After a night in Coral Ward, with howling winds and banging window shutters making rest difficult, Phoenix and his team headed north to Onyx Ward. With the sun up, the arcade no longer dazzled with captivating lights.
"I won just about every decent prize they offered," Kira said with a yawn. "If I go back, it'd just be to brag and show off to the students of OJS."
Onyx Jishen School was the alma mater of Dian, Florini, and Amaria, three of the Masters of Stronghold. They trained their students well, for the students had become guards for the school.
A teenage boy who looked a little older than Phoenix grinned, revealing a chipped tooth. "Are you Phoenix?"
"Yes. I've come to challenge Florini, Master of Plants."
The boy took out a flail and swung it around. Phoenix and Yemin ducked, Cupid and Dula leaped back with cries of surprise, the flail missed Kira entirely and struck Lei in the face.
"The name's Ke, and no one gets past my morning star."
Phoenix tried not to sound too irritated. "Did Florini order you to block our entry?"
"No, outsider," Ke replied. "Her brother did."
Fernando. The boy with the butterfly swords was a skilled fighter, and as a poison jishen, he wielded one of the most insidious elements in Stronghold. But he was also cocky. He acted like the world owed him something, like he had been denied when his sister became Master instead of him.
Several other students joined Ke. Together, the twenty-plus teenagers, ranging from short kids barely Kira's age to muscular young adults closer to Victory and Cain's age, formed a wall to block Phoenix and his teammates.
"Consider this a warmup, team," Phoenix said.
Cupid grinned as he elongated his chui. "We won't even break a sweat, firefingers."
The wall of students charged with a ferocious battle cry, led by Ke. A group of them performed an acrobatic sequence as they recited Dian's cheer. Dula barrelled through the base of their jishen pyramid and caused them to tumble with indignant cries.
Kira took on two of the younger students empty-handed and without magic. She punched and yelled with such fury that it put the others to shame, relying on both magic and weapons.
Yemin fought dirty, which the students hated. They had been taught to fight with courage and honour, and here was a dark jishen who wore a glove over the hand that wielded a cane. He was no invalid; that cane was a weapon with a hidden blade and deadly force.
Phoenix, Cupid, and Lei teamed up to take down most of the students. The combination of fire, wind, and lightning kicked up a storm in the sandy courtyard. Cupid wielded wind magic with such precision that almost no grains of sand went into his team's eyes, while the students spluttered and teared up, getting sloppy.
Phoenix kicked Ke in the gut and then ran into the school, followed by his teammates. He didn't look back as he ran through the corridors, shoving past other students who declared themselves as guards of the Onyx Jishen School under Fernando's orders. Fernando himself was nowhere to be seen.
When Phoenix got through the hellish hallway, he noticed how quiet it was. He'd lost his team. He was lost.
Somehow, in the chaos, Phoenix had found his way into the dormitories. He peeked at the boys' and girls' changerooms, which were right next door to each other. Across the hallway, the last dorm room was unlocked.
A layer of dust covered everything from the shelves to the neatly pressed sheets on the bunk beds: a canary-yellow quilt with lightning bolts, a plain green blanket, a minimalistic and scratchy-looking sheet, an expensive covering woven with all the colours of the ocean. Carefully arranged trophies decorated one of the tables, a practice sword and shield had been left behind on the open door of a wardrobe filled only with old tunics and trousers, intimidating stacks of textbooks spilled out of the shelves.
Three journals lay on the empty table. The first was simple and the same light green as one of the blankets. Neat handwriting revealed a foreign name and an entry written in another language.
Florini.
Phoenix deciphered fragments of the excerpt: This will be my final entry. Retaining emotions isn't worth it anymore. Irrational thoughts and feelings remain a severe detriment to work efficiency ... and breed scorn in those with whom they are shared. I have lost too much at the hands of emotions: time, results, and now my friend.
It was the last page of the journal. The next book was clearly not Florini's. The writing was less elegant, but in the Strong language that Phoenix was getting more comfortable reading the more paperwork he filled out for Chongsheng.
You think it's cool to go around reading other people's journals. What do you hope to find here? Do you want to ruin me? Are you expecting a weeping emotional confession? Here's a piece of advice from the deadliest steel jishen in the country: if you want to know someone, then go talk to them. But if you're reading this, then don't bother talking to me.
It was meant to incite guilt, but it only made Phoenix more curious. The writer's claim of being the deadliest steel jishen in Stronghold was likely an exaggeration, but Onyx Jishen School was known for training strong and capable jishen. Three of their alumni were Masters now. And if the journal's writer had been Florini's roommate, then they must have been in their early twenties now, paved a life of greatness for themselves.
Phoenix tried to recall who the Master of Steel was. The journal's owner was named Titanium, which could have been a man or a woman. But he was fairly sure the Master of Steel was an old man: wise, obstinate, humble. As a graduate of OJS, Titanium might have been a powerful steel jishen, but they were most definitely not the deadliest.
Knowing he shouldn't, Phoenix looked at the last journal. The pages were bound with a bladed wire, and shards of glass were inserted between some of the pages. Phoenix cut his fingers opening it, and a small drop of blood tainted the beautiful, aquamarine journal. A most effective and insidious alarm.
My name is Amaria, and I have everything I could ever want: status, a good education, the love of my life. But it all feels empty. I resigned as head cheerleader because how can I lead a cheer when I have none inside? Dian is more suited for the job, anyway. He's found his calling; why haven't I found mine? It doesn't matter what I do. Will anyone remember me? Why won't anything make me happy? Titanium tries, goodness knows he tries, but sometimes, I want to end it all.
Phoenix dropped the journal and washed his hands.