Chapter Five

[Artifacts.

Tools born from the minds of geniuses and the best of materials.

Successfully wielding one of these tools would grant you many benefits, ranging from power, position, money, and privileges that many would only hope to get.

But controlling an artifact is no simple manner. An artifact could be controlled through the usage of energy emitted from one's body. One would have to manipulate the energy inside of their body and guide it to control the artifact.

Although this sounded simple in theory, it is an excruciating task in practice.

For regular people, years of training would be required to even control the energy in your body. And to make things worse, the amount of energy a person is born with varies with people. So, not only would you be required the talent and resilience to manipulate energy—you also need to be born with one.

Controlling your energy is the minimum requirement for a person to dream about manipulating an artifact. They would have to somehow exert the energy outside of their bodies, and insert it into an artifact—only then would they be able to barely control artifacts.

But this wasn't easy, the energy required to power an artifact is not to be underestimated. For a person to barely control an artifact, the energy of more than twenty normal people combined would be required. For them to be proficient at handling them, however, is a completely different thing.

Great talent is required to maximize the potential of an artifact, and this is where most people failed at.

What use of it to waste decades of lifetime, to only spit out fire comparable to a torch? This question would stump those who lacked talents. Why not just use energy to manipulate your own body? Just pick up a stick and rub it very quickly. It would be much easier to accomplish and wouldn't waste decades of your life.

For people who owned talents, however, they would be able to accomplish many great things. For example, a feat that would require decades of training for a normal person would only take them a short while to do.

Now, creating an artifact would require a person to understand fully the way it worked and sufficient experience at wielding them. After all, creating objects to achieve tasks you don't understand is an impossible thing.

How much talent would one need to be a magic engineer? Heh, guess.]

[~Rustal, Andora. "Arts of Energy." Interview by Undine Castaire. The Antis United Academy's Mouth, Antis, 961 Androssia Calendar, pp. 201-202.]

----

On a dark and petrifying night, a group of people can be seen walking through a lush forest.

Leading their group was a muscular man holding a bright torch, illuminating their surroundings. Near him were a woman in her teens and an adolescent man wearing a black robe that only reached his elbows.

The person leading the group and the woman scanned their surroundings carefully, while the adolescent man kept on flicking something that appeared to be a badge—sometimes reflecting the source of light near them.

Although the moon was shining brightly on top of their heads, there were almost no signs of moonlight inside the forest. It probably wasn't able to penetrate the tall trees that rivaled the height of buildings.

In this forest, almost no insects cried. In its place, however, bone-chilling silence prevailed.

The person that was flicking a badge opened his mouth.

"Are you sure that we are heading in the correct direction?"

Kyle was starting to feel distrustful towards this group of people. When he mentioned that he wanted to go inside the tomb, the President—still with his cheery voice—allowed him to go with one condition.

[I will allow you to go if you are accompanied by some of my men, not an expensive price I should say.]

He expected to be flat out rejected by him, but not only did he accepted his request to be accompanied by only two people—the President didn't even ask for remunerations.

When Kyle asked him about this, the President smiled and said that the people accompanying him would be enough for the remuneration. The arrogant teen, of course, became skeptical.

Not only did the President divulged the information about this tomb to an outsider like Kyle, but he also didn't ask for any reimbursement from Kyle either. If this wasn't suspicious, what would the word "suspicious" represent them?

And he didn't even stop there, the people he chose would also guard Kyle as a bonus.

Yes, guard.

[At your position, surely you know about people that can use Authority, don't you? Well, both of them can also manipulate these powers, although still learning to use them.]

The young woman walking in front of him answered without turning her head.

"Don't worry, we are heading in the right direction. Just another hour or so is what we need to reach it."

Kyle sneered upon hearing her.

"I sure hope so, I can't even remember how long it was since we entered this forest."

"Well, keeping track of time in Blynth forest is a difficult thing to do. Considering that these trees block most of the light coming to the forest," the muscular man lifted his eyes to a tree in front of him.

The trees were lush and dark, and the muscly man squinted his eyes in hopes to see clearly. It might have been his imagination, but he could barely make out the silhouette of a six-legged nightcrawler on that tree.

Cold sweat started to fall down his forehead, as he knew that there was a high chance of it truly being a nightcrawler. The only thing keeping them from attacking their group was the source of light he is holding right now. Blow some harsh winds and they would get attacked from all sides.

Back then, If only Gyne hadn't been in the state of panic, he would probably have lit a torch to keep the nightwalkers away. Too bad he had forgotten and almost got himself killed by them.

Kyle was void of the muscular man's worries. He can light up a fire in an instant, after all.

Kyle looked down to his hands and tightened his fists, feeling the texture of the gloves he was wearing. They weren't your regular gloves, however. The engineering genius had created an artifact in the form of unsuspicious clothing. Creating these artifacts wasn't easy, but he managed to construct them nevertheless.

He is confident that he would be able to survive in the middle of this forest easily, but he is curious about the power of his "guards."

On the academy, the professors had repeatedly hinted to him that people wielding strange powers exist. Without an artifact, they can do magical things only using their body. He has researched news about these people, but he wasn't allowed to go outside the academy until now.

The professors—for some reason—wouldn't tell him about these people no matter how much he pleaded. It was a top-secret, they said. After years of questioning, Kyle gave up on asking his teachers and waited until he could go outside the academy.

And now, he has encountered people wielding these "Authority" in flesh. Although distrustful of them, it would be a lie to say that he wasn't looking forward to seeing them in combat.

Fortunately for Kyle, after thirty minutes of walking, a slightly moving dot of light appeared in the distance.

The muscular man noticed it the quickest out of them and stretched his hand to prevent them from moving forward.

"Stop, something is in front of us."

He then gestured for them to hide in the bushes. The woman fell flat on her chest, and Kyle kneeled behind a trunk.

'If only I had brought an artifact to magnify our vision,' Kyle clicked his tongue. At this distance, he could barely see the small light in the distance.

He glanced to the muscular man to see his pupils contracting. The pupils were shaking slightly and kept on getting smaller, even expanding at times.

'An Authority in action?' the young genius assumed.

The pupil that kept on contracting and expanding stopped and returned to its original size. It seemed to tire the muscular man, as he closed his eyes and started to massage it.

"I see a group of people in the distance, on about 3.000 meters. At least 8 people, armed but doesn't look that professional."

While rubbing his slightly sore eyes, he said, "Carrind, try to listen to their movements."

"Okay," she spoke with a slightly stiff expression.

The young woman then tilted her head and put her ears on the ground. Her long brown hair stuck to the slightly damp dirt, sticking to them slightly. But Carrind didn't seem to care about it, her eyes were shut, and sweat flowed down her forehead.

Fastening the gloves on his hands, Kyle observed Carrind as she listened to the ground. He didn't expect this slightly rude young woman to actually be able to use Authority.

Correct, she was the same adolescent woman that opened the door and entered the President's office with him.

With their torch shining brightly, the two men observed as Carrind tried her best to listen to the opposing side's movement. She repeatedly switched between her ears, as if that would change what she could hear.

After continuous switches, she finally lifted her head and said slowly.

"It sounds like they aren't heading towards us, but I'm not so sure."

The muscular man then nodded and opened his eyes, glancing towards their source of light. After thinking for a while, he stood up and gestured for both of them to follow him.

"Let's move forward and hope that they won't approach us," he started to walk.

Slightly disappointed, Kyle stood up and brushed the leaves that stuck to his clothes. He followed the muscular man with Carrind trailing behind him, massaging her ears. Continuously turning his eyes between the other two people, Kyle took out the badge that he put in his pocket and flicked it.

'As far as what they showed to me, Authority doesn't seem to be that powerful,' he thought.

The feats that the muscular man and Carrind showed didn't surprise him that much. Achieving those things can be done simply with the help of an artifact. Even he would be able to do so with the correct artifact.

But he wrinkled his forehead. If this is what Authority would be able to do, the professors at his academy wouldn't try hinting at him so desperately. And the news he found mentioned things that would be hard to achieve even with the help of artifacts.

'In conclusion, they are weaklings,' was what he concluded.