The next day Klein was finally discharged. He was judged to be of adequate health, and only in the need of some rest for him to be completely fine.

  The first thing he did after being discharged was to go back to his dorms and to get a nice long shower. He had been cleansed with a clean spell, but it could never give the refreshment of a good hot shower.

  Coming out of the showers, dressed in a new pair of robes, he gave his room a passing glance. Everything was the same as it had been earlier, but everything looked and felt a little dirty now. A layer of dust has settled over them.

  I wonder if I had been away for a month, would they have given the room away to someone else?

  His eyes fell on the books he had rented from the library. Thankfully they had a renting period of a month, so he still had some time before he got fined.

  I should read them soon. Maybe they’ll talk about Taghir Dehid. Any clues to my class could be essential.

  At that moment the window of his room opened on its own. Like a magical hand had grasped the lock and pulled it over, the window opened with a gust of wind and Honker flew in. The gust of wind sent dust billowing through the room.

  Klein broke out in a coughing fit, as he glared at the smug goose who stayed untouched by the dust.

  There goes the shower.

  He glared at the goose, but it remained unmoved and unapologetic. Eventually Klein sighed, shook his head and moved out of the room.

  “C’mon, the Professor must be waiting for us,” He said and Honker sailed through the air to sit on his shoulder. To Klein’s credit, he managed to not flinch when he did so.

  As he moved through the empty campus, he wondered if this was all really a good choice. Was he really ready to face whatever was coming for him? He looked at his throbbing fingers. They said it’ll heal in a while, but it still hurt. It still reminded him of what had happened to him the last time he tried to gain more than he had.

  How much more would I have to go through before I’m finally safe? Would I still be myself when I finally get to the end?

  His steps slowed the more he thought about it. The Professor’s building felt like a thorny bush that he was willingly walking into.

  Honker honked loudly into his ear at that moment.

  Frightened at the sudden noise, he jerked back and glared at the bird. This time Honker glared back. A few minutes of eye-staring later, Klein sighed. They weren’t able to pick up each other’s cues yet, but he understood what the bird was telling him.

  ‘Don’t give up now.’

  “I won’t. Don’t worry. I just started overthinking there for a while. Sorry. Let’s not make the Professor wait for too long,” He smiled slightly as he walked with a new fervour and determination.

  #

  “Come in,”

  Klein walked into his mentor’s office at the command. His office was the same as he had seen last time. Macha coloured walls, papers strewn throughout the floor in some sort of arcane design, a window which looked at the absolutely gorgeous of a morning, and his mentor who sat in the middle of that room with his tea cup .

  Does he always drink tea?

  “Ah, Mr. Skyla. I was afraid that you might bail on me again, and go gallivanting for some more adventures. I’m glad to see that the scenario did not come to pass,” He chuckled lightly as he motioned for him to take a seat.

  “Your words last night had been more than enough to make sure such thoughts find no purchase in my mind, Professor. Not to mention, I don’t think I’ve recovered enough to be able to partake in any such activities,” Klein picked his own cup and poured himself some tea.

  “A wise choice to be listening to your mentor. Now, where were we last night in our discussions?”

  “You were talking about the Guardians and the system, Professor,”

  “Yes, yes. Heavy topics to discuss, just a second,” Tillmann puts down his tea cup and his hands blitz through arcane signs, mana channeled through his spirit, and instantly many spells are cast. Klein could see that two of them are wards, but he had no idea about the other two.

  “What are these spells for?”

  “Just some measures to obfuscate our discussions here. Two of them are information wards which would prevent any scrying from whomever might be interested in my dealings, while the two spells would prevent any random passerby from hearing our words,” He explained.

  “Are people usually very interested in your dealings? Even with just a student?” Klein asked.

  “Usually, I do not like to toot my own horns, but I must say that I am a little bit too outstanding. A lot of people constantly have their eyes on me. Age, many a times, blurs in the presence of magic. No one can know what you might or might not be capable of until they do a full scan of yours.

  “Although in your case, if you grow enough with your trait, you might be able to confuse any deep scan or outright feed it wrong information. Something to motivate you in your endeavour. Now let’s get to the main reason for our current discussion. What do you know about the System, Mr. Skyla?” Tillmann asks.

  Klein took a moment to come to the question, such was he absorbed in the future prospects of his trait. When he came to it, he thought back to all the stories he had heard in the past about the System, and events related to it.

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  “Growing up in the Charting Borough, we don’t hear much about it. But I have worked in a library for three years, so I think I have a basic grasp over history.

  “If I remember correctly, the System was created by the combined forces of the world’s mages following the Three-Faction war in a joint effort to quantise and limit the power of the mages so that another war like that couldn’t happen.

  “The System in itself, was a giant ward over the Heart of the World which changed the mana which passed through it, and created the effect. I still find it unimaginable to think that the mages of the olden times were able to do it.

  “The System was destroyed when the governing empires in the Seriendi continent tried to take over the System. I think they tried to increase the restraint on the other continents, and weaken it on their mages? I’m not sure about the details, but this is what I remembered from the books.

  “The other continents, of course, were furious at this and so they formed an alliance to stop them. The Seriendi empires had managed to weaken the other mages quite a lot, hence the alliance was required.

  “Finally the war ended with the major contributions of our Eramele Kingdom. The Simerfal treaty, which took place in the Simerfal Archipelago finally deemed the existence of the System to be a far greater threat than the mages themselves, and hence the System was to be destroyed. It should’ve been destroyed, but I suppose it wasn’t destroyed completely. Did I miss something, Professor?” Klein finished his tirade and took a deep breath.

  “Quite many details, but let’s not go into them for now. You at least have the basic grasp over it all, so I’ll get into the crux of the matter. The System was indeed, a ward placed over the Heart of the World, and it should’ve been easy to destroy it. Simple cut its connection with the Heart–its source of mana–and slowly siphon away the mana stored in it. It would’ve taken a long time, but it would’ve been a thorough job.

  “But of course, if most of the world wished for it to be gone, some didn’t. The Seriendi generals, the archmages, who were unhappy with the removal of it, broke the treaty and attacked the ward-breakers. It was an act of desperation, on part of the ward-breakers, that they had to manually break the System.

  “None of us knew this would happen, but the System had somehow formed a Symbolic Connection with the mana of the world in the years it was established. Hence, even after breaking it, it still existed. Just scattered across the globe in pieces you found,” Tillmann took a sip of his tea as he waited for Klein to digest the information he had just shared.

  “How does absorbing a System piece help us with gaining more powers? Couldn’t normal mages do it too?”

  “I cannot tell you much about it, except for the fact that Stiffers came into being after the System was broken. Their existence is very much correlated to the pieces,”

  “Wait, so you mean to say that if the pieces cease to exist, then the Stiffers would too be able to use magic?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know either. The effect could be positive, but at the same time, it could also be very negative,” He shook his head as he crushed his dreams of being able to use all kinds of magic someday. It isn’t meant to be, he said to himself.

  “This is all interesting and everything, Professor, but how does this all relate to my current condition?”

  “I’m coming to that, let me get there. But before that, do you know about the three factions in the Three-Faction War?”

  “Kardia, Matia, and the Pragmatists,”

  “And who suffered the most from the wars?”

  “The religious factions, Kardia and Matia,”

  “True. Those religions still exist, very less so in Askim, but they still hold a solid grasp over Dresena. That all said, they are still official, orthodox religions. But during the Three-Factions war, a sub-faction of the Matia emerged and sided with the Seriendi.

  “This faction researched into the soul of the humans, to reach the Soul of the God itself. It’s a goal as blasphemous as it is nonsensical. One of their most insistent fields of study has been the system pieces, and how it connects to God. It’s believed that they wish to learn to create a soul. This research is funded by some very shady organisations on Seriendi, and sometimes other continents as well. Do you understand where I’m going with this, Mr. Skyla?”

  Klein gulped.

  It couldn’t be, right?

  “Are… are you telling me that the ones after me, is possibly this organisation?” He asked in abject horror at the stupidity of it.

  “I believe there’s a major chance of it,” Tillmann smiled wryly as he looked at his pupil stare at the ceiling with a defeated expression. He could understand his thoughts. To go against such an ancient organisation which spans across various nations and continents for an eighteen year old was a task more daunting than anything.

  I wonder what path you’ll take, now that you know more of the truth.

  Klein, unfamiliar with his mentor’s thoughts, was lost in his own pessimism.

  What the hell is up with this? How? How did I get here? Why is such a bigshot after me? There’s no way I could deal with them. No way.

  Klein had half a mind to pack up, take the few gold he had, and leave for the tribes of the Crimean continent.

  Surely they can’t find me there, can they?

  His hands which unconsciously patted Honker on his lap stopped all of a sudden when the goose bit his fingers. He jumped from his seat, his flailing hands threw the damned bird at the wall, but all that achieved was it coming back at him after a mid-air maneuver.

  It snatched at his hair and bit his fingers until Klein almost yelled at the bird.

  “Goddamit, stop stop you crazy bird! I only have so many fingers, don’t take more of them away!” Finally the attack stopped. Klein glared at it, the mana inside of him roused. The goose glared back, the crimson-pink of his mana flared around it similarly.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  It honked at him angrily.

  “How the hell do you think I’m supposed to fight an organisation like this? It’s not some band of crooks that are after us! Do you not understand the difference between the two!?”

  It honked again, its webbed feet jumped across the floor in an act of defiance.

  “We should run! We can do nothing by standing our ground. They’ll find us eventually,” Klein shouted, but this time there was more to his voice than just anger. There was desperation, a tinge of sadness, and maybe even a plea. Honker did not budge.

  “You’ll die if you stay here. Let’s just leave. We’ll be free,”

  It honked again, but this time it too wasn’t angry.

  “Freedom is in staying alive, not giving up on it,”

  The bird replied in its own way.

  “What if we die? What if we can’t rise enough? What if we run out of time? Do you really think we can do it?”

  “You’re crazy, you know?” Klein asked rhetorically as the fight left his body. He took the chair and collapsed on it. It felt like a boulder of unimaginable weight lay upon his shoulders, and from now on he’d have to take every step with this burden on.

  He took the tea cup and finished it in one go, hell with the burns.

  “Professor, I hope you have some way to make me super strong, otherwise I’ll haunt you even after I die,” Klein said to his mentor.

  “Of course. I have just the training plan for you,” Tillmann smiled at his pupil who looked irritated and frustrated by it all, but gone was the look of defeat from his face. What replaced it now was a fire. A fire to walk through it all, and burn everyone who came his way.

  Tillmann smiled at the upcoming chaos in the world.

  #