Chapter 31

Alex and Taylor could be seen fighting. Taylor had multiple small ink marks covering him, and Alex had many long lines of ink covering him. Taylor had gotten in a good hit on his right arm and the ink had numbed it, making it hard to control it.

Alex was forced to deflect with his weakened arm and attack with his other.

He finally went for his last attempt. Taylor's feet were held in place by his own shadows. Alex immediately went in for an attack, but Taylor broke free too quickly as his feet radiated a bright light.

They moved towards each other like speeding trains, Taylor got ready to end the duel sending out a quick slash to deflect Alex's incoming attack.

Alex had known what Taylor would do and didn't attack, instead, he used the weakened arm to toss the scythe and sped it up with his spacial energy.

Taylor was thrown off by the fake, but his speed was still greater than Alex's. While he was bringing his sword back he dashed backwards preparing to charge back in.

Alex loosened his grip on the chain it slid and the range of the arc increased until eventually he was holding onto the other scythes handle.

Taylor was hit by the speeding scythe directly. He felt his side go numb as the ink seeped through his shirt before disappearing slowly. He smiled as he charged back in. Alex wouldn't be able to block him with his scythes spread so far.

Taylor swung his sword slashing Alex.

Alex gave a small smile as he was hit. 'It would be an even closer fight if I was able to use my spacial energy properly. Imitating wind for the AI makes it slow down so much. Still, it makes my understanding of the chain scythes increase a lot faster.'

[Winner, Taylor Grievenor.]

"That was a good fight, Alex." Taylor said while helping him up.

"Yeah, it was. It's pretty hard to keep up with someone as fast as you."

"And yet you did. Ha you've gotten faster haven't you?" Taylor asked

"Yup, I may have." Alex said. "So what next?" Alex asked Michael. "That's for you two to decide. I know that you joined the potions club, so going early wouldn't hurt anyone." Michael said to Alex, knowing he wanted to ask Lockhorn some questions.

Alex nodded, understanding what he was saying.

"I think Taylor has to check into a few clubs, isn't that right." Michael said while turning to him.

"Yeah, I guess I'll see you in a bit Alex." Michael told his farewells and left to go to his clubs.

"See you." Alex replied as he himself headed off to the potions club.

'So the ink has magical properties. The AI shut it off as soon as the fight ended.'

Alex swiped the card, unlocking the club room's doors.

Lockhorn was watching something on his phone. "Now add a pinch of this and your potion is complete, in less than no time you will have no trouble-." The video was stopped as Lockhorn noticed the door open and a student walking in.

"Oh, hey Alex I was jussst watching, watching a video on how to bake a cake. Yes, that's what it was." He said trying to avoid being suspicious.

Alex ignored Lockhorn's strange indulgence in watching potions being made and began asking his question. "Sir I was wondering if you could tell me more about that ancient language."

The potions instructor's face lit up with a smile as he heard what was asked. He quickly checked to make sure no one else was listening before he spoke.

"You really want to know more?" Lockhorn asked Alex.

"Yes." Alex answered.

"Very well, wait here."

Lockhorn got up and moved his chair. He then pulled the tile below his chair up and lifted a book out from within the hole beneath the tile.

"Here, take this and don't let anyone else read it. This is a copy of one of the ancient languages 'English'. long ago when the potions guild was first created, many people still knew of this language, but it began to fizzle out. No one taught it, no one studied it, and it was being hidden for some reason."

"But it wasn't only this language, all others were being destroyed from existence. Whenever some asked others would tell them that they never heard of it, the potions guild was one of the last ones to hold on to anything about it. After all, the reason the potions guild was founded, was because of 'Alex' and he wrote his recipe in 'English'. One day they caught news of an original translation guide from ancient times, but it was being scheduled to be burned. Let's just say that they stole it, and created many copies in order to preserve their history."

"The only bad news is it's made translating 'English' to the human language, so you will have to work it out backwards. Luckily whoever made it, made it to where the pronunciation for both languages was provided. If they hadn't, then we wouldn't have been able to speak such a language again."

"That is all I can tell you, for now, it's up to you to do the rest."

"Is there a reason you only told me and the other two? I spoke to Daniel and Michael, but they told me that they've never heard of such things." Alex asked

"Very few people know it, in fact knowing it puts your life at risk." Lockhorn told Alex.

"Huh, then why would you tell me and the others about it!" Alex exclaimed. 'My life is already in enough danger.'

"The other two will be fine, they haven't even given my talk a second thought. Of course, I may have given them a potion to help them, but you didn't hear that from me, only because it may be illegal." Lockhorn told Alex, lowering his voice towards the end.

Alex calmed down a little. 'At least he didn't put them in danger.'

"Then why am I the only one that remembers?" Alex asked

"Open the book to page two hundred and thirteen and I think you will understand why."

Alex turned to the page Lockhorn told him to. After scanning through a bunch of words he paused. "This is."

"The potions guild spends a lot of effort to protect their origins. Your name is Alex, the same name as the author of the mana potions recipe."

"What does sharing a name have to do with protecting me?" Alex asked confused.

"Well, let's just say hypothetically, how would knowledge from the future get to the past. It's quite simple actually, you or some other Alex will travel to the past and write it down, and at some point before this loop was created one of you Alex's researched and created potions yourself." Lockhorn said as if he was teaching someone how to count.

"Huh? That is a little too hard to follow."

'Could it have been me, I'm so busy with what I'm doing, that I couldn't even think of adding in experimenting with potions?' Alex thought. He knew he had a spacial element and that it had ties with time, but he had no clue how it would possibly be able to turn back time.

Alex shook the thought from his head. "So, I won't have people hunting me down if I'm ever found out."

"Not just if you are ever found out, but many would avoid trouble with the potions guild in general."

"Here, I was only told to give it to any Alex that asked to learn 'English'." He said as he handed Alex a badge.

It was a badge lined with gold and had a maroon background. There was a logo of a half-filled vial, indicating that it was from the potions guild.

"A last resort protection for you, don't lose it. It holds the same authority as the guild leader himself."

Alex nodded putting it into his bag. Even teleporting it to his new base, to make sure it wouldn't be misplaced.

"Oh yeah, I found this this morning." Alex said pulling out the rocky cricket.

"That poor thing. why did you keep it bottle it would have been much better off if you just killed it?" Lockhorn asked Alex, confusing him.

Lockhorn then opened the small bottle removing the bug.

"See, that's much better now isn't it." Lockhorn said before tossing it into his mouth and chewing it up. He then spit it back into a vial and closed it off.

"Storing them like this prevents them from digesting any essential stuff inside of them and pooping it out." he said to the now-shocked Alex.

"Wha?" Was all Alex could sputter out before he was cut off.

"Alright enough questions, go out and learn. Oh and if you learn to time travel make sure to leave behind a recipe for the mana potion." Lockhorn got rid of Alex so that he could continue watching his video.

Alex was shoved out of the room and just stared. 'This guy. Does he not know his club is about to begin?' Alex waited a few minutes.

James walked up to him. "You are here early why didn't you go in?"

"Lockhorn is watching an important video." Alex told him.

"Eh?" He looked at Alex while thinking. "Oh that old pervert, he gets off on learning new recipes."

"Just enter next time. He can't stop you if you are being a good student." James said while opening the door.

"Ahhhh! Haven't you heard of knocking?" Lockhorn said while turning his phone off once again.

——————

All of the members left the potions club with glum faces. 'Why was he hammering all those rare ingredients in our heads, and what are snot-nosed peeping monkeys?' One of the members thought while leaving.

"Let's not do that again." James said while pouting.

"You guys were the ones that riled him up? What did you do to him?" Taylor asked.

"It's nothing he was just watching inappropriate videos when we entered." James told Taylor.

"Oh. He really is a pervert." Taylor said continuing on walking to the hunting club.

——————

Alex and Taylor had disappointed looks, they had wanted to hunt another master class beast, but Tom and James refused to let them. They settled over 3 expert class beasts, but still wanted to test their new strengths.

"We're not near the central town today, but that just gives you a good excuse to learn how to read a map." Tom said while handing Alex a map and Taylor a compass.

"Oh, and before you guys leave," James said while pulling something out of his pocket. "Here is your pay for the Master class beast yesterday."

Alex nodded before taking it. Taylor on the other hand. "This is too much is it not?"

"Too much? You idiot, you managed to take down a MASTER CLASS BEAST! Only 12 other mages in the school are able to do that. Besides, we already deducted our pay for helping you two." Tom said to Taylor.

"What? first, you call me an idiot, then you say you're stealing from us?" Taylor said half-seriously.

Tom chuckled. "Just get going, from how little your brain works it seems like Alex may be the only reason you'd get home before school starts up again."

Taylor quieted down and he and Alex made their way back.

"Alright, now time to have some real fun. this is much quicker than walking." Alex said after they had walked a while.

He opened a portal and walked through "come on, you can tell your parents that you'll be back by eleven and that you'll be getting some extra training in." Alex said now nearly a hundred feet away.

"And hurry up we need to do this while we still have daylight." He added in quickly.

Taylor smiled as he hopped through the portal. Alex absorbed the energy and conjured up another portal. They made their way back swiftly.