It was morning already by the time Aaron reached Blossoms city. He risked travelling at night just because he wanted this to be over with. And he had already travelled this route a few times and had become quite familiar with it.
He straight away went to the mage association to submit the mission.
"Mage Aaron Rosil. Successfully completed a green level mission. "
The person who handled the mission submissions evaluated.
"The head you presented was of a slightly elementalized wood mage. Did you find anything else with him? "
"No. But he had few other bandits with him. A traveller's group would be bringing them to the city and hand them over. "
"Okay. You may leave now. And good job. "
The whole thing didn't take much time.
He was soon handed his reward of 50 mage stones and was asked for a few more details.
He didn't give tell them about the paper he found. He kept that for himself. He had a talk with Johan and he knew he wouldnt reveal his secret. He knew Aaron had saved his life and was grateful for it. He will keep that secret.
Aaron went and had a bath first. He lied down on his bed to have a rest. The cuts on his body hurt a little. That pain made sure that whatever had happened was real. He was in a fight and killed two people.
He thought he should have felt worse for killing people than he was feeling now. And that bothered him the most. Yes, he felt very bad when he had killed and felt nauseated. But he knew, he was already much better.
Did the desolate area desensitized him? No. Not really. He still felt things.
He felt asleep thinking those things.
It was late evening by the time he was up.
Only when he started eating did he realized how hungry he had been.
And having some warm food in his stomach made him feel much better too.
In his room, he opened the slip of paper again. He carefully read the details and burned the paper. He knew he had to show up for the meeting. He wanted some answers and it looked like a place where he might get some.
Next day, he went to the mage association library.
Everything he had done till now was for this. Once he entered the so called library, he was dissapointed. There were only a couple of racks with books available.
When they said Blossom city had a small library, they really meant it.
Atleast they had books related to the general history and geography of the world.
He started with history. That was the thing he was after.
According to the book he read, it described that there was great war about 10000 years ago. The mages had heroically defeated some group of people who were up in arms against them and the common people. They decided to be benevolent at the end and instead of killing them, they imprisoned them in a corner of the continent. That part was beyond the forbidden forest and the prisoners were trapped there forever.
"What crap is this?" Aaron was a prisoner? That desolate area was caused due to a war between mages and a group of people with different mindset? Impossible.
Anyone with half decent intellegence level could see the whole story was made up. Maybe the history books were meant for kids. The real history might have been too brutal for the kids. That must be the case.
The rest of the history of the world was pretty mundane to say. The mages were the real driving force. The families slowly gained power.
How the mages pulled back from the common politics and yet had an existence akin to royals in this world.
There were wars between the different countries, but a treaty was passed about 1500 years ago which forbid mages from participating in these wars.
No one could stop them from working in the background, but they couldnt be on the field of war and participate directly.
This gave rise to much more peaceful times for the continent.
As for the geography, Aaron was finally able to see the whole continent.
It was indeed a giant continent with the other side being a part located in the south eastern corner. It was but a small part of the continent. The rest of the planet was covered with water with lots of small islands spreaded all about.
From what was known, only a few of these islands closer to the mainland were inhabited.
He read a few other books related to the history of mages as well. But he found no clue as to who the first mages were.
The general mage theory was almost the same that he had read before.
It made sure of the fact that the Mages from the 'prison' were indeed originally from this side.
He didn't find many books for science and maths. But from what he could see, it was basically the same things he knew. Some concepts were more detailed while some weren't as proper.
There were bound to be differences on both sides with different scholars presenting their studies.
As Aaron was busy reading books, he came to know the people at mage Association better. He casually talked to them about the great war. But from what he could make out, everyone believed the history to be same as he read.
Infact they tended to talk of it as if it was never a big issue.
They hadn't seen the war nor had anyone they knew. The books didn't make a big deal out of it either.
10000 years was a long time for people to forget the significance of something.
Aaron didn't only read. He also worked on something.
He was inspired by the floating cars and thought of making something for himself as well.
He bought half an inch thick sheet of metal of about 1 feet in diameter. He tried to move it around with his telekinesis. He tried as to how far he could lift it and how fast he could move it.
He got really familiar with sheet. It was like at the beginning when he was trying to learn new things.
Once he thought he was familiar enough.
He stepped on that sheet of metal.
Now he willed the sheet to float up with him standing.
The sheet slowly rose up in the air and Aaron rose with it.
Asron was filled with joy. He never thought he would succeed at once.
The joy didn't last long. He soon found about the importance of balance. With nothing to support the sheet from below, the sheet lost its balance and tilted to one side making Aaron lose his balance and falling on his back.
Imagine balancing a sheet on a needle point. How difficult it would be to balance on it? And Aaron didn't even have that needle point.
He kept failing and falling. He never imagined it to be so difficult. He had seen people move about in floating vehicles and thought it would be a piece of cake with his ability.
Aaron knew he had to start small. He tried to move himself. That was the last step though. He hadn't taken the initial steps.
Aaron began with a smaller sheet. And this time instead of stepping by himself. He placed little weight on it and tried to move it around.
He found it was much easier to move it around if the weight was placed at the centre. If the weight was placed on a side not maintaining it's centre, the whole thing was much more difficult to control.
Aaron knew he was on the right track though.
He increased the sheet size and the weights and worked with different weight distributions. He was improving with each step and he finally thought he was ready to take the last step once again.
He once again stepped on that sheet of metal he had originally purchased.
He levitated for only a couple of inches first. He didn't want to have a big fall.
Once he felt he was stable enough, he tried to move the sheet. It was a success!!
Although it was a little shaky at times, but he could move.
Aaron had created a hover board!!
He could have named quiet a few characters from comics and books who had a similar kind of thing.
Aaron felt elevated. The gloom surrounding him due to the killings seemed to clear a little.
He slowly rose higher and moved around faster. He tried a little manoeuvring. He had to make sure that the sheet stayed perfectly horizontal. His feet weren't attached to the sheet below.
One of the new problems Aaron found was with stooping.
Once he suddenly stopped when was moving fast. Due to the sudden stop, he fell forwards off the sheet and on to the ground.
That was embarrassing. He had nothing to hold onto while he applied his brakes.
He got a scooter like handle attached to it from a local blacksmith who stared at Aaron like what he was doing with all these. But he didn't ask any questions and did the job.
Aaron thought if wearing a mage robe would have made it easier.
But now Aaron was ready to ride his new hover scooter. Or should he call it Space scooter? Mage scooter?
No a simple hover board would suffice.
Now Aaron was ready to ride his new hover board.