Chapter 3

CAERA DENOIR

I stared at Grey, waiting for his reaction. Although I haven't known him for long I know what kind of person he is. Probably because I feel that we're both similar in some ways. I knew that once school is over he'll run off to the relictombs, probably alone. Since you can spend days stuck in the relictombs it's the best way to stay with someone, but I wasn't going to tell Grey that until he promised me to let me come.

Grey put his hand on his chin like he was stroking a non-existent beard. "I don't see why not, you're pretty strong. You're probably one of the strongest people I know our age. I'm the strongest though." Grey said smugly.

"Well you have to train too. I can't leave you in the dust once I surpass you," I said playfully as Grey laughed at the thought of me surpassing him.

After Grey made his promise we fantasized about the relictombs until deep into the night.

***

I woke up to find a book in my face. I got up and looked around. I was in Grey's room. We had both fallen asleep on top of his bed after studying. I noticed I had a blanket on me and there were book's everywhere. Before Grey could wake up I ran to my room to get ready for the day.

Once I got out of the shower I barged into Grey's room only to find him still asleep. I tried to shake him awake but that did nothing. I then splashed him with water and he still didn't wake up. I then twisted his ankle while using mana. That got him up.

"AHHH!!" Grey yelled as he shot up. "What did you do that for?!"

"You wouldn't get up any other way. How is it that you can sleep so soundly?" I asked as he got up. "It's because I sleep to avoid demons like you," responded Grey as he got out of bed. I shook, "Does Grey know? No, if he knew he would tell me. He didn't really mean it." I thought as I struggled to keep myself composed. Grey doesn't know about my horns so it's still fine.

Unfortunately Grey noticed my condition, "Hey Caera, what's wrong? Are you ok? You don't look so well." he then put his hand on my forehead to check and see if I was sick.

I pushed his hand off, "No, I'm fine." I said switching to a happy demeanor. Grey had a concerned look on his face. "Should've known he could read me that easily. I'm having such a hard time keeping my cold persona around him. I'm glad he's my friend but he's a bit too perspective."

"So Caera, when is the first day of school?" Grey asked, not bringing up what just happened.

"Today next week, we probably should get your class' picked. Corbett probably has the documents you need" I replied. Grey looked at me confused when I called Corbett by his name and not dad but he didn't push it. "Right, I should probably pick classes on runes or something."

***

After Grey picked his courses I looked and saw we had mainly the same classes. We both had training for acscents, studying runes and melee enchantment class. The only thing we didn't have together was my swordsmanship class and Grey's artifact studying class.

It made sense why Grey didn't pick the swordsmanship class. I now wanted to change my class because I feel that training with Grey would be much more efficient but I couldn't since I had submitted mine already.

"Why did you pick melee enchantment class? You're already really good at fighting." I questioned Grey. "Well I needed to take another class and everything else wouldn't help me or interest me." Grey replied sitting down on the couch in my room.

Suddenly a thought came to mind. "What fake runes will you use? I know how you can use ton but you can only use a maximum of 7." I asked.

"Why seven?" Grey questioned. "Well, the bestowment ceremony happens once a year starting from when we're five. Since we're twelve we can only have a maximum of 7." I replied.

"That's not too bad, despite having tons of options I tend to only use a few. I haven't really trained like other mages because of my qudra elements. I'll probably go with enchantment magic, thunderclap impulse. The rest will probably be generic spells." Grey paused before continuing.

"What about my beast will?" he asked. "Do I need to register that?"

Confused, I questioned him. "What is a beast will?" Grey facepalmed. "I forgot to tell you about that, in Dicathen we have beast wills. Mana beasts that are ranked A rank or higher can pass on their will to someone. The will gives the wielder some extra abilities. My first phase allows me to do this."

Suddenly Grey was behind me with his hand on my shoulder. "How did you do that?!" I questioned, surprised. "My beast will is… unique. I don't want to reveal the effects of my first phase but my second phase allows me to control ambient mana like it's my own. Also my will is overpowered so no one has anything similar" Grey revealed.

I was surprised to say the least. "Was it teleportation? It wasn't speed, I would've seen marks or at least felt the air moving out of the way. And the ability to control ambient mana? He wouldn't need to purify it at all, he could also cast spells from really far away or do some serious aoe attacks" I thought all of this in a fraction of a second.

I wanted to ask Grey who he really was and how he could do all these crazy things. These powers must've made him famous back in Dicathen. "Anyway I'm going to try and not hide everything about me since that's what led to everyone…" Grey cut himself off and I saw tears start to appear in his eyes.

Noticing this I put my arms around him. "Grey, I don't care about your secrets. You already told me enough. Don't force yourself."

Grey just broke down in tears. I was surprised since Grey always seemed to be calm and collected but I let him cry for what seemed like hours.

GREY

I woke up to find myself on top of Caera's lap. When I got up I noticed that she was also asleep. Suddenly I felt a huge amount of bloodlust directed my way. I shot up and looked around when I noticed Sevren staring at me from across the room. He was comfortable and drinking tea while giving me a full blown death glare, one that would make even Virion look like a newborn puppy.

"Treat her well or I'll use you in my aether experiments," claimed Sevren. I didn't know what aether was but it sounded dangerous. Trying to not become a specimen for Caera's brother I decided to divert his attention.

"If you don't mind me asking what is aether?" I questioned. His death glare disappeared and instead was replaced with an expression I've only seen on Gideon and Emily.

"Let's go to another room, I don't want to wake up Caera," said Sevren, clearly excited.

I followed him to his room to see it full of what seemed to be random objects and writing utensils. There was an entire wall full of books and his desk had about a dozen note books that contained blueprints, ascent records and symbols I didn't recognize.

"Honestly, I don't know much about aether, that's why I'm trying my best to learn it. What I do know is it's like a higher version of mana. It's also what the ancient mages used to create and power their civilization. It has three 'branches': Aevum : time, Spatium : Space and Vivum : Life. You can control aether using runes, at least that's what I believe. Since the relictombs are filled with runes no one knows what to do with, I can only assume that's how you control it." Sevren explained, showing me one of his notebooks filled with said runes.

"These are runes that I copied down during my ascents. I have no idea what any of them do. But…" Sevren grabbed a strange looking device that was basically a lightbulb on a box. It had what looked like a screen on it but it was dark.

"This little thing can detect when aether is being used. I made it myself so it's one of its kind. I made it so that I could detect anything that uses aether. It's not effective inside the relictombs though, for obvious reasons." He explained motioning me to sit down on his bed.

"Ok? What do I have to do with it?" I asked, confused about why he would show me this.

"Just a little while ago this thing went off. It detected a huge amount of aether usage nearby. This is anything but normal. Even though it doesn't tell me where the aether is being used I can only assume you were behind it. Tell me, how did you do it and what did you do?" he asked, half threateningly and half ecstatic.

I was confused, I hadn't done anything that huge… wait! Static void! That's the only explanation. "So Sylvia could use aether? Are the ancient mages dragons? It's possible but I feel I'm just off the mark." I pondered.

"I might've done something that could influence aether but I had no idea if that's what I was doing," I admitted, looking a bit sheepish.

Sevren looked at me like I was his new toy. "Could you show me?" he asked, overly excited.

I thought about whether I could trust him or not. He didn't seem to be hostile in any way and he was really kind. I decided he was trustworthy and I activated my first phase. The world inverted and Sevren looked around shocked. After he looked around for a while I deactivated it and he sat down speechless.

"What did you just do?!" he asked, shaking my shoulders.

"To understand what I just did I'll have to tell you where I came from. To put it simply I'm from Dicathen. You can ask Caera for details but what I used was my beast will. It allows me to stop time but at a huge mana cost. I didn't even know it used aether till now." I explained as I got out of his hold.

I could tell he was shocked about my past but he determined that my beast will was more important. "Do you understand what you're doing?! You're using mana to manipulate aether. That should be impossible, but here you are! Also, stopping time?! That means you're using an aether art in the Aevum branch."

"I suppose I am, aren't I?" I responded.

Then Caera barged into the room again. "How many times does she do that a day?" I thought.

"Sevren! What are you doing?" She questioned. Even though Caera was younger she seemed to be above Sevren in their relationship. "I'm just teaching Grey about aether since he asked." Screen replied.

"Good, you didn't force him. Why do you want to know about aether Grey?" Caera asked as she sat down next to me. Sevren answered for me, "Grey's first phase uses aether to stop time. Even he didn't know that until I pointed it out."

Caera turned to me, shocked. "So that's how you moved like that, how unfair," she said, pouting. "haha.. . Sorry about that, Caera." She was cute when she pouted like that.

***

One week later me and Caera stood in front of Central academy. I had spent the last week learning enough so that no one would think I'm suspicious. I also spent some time researching how Static void works. Unfortunately we couldn't figure out how it works at all, we couldn't even figure out what the runes meant.

I had gotten a lot closer to Sevren but he didn't hesitate to threaten me if I ever hurt Caera. I felt as if he had a reason for studying aether but I didn't ask because the topic seemed sensitive.

As we walked in everyone started to look our way. I noticed that Caera that put her cold persona once we entered. It seemed that Denoir was a very powerful house so many people wanted to get close to her. "Just like Tess," I quickly shook that thought out of my mind. I didn't want to think about the past anymore. I haven't even been here a month and I have people who care about me and people that don't care about my past. No one here was like those hateful people back in Dicathen.

We made our way to our first class "melee enhancement." It was a class about hand to hand combat without using mana. I took this class to improve my hand-to-hand combat. Once we got in I took notice of everyone. Me and Caera sat down next to a frail, weak looking boy.

I turned to him to try and strike up a conversation. "My name is Grey, if I may know yours?" I asked. "My name is Seth of Highblood Milview , it's nice to meet you." Seth replied, he sounded really weak and shy. I wonder if he's ill in any way.

I turned back to Caera to see she had just finished her own introduction with a girl who sat beside her. "So what's her name?" I asked Caera after she turned back to me. "She said her name was Mayla of Blood Fairweather. She seems nice." Caera replied as a professor entered the room.

"Hello everyone, my name is professor Ganchi, I will be your teacher for this class. " The professor said. I didn't like the feeling this guy gave off. He was tall and lean with a smug looking face. He had a mustache that he was constantly twirling with his finger. To put it simply, he looked like the last person that would teach this kind of class.

"Today we'll start with basic sparring, everyone get a partner and start!" Ganchi said. I mentally sighed, "Looks like this teacher sucks," I thought. I was going to team up with Caera but she partnered up with Mayla because "This is a class to learn, I can spare with you after school, help that kid beside you."

I turned to Seth, "Wanna partner up?"

SETH MILVIEW

I turned to the boy who just asked me to partner up. "Why would he want to partner with me?"

"Yes!" I immediately replied. If I didn't team up with him I'd get beat up by Remy or Portrel. Plus, Grey seemed like a nice person. I hope he understands my condition and doesn't go too far.

"Alright then, let's go to the platform," said Grey as he approached the platform.

"Hey Seth! Come partner with me! I'll give you some good pointers." I turned to see Portrel already on the platform motioning me to go to him. Standing next to him was Remy and Valen was behind them not caring, as usual.

Grey noticed my discomfort when I heard Portrel and he was kind enough to step in. Grey grabbed my wrist and pulled me to an unused spot. "Hey! I was talking to him!" yelled Portrel as he approached Grey.

"I'm sorry but I've already partnered up with Seth here, you seem to have another person with you, why don't you team up with them," suggested Grey.

"Wait, Grey you can't-" I started to say. I didn't want Grey to get hurt, Portrel was strong and Grey wouldn't stand a chance against him.

"Looks like Portrel will be in the infirmary for the day," I turned to see Caera of highblood Denoir. Caera was known as a cold genius. No one could match her skills and she was known for being trained by a Scythe! Every boy wanted to be with her, it made sense, she was the prettiest girl in the whole school. Since her personality was cold and distant no one could get close to her in any way. She was the perfect student.

"What do you mean Caera?'' asked another girl who was standing beside her. "Well, Grey is really strong. Even if I go all out I can't get him to use his full strength. I've never even won a single fight against him." she admitted.

"What?!" me and the other girl exclaimed. "Aren't you supposed to be a super genius!" I asked, I was shocked. Caera gave me an annoyed look when I called her that and turned her attention to Grey.

I followed her gaze and Grey and Portrel had positioned themselves about 5 meters apart from each other. I looked around for the teacher and he was just sitting at his desk reading a book.

"Prepare yourself, I won't go easy on you," yelled Portrel as he ran at Grey. Grey looked at Portrel with an aloof, almost bored expression. As Portrel ran at Grey I noticed Portrel was using mana to augment his fist. Grey noticed this as well but didn't care.

Once Portrel got close to Grey, he moved his head out of the way of Portrel's fist and slapped him. Portrel went flying across the room. "If you didn't use mana you wouldn't have gone flying like that," said Grey.

Portrel got up red in the face. "How dare you! I'm one of the best fist fighters my age in Vechor! I have trained with–"

"Someone who was afraid to tell you how shit you really are," Grey finished for him. Grey then turned to me, "Wanna learn how to fight Seth?" he asked with a smile on his face. I couldn't tell if it was an evil smile or a kind smile, but if I could learn to fight like that I'd gladly spar with Grey.

"Sure," I replied, my excitement made its way out into my voice. I heard a slight chuckle from behind me, I turned and saw it was Caera. Everyone stared at her. Seeing her laugh–much less showing any emotion– caused everyone to know who she was to drop their jobs.

"You're reacting the same way I did when Grey offered to teach me," she replied.