11: Backstory Time!

When the knight sat down, he looked up at Cleo, waiting for her to unload a flurry of questions upon him. However, Cleo just looked at him with disappointment.

"Aren't you hungry too? Come on, we'll make a meal first, then we'll talk later. I'm not a great cook, but I can at least make my town's specialty. It's really just a simple soup." Cleo walked over into the closet, leaving the knight to sit around aimlessly.

After a few minutes, Cleo came back from the closet with two entire rabbits, already dead. She was surprised at first, to find that the closet was a lot bigger than a simple ingredients cupboard, but after everything she had seen so far, it wasn't exactly noteworthy. "Augustus! Prepare the rabbits then put one back in the closet. We won't need the second one for a while."

The knight was a bit annoyed that she had caught on to this trend of using his real name. "Sure, but just don't use my name."

"What should I call you then?" Cleo had no way to single him out other than his name.

"Just call me 'sir knight' or 'unnamed.' Whatever you want, really." The knight replied, all the while drifting off into a state of mindlessness while preparing the two rabbits for cooking.

The two continued in silence, preparing the meat, setting up the pot, laying the meat inside with the water and letting it sit. The knight realized Cleo had no experience with magic cooking equipment, as she let the pot sit and sat down. He walked over to the pot and beckoned her to it as well.

"This pot actually has a set of runes on it which accelerate the time inside of the pot, allowing food to cook for that amount of time in an instant. How long does this need to cook for?"

"Three to five hours" she responded.

"Let's call it four then, just to make things simple." The knight then tapped specific runes on the pot, lighting them up, one by one. After a few seconds, the smell of the broth leaked out of the pot and triggered the hunger both of them felt.

Cleo walked over to the closet. She grabbed all the different ingredients needed and went back to the pot and deposited the ingredients bit by bit while stirring it slowly. "There's no need to speed up the time, because it won't be long before this is finished. You can sit down, I'll give you a bowl when I finish."

The knight did as she said, and sat down. He thought long and deep, collecting his thoughts in a chronological order so he could tell her everything if she asked.

After what seemed like a short time to him, Cleo came over with two bowls of soup. "It's some sort of rabbit soup. I hope you enjoy it."

They began eating in silence. The knight ended up being the one to speak up first. "Any questions you have, I'll answer them."

"Alright," Cleo began. "Why? Why did you fake your own death? What made you leave the capital? How could you gain so much power then discard it?"

"Those are some loaded questions. Anyways, I thought it was going to be easier but I'll just tell you everything, it'll make the most sense that way."

They both finished their soup and the knight sat on his bed, leaning his back against the wall. He looked up and began to tell his story.

"As you know, I am Augustus Draconis, the only known colorless mage to ever overcome the obstacle of mastering an element. I'm… what? Nineteen years old now? That seems about right. Anyways, My story ended about a decade ago, when I escaped into the plains, discarding my name. I don't know why they never pursued me. My story begins fourteen years ago, when I was named as one of the Draconis. The name given to all colorless mages."

"Even though it was thought to be impossible to learn how to use magic, we still went through the mandatory education. However, when it came time to learn about our individual element, instead of normal classes, it was a free period. Nobody could teach us what to do so we could unlock different elements. Most students would spend this time fooling around or studying for other classes. Me and a few other students, however, spent this time trying to unlock our powers."

"After about a year of this, I finally made a breakthrough. By this time there was only one person other than me who was still trying to unlock their powers, everyone else figured that it was a lost cause. It just clicked with me one day. I had an idea about instead of trying to circulate the magic through my core, I would instead circulate it throughout my body, to the tips of my fingers, toes, and head. Once I had this down I tried using it to reinforce my body. Surprisingly it worked."

"After doing some research I realized that the magic I had learned was rose magic, which enhances one's body to a certain extent. I realized I had to learn the techniques to each magic before I could use them. The easiest for this was rose magic because the fundamentals behind it were simple. I tried teaching it to the other student, but failed miserably. I wasn't a great teacher back then, so I couldn't figure out how to get him to understand what I was saying. He gave up trying to learn shortly after. He said I was going to make it big some day. I never saw him again after that."

"I started going to the other elemental classes during that period after getting special permission from the headmaster to do so. I stayed in the school for another year before word got out that I unlocked the elements. This was only among the higher-ups, and the public had no knowledge of my existence yet. By the time word got out, I had leaned the foundations of healing magic and was adept at it. I had mastered rose magic and put my own twist on it. I was also able to use fire and water magic extremely well."

"That year I graduated early, under the pretense of joining the kingdom's mages, however, I was told that I would be going into the Archmagi's tower to study under the eight. Looking back, I had no choice but to accept, but back then, I really was excited for an opportunity like this. However, that was definitely a big mistake."

"In the normal scholar program, we had no physical fitness requirements, however, in the tower, the mages wanted me to be more in shape than a knight was. The second archmage, as you know, was the mage of the maelstrom. His name was Valor Tempest and he controlled the storms. He would subject me to large charges of electricity or heavy blasts of water if I did not please him. That was at first though."

"An unknown fact about the late second archmage, is that he had the best melee combat ability ever known to the kingdom. You could pit him against anyone and he would win. He was a genius of combat, blessed by the elements with a secondary magic. He trained me in an extremely brutal manner, trying to make me become as good as he was. Once I got stronger, he would spar me and wouldn't stop until I was unconscious. I wouldn't call his treatment of me malice, even though it seems that it was. In reality, he was the most passionate of all the archmagi about teaching me. He wanted me to be the best warrior to ever exist."

"Eventually he gave up trying to teach me every style of combat and settled on teaching me the sword and hand-to-hand combat. I decided I didn't want to be like him and trained in my own way, slowly forming the sword style I use now. I thought it would be better to use a flowing style for multiple reasons. The first being it allowed my mana to circulate my body, the second being it wouldn't slow me down if I released a sudden burst of mana during an attack. The final reason is because no matter how fast I went or how heavy my strikes were, I could still attack if each of my strikes could flow into each other. After mastering this with the sword, I applied the same logic to my hand-to-hand studies."

"Even though I got so far, I couldn't actually make it to his level. I got extremely close to meeting his skill, but I never actually got to where he was without the use of mana. During my training under him, he taught me how to use the elements of air and lightning."

"After a few more years of this, I was nine years old. I realized that they were doing this for a reason. I didn't know what for, but they were raising me as a tool for the Archmagi. By the time I realized this I had learned almost all of the elements of the Archmagi, except for the first, and the seventh. Their magics were that of time and souls, respectively. Those elements were so complex that I couldn't wrap my head around anything. The issue with soul magic is that to even be able to use it, I had to have murdered someone."

"After staying under the act of obedience for another few months, I told my idea of escape to the eighth, who you know as Gabriel. He was the only person who seemed to be different from the rest, who didn't agree with the other seven. Gabriel and I are alike in a sense as well. We both have limitless amounts of mana. No matter how much we use it, we can't run out. After hearing my idea, he decided that he would help me out with escaping, before i even asked him for his help. He seemed pretty enthusiastic about it, because, unlike me, he knew what I was going to be used for until a seat opened up in the council. I had to escape when I still could, or I would be attached to the tower forever."