2 Introductions

I arrived at the pavilion taking a seat, the tea set was already in place and Aurelia was already sipping tea. Going by experience, she had been doing this all morning. She had it easy, her only job being the creation of spacial tools. These tools took long to create but were of higher value than even the weapons I made. Ains stepped next to me, handing me a cup filled with tea.

Shortly after Red came over, head buried in one of his manuals. This was his occupation here, his works were quite renowned in the outside world actually. Manuals were after all one of the cornerstones of humanity's battle prowess nowadays.

Generally speaking, a manual is a book describing a way to do something. These manuals though are battle or body strengthening techniques through the use of magic. This application was a slightly varied form of the eastern martial arts, the main difference being that we used magic instead of the qi they use.

Red was, of course, like all of us contained in this place, a being with immense knowledge and control over magic. So manuals created by him, even if they were weakened versions, were vastly superior to any others out there. There had of course been exceptions, over the years there had been geniuses that managed to adapt an eastern technique to the use of magic. Since the original had been made by a true master, the adaptation had, of course, contained similar efficiency. But exceptions like these were few and were often limited by harsh requirements for the users.

Red sat down, still immersed in his own little world of flows and patterns, scribbling down a few thoughts from time to time. His tea, served by Aurelia herself, remained wholly untouched, to Aurelia's great annoyance. Alas, there was no way for her to get him out of this state, without provoking a battle that would lay waste to half the island that is.

And so we sat there, waiting for the main event to unfold. Rose passed by every few minutes to see if things were coming along. After having been disappointed, she would then return to tend her flowers, only to be back and be disappointed again. We had promised to call her as soon as things were heating up, but she didn't want to listen.

Her Majesty and Yellow, did, as expected, not grace us with their presence. Instead, we had some uncommon guests. Like he had announced in the morning, the warden was showing the new guys around. They were slowly approaching us, the warden, short black hair slightly ruffled by the phantom wind that flew through the prison grounds, was leading the way. While moving, the blue uniform he wore was pushed up a little, revealing his thoroughly trained, copper tanned upper body. Following behind him were his two deputies. Walking directly behind the warden was a tall woman with dark, russet brown skin. Steps filled with confidence, Aia had been the champion amongst all other graduates of the magic academy. And trudging behind her, barely keeping up with the warden's pace, was a slim boy with pale skin and raven black hair. This boy, formerly known as Ken the unseen, was the weakest member of last years elite class of graduates.

Arriving near our pavilion, the warden began to introduce us to his new deputies.

"These are some of our captives. They are usually found drinking tea together in this pavilion whenever the destruction twins try another breakout. Sitting all the way in the back, the lady with blue attire and hair, is Aurelia Tempa, creator of nearly all our spacial tools. Next to her, wearing an emperor gown, is Abel Eisir, creator of your magic weapons and those of all your classmates."

The warden had just finished his sentence when I felt a glare brimming with hatred lock onto me. Not caring in the least I raised my gaze looking straight into Ken's eyes that were seething with rage and hatred. The warden on the hand had clearly noticed too, but except for his shoulders stiffening slightly, he chose not to react and just ignore it, continuing with our introduction.

"The red-haired one with his head buried in that manual is Rem Mortiferus, you may under the initials of RM, he is a manual creator."

"Wait, you mean he is the RM, creator of [oxen body secrets] and [the twenty ways of the sword]?!"

Apparently, Aia, our new deputy warden, was a big fan of Red's works.

"Yes indeed, these are his works. Moving on, the pink haired young lady we saw tending to the plants on our way here, is Rose Vita, she works as a gardener. There are two more that aren't here now, but since the chances of you seeing them are low anyway, I will just tell you about them now. Ylena Furora is an engineer of highest esteem, that has helped humanity develop in many ways. The last is her Majesty, the leader of the group, her real name is unknown and her job, if you can even call it that, is playing video games. She is one of the mayor beta testers for all strategy games worldwide and her ideas and bug reports are said to be invaluable for the finishing touches of even the greatest games out there. As you have probably guessed, their existence is kept hidden from the masses, covered by aliases, mystification or even blatant lies. This group has been kept here for 500 years and they have yet to stage a single attempt to escape. Do not be fooled though, they are not to be underestimated under any circumstances. Over the years even casual uses of their powers have scarred guards for life, even to the point of insanity, where they couldn't even give a description of the phenomenon they had witnessed anymore. I myself have yet to see any happenings of such gravity, but I have seen one of them," he shot a gaze towards me, "create a grade 6 weapon within minutes, not even breaking a sweat."