Caves and Caverns

Seth searched the crowd and eventually found Jack and Spencer. The two boys were laughing and eating unknown snacks. Seth ran over to them as fast as he could. He asked them what happened, only to get giggling in response. The moment Jack and Spencer saw Seth, they started mocking him. Seth didn't try to say anything more, choosing to whack the two on the head until they stopped laughing at him. When the boys calmed down, they explained that they had all gone on a field trip and Seth had missed a magnificent party. They had gone to an amusement park that the school owned and got free food and snacks.

Seth sat on the ground, defeated. He had run around yelling into the wind, trying to find people that were having the time of their lives without him. Jack and Spencer said that they had tried to tell him, but he was too focused on the encyclopedia to even notice their presence. Seth sighed and realized how much time and fun he had missed out on because he was looking for something in the encyclopedia that it didn't even have.

Seth sat on the ground until everyone else left, he waited half an hour for them all to leave. He went to his room wordlessly and got ready for bed. Seth put the encyclopedia that was lying on his table in his inventory. He didn't practice or read anything, choosing to go to sleep early for the first time in a while.

When Seth woke up, it was still dark. He had only slept for a few hours. As Seth's strength had increased, his need for sleep had decreased. Especially with the magic body formation, his body's necessities were very few, and Jack's were none. Jack didn't require food or sleep anymore, he just needed magic power. Seth got up and ready for school, even though he was hours early. Seth had long since enchanted all of his clothes to protect him, but his school clothes were already magical and could be enchanted to be even stronger.

Once ready, Seth snuck out of his building and into the desolate castle. He was looking for something, but he didn't know what it was. The reason why Seth was so worried yesterday was that his sixth sense was telling him that something dangerous was happening. The trip to the amusement park must have been planned by some people that were trying to do something with the school. Seth searched the castle for nearly an hour, looking for anything out of place. He didn't find anything. Seth decided to use his magic power to sense everything in the castle at once.

Seth released some magic power into the air, he let it spread out and dissolve into the world around him. He kept on feeding his magic power to the world, slowly gaining more sense of everything his magic power touched. Everything that his magic power was absorbed into became a sensor for Seth. Seth felt that if he allowed something to absorb enough of his magic power, he could have complete control over it. Little did he know, but Seth was slowly encroaching upon the secrets of the peak of the world, domains.

Seth's magic senses spread through the entire castle, even going deep underground. There were a few spots Seth's senses couldn't reach for some reason, namely the headmaster's office, and the library. Seth knew that these places were rejecting him, but he didn't know why. Seth chalked it all up to his weakness and went back to searching the castle. Seth found a few things out of place deep underground, but they didn't seem to be harmful. Seth continued searching, only finding something dangerous miles away from the castle.

What Seth found was a small explosive, it was enchanted with fire elementals. Seth removed it immediately, though he knew that it wouldn't be able to damage the castle with how far away it was. He searched and spread his magic senses even further, reaching nearly ten miles in diameter. He found a few more suspicious things, but nothing that could harm the castle or its inhabitants. (the bomb was something for field practice for the students)

Seth decided to search the places that rejected his magic underground, hoping to find something dangerous. He commanded the elementals in the ground to move away and swallow him up, bringing him to an open cavern in a split second. This cavern was one of the places that blocked his magic power, though he couldn't see anything off about it. Seth walked through the cavern, still not seeing anything wrong with it. Seth's magic sense was completely cut off in the cavern, he couldn't communicate with his power. Still, there seemed to be nothing else wrong with the cavern, it seemed to be naturally blocking magic power.

Seth moved on to another rejection site, it was the same as the first. It seemed that there were many places where magic is naturally unable to be used. Seth kept searching through the sites before he finally found something different. Seth found himself in a cave, but it was obviously manmade. The cave had a large crystal in the center of it and there was heat emanating from it. Seth walked over to the crystal and picked it up, it was surprisingly cool to the touch. Although the cave was probably hot enough for water to boil, Seth's body temperature was completely normal. Seth could control his body temperature so that he wouldn't overheat.

Seth inspected the crystal in his hands, it was densely packed with fire and light elementals. If Seth could see, it would probably be a bright, blinding light. The crystal didn't seem the be a bomb though, not dangerous at all aside from the heat and light. Seth put the crystal in his inventory and looked around the cave again. He still couldn't connect with his magic power though, leading him to search the cave even more.

Eventually, Seth found what seemed like a liquid. Seth had bumped into it while walking around the cave. Neither the liquid nor its container had elementals in it, causing Seth to be unable to see it. Seth put the liquid in his inventory and started walking around like a blind man, looking for any more of it. Seth found three more buckets of the liquid after searching the rest of the cave. Seth still couldn't sense his magic, but he knew that the buckets of liquid had something to do with it, they were probably the inhibitors.

Seth felt that it was likely that the liquid was a paint that someone used to stop magic and magical senses. Although the last cave was suspicious, Seth still felt that it wasn't what he was looking for. Seth swept through every rejection site, finding a few interesting things that block magic power, but still not finding anything inherently dangerous. A few things that Seth found blocked magic power were objects that only blocked it within a certain area. When he cleared such objects from their caves and put them in his inventory he was able to sense the place with his magic again. After all the searching, Seth had about ten objects that could block or reject magic power.

When Seth left the ground, it was already daytime. Luckily, he wasn't late for class. When Seth went to class, he learned that his class was doing in-field magic practice for staying alive in the wilderness or in a dangerous situation. Seth had a bad premonition but he shook it away. If something bad was going to happen with the Peak Mortal teacher around, he wouldn't be able to change anything. Seth followed along as the class was led outside of the castle and into the forest. The class was led a few miles away, Seth felt that he remembered this place.

Seth wasn't using his magic sense as it was a lot of information to process at once and he wanted to have fun rather than knowing everything before it happens. Seth still used his elemental sense though, as he still needed protection from the outside. Jack and spencer were excited about this trip, they had only been outside the castle a few times. Seth debated telling them about the magical sense, but he decided to wait and tell them later.

When the class came to a stop, they were deep in the forest. They were told to sit and wait for another teacher to come. The teacher leading them left and the class was alone. Seth stayed on guard, but he knew that this was a test from the school. After a few minutes had passed, there was a tremor on the ground, Seth heard roars in the distance and he stood up. The rest of the class also heard the beast and they wanted to prove themselves so they followed suit. Soon, a large bear appeared in their view. The children all fought to be the first one to hit it, all wanting to be the first to kill a beast.

The bear was instantly killed, but the tremor didn't stop. Another roar was heard in the distance. The bear wasn't attacking them, it was running from another beast. A tiger was running through the forest, searching for the prey that had run away. The tiger was massive, it was as big as a house. It saw its prey run into a group of small cubs and be instantly killed. The tiger judged the power of the strikes and knew that it would be heavily injured if it attacked the cubs. The tiger ran away from the cubs rather than trying to test its luck and take the bear away.

When the next teacher came he looked at the bear with a weird expression. The class was so bloodthirsty that they scared away the test they had brought to them. The teacher gave the kids tents to set up. The tents were low-tech canvas with wooden poles and stakes. The kids only had a few minutes to set up their tents, those that were unable to do so in the time allotted had to sleep on the ground. After the time was up, the teacher led them from the tents and into another patch of densely packed trees.

The teacher told the class to find food in the area and left. This was their second test, the food that they found would be their lunch. Seth looked around at the foliage and found a few edible plants. Technically, Seth could eat poison and not be bothered by it, but he wanted to eat food that even the common person could live off of without any issues. Jack, on the other hand, was too lazy to look for food as he didn't require sustenance other than magic so he just watched Seth and Spencer look through leaves. Spencer, as a veteran of the Vietnam war, knew quite a bit about survival in forests. He didn't know much about the native flora of this new world though, so he was in the same boat as his other classmates.

Seth soon found a plant with an abundance of life elementals. There were so many, in fact, that it would probably be poisonous for a weaker person to eat. Seth kept the plant in his inventory and kept looking for food. He finally found a single fruit on a small bush a few feet away, the bush had few long leaves that looked a lot like grass, and the fruit had a large spikey top. Seth picked the fruit from the bush and ripped off the top with his hand. The fruit's skin was tough and leathery and its flesh was a bright red. Seth licked some of the juice from a part of the rind he had peeled off, it was really sweet. Seth devoured the fruit in mere seconds, leaving behind its tough remains.