?
The edge of the cliff that Raze was able to see had long gone out of his sight, and now it felt like he was endlessly falling down. How deep was he falling off the edge? Surely even if a Pagna warrior were to fall down here, they too would perish.
‘Why would they have such a cliff in the academy? Do they want students to die? It seems like my experience here might end up being worse than at the mage’s academy!’
Flashes of imagery appeared in Raze’s mind. Surrounded in a large courtroom, surrounded by other mages. His own self standing on trial with cuffs around his wrists, then finally the image of Ibarin covered in fake tears, one of the five Grand Magus, and the current head of the Mage Academy.
‘No, the situation back then was far worse than this, this I can handle.’
Calming himself as he fell, Raze started to gather magic. Over his right hand, swirls of dark purple were weaving in and out, flowing like water. Then over his left arm, the same thing was happening, but it wasn’t dark in color; it was clear and almost invisible because Raze was using wind magic as well.
“Dark pulse!” Raze shouted, and from his hand, the pulse of magic moved the mist out of the way, but it soon moved back, covering it again. After a few seconds, though, he could hear a slight banging sound.
‘Not yet… I need to time this right.’ 𝒩𝑂𝒱ℯ𝓛xt.𝑪𝑂𝑀
“Dark pulse!” Raze called out again, and the attack went through the mist. This time the bang was heard much sooner than before, and when there were only a couple of seconds left.
“Dark pulse, and the push of wind!” Raze shouted.
The ground was only around a meter off the floor from where he was, but the Dark pulse exploded into the floor, and the wind pushed out of his hand, going against the ground. For a moment, the power of the forces had pushed energy back in the other direction, slowing him down immensely, but the momentum of the fall was still too much to completely stop it.
Raze’s body slammed onto the floor, and he bounced across the ground. After hitting the floor a few times, his arm smashed against something hard. A cracking sound followed with a short burst of immense pain that quickly faded away due to the adrenaline that was running through his body, but it was clear to Raze that he had broken his arm.
‘Well… at least I’m alive… for now.’ Raze’s eyelids were slowly closing, flickering, but even if they were open anyway, all he could see was a thick mist around him until they eventually closed.
The images that flashed in Raze’s mind before had turned into reality. He looked down at his arms and could see they were covered in strange cuffs. They were metallic at the top but then connected by some type of blue energy beam across them.
His hands, they were wrinkled compared to what he was used to, and when he looked up, he could see himself in a large courtroom. He was standing in the center, and as he looked up, surrounding him, sitting in stands high above, were hundreds of mages.
“Raze Cromwell, a verdict has been made!” One of the older mages in white and blue robes with a large mallet in his hand was sitting at the stand. “You have been struck of your title as professor, and your crimes have been added to your record. With this, it will be difficult for you to obtain any job dealing with magic ever again.
“That is, if you are able to survive a life sentence of 25 years in affinity prison. An appeal cannot be made.”
The dreaded feeling of the whole world of Raze’s having crashed down after spending so long to build it up; he was reliving that moment again. It all felt so very real to him. Back then, though, he was too shocked to say anything, but this time he could.
“No!” Raze shouted back. “It wasn’t me. I was tricked; it was all Ibran’s doing! Run an investigation; you’ll find out the truth!”
The image was frozen in place; none of them were moving, and just as quickly as he had entered the memory, it smashed like glass breaking apart into tiny little pieces.
Slowly opening his eyes, Raze could see the mist again.
‘Crap, I guess this part wasn’t a dream, but the other part was. Well, I would rather be here than there. Thanks for that, brain, for reminding me, why I’m putting myself through all of this.’
With an attempt to move his arm, a shooting pain ran up his entire body. He was sore all over, but reaching and grabbing his arm, applying a bit of pressure, he could move up a bit and was sat up. Standing was still going to be a mammoth of a task, but at least he was no longer on the floor.
Thankfully, he had survived the large fall by using what magic he had. If his wind attribute was strong enough, then he could have perhaps floated down peacefully, but instead, he had no choice but to try and guess where the bottom was and summon as much power in the other direction to lessen his fall.
“Crap!” Raze shouted, letting out a bit of his anger. “Why, when I’m in a situation like this, does this body start thinking about whether or not she’s going to be okay?”
The image that was appearing in Raze’s mind now was of the current sister’s body, Safa. He thought after protecting her a few times and keeping her by his side, this strange compulsion the body had would go away.
It somewhat had done, but now that they were apart, there was a tugging feeling in his chest, a feeling he didn’t like at all.
‘I know, we still haven’t solved the situation with the assassins or found out why our family was killed, so they could still be going after her. But we’re in the Academy; things should be okay, and I think we should be worrying about ourselves for now.’
Eventually, Raze stood on his two feet. He had no clue what direction to go in, so he decided to just wander through the mist until he found something.
‘That fight, the disciples, they are stronger than I thought. They have techniques they can use beyond that of other clans. Even if they are a lower stage Pagna warrior, the stages just refer to energy or Qi. But not the amount of skills used.
‘I guess there’s a bigger relation between star mages and the Pagna warrior stages as well. The statement that it’s impossible for a warrior at a higher stage could ever lose to a lower stage isn’t true; it only makes sense for those that are in the same clan.
‘If I want to solve this situation, then before going back to the academy, I need to be stronger than those guys. Right now, there are three ways I can increase my strength. Increase my power as a Pagna warrior, increase my magic core, or use enchanted items.’
A combination of these things would be best and would allow for rapid growth for Raze. Eventually, wandering through the mist, Raze had bumped into a solid object. As he pressed his hand against it, he could feel jagged rocks.
‘Is this the cliff? I guess if I walk across it, I should eventually come to see something.’ Raze did just that, with his hand touching the rocky cliffside, he continued to walk through the mist, that was until his hand slipped, feeling nothing.
As he looked to his right where his hand had felt in, he noticed it was a large hole, a giant entrance, and an area where the mist wasn’t heading inside for some reason.
‘Is this some type of cave entrance? I am exhausted, and rest for a bit wouldn’t be such a bad idea. If things don’t work out, I always have another plan anyway.’ Raze thought to himself.
Walking into the cave, there were parts of the wall that were lit up, with small strange glowing green bugs. They looked more like worms as they wiggled but allowed for Raze to see where he was going.
Thankfully, if he was going to sleep inside, none of the bugs seemed to be on the floor. Looking at the wall with the wiggling bugs, though, he noticed something; it was writing that was engraved on the wall.
“Oh, so I guess someone else was down here as well. Probably another student that they kicked off the cliff and managed to survive,” Raze said, as the idea didn’t seem too far-fetched. When he looked at the writing closer, he noticed that he could read it, but a realization had hit him.
“Wait… this isn’t Pagna writing; the writing on the wall, it’s Alterian writing!”