Annoying Guest
On top of a mountain's peak, a lonely figure stood tall and watched the cloud beneath him and felt the wind breezing through his clothes.
The figure was in fact an elderly woman with a long white hair.
She kept her eyes closed to better feel the world around her. The sound of the wind, howling in the distance. The animals, the trees, the rocks, and more importantly, the city.
She was able to feel everything around her.
"There was once a legend..." The elderly woman started to speak out of nowhere with her hoarse and stern voice. There was no one around her. She was almost like speaking to herself. "...One with sadness and fury, where the world has been forsaken, and the light of faith has been taken. The world was in its knees. Faith tried to find a cure, even if it was something impure. With all the pain and suffering it follows, a child was made from beasts and hollows. To bring balance to the world, a monster was created. The Master of Shadows, the God's Scourge, and eventually, the Darkness itself..."
The elderly woman opened her obsidian black eyes. She stared at far distance and spoke once again. "The one who control the shadows, is the one who will lead us." She stopped for moment and then turned around to stared at a blank space in the air. "He, who have embraced the evil and darkness within him, is the one to save our clan..."
"It has began?" An ethereal voice came from the empty space that the elderly woman was staring.
"Yes... The Master of Shadows has been born..." The woman nodded with her head in affirmation.
"What's his location?"
"His location..." The woman closed her eyes and focused with everything she got. "Is... Atlas."
"What we do then?"
"We send some of our people down there and hope..." She sighed and looked at the setting sun in the horizon. "Hope that we are able to find him before our downfall..."
...
Neo woke up early in the morning. His entire body was covered in sweat that he had shed while sleeping.
[Someone's watching me...] He remembered of the dream he just had and the sensation of having been watched. [I can feel it.]
His golden eyes locked at the horizon that he was able to see through the window of the room he was currently residing.
Neo stood up from his bed walked toward the closet that was in the corner of the room.
"Hm?" Neo had just walked past a mirror when he stopped on his tracks and returned to take a proper look at what he saw in the mirror.
After three days of proper food intake and exercise Neo was able to return his body to the best condition it had been after years. The fast recovery rate could be attributed to Neo using his Mana to make it faster.
He wasn't the same skinny and small boy from three days ago. He was now a tall, muscular young man. The mass gain even made him look at least one year older. He had a cool and cold face, a strong and well-built body, and a messy hair that seemed like he couldn't care less about fixing it. All in all, he became what could be call a very handsome young man, in the same level as a male idol of sorts.
But what caught his attention was his hair.
It started to turn white. Out of nowhere his hair was becoming white.
Neo wasn't worried that such a thing would damage his handsome appearance since he never cared about such trivial thing.
What he couldn't allow was something influencing his body without him knowing what and why it was happening.
[Did something happened to me...?] Neo tried to think of something that might have caused this phenomenon.
Even after thinking for a few minutes, he was unable to think of something that might had caused his hair to start whitening.
[I did nothing more than eat, exercise, sleep, and... Train?] Neo frowned as he thought of something that might have caused all this. [My training was something more than meditation to strengthening my soul and... Improve the connection between my soul and my new body.]
Neo returned to the bed, sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and began meditating while he looked inwards, into his soul.
"That's my soul..." Neo watched the ever-changing black flame-looking thing hovering. "I need to go deeper to see what's making changes into my body." He concentrated even more and made his consciousness dive into his dark soul.
The moment he entered into his soul, it felt like diving into water. All around Neo's consciousness was something that resembled water, a blue and clear water, or should be called, Mana.
That was Neo's Mana Pool, like everyone else's Mana Pool. The only difference from one to another, is the size and thickness of the water looking liquid, that is the Mana.
As he dived into the Mana Pool he was soon able to see a giant, ominous black star, calmly hovering in the Mana Pool.
[That's the representation of my Law of Darkness.] Neo instantly recognized the black star in front of him.
He frowned and looked around. [It doesn't seem to have something wrong here...]
Neo closed his eyes and tried to feel the surroundings.
It was in this moment that his eyes swiftly opened and he glanced at a specific location. [Is that it...?]
He made his consciousness go toward the place he felt something abnormal happening there.
When he got to see what was causing the abnormalities in his body, he couldn't help exclaim.
Floating in the corner of Neo's Mana Pool there was something that looked like a ball. A white, glowing ball.
Neo tried to reach it out with his hand, but...
*Tzzz*
He hastily retrieved his consciousness from his Mana Pool when it started to burn after touching the glowing ball.
Neo opened his eyes and returned to the surface. [What's that?] When he remembered the burning sensation he felt when touching the ball he couldn't help but frown. [Why would it have such a reaction when entering in contact with my consciousness?]
He lost time when while he was thinking of theories and reasonings about what was that thing. When he looked up at the sky, it was already noon.
[I have to keep continuous watch over my Mana Pool and see what is that thing...] Neo returned to his position for cross-legged and closed his eyes. [But first I need to meditate and cultivate. My strength will not come back if I stay idle.]
Neo calmed his mind and went back to cultivating.
...
After two more days of non-stop cultivating and training, Neo was forced to stop when he was interrupted by a ferocious and relentless knocking on the door of his apartment.
He was in the middle of a discovery of a new power that lied within him, but Elana completely interrupted the process.
But he already understood what that white glowing ball really was. He couldn't help but be surprised when he discovered what it was, but...
Unfortunately, he was interrupted by an annoying guest known as Elana Feuer.
"What are you doing here?" Neo coldly asked the woman that was seating on the chair across the dinner table they were currently at.
"Your classes start tomorrow." Elana lifted an eyebrow and stared at Neo from head to toes.
She had to admit to herself that Neo had really became a lot handsome. She was genuinely surprised when she saw how fast some one could change from a skinny, eerie and ugly young boy, to a tall and handsome man.
The only problem she got with the current Neo was that he was too cold and have an eerie, dark aura around him every time.
It basically ruins his appearance.
"What's up with your hair?" Elana noticed that in Neo's hair there was some strands of white hair. It really created some contrast with his pitch black hair.
"I don't know... I'm trying to figure out what is happening."
"Well..." Elana shrugged her shoulders. "It has nothing much to do with me." She said dismissively then she took a bag that was by her side and place on top of the table, right in front of Neo, and spoke, "This is your uniform, and some other clothes."
"Tell me again... Why are doing all this?" Neo only threw a quick glance at the bag before he went back to stare at Elana and coldly asked. "From my understanding of Ancardians, anyone of them would have killed me off. Why didn't you did it?"
"So you know about Ancardians, huh." Elana eyed Neo. She was really curious about the person in front of her, but she didn't showed any of this in her behavior or expression. "You are right, any ancardian would have killed you on the spot. But there a few of us who are different from the stereotypical ancardian. Ancardians fear the unknown and anything that might threaten their superiority, be it demons, monsters, atlarians or even other ancardians."
Neo just leaned on the back of his chair and patiently kept hearing everything Elana had to speak.
"There's a group called the Equalists, have you heard about them?" Elana narrowed her eyes, and stared at Neo's face as she made this question.
"No..." Neo lied without batting an eye. His face remained expressionless, so it was basically impossible that Elana could had caught anything that could show that he lied.
From the scattered and available memories of the previous owner of the body, Neo was still able to know a little about the group known as Equalists.
The information was very limited, so he only knew a few things like the name of the leader, the objective of the group, and a little about their story.
Once Elana confirmed that Neo didn't knew anything about the organization, she sighed in relief inwardly.
"The Equalists group was founded by a man called Prometheus Donner..." Elana started to speak about the group Equalists. Even though she tried to hid, Neo was able to see the enthusiasm in her voice, and the flash of admiration that passed through her eyes when she spoke the name of the leader. "The main objective of the group is that every single sentient living being should have the right to learn magic. Not like it is today, only the elite families of Ancardia that have the rights of monopoly over how to learn and teach magic. And as you already know, ancardians hate anything that might threaten their superiority over the sentient races. They hunt down every single person of the Equalist organization, and even execute a person for having the slightest ties with the group. So-"
"Alright, that's cool and all, but what this much have to do with my question earlier?" Neo interrupted Elana. This much about the Equalists he already knew and he wasn't that much interested in listening about something he already knew.
"Could you not interrupt me while I'm speaking?" She threw a side glance at Neo. She was clearly a little angry about how Neo impolitely interrupted her in the middle of her speech.
Neo lifted an eyebrow when he saw that Elana got a angry. He wasn't affected by the sharp stare that he was receiving from her eyes. He just crossed his arms looked back at her.
When she saw that Neo completely ignored her, she frowned, but decided to move on. "As I was saying, the Equalist want to teach every sentient being the wonders of magic. Thus they created a school, ran by ancardians that agree with their idea. Because the school is ran by ancardians, the main families of Ancardia would never suspect that the school is in fact the Equalists' territory."
"So... It's basically a magical school then?"
"No, not exactly that. The school really teaches magic, but only to a few atlarians with the talent to control Mana." Elana calmly explained. "Not every atlarian have the talent to learn magic. The ability to control Mana is very rare among them, only 1 in 10000 have the talent to control Mana. The school have both magic users and normal people. We don't receive sponsor from any of the main houses of Ancardia and neither the Equalists."
"That doesn't make sense..." Neo frowned when he heard what Elana had just said. "The school was founded by the Equalists, why wouldn't they be sponsored by them?"
Elana already knew this question was bound to come when she spoke until there, so she was unfazed by Neo's question. "It's because of a deal made between the school's principal and Prometheus. The principal doesn't want that her students would be forced to fight battles that they don't want to be part of, so she declined the sponsor from the Equalists, this way she, and the students, doesn't have to feel obliged to join the organization. They only have two choices when they graduate in the school, join the school and be a protector, teacher, or join the Equalists. They aren't allowed to be free because of everything they know that could put the school and every one in there at risk."