Chapter 2: The Road to Discoverance

It felt like an ordinary day, I expected it to go how it always went, thinking back I honestly wished that it would’ve. As I woke up that day I felt a sudden uneasiness before I got up, at the time I didn’t know for sure why that had happened, though I have a pretty good feeling as to why now. As I got up out of my bed I went through my normal everyday routine, I change clothes, freshen up and leave my room. I live in a very small room in what seemed to be somewhat of a cellar for the royal castle. I had my bed neatly organized to the far left of the room, off to the right I had a small shelf with a collection of various combat books which I always used when training as well as the door which led to the servants quarters, there were around five of them living in the castle at my grandfather’s request. There are also some stairs which lead up to the throne room. As I left my room that day, everything seemed normal, nothing unusual a few servants greeted me as usual, they were having their usual breakfast at the canteen which was also within the cellar and tending to their own rooms. I then went on to go say good morning to my grandfather like always. I headed up the stairs of the dusty cellar, the floors were made out of a nicely polished stone and dark wooden pillars which supported the roof. I then went straight to the throne. The throne itself was made out of a silver metal which was very nicely polished. The throne was positioned on a balcony above the main entrance. When entering, visitors are greeted with historic paintings, portraits, and statues while also being given complimentary snacks and drinks. To get to the throne one must walk up the stairs positioned around the balcony. Once at the throne you could see a large table with smaller chairs, this was for my grandfather’s weekly meetings. He had always traveled a lot and met up with high ranking Neptarians to discuss various subjects.

As I arrived at the throne my grandfather greeted me with “Oh, Mistery you’re awake. Class is starting soon I think you better start heading out” he said to me. I was enrolled in Torn’s training academy. Even back then my dream had always been to become a royal knight and serve under my grandfather. A few years back I had taken the entrance exam, I barely managed to qualify for a rank D. Despite that humiliating display from me in front of my grandfather I decided to keep on training on my own as well as during class. “This would surely help me improve my skills,” I thought to myself, and to my surprise it did. A few months after my first exam I was given the opportunity to take the rank C exam. I managed to pass it with flying colors. I like to think that it was because I had a friend watching and cheering me on. I never had many friends. I had always preferred to be alone and I didn’t like to speak that often, so when I met this person I thought my life had changed forever. However shortly after I had passed the exam she was taken back home to the northwestern part of Xaar.

I wasn’t born an abnormal my firepower was lacking and I could hardly hover in mid-air for a mere 5 seconds. I wasn’t a prodigy by any means. There was, however, someone who was. Enrolled in the same academy I was in, there was a boy named Blade. He was always at the top of all his classes and he even managed to get rank A during the entrance exams I had always thought that it was mainly due to the fact that he has an incredible abnormality. Somehow, he has the ability to create a sword out of nothing. Not only that but he is also very proficient with it. What bothers me most is the fact that he is only one year older than me,

“how could someone so young already be that powerful?” I thought to myself. People with natural talent like that always made me upset. It’s not fair that some people are just born with extreme talent and skill, while others including myself born with nothing. However, that’s the reality of it all and sometimes you just have to learn to accept it.

As I headed off to class, I noticed something strange. The class which I was enrolled in had never started that early in the day. I wondered if classes had gotten changed and I just wasn’t notified. However, I still headed to class at the orders of my grandfather since at this point I would be late for class either way. Once I had arrived I heard Captain Strek yell out “Mistery you’re late get in line, now!” once I heard that, my instant reaction was to quickly do as he said. Captain Strek is a very powerful and frightening man. I ran closer the academy which was a huge open field with various targets and weapons. Once I had arrived I got in line. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t stop to look around like how I always had.

“Welcome” Captain Strek yelled out

“You’re all here because you were recommended to me by King Zant”

“Everyone here is supposedly qualified for this class. This class will be the equivalent to that of an S ranked class” he announced. At that moment I started to panic, I had just recently passed the C rank exam and now I’m enrolled in an S ranked course, it was insane.

As Captain Strek continued to explain the course to everyone I took a quick glance around. I didn’t see many people there especially not any which I knew. The only face I recognized was Blade, “of course he would be in this class.” I thought to myself.

Seeing Blade there made me much more worrisome about the skill required for this course.

“While I know that King Zant recommended you all to this course and I hold him at an utmost respect, I run this class a bit differently than all the others and I won’t accept recommendations,” he said, at that moment I breathed a sigh of relief. I was just about to turn around and head home when I heard him say

“In order to leave here today, you all must turn to the person next to you and engage them in a duel.”

Seconds after he had finished speaking, a boy was already on the ground unconscious and standing before him was Blade, he had taken no second thought and done as he was instructed to. I was frozen at the sight of many people battling each other. I was too busy watching everyone else fight that I completely forgot that I was supposed to be fighting as well. I was then struck in the face and dropped down onto the ground. I quickly got up and regained my composure. I knew just by looking at the guy that there was no way I would be able to overpower him he was a very bulky guy so I resorted to ranged attacks. I kept my distance and started to blast short bursts of fire at his direction, however, didn’t want to use too much firepower since it tends to drain a person’s stamina very quickly. After I had stopped using fire in order to conserve my stamina the guy once again charged me this time landing a blow on my stomach which left me gasping for air then went back in to try to finish me off with another blow to the head, however, I managed to escape by the skin of my teeth. At this moment, I thought of surrendering I was thinking of just throwing in the towel and going back home. At that moment memories of my first entrance exam started to come back to me, I was badly injured but I had passed the exam, and so I gave up all thought of surrendering and decided to charge him myself. I was definitely faster than him since he was so bulky my guess was that his speed was quite lacking. Ever since I was little I had always been very fast, no one my age could ever to keep up with me and as I grew older my speed kept increasing, and so at this moment when it mattered the most I managed to properly use my speed in battle. I kept circling him and striking the same place just below his ribs continuously. Every time he got hit he lost some speed, I had used this to my advantage in order to close in on him. Before I knew it, he fell to the ground and I was declared the winner. After the battle, the elder of the village started to tend our wounds she had a wonderful abnormality which allowed her to heal almost any wound, I had a small cut on my left cheek there wasn’t much blood but she had still healed me.

After the battles had ended we all headed home for the day. Surprisingly I wasn’t too tired even after all of the running which I had done. Once I arrived back at the castle I decided to go confront my grandfather and ask him why he had put me in such a high ranked class. I walked up the stairs and went straight to the throne room, there was no one to be found. Even all of the guards and servants who are usually in the throne room were all gone. I started to look around some more, I even when upstairs and into my grandfather’s room which was coincidentally right above the throne itself. Once I took a look inside I still found nothing. After some time which I spent looking within the cellar, attic, and garden I still found no trace of them so I then decided that it was no big deal and I began to walk to my room in the cellar. However, before I could even reach the door I hear a faint scream coming from outside which caused me to run as fast as I could to the main doors. Once I got there I realized that I was too late. To my surprise I had found two guards on the ground, they each had a hole through their chests and blood was splattered on the ground next to them, their bodies piled on top of each other lying limp. I looked up to see a strange creature with what seemed to be a sword in place of its right arm, its skin was gray, and he had bone-like spikes throughout its face, it had no eyes or mouth, however, I could hear it breathing very aggressively. Its sword was covered in blood. All the creature did, however, was stand there and look at me. I tried to not make any sudden movements, I was still very shocked at what was going on, I had found two dead guards and a strange creature who was probably thinking of killing me just as he had done so to the guards. Just when I thought I had lost all hope the creature was struck from behind. Who I saw was Blade. However, the attack was ineffective at damaging it, all the attack managed to do was anger the creature even further. The creature then turned around and stared at Blade. At that moment Blade’s face changed from serious to frightened, he dropped his sword and just as the creature was about to pierce his chest my body started moving on its own, I ran up to the creature and struck him, the creature lost his composure and fell to the ground.