What was supposed to just be a watch tower was being laid out as the foundation for Kirim's school. She used a significant amount of mineral based magic to form the foundation, and she also dug out the ground to give the building a basement. The building would be the size that the demon tree had been, in fact larger, but it would have many rooms. The basement was going to be divided into three separate layers.
Bercouli's representative stared in awe at how deep Kirim had dug into the ground with her magic, moving the dirt, stone and gravel aside to use later. She had been at it between lessons for three days since he arrived. She didn't start digging up the land until he arrived, but she had been designing what she wanted to build the school into.
"Remarkable the progress you have made so far. Such progress would have taken our sacred arts weeks in comparison."
Kirim shrugged.
"I imagined this going faster than just having the basement foundations set. But in a week, I'll have the basement section finished and the ground floor ready to welcome in students. I'll be renovating the ground floor as I go, since at first it'll be all purpose for dormitories to students, having everything they'll need to live and study. So that I can remind the basement plan, the bottom layer is going to be a cleansing spring, where we'll have magic practice to clean and purify water as well as enchant it's heat, and add to it when it diminishes. It'll double as a cleansing bath. It'll be one large reservoir where they learn, and then several stalls where they actually bathe. The second basement level will be for powerful magic training. The whole of the basement level is being reinforced constantly to resist magic's physical effects so that it won't be destroyed by magic other than a level stronger than myself – in the future it'll cleanly resist all magic since I'll be reinforcing the school with damage resistance and regeneration magic."
Bercouli's representative balked at that part of the explanation, him knowing just how powerful the building was going to be. It would be on the level of the Axiom cathedral in Centoria, just smaller. Maybe the enchantments being constantly reinforced would make it even stronger.
"And the basement level just beneath the ground floor will be a physical training ground with a soft floor so that impacts won't be too rough when someone makes contact. After the building has a few more layers above the ground floor, I'll make the ground floor into a lobby and gathering space, like a meeting space for the village and students. The first above ground level will be dorms for teachers and an office for meeting with teachers. I'm planning ahead to a future where this school could be supporting many more students than my capacity, by giving the opportunity to capable graduates to join the ranks as a teacher. You can learn from teaching after all, though it only goes so far. Most people in the light lands, I get the impression they wouldn't actually want to go much further than graduation. There might be some among the graduates who want to aim for greater heights with magic, but those who don't could assist me as teachers for further students and carry on the school when eventually I succumb to nature's embrace."
She took a breath, looked up and smiled.
"And above the first floor above ground level will be classroom floors for a few floors, and finally a few floors for student dormitories, topping off the building with a tall watch tower. The watch tower will be tall enough to see a fair distance into the dark lands, compared to the previous version I had planned for the watch tower before the school was added to my plans."
Bercouli's representative sighed, overwhelmed by hearing it. He had heard bits and pieces before but it didn't sound so impressive in pieces. It just sounded like a large building trying to rival the cathedral. Now he knew the building was going to be a significant part of the light lands, and the most important point to consider was that the building was being built of a composite of demon tree fibre and minerals. So it would already have a physical and magical component in its very structure to support her claims of fully resisting all of those damages she spoke of. Adding magical enchantments to it was only making it more intimidating. A black towering building to contrast the beautiful white tower in Centoria.
"Oh, I've been so busy I just realized I hadn't learned your name yet. I'm Kirim of Rulid, formerly of the dragon master blood elf settlement. I apologize for rudely not using your name so far, sir integrity knight."
She bowed her head lightly, waiting for a response. When he stopped gawking that someone he thought was so impressive was bowing in show of respect, he nodded and returned the bow with a lower one.
"No no, I must apologize for rudely neglecting to introduce myself. I'm Charles Synthesis 50. You can just call me Charles or a shorter name if you like. Sir Bercouli told me I would be supervising a rare talent, but your explanation just now left me near speechless. I honestly don't understand the need to supervise you in spite of your taboo. You're plenty well behaved, have no bad intentions and it's clear, and you're even going to the trouble to set up the greatest asset the light lands will have going into the future even though sir Bercouli said it was your punishment for committing taboo."
Kirim gave him a confused expression.
"It's nice to properly make your acquaintance now. And yes I do need to serve some sort of penance for the taboos I have committed. Besides, the most important taboo I broke I'm still breaking at this moment."
Charles stared in confusion. Suddenly the shining example of a dark lander wasn't so bright.
"What taboo are you breaking that's so important?"
"The taboo of being far beyond the abilities of any light lander my age. When I hit twenty I finally won't be committing taboo since I won't be aging again for a long time. Until then, I'll be constantly breaking taboo because I can't just reverse all of the training I've done."
He was baffled.
"Strange that would be considered taboo for a person who wasn't originally from this land. Perhaps it was just meant to restrain you and control what you were doing. I'm fairly early in my training as an integrity knight so I'm not familiar with all of the ins and outs, but it feels to me you're being unfairly treated."
She shrugged.
"It doesn't really matter in the end. I'm happy to be a teacher and to be accepted by integrity knights. I grew up fearing integrity knights. Not long ago, I was chased by the knight originally stationed in the area. I wasn't doing anything in particular, just riding my dragon around getting used to being on his back. Either way, sir Bercouli and you are fine in my opinion. Sir Bercouli broke my perception of integrity knights by being full of personality, even though he nearly killed me through neglect. In comparison to him and the other integrity knight I've met, you don't feel anywhere near as threatening or honestly like an integrity knight at all. Maybe it's because as you said, you're training as an integrity knight. You're inexperienced."
He nodded. He wasn't upset in the slightest at being called inexperienced. It was the truth. He didn't know just how much she knew about integrity knights, but being so unafraid of him was right of her. He didn't have an armament, he didn't have fully optimized armour, and he wasn't particularly good at anything other than sacred arts use. Being good at using sacred arts was a requirement to be an integrity knight. There were many things that made an integrity knight, but his mind was lacking all of the information needed. He only knew what he needed to know. He didn't have any memories outside of when he became an integrity knight.
"You've got me there. Maybe your school will also teach new integrity knights. I bet you could teach me plenty about how to fight, among many other things. We could become better understood by the average citizen, and we'd have a fair understanding of the world around us and other necessities to life. We have to relearn how to live."
She smiled.
"Well, if Bercouli sends me integrity knights like you, then I'm all for it. Just let him know that I won't take developed integrity knights. If he and administrator want their stronger integrity knights to learn magic for instance, they'll have to have knights like you teach them after you learn from me."
Charles had a melancholic expression on his face. Kirim returned her attention mostly to preparing the physical structure of the layers of the floors. It was a slow process if someone were only watching it and not keeping in account the time that was actually passing. She was forming massive intricately planned floors with openings for stairs and wall layouts as she built it up.
The size of the building wasn't to be underestimated in the first place. The building was several times larger than most buildings in Rulid. The building's basement was larger than the demon tree was by a bit, large enough to consume the clearing as well. Above the basement, the building would still be at least as large as the demon tree had been. The basement was going to be the key to the whole building though. With the solid ground surrounding the basement and the basement reinforcing the build of the tower, they were extremely well prepared. Kirim's planning was astonishing. He wondered if she had some experience seeing large building structures or if it came to her instinctively.
"Kirim, can you teach me how to make the mineral explosions again? I've forgotten..."
Eugeo was the one asking. He wore an expression of absolute embarrassment. It were as if it were the most embarrassing thing in his life even though he only forgot one thing he had been taught. If it were a common thing, then it would be cause for concern. He was very steadfast in his learning and retaining however. He hadn't forgotten anything he was taught yet. It could have been that the mineral explosion just wasn't within his strengths.
"Sure, I'll just take a few more minutes to lay out the current part of the building I'm working on. I'll help you remember after I finish this. You came back with bad timing. I just got started. I'll adjust what I have started so it doesn't take as long to use the energy I've already put in it."
Eugeo nodded in understanding, stepping back and practised the basics of mineral magic just out of where it would distract her. He was trying to reinforce his foundations while she was developing the foundation of the school. It was strenuous for him when he just wasn't understanding what he needed in order to turn the minerals into an explosion. He conjured the minerals just fine after a good while of practice, but layering it with the intent to burst out with flames, the layering was just not clicking with him.
It was a constant struggle for him, but he was trying. He had managed to combine water and fire, water and ice, and wind with everything but mineral. He had a feeling he just needed proper imagery to think of in order to produce the mineral explosions. The mineral explosion was the most powerful physical attack among the taught repertoire for the time being, even though it was cast by magic. Mineral attacks were considered physical because they hit with physical objects typically of mineral consistency. Supposedly there was a non physical mineral attack called petrifaction which even Kirim struggled with. Just like ice could be physical if considered in the fully frozen form used as a weapon or another physical form. Some elements couldn't be physical however, like fire. Fire could be applied to something physical, but fire itself couldn't be physical.
As for Kirim's magic, Charles was astonished by how quickly she tied together the massive amount of energy she was using for the development she made. What took hundreds of devout followers of the Axiom church weeks to develop, she did in minutes. There was plenty of preparation beforehand, but alone she outstripped everything the church had. She was still even with such a massive project prioritizing her students' learning. It was admirable, everything together was making him feel unfathomable respect for her.
"Okay, it's tied up for the time being. Where are you having the most trouble with your mineral explosions?"
Charles listened in on the conversation, taking keen interest in how she taught. He had seen her teaching before, but it was mostly a show of something for her students to learn, and having them mimic it. He wanted to see how she taught a student who was having trouble with something they were learning. A true test of her ability as her teacher.
"I'm struggling with the explosion itself...I'm still confused how to make it explode. You explained that it was a mix of fire and mineral magics, but it's just not working for me with the minerals melting or fizzling out instead of exploding..."
She nodded.
"Try watching this as I show nice and slow."
She conjured a small example of a bunch of sand swirling in the air between them, turning smoothly but also unimpeded like a weapon meant to keep spinning and slicing through objects. Eugeo mimicked it, and though it wasn't a perfect imitation of volume, it swirled just as smoothly after a bit of time correcting.
"Good, now keep following."
She turned the sand and solidified an outer shell from the sand there, creating a small sand ball with a hollow centre. There was a hole in the ball which she left visible to Eugeo. He struggled to imitate it, but when he got it he nearly lost all of his concentration in celebration.
"Now, we add fire to the mix, but you want to hold back on the temperature. You don't want to melt the minerals we're using immediately, and you don't want it fizzling out. Don't make the fire have contact immediately. We'll use another example."
He nodded, watching as she conjured a spinning ember which flowed in a similar way to the sand from before. The fire was absolutely mesmerizing. She then moved the ember into the sand ball through the hole. The hold closed and the ball shrank a little.
"This is a fast part so you'll need to follow a little faster than you have been. The breaking point here is fast because you're containing a growing, spinning heat in the mineral ball. Once you contain it, you'll either want to add more, tougher mineral to the outside to protect it from exploding so you can throw it against something for a collision explosion, or you push the solid form with wind magic toward where you're conjuring it. You also don't want this to explode too close to you or others you don't want to hurt because this is very dangerous."
Charles was baffled by the explanation. She was teaching him something so dangerous, but so sensibly. He barely made it in time to finish the orb and launch it. It didn't make contact with anything, bursting into a flaming rain of sand a few feet from the ground. It ended up harmless, but it could have been dangerous. With more practice, such a thing could break through armour, Charles thought.
"How about you try this as well? It's far beyond beginner level, but you might as well try it step by step sir Charles."
He was surprised she was including him all of a sudden. He nodded in his bewilderment but wanted to take his nod back immediately. He had no experience with magic other than what he had been seeing Kirim and her students do since arrival. It was all much higher than beginner level, as far as he was concerned. He didn't even know where to start.
"No need to panic so much, I can sense you trembling from here. Take a deep breath."
He found himself listening to her like she was administrator on the first time he met her. It made him relax a little, but he couldn't shake the confidence being in such strong resemblance.
"Now, close your eyes because we're starting from the very beginning since you have so little experience with magic."
He complied, and it almost felt against his will. But it felt liberating to follow her instructions somehow.
"Keep your breath steady and reach out your senses to the very air around you. To the soil beneath your feet, and to the life in the people and plants around you. Keep your eyes closed and try to fill your mind with the scenery surrounding you."
He found himself so relaxed he might fall asleep. He hadn't slept for as long as he could remember, but the relaxation was immense.
"Now, try to sense the energy, the life in everything which has it. Separate it in your mind with a colour, or a vibrancy. This is how we start. By sensing magic. We learn that it exists almost everywhere. In the air we breathe. In our very skin. In the light of the sun, in anything that passively causes you to feel something. Even the plants beneath our feet which make us feel larger than we really are."
He felt like if she nudged him, he wouldn't be able to move in response, but he was able to visualize her instructions clearly. He imagined the energy as a soft glow given off by everything which contained the energy she spoke of. It was like his mind had entered some other realm of understanding.
"Now, try to pull some of the energy in the air into what you observed me teaching Eugeo. You're a good listener so you should be able to imitate this if you were truly paying attention. It might not be perfect, but the effort is what matters with your first try."
He didn't nod, or give any form of response with his body. He let his mind do the work. He imagined everything as she explained, as she taught to Eugeo. He imagined her clean version being his, but smaller and safer. He imagined it to the last moment as it exploded against the dirt and woke him from the state he had gone into. He opened his eyes and recoiled back but everyone nearby was safe. Where his conjured explosion happened however, there was a small crater enough he could comfortably sit in it.
"Very good! I suppose integrity knights are at least really fast learners and the same in capacity to learn magic. Imagine all of the integrity knights using advanced magic...that would be terrifying to be honest."
She shivered but Charles was ecstatic. He thought it would be an utter failure at first, but it worked perfectly. If all the integrity knights could fight with advanced magic, it would be possible for them to dominate the dark lands invaders without concern. At least that's how he imagined it.
"Magic takes years to master, and a great memory to recreate and strengthen spells you know without guidance. Some mages use catalysts to bring out those strengths and to avoid a critical weakness of mortality – age. As far as I've heard, integrity knights are immortal. Sir Bercouli is the oldest I've met, but I don't know how he would do with magic. The longer one can practice magic, the greater their ability with it will become."
Charles nodded and Eugeo beamed in excitement.
"If I can become immortal, I could become amazing at magic eventually..."
Kirim could only smile in response. She might have an upper limit on age that was far beyond a typical human life, but she wasn't immortal. Eventually age would catch up to her. Next to integrity knights and a person offered the same immortality as them, she felt her mortality mean more than it ever had to her before.
"Do either of you have any further questions? I have a lot of prepared energy gathered around me to complete the foundation for the second floor of the school and I would really like to get it done today if possible."
Eugeo and Charles shook their heads.
"Please continue your work, and thank you for teaching me the mineral explosion again. I'm sorry for needing it explained again."
"It's no problem. We were able to get through it fast and it was a chance to show sir Charles how well I teach when my students don't learn something right away. I'm actually grateful that we could get that out of the way now so he can inform Bercouli on something more, sooner."
Eugeo nodded. He was still disappointed in himself for not retaining the information the first time. At least he was able to successfully produce the mineral explosion, but he kept finding reasons to beat himself up. Kirim stopped herself from continuing the project, sensing Eugeo's negative emotions permeating the air around them.
"Hey, are you feeling okay Eugeo? Maybe you can take a little break, take some of the edge off. You have plenty time to grow your abilities in magic, so take off several layers of the pressure you're putting on yourself to learn everything I teach immediately. Don't compare yourself to the others who are learning from me either. You learn faster than Alice and Selka with martial arts training, faster than Kirii in pugilism training, and you're just a little behind Alice and Selka with magic while Kirii is falling furthest behind in magic for the time being. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and you have a long time to develop what's a strength for you. You can grow into a well balanced, all around skilful expert in survival, magic and martial arts. Don't forget your age either. You're nine years old. You're still a human child. They're also children closer in age to you than me. I'm two years removed from all of you. The biggest difference is that I had six years of being strictly raised and taught every day for several hours each day in what I'm now teaching you. Eventually I'll hit somewhat of a ceiling where everyone can catch up to and possibly surpass me. Never forget that you have endless possibility as long as you have the drive to improve yourself."
Her speech came out of nowhere and she was blushing hard by the time she finished. She realized she was embarrassed to say so much in front of Charles, but he was nodding happy to hear such a mature lesson from her.
"If only all teachers were so generous with their students as you. My teacher back in Centoria was maybe as harsh as your previous six years to arriving here."
She nodded.
"So don't worry about it. If you want me to teach you more strictly, that can come with time. I've got other things that need to be done first at the moment. Developing the school, giving you all the facilities you'll need to optimize your learning without worry of cleaning up after yourself. I had to clean up after every time I cast a mineral explosion back home. I had to melt and dry ice and water magic. I had to cool down the air when I practised with fire. Inside the school, it'll be maintenance free because of all the enchantments going into it. I'm putting almost all of my energy into the school every day until it's done. Imagine all the weeks of time you'll have on me in five years. You'll be catching up to me in a way that will make me wonder what all my effort has been for. I'll remind myself though, that I'm still young in five years, even another twenty. We aren't old until our bodies stop listening to us."
Eugeo was nodding, tears at the edges of his eyes. He was feeling emotionally drained and the pep talk made him realize he was putting far too much pressure on himself. He needed that.
"Thank you. I'll have a little rest so maybe learning that magic will stick with me, and this lesson, and I'll train some more after. You're right."
He walked away and Charles clapped.
"Bravo. I can almost guarantee that if you can give this same level of attention to all of your students, they would all be magnificently powerful people with wonderful personalities."
Charles' words made her blush only deepen.
"Thank you, but now I need to return to the magic I was performing. Silence as much as possible would be greatly appreciated."
Charles nodded.
"I'll notify the village and your students that you won't be available for a time and be back to watch your progress silently and from a reasonable distance."
She nodded and trained her vision on the basement, focusing her mind acutely on gathering the magic energy in the area and forming exactly what her mental blueprint for the basement was planned to be. The created minerals spun and solidified where they were needed, providing solid floors, walls and supporting pillars only where they would be absolutely needed to hold up the higher sections of the building. The amount of energy being expended was enormous but there was also a greater expectation on the energy she planned to spend. She had a significant amount of remaining energy when she finished the floor she was working on, so she began the next floor, moving her mental image to the next part and focused on piece by piece so she wouldn't expend too much of the extra energy on trying to make it all at once and stopping mid-way. As she drew to the point she was using energy in herself, she pulled back completely, using her energy to tie up where she had been. She had made it a significant way into the next basement level, which would leave her with the main floor after. She heaved a sigh of relief so heavy she thought the wind was knocked out of her. She flopped back onto the ground and stared at the sky which was changing into evening. It made her realize just how much time passed when she was working on the school. Time definitely flew by when her mind was occupied.
Charles stood over her with a concerned expression after she had a moment to stare at the sky which passed from twilight to early evening. The sky was growing a little dark, the sun no longer lending light to the sky above but other more gentle light taking its place.
"Thank you, you managed to keep my attention focused on the school construction."
He nodded and mentioned something else.
"Are you well? You fell as soon as you stopped building."
She waved a hand as if to play it off as if it were no big deal.
"I'm fine. I've been draining my energy as often as possible in aim to improve my capacity for casting magic. The more I use, the greater my capacity. I've been building on it since before I was formally taught. I believe I more than triple my father's capacity at this point, and though he's more physically talented, he's no slouch with magic either."
Charles sighed in relief.
"At least you are well. Can you come with me to deal with something very quickly? I may need backup at the tunnel connecting the light and dark lands."
Her eyes widened in surprise and she pushed herself to her feet.
"I don't really have much energy...could you bring me the stone I have in my satchel in Kirii's house? I'll start heading to the tunnel while you get that for me."
He gave a confused expression in response and then hurried away as she started pushing herself to walk.
She could barely stand, being physically strained from standing unmoved for a long time and then laying for what could have been an hour. Her body screamed in protest with every bit of movement producing a creaking sound of the bones rubbing against each other inside of her.
She didn't make it very far before she fully stopped, her body growing too stiff to move. She decided she didn't have the time to be worrying about her physical fatigue, that she needed to get to the tunnel immediately. She gathered a little of the energy in the air around her, and used it to lift and propel herself in a sort of levitation to the entrance of the tunnel and she collected and used energy as she went. She managed to get all the way in to where she had access to a decent amount of stored energy, and she looked around for signs of why Charles would need her help. She didn't notice anything immediately, but a loud thump of something soft hitting the metal of the door and the trembling of the cave made her hyper aware that something was on the other side of the door.
Fear ran through her. If something had been making that noise against the door and not been thrown back in a way to utterly debilitate whoever or whatever hit it. At current, it had reached a point where the door was totally invulnerable to physical damage and reflected it enough to more than triple the output toward it. So it was even stronger now than what killed her pugilist mentor's pupil after her. She had also added on an enchantment which had layered immensely already to repel any and all magical interference which doesn't match the key. The magical repercussions changed all energy which hit the door into an all consuming flame which covered the other end of the tunnel entirely. It could reduce an integrity knight to ashes at its current stored power, she guessed. Only a specially cast rune key would work on getting through at that point. It was definitely concerning that something was repeatedly hitting it and surviving.
"Ah, you did make it here. I went to check if you had made progress I should have come straight here. You had mentioned this door before, that it was extremely punishing to attackers."
She nodded.
"I noticed. It shouldn't be able to be hit this consistently. I'll check through the door for energy signals. I need to know what's hitting it or who. I can't just open the door with such an unknown hitting it."
She took a deep breath, soothed her body with some of the abundant ambient energy of the tunnel and used a little more to peer through to door with the sense for energy. It collected into an intimidating, dark energy she didn't recognize. It was like peering at a vacuum for energy, it pulling everything she had away from her. She pulled away immediately but it felt to take much longer.
"Unknown and incredibly dangerous. It's eating away at my enchantments..."
Charles wore a horrified expression.
"Just how much energy you used is it "eating"?"
She shook her head with a solemn expression.
"All of it."
"What could be done with all of the energy that was put into the door?"
Kirim gulped as she thought about it.
"The entire school could be built in a single stretch, to the very top of the planned watch tower. It's an immense amount of energy from months of daily draining myself before this project of building the school. It's been over two months since I met sir Bercouli now, and it's been a week between the first development stretch of the basement while today was the second stretch. The amount of energy is absolutely immense and not to be underestimated. In destructive equivalence, the same amount of energy could chunk the entire tunnel section of the mountain out of existence in an instant, and much of the surroundings. The entirety of the mountain by the way, not just making the tunnel larger."
Charles went into a complete panic as she finished explaining just how terrifying the situation was. If something could wield all that energy in a destructive spell, the light lands being in trouble would be an immediate threat. A threat she wouldn't be able to handle, and if she tried she would be reduced to naught but dust. Her instincts were screaming at her to get away, but in her mind she knew she was the only one capable of stopping whatever force was on the other side in the moment and she needed to think of a solution.
She calmed her breathing to the best of her abilities, and eventually hit a point where her mind was working several times faster than usual. She was processing impossible levels of information for a living being in that moment and she immediately began taking some of her own energy from the door as well, without fear chunking away most of the remaining energy in it and immediately replacing the door with a swirling tiny white dot which felt as if it could pull in the entire mountain. She was holding herself and Charles in place, but they didn't move as she provided them resistance to her current magic. Using the rest of her door, all that magic got her back to top condition and then mountains worth of herself. The door had been absorbing energy from the surrounding mountain after all, and outputting the energy in a strengthening magic so it wouldn't be so easy to take the "shortcut" and destroy the mountain with a single over powered spell. She wouldn't have been able to absorb the rest of the energy if it wasn't her own enchantment and if it hadn't been weakened considerably by whatever was attacking it.
The opposition on the other side of where the door was, chilled Kirim and Charles to the core just from seeing it. It was quickly swallowed up into the swirling white dot, but the instant before it was swallowed by the dot, it was a horrifying pure black thin mass of energy with scratchy, almost giving the sense it had been drawn, white facial features. Eyes, mouth, expression. The figure gave a sense of horror beyond compare.
"Wh-what...was that?"
Kirim couldn't answer Charles. She was just as horrified and in the dark as him on what it was that was forcing through her barrier.
"I don't...know. I've never encountered such a thing. That...thing wasn't living at all. It was all negative energy and it was taking the energy from the door which is made of so much positive energy that it should be impossible to attack in the way it was. My solution was to absorb all of that energy into this tiny white gem. It's a reversal magic to turn all energy neutral. It took all the energy left from the door to do."
Charles was confused on the negative and positive energy aspect of where the conversation had gone, so he asked.
"What do you mean by negative energy? And positive?"
Kirim explained it in the most easy to understand way she could think of.
"Positive energy provides life to what it comes into contact with, and can be wielded in several positive and negative ways. Negative energy takes away and renders otherwise useless neutral energies it comes into contact with. Neutralizing magic on the other hand combines energies, balances them out and reduces their strain greatly. This unfortunately uses a lot of the energy from both sides because of the harmful effects of negative energy. This is the only way to get rid of negative energy known in the dark lands however. The only ones I could imagine using negative energy...are the dark mages."
A clapping sound reverberated along the tunnel walls.
"Congratulations on your late deduction, young master of magic."
That voice haunted Kirim. She had heard it before, in a meeting with her parents and Vector. It was Dee, the leader of the dark mages. She shivered uncontrollably from her emotions going berserk, her anger.
"...why are you here?"
Kirim's voice was filled with venom. If he voice alone could strike deadly poison into the ears of all who heard it, that was a time it might be possible. That was what Charles thought as the powerful child he knew became truly ferocious and earning of her position as a person of the dark lands in his mind. She was like a powerful, uncontrollable beast in that moment.
"I'm here to take away master Vector's greatest toy. He keeps going on about how proud he is of the child he let free into the light lands, and says that you would end the dark lands in the future with all the promise you show. It's time for me to put an end to you before you can grow old and strong enough to actually do it."
Kirim was pulling in energy from the mountain around them, forming a tiny, super compressed ball of mineral behind her and camouflaging it so she couldn't sense it. She was being cautious, but she didn't know if she had enough time to have a backup shot in case Dee managed to dodge the first. She would just have to explode the ball near Dee if she managed to dodge.
Before Kirim fired off her mineral ball, she felt something move under her feet. She retreated immediately while pushing down on the ground with the energies of the tunnel. Dee's specialty, shadow magic was incredibly powerful when they were surrounded by darkness and having a little light. Everything was her weapon.
Kirim was protecting herself and Charles, but Charles foolishly charged at her, out of Kirim's protective magic.
"Stop!"
"I'll protect us!"
"No! Stop!"
Kirim's voice was drowned immediately as Charles was engulfed by the shadow magic, pulling him into the ground. Her trembling became an unleashed beast, shaking the entire surroundings. She pin-pointed in her rage, exactly where she sensed Dee and all her control of magic. She grabbed with her mind enough of the mountain surrounding Dee, to pierce it down on her from every direction aside the tiniest of gaps. Kirim's mineral magic was one of her strong suits after using it for so long and so controlled, but when she was using her body's energy in rage to control it, it was burned faster than in any other situation. She knew that if Dee wasn't dead from that attack, she would be dead. She compressed another tiny dot where Dee was and everything around it was absorbed before she closed it and it dropped to the ground harmlessly. Dee was gone. Dead. Absolutely less troublesome than Kirim thought she could have been.
"I'll have to burn this to ash...it's considered her remains."
She heard gasping and coughing from Charles as the shadow magic released him with Dee's death and turned to him.
"I was protecting us, leaving my side was a mistake. I had to kill her, and thankfully you didn't have to see something that would ruin the kids in Rulid."
Charles stared at Kirim in terror.
"Her magic...that evil...oh Gods above please protect us..."
He was praying fervently for protection, when the fight was already over and Dee was no longer an issue to be worried about.
"We're fine. Let's go back to Rulid as soon as I've put up a new door...is something I would like to do but I don't have the physical energy to keep going here today. I'll ask you to stand watch on the Rulid side of the tunnel and inform me of trespassing while I rest for the night. You'll also have Rithi's support, just to make sure."
She took a few steps, but then suddenly her body did something it hadn't done her whole life. It collapsed forward, face first and her body convulsed once as she passed out. Not once had she truly fallen asleep. She was always conscious of her surroundings, but not this time.