spoke with hesitation.
"Domestic?"
"Yes, see" Arthur looks towards the pond again. He saw a large snake like creature, half in water and half on ground with many tentacles with scales coming out of his body.
"She didn't know you were new and thought that someone was trespassing" Emeliya spoke as she walked towards Reila.
She gently touched its forehead and tickled it near the face.
"Reila is saying sorry to you. She says she didn't know you were friend" emeliya spoke again after turning to Arthur.
"Huh? You can talk with it?" Arthur asked in confusion.
"Well yes, didn't I tell you I am an unnatural" Emeliya spoke in confusion. She forgot that Arthur was raised as a normal person up until now and don't know much about magic and its branches.
" yes yes. But what's that" Arthur asked, scratching his head in embarrassment.
"Oh right, you don't know much about magic. Well an unnatural as the name suggests is different from normal human beings. At birth some children who have mana develop mana channels connecting one or rarely two of the organs directly to orb in the body. Exposing the organ to orb mutated the organ which gives them abilities they normally don't have." Emeliya explained Arthur calmly.
"I see. Then what type of unnatural are you ermmm.. miss"
On hearing Arthur's words emeliya let out a small chuckle. "Just call me emeliya. We are same age anyway and to answer your question, I am a
Neuro-stellar. Someone who has a direct channel between their mind and orb. So I can do various things like talking to animals directly or telekinesis. There are many more things but I am still learning."
"Wow, so you can literally talk to animals and here I thought you meant figuratively" Arthur said in a marvellous tone.
"Hmm, it's alright. Why don't you try to pat Reila? She really loves pats from people" Emeliya offered Arthur in a polite tone.
"Thank you for your offer but I will pass on that. It seems I should avoid ponds or water all together for some time" Arthur said hesitantly.
Emeliya was about to persuade again when a voice came from behind.
"You two are up early." Gideon spoke, stretching his arms and yawning.
"Good morning captain" emeliya wished first.
"Took you long enough to wake up, aren't we suppose to start training." Arthur said excitedly.
"Oh yeah, and whose fault do you think that is." Gideon spoke, annoyed by Arthur who was the reason he couldn't sleep properly last night because of all the questions.
"Well anyways, come on Arthur let's get you started." Gideon said with a smile on his face.
"Huh.. where?"
"Just follow behind"
Gideon led the way as they walked through dense jungle under the trees. The trees formed a canopy above so that no sunlight could pass through them.
"By the way Gideon, where are we right now? Not many places in the central continent have jungles this dense." Arthur asked out of curiosity.
"This is somewhere in southern mountain range of central continent. It's quite far from capital of empire so it very easy to hide here." Gideon replied.
Central continent was naturally separated from the southern continent because of these long mountain ranges. The mountain range was here for many centuries but it was left alone because of constant tension with Dwarves in the southern continent.
After all the talk it has already been nearly half an hour since they started walking. They have been passing through various places and were still going on.
At this point Arthur grew impatient and decided to ask Gideon directly "How long is it going to take and where are we going anyway."
"We are already here" Gideon spoke stopping in his footsteps. " call it your training ground."
Arthur walked up to Gideon who was in front of him and a beautiful view entered his vision as he excited the low hanging canopy of trees. It was a vision of the valley between two tall mountains.
"So what are we going to do first" Arthur asked excitedly.
"YOU not we" Gideon said pointing towards the old rough stair path at the side, going all the way to the bottom of the mountain.
"Huh? Just these? I can descend down and climb back up in just an hour. I used to regularly descend to the waist of mount to sell wood." Arthur spoke in an almost proud tone.
"I figured that much and so I already decided to bring something special for you." Gideon spoke with a smile on his face as he raised his hand.
He had a silver ring on his finger which appeared to unfold as something came out of the ring.
It was a carrier chair. With two straps on it's front to carry like a bag.
"What? Surely you don't mean you will be sitting all the way through both up and down." Arthur asked hesitantly.
" Well ofcourse I would. Why else do you think I took this out. You don't know many things about magic. So I will be giving you your theory lectures along the way." Gideon spoke again as his smile became sharp.
Arthur was hesitant but his hesitation quickly faded as he picked up the carrier chair and passed his hands through the straps to wear the chair.
"Alright, come on let's not delay any further than we already have"
Gideon was surprised a bit on hearing the words that came out of Arthur's mouth. He expected a bit more hesitation but to his surprise Arthur was completely determined.
Gideon hopped in the chair with a step.
"Alright let's go"