Ben

Two year have passed since the event that destroyed the Nature Palace. Michael Morrison had grieved for his wife, the next few days, but he took good care of both Dominic and Alex as he had promised. He continued to be in the military and served as a guardian in the same village for these two years.

During this time, a lot of events transpired which changed the power structure of the country. Following the attack on the academy, the Void Mansion continued its attacks on other clans and organizations. It focused its efforts on the families of seers. For some reason, it considered various seer families to be its enemies.

The first one to suffer its attack were the Walker family. It had lost more than half its strength due to their repeated attacks. It made no sense to most of the magicians of the country. Any dark organization usually focuses on the military strength of a country, but the Void Mansion was much different.

Soon, the various families banded up and fought against them. They began to fear the Void Mansion and actively helped the nation's military to fight against them. This slowly united the forces in the nation, but also changed the power dynamics. Previously, the seer families held the most power in the nation. Even the royal family would have convened with them and taken their advice seriously, but now their influence had waned.

The Seers were always feared for their capability to resonate with the will of the world and see into the future. Their arts allowed them to always be ahead of their enemies and make ample preparations. It also allowed them to realize the effects of any action on the society. Introduction of any new item in the market or the execution of any new policy were always consulted with a seer or two by all organizations including the royal family. There were a few that suggested it be best if the Seers replace the royal family as they were their suggestions were ultimately followed but no Seer ever expressed any interest in such a power struggle and remained neutral in large scale politics.

Now, the common people are understanding the reason for their inactivity. These families weren't able to protect themselves, so it would be very hard to survive in a political struggle. Some of their game also went down due to this. No common man would find it easy to trust a seer's words, if they couldn't use their art to save their own selves.

This threat was mainly focused on Seers, but it didn't mean that the rest of the world were staying on side lines enjoying the show. The Seers were always valued for their guidance in wars. An organization that was able to make such an attack on Seers was frightening to the other powers too. The usual reason anyone would target a seer was to prevent them from looking into the future and an attack on this scale meant only one thing to them. The Void Mansion was planning something too big and they didn't want anyone to hazard a guess.

This led to all the powers in the continent to have them marked as a priority enemy and a continental task force aimed at exterminating the Void Mansion was soon formed. In spite of all these measures, taken by the magicians, there was hardly any progress in their attempts to stop the Void Mansion. There was a steep decrease in their activities but none of the leaders were ever caught. The organization remained in the shadows and the task force continued to search for them.

During this time, Dominic turned out to be an active kid and had a normal childhood. Alex thought that Dominic was his own younger brother and that his mother gave birth to him before she died. It was a quiet life uneventful life in the village, till Alex turned ten. Michael decided that it was time for his education standard to improve and took a job at the Nature Palace which was still recovering and needed more professors.

After that their home changed from the peaceful village to the most known academy of the nation. Despite the attack, the Nature Palace is still known as the best magical academy in the nation. Though it was known for being a magic academy, it wasn't just that.

The Nature Palace taught all manner of things from simple professions like farming to the complex ones of alchemy, engineering. It also taught the basic education and schooling for the younger ones whom it considered too young to learn magic and related professions.

In this world, a person is considered to be of age when they reach ten and usually introduced to magic. There were different approaches to magic and there were different specializations, warlocks, elementary magicians and so on. Every magician before being graduated from a magic academy would have to choose a specialization and the first few years were meant to understand the nature and implications of choosing such specializations as one could never truly understand the significance of any specialization without understanding the basics. Before choosing a specialization every student needs to take a test that they have the basic understanding of various fields of magic.

Michael had chosen to be one of the teachers who taught the basics even though he was a warlock specialist. Falcone also suggested the same as Michael had no experience in teaching before this. Dominic was put into the school which was also in the premises of the Nature Palace.

The Nature Palace was itself the size of a small town on the eastern end of the country in middle of a mountain range. It had the coast and a small port towards its east and had mountains covered with forest in the west, north and south. The west end was connected to a town which was the only path to the rest of the country.

Today was supposed to be the first day of the school and Michael decided to pack their bags and arrive in a carriage. Ever since he heard that Michael took a job in the Nature Palace, Alex had been waiting to look at the place. It was not just a place of learning for him, but also the place that his mother died to protect.

"How far are we?" asked Alex as he looked out the carriage window. "You told that we would reach the place in another five minutes."

"Just beyond the curve over there Alex. You will be able to see it campus after that. I told you before that it is covered and hidden by the other mountains surrounding it. You can expect to be able to see it before that," said Michael calmly as he played with Dominic who fiddling with a toy sword in Michael's lap.

"We could have taken a griffin to the campus," said Alex pouting at Michael. "I thought that teacher could have a griffin ride to the palace."

"I haven't yet been officially made a part of the staff. I will only be given the permissions and signet ring after I enter the premises. Those things wouldn't be mailed to me as they are considered much valuable," said Michael calmly.

"So, we can get to the campus by griffin from the next time?" asked Alex hopefully.

"Sure, but I am here to stay. So, I don't understand what you mean by coming back to the campus," said Michael.

"I wanted to look at the top view of the campus. Mother always told that it was a very beautiful thing to look at from up in the sky," said Alex.

"That it is. But I recommend that you look at it from the front too. It is just as magnificent from the front side," said Michael pointing towards the palace from the window as the turned around the corner.

Straight ahead of them was a large palace that was in middle of a pair of mountains which pushed through the clouds. It was in a large valley between the two mountains. The centre of the palace had a large spire which almost reached the clouds. It was sparkling with a multitude of colors. There were three spires that he could see around the central which were black in color like they were made of obsidian. Behind these spires there a pair of rainbows that looked like they were connecting the spires. Alex could see that all these spires were part of a large brown building that was as wide as the valley.

"It is beautiful," said Alex mesmerized by the scenery. He had spent most of his childhood at a village and had never gone out of the village. So, he never saw any structure that was even a tenth its size. He found it to be the stuff of dreams. He had never even had a dream that was this beautiful. He couldn't even imagine such a beautiful structure.

"You should look at it during the night. You will be able to appreciate it better as it rises tall and shining with lights as a beacon when the rest of the world is dark," said Michael as he fondly remembered his own life at the palace.

A couple of minutes later they could see a large black wall at the beginning of the valley. There was large black metallic gate at the center with a picture of a palace made of trees and a few beasts sitting beside elves, humans, beastman who were all in some kind of trance or meditative state. "Get ready. We get down at the gate. There will be someone who would guide us to our quarters," said Michael.

As they got close to the gate a griffon swooped down beside them as the person riding it called out for them. "It has been a long time, Michael," said the man as jumped off the griffon to land beside carriage. He was a broad-shouldered man about six feet tall with a square beard, blue sparkling eyes, a hook nose and had long dark hair which fell down till his waist in a ponytail.

"Uncle Ben! Never expected to see you here," said Michael warily. He was the second son of family and had been isolated from the family for marrying a woman from a common family against the interests of the family. They were nobles and considered this to be something beneath them. Thus, he was forbidden from entering their ancestral home by his father who was the current patriarch of the family. Now, that his wife is dead, he had been expecting them to call back for him to live at the ancestral home again.

"So, you heard of what happened to Robin," said Michael as he had been expecting some one from his family to come and try to bring him back. He didn't have any plans to go back to that place as he considered them to be old fashioned and he didn't want his son to end up thinking less of the common folk. He even doubted of they would treat Alex in the same way.

"Yes, we did hear of it two years ago. Both brother and Harvey had been hoping that you would return after that. Are these your kids?" said the man as he tapped Alex's head.

"Ah, yes! Kids this is you Granduncle Ben Morrison. Say hi," said Michael introducing Ben to them. "He is the younger brother of Grandpa Harvey."

"Uncle Ben!" yelled Dominic from Michael's arms trying to reach him.

"Active little fella, isn't he? Granduncle, not uncle," said Ben as he took Dominic in his arms. "He would have known to call me better if lived and stayed along with the rest of the family. I hope you can bring them during holidays."

"You are my granduncle?" asked Alex interrupting them. "You don't look old. I have met Grandpa Barry and he has White hair and looks old."

"See. Both of them need a better environment to know about the society. I guess Barry is her father's name."

"She is an orphan. No one knows about her parents," said Michael. "Barry is just this old guy who he saw at the village."

"And he call the guy grandpa. He needs to be taught a lot of things," said Ben as looked back at Alex. "Kid, I am over 60 years old, but magicians can maintain their looks using magic. Warlocks like me don't even need to do that, we naturally age much slower than the common populace. Even your grandpa and grandma don't look old," said Ben.

"Wow. You are more than 60 years old? I thought that you were my father's age," said Alex in surprise. Having spent most of his life in village and the barracks where his father had his quarters before he was injured, he never realized that the magicians had such capabilities.

"You are trying to entice my kid to get me to come back?" hissed Michael in Ben's ear.

"I have no such intention. I have just come here to get you to your quarters inside," said Ben tilting his head to point towards the palace.

"You work here?" asked Michael in surprise. "I never expected that father would allow one of us to join the academy. Wasn't he always afraid that they would steal and know of our trump cards which would make our family lose power?"

"He is still afraid of that, but I will never reveal any such information and was trained to withstand any intrusion into my mind or soul," said Ben waving his hand in a nonchalant manner. "The academy asked many families to join them after the tragedy. Many families agreed to let some of their elders to take up the position of a teacher. It was a very good opportunity to find talented ones."

A number of talented magicians were always recruited and usually bound to noble families by marriage or contract. It was a common method used by them to maintain their strength and have a few people who they could use for dangerous purposes. They always preferred to have them join at a young age as it would give them a better sense of loyalty to the family.

"I don't believe that Falcone had let you guys join the academy. That is just polluting the academy. With you vultures around, there would hardly be any chance for them to truly pursue magic without playing politics," said Michael.

"We are not allowed to talk about the royals or the families on the campus and no member of the family faculty or student were allowed to introduce these things before a student took a specialization. That was Falcone's deal so that we could work here. It restricted out attempts even more than before, but it gave the elders an opportunity to better examine students and we don't trust our children to make the best of decisions. So, all the nobles agreed. It is actually better than before," said Ben.

"And regarding your sons. Harvey insisted that you come back to the ancestral home during the holidays. At the very least, send your sons. They have our blood and they will be better knowing the things that we kept in the family," said Ben. "Now, let me take you to your quarters."