chapter 1

Syonas stifled a yawn, his hands never leaving the keyboard as he typed away with extreme effeciency. He was in a windowless room with no lighting, seated at a long wooden table, covered with multiple monitors and computer processors, all of which were hooked up to a black box placed on a pedestal in the centre of the room. It was covered in glowing characters and released a low humming noise.

The sound of fingers slamming into the keyboards continued for several hours before it came to a sudden stop. Standing from his chair, Syonas gave his body a full stretch. His back released popping sounds in protest of the sudden stress after countless hours hunched over in his seat, a habit that was already beginning to have slight effects on his posture.

Syonas stood to his full height of five feet five inches, which was quite impressive for a thirteen-year-old boy, and ran a hand through his messy dreadlocks, highlighting their unusual shade of red in the dim light of the monitors. His dark skin looked somewhat sickly from a lack of sunlight if his skinny frame was not a sufficient indication of his less than ideal physical status. Still, his big brown eyes that fleet between the computer screens glistened with an intelligence that seemed to be analysing everything within sight.

His hands began to quiver, the anxiety of potential failure in this plan that took the greater half of his life to finish was starting to get to him. He took in a deep breath to calm himself before releasing it, a passage from 'heart of the mountain' by Unella thorn came to mind.

"if it does not destroy your character, then it cannot destroy you."

'This might fail, but its failure will not destroy me or my determination to accomplish my goals.' Syonas thought to himself as a final comfort before stepping up to the black box.

He pressed a button located on the lower-left corner of the cube. With a loud hum and a final burst blue light, the room fell into darkness. Even the computers screens had gone off.

A line of light formed and began to expand slowly and outward once more, revealing Syonas' deadpan face, but his eyes where filled with anxiety and expectation.

Syonas reached into the bright interior of the black box to pull out the source of this resplendent light, and his hand came out holding two crystal marbles, around the size of the average playing marble that would fit snugly in your palm.

Syonas released a sigh of relief. He did it. After year's of concerted effort, laser sharp focus and unswerving determination, he finally did it. Syonas closed his eyes and felt the slight warmth of the crystals in his hand.

'One step closer.' Soon as though to himself, there were still many more things to do before he could have said to have made some real progress in his mission.

He wiped his smile from his face and pulled a small box from his pocket to place one of the crystal marbles in. He then made his way to the door and opened it, revealing a set of stairs that led up.

He walked out of his basement and came into his garage before making his way into the living room.

Giving his house a glance over, Syonas had to admit that he had a lovely home although overly Spartan and minimalistic it still managed to come off as homely.

He had one bedroom, one kitchen, one bathroom and a living room.

Walking into the kitchen, he pulled out a can of fish from the cupboard and gave the table a little knock, which was immediately followed by the patter of small feet.

In came strutting a small black cat that looked to be barely off it's mother's milk. This was a little black cat that Syonas bought a few days ago for the sole purpose of testing the project first.

A few minutes later the cat had already eaten his cat food along with the marble that was in the bowl.

Now all he had to do was wait, glancing at his watch he was shocked with the realisation of the date. He had spent so much time on writing the last bits of code that he forgot he had a test today. He had to be in school today, or he would fail that class.

After a quick shower, he was out the door, racing down the street. He gave his watch a quick glance

"I still have time" Syonas mumbled to himself, but froze in place a few seconds later.

He heard screaming from one of the houses next to his, he looked over, and recognised the building.

'To think Mr Aziz would be at it this early in the morning, poor Anna.'

His knuckles tightened on the straps of his backpack at the thought of little Anna being beaten by her father, but what could he do? Mr Aziz worked for the ice locker, one of the biggest gangs in all of Vero city.

Even if he found a way to intimidate Mr Aziz into not beating her any more, all it would take is one word to Mr Aziz' superiors of how some little punk dared to mess with a subordinate of the ice locker, and he would be put down. Nobody who messes with the locker lives to tell the tale, no pedestrian at least.

He turned away from the house, his stomach turning the whole time and began walking down the street, and away from the high pitched screams. Just to be safe, he reach into his jacket to check on his gun.

Crime is not as active during this time of the day but better safe than sorry. He began the long trek from the slums to the better parts of town; he didn't even try to get a taxi, he didn't trust any public transport that drove around the slums this early in the morning.

It takes an hour of walking to get to a decent section of town and find the nearest bus stop. After paying with his smartwatch, he found a seat at the back of the bus, and decided to go over contingencies and emergency protocols he had set in place to make sure nothing would go wrong today.

While he was still going over this in his head, he felt the bus come to a stop, and checked his watch. It's seven-thirteen am. He got off the bus and walked to the school entrance, walking into the parking lot that was filled with expensive cars and a smattering of young students disembarking these vehicles.

Viridian high was the most expensive and most prestigious school in Vero city, a status that was well displayed in the beauty and opulence of its campus.

The building he was walking toward is the primary location where most classes are held. It was more than six stories tall, and its horizontal length was just as impressive.

He walked into the school building and navigated the somewhat crowded halls to get to his class, while doing his best to keep his head down and not attract any attention.

After a few minutes of this, he walked into a full class room under the teacher's scathing glare with a few seconds to spare. Scanning the small room that could hold twenty people comfortably, he began to search for a seat.

But he froze in awe when his eyes fell on the beautiful form in the first row. Light skin that resembled early snowfall with a smattering of blush from the cold weather of Vero city, dark hair that resembled midnight that framed a face of heavenly beauty.

She had steely grey eyes that glimmered with intelligence, a small, slightly upturned nose that was the epitome of cuteness and pouty pink lips that could steal souls. He was immediately transfixed, as he was whenever he saw her, on the rare occasions he came to school.

Taking a deep breath, he plucked up enough courage and began his approach, on shaky legs.

'Come on Sy, you can do this, it's not that hard, just ask her if she wants to do something later. The worst that could happen is her saying no.' he silently encouraged himself while continuing his brave March into the unknown.

Seemingly noticing his burning gaze, her eyes snap up from the test papers on her desk onto his face and his eyes immediately flash away from her to his front, and he walked right past her.

'Fuck, shit, damn, Syonas you spineless, quivering pile of trash you can't even look at her!' he began internally debasing himself while taking his seat at the back of the class in the corner opposite the window.

He was a smart kid, so he understood this was all hormones, but knowing and being able to ignore it was a whole different thing. On a whole syonas did not really consider himself an emotional person, in fact he was a staunch advocate of self discipline and self control but the way he felt whenever he saw Penelope threw any sort of self control out the window, and turned him into a nervous, sweaty mess, it was a good thing he had never spoken to her or he would probably not even be able to stammer out his name

It was not long before the teacher commenced the test, and he zoned out completely while his hands and eyes glided over the test sheets, answering all the test questions with almost no mental effort. With all this free brain power, he couldn't stop his mind from returning to his recent disgrace in front of the girl he had a crush on.

Her name is Penelope Snaer, and she was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and intelligent girls in the entire school, she came from a prestigious family and to top it all of she was a mage.

Most people in this day and age where magically gifted, but only enough to learn small things like lighting a candle or filling a cup with water, things that were generally useless.

But humans are innovative by nature, they took what little magic they had and used it to enhance the tools they had created, resulting in the creation of magitech and the advent of the modern world.

But among the mediocre masses where the genuinely gifted, those who with enough practice can learn to do incredible things with magic, thereby becoming more than what nature intended, and these few individuals are bestowed with the title of mage. Penelope Snaer was the youngest mage in Vero city, an impressive feat considering its population was in the millions, but that's not why he liked her.

His eyes couldn't help but shift up from his desk onto the front row, her hair was held up in a loose bun that displayed that long and slender neck that made him just about bust a blood vessel. To be honest, he liked her cause she was pretty, what else would he like her for. He didn't even know her.

He could just imagine what it would be like to run his fingers down that neck, to feel her smooth skin, to hold her thin frame, maybe even..... Kiss her... Or.....

His young pubescent imagination was beginning to spiral out of control, and right at that moment, a wad of paper hit the side of his face, bringing him out of his reverie. He looked to his left where the wad of paper came from and, saw the culprit two seats down, grinning right at him.

He had green eyes, blonde hair, and a somewhat handsome face. He was also clad in a black tee-shirt, a blue jacket, jeans and sneakers.

Daniel Anderson bent over his desk to stare right at Syonas with a taunting gaze. Syonas opened the clump of paper to see a crude drawing of himself getting stabbed; It was ugly, unskilled, straightforward and unimaginative. He honestly felt more disappointed than angry.

He ignored Daniel and returned his eyes to the test ignoring the barrage of paper wads that where now coming his way while the teacher said nothing. This was the power of a good back ground I guess.

"Stop it or I will kick you out, your distracting me" a voice came from the front of the room, Syonas looked up and was greeted with the heavenly visage of Penelope giving Daniel a death stare.

Nobody said anything, nobody even looked up from their test sheets, except for Syonas who got to see Daniel practically curl up into a ball in his seat and give Penelope a very restrained nod. His family may be rich but they was no way they would want to offend Penelope Snaer.

Penelope gave a slight glance in syonas' direction before returning to her papers. Syonas was star struck by that one gaze, he felt his face heat up and his pants begin to tighten. He needed some air.

'fuck, not now.' Syonas thought.

The sound of his chair scraping against the floor rang out in the room drawing everyone's attention. Drawing his hoody down a little more in a vein attempt to conceal his face, syonas submitted his paper under the perplexed gaze of the teacher and half-walked, half-ran out of the classroom.

Syonas took in a deep breath filling his lungs with the cold air of the empty school corridor, and began to slowly clear his kind of that wonderful stare, allowing the blood to flow away from his member and his heart rate to come down.

'Well, that was embarrassing.' Syonas thought to himself now as his mind calmed and his face once again became deadpan, he honestly wished Penelope did not have such an effect on him but he had little say in what his biology was attracted to. Maybe it would change after tonight but he will have to wait and see. Since he didn't have any extra-curricular activities he decided to go to the library and read up on a few things to refresh his memory for tonight.

The library was just a room on the third floor of the main building, it looked large enough to hold about a hundred people and was filled with sits and tables.

He walked into the library, took a seat and connected to the local area network. This was his favourite part of the school, and viridian high had a massive collection of E-books that could not be found outside for free. The only problem is that you had to be physically present in the building to use it.

He began scrolling through the selection until he came across a title that made him pause.

'Demon beast anatomy and how the core facilitates magic.'

That was a title that brought back many memories for him. This book was where it all started for him, it was the impetus for the concept he had been working on for the past six years.

He remembered it like it was yesterday. He was in his room reading a book like he usually did, even at the age of five his hunger for knowledge was insatiable, he heard his brother open the door and walk into the house.

He knew it was him because he opened a door just like he did everything else like a bull in a china shop, with absolutely no finesse. Syonas ran down the stairs with a grin plastered on his young face to greet his brother only to find him on the floor, covered in blood and crying his eyes out.

That's how he found out his parents died.

His brother held him in his blood-stained arms, promising him it would be okay that everything would be fine, all the while balling his eyes out. He couldn't be blamed, being that he was only thirteen at the time; just a child.

Syonas didn't remember how he got into bed but all he knew was by the time he came around again he was lying down in his bedroom, his pillow soaked from all the tears and snot and suddenly the grief seemed much more real.

'My parents are dead, they are gone forever, and there is nothing I can do about it.' Syonas thought to himself

He felt the pain surge through his mind and flow through his body, as a tingling sensation started to spread from his forehead to the rest of his body.

With a shattering boom, it was as though a barrier in his mind was broken, he could feel it and although it was not very clear he instantly knew what it was.

A soul space.

The source of a mage's power and their ability to use magic, the shock and grief from losing his parents must have knocked something loose. A bitter smile played on his face at the realization that because of his parents' death, he now had magic.

It was many hours until syonas gathered the strength to sit up and attend to his newly discovered soul space, all the while barely holding back the grief that burdened his young mind.

He recalled his knowledge on how to check your soul space, and begin meditation. Meditation was not something easily achieved but he had begun meditating months ago as soon as he discovered that it was necessary to use magic.

And with focused ease, he drifted off until he found himself hovering in space, too weighed down by grief to feel any real excitement, he slowly looked around to get a good look at his soul space, but he was quickly overcome with horror.

His soul space was a mess of shattered fragments and chaotic turmoil, and he felt his mind quake before he was forcefully ejected out of his soul space. His body was acting subconsciously in self-preservation, sending him out before any real damage could be done.

As his eyes opened in reality, he felt slight disappointment. He knew what a shattered soul space meant; he had no magical ability at all, and chances are he will never have any.

His parents had died and now his dreams for the future where shattered. He was now an orphan condemned to mediocrity because regardless of how smart he was, he would always be human, and humans could never keep up with magi.

The days that followed where a drab grey of endless and monotonous sadness. Syonas' grandparents on both sides were dead, and both of his parents were only children, so there was no family to attend the funeral, and barely any friends came, so it was a quiet affair.

Caiden, Syonas' elder brother got their inheritance, which surprised him a bit, but it turned out that at the age of thirteen, children could choose whether to go into the system or not, so at least they didn't have to worry about money.

Caiden, being fully emancipated, was now Syonas' guardian, and he went into overdrive trying to take care of him and make sure that he had everything he needed to grow up happy and healthy while working hard to chase his dreams. Unlike Syonas, Caiden showed an exceptional aptitude for magic. A trait he worked nonstop to develop.

Syonas barely saw him anymore. When he did, Caiden was exhausted and too tired even to hold a conversation. But he wasn't the only one working hard.

Syonas began to study like never before, although he had no magical talent, he still hoped to graduate with honours and get into the top universities on academic merit alone. Their parents where engineers and Syonas hoped to be one as well.

Like this, two years passed by, and during one of Syonas' many study sessions, he came across a topic that a city boy like him never really contemplated.

Demon beasts.

It was said that demon beasts where none sapient creatures that were capable of magic, which was by definition, an impossibility. Magic required a soul and not just any soul but a sufficiently powerful one.

The souls of beasts were usually too rudimentary to be capable of any magic, yet demon beasts where. They were capable of magic through a miraculous organ known as a core.

From that moment on an idea began to propagate in his mind.

An idea that was absolute madness, he would never risk his life for such a minuscule possibility.

But that determination only lasted till he found out his parents death was not an accident.