Chapter 3- "I see Blue Ants"

A middle-aged man looked out on the beautiful twilight from his room, stars were still visible and two moons still rose high. The grey one was called Deus, the other was more of a planet than a moon it was termed by the researchers of Altair as Magna.

The man sighed, "It already been a week." He drew the curtains and bright orange light emitted by the dwarves latest invention - the Lightbulb! was seen by the solider on night duty. The light from the mansion signalled the guards; the Earl was awake.

"The Earl is awake, let's inform him about the latest situation", said a guard, the other nodded.

Earl Lawrence was glancing at a letter which was sent by his wife informing him of the recent incident with his children. He was relaxing on an armchair beside the window. His bedroom was a luxurious one.

"She is too protective about them... especially Damien, guess that incident took a toll on her", the Earl muttered to himself before sitting down on a chair.

He adjusted his loose robe and gazed outside the window and furrowed his brows, "Dealing with Night's Hand is troublesome... James, what is going on in your mind?" and he peered into the endless sky.

***

At the same time, capital of Triston, Earl Lawrence's Mansion.

Unlike many nobles who had built the main residence in their capital city's core area, Earl Lawrence chose to build his mansion on the outskirts of the city. This gave his house a placid environment. In the serenity of dawn, two youths were sitting cross-legged in a balcony. The balcony was located on the second floor and had a few potted plants set at the borders.

At the centre of the balcony, Roberts' eyes were closed, and he was breathing in a peculiar manner, Damien was following him although he would occasionally open his eyes to see what Robert was doing. Robert didn't sense the gaze of his brother and was deeply engrossed in the meditation, beads of sweat were already appearing on his forehead despite the cold morning.

'Indeed, Father was right, this meditation is an exercise for the mind as well as the body', thought Robert.

'He is progressing way too fast for me to catch up. I wonder how far Robert will go if he were to become a mage', Damien was busy with his own thoughts.

Then suddenly Robert shrieked, "Yikes!" and jumped. Damien was brought back to reality and because of the sudden stimulus he jumped a foot in the air and fell on his butt.

"Oww, what happened?" asked Damien.

"I saw blue ants, they were really really minute, as thick as a hair, and they were constantly moving, a million- no billion of them were crawling everywhere!", Robert widened his eyes as he explained speaking very quickly.

"Are you sure the kitchen maid didn't drug you?"

"Where do you get that nonsense from?"

"Umm, I have been doing a lot of reading lately."

"Jeez bookworm, then tell me what were those blue ants?"

"Given the description, I had read an autobiography of Crusader-ranked mage, when he was about to step into the realm of 'Herald' he sensed something similar and said it was mana"

"You don't say... Have I become a mage already?"

"Stupid, even if you become a herald that's nowhere near a real mage... didn't you listen in the history class that Heralds are called pseudo-mages?"

"Let's not talk about the classes"

At that moment a light knocking was heard on the balcony door.

"Master Robert, may I enter", said Charles from the other side of the door.

"You may", said Robert as he and Damien got up from the sparkling white marble floor. Charles entered, he was in his usual attire. He bowed and said, "Master Robert, Master Damien, the breakfast is ready, Lady Katherine is waiting for you downstairs and has asked me to inform you that your tutor would arrive at 6 o'clock sharp."

"Okay, you may leave now", ordered Robert, Charles bowed once again and left after softly closing the door.

"C'mon lets go Damien."

***

At the breakfast table, Damien and Robert ate quietly without a word coming out of their mouths. Katherine, on the other hand, was completely focused on what the duo was doing, the whole time Damien and Robert were at the table they ate with their eyes on the plate while Katherine's eyes were on them. When they were done eating it was already 5:40 am, "Your tutor scholar Marcus will arrive soon, go get dressed and treat him with respect he is respected by all the nobles he has taught. Do not disrespect him he is a Titan rank mage", said Katherine.

Damien and Robert looked at each other and replied simultaneously, "We shall adhere to your will mother."

After this short conversation, Robert and Damien went into the mansion's library where they were supposed to meet the tutor. It has been imperative since the first days of the Black Dragon empire that every child from age 14 must attend mage academy or scholar academy until the age of 19. This was one of the first decrees of the first emperor Maximus Carinus Tyceon nearly 3500 years ago. The nobles chose to teach their children one or two years prior to the academy so that they can gain an edge.

As Damien looked at the place he spent nearly all of his childhood in, the divine celestial realm as he would call it, the library.

The greatest work of art in the entire mansion was this very hall, Damien's grandfather Earl Julian Avitus Wells who like Damien was more concerned with knowledge than administration built this place as his paradise.

The walls were made from brick which was then covered with marble, this marble was carved into designs by master sculptors. These designs were of the emperor with a dragon or simply dragons breathing fire but one thing was for certain every wall had sculptures in it which told a different story from different eras of the Black Dragon Empire starting with how Maximus created the country with a dragon and a dwarf named Orren.

Then the large shelves housed thousands of books within them each shelf contained books in 250-year intervals, totalling 14 shelves with 3500 years worth of knowledge. The shelves were glass encased and airtight with the highest quality timber used.

The servants shined them like glass every day, no book in the library was ever cobbed or dusty. The ceiling was white with beautiful round carvings under which hung the magnificent chandeliers which did not need candles but instead worked on the light bulbs created by the dwarves, all you had to do was just store some mana in it and it would last a year.

While Damien was reading a book he had taken from the library Robert was busy meditating, Robert had been enthralled by the sight of those 'blue ants', he wanted to tap into that energy as much as he could. As he sat there doing his breathing exercise he started emitting a faint blue light, so faint that one had to sit a foot away from Robert to notice it.

This soft glow kept on flickering as if it was trying to stabilize itself. While Robert was trying to stabilize the energy he started getting irritated as he was just one step away from being able to influence its flow becoming a herald but what he did not realize is that this one step is the most difficult one for practitioners to take. After some time he gave up and looked around, as he was doing, so he saw Damien reading his book when suddenly the entrance door opened.

A tall man with an average built, who looked to be in his 40s entered. He wore the official scholar's uniform which was awarded to a person who had passed the scholar academy. It was a black robe with silver lines in its borders which showed that this man was a silver class scholar.

There were a total of 4 types of scholar ranks - bronze, silver, gold and Ruby. Bronze was awarded to a person who had presented a proper thesis a topic to the academy, silver to a person who had produced at least 5 theses and had created or deciphered runes. Gold was given to the top students of the academy who were like a walking archive and Ruby, a realm far above gold... they were said to nearly omniscient, it was the legendary rank that only Orren has said to have reached in the history of the empire, while there have been said to be people who have reached Ruby their actual abilities are only of the quasi-Ruby realm.

The man wore spectacles whose concave lenses were placed in a round metal frame, "Would you two gentlemen be Damien and Robert?", asked Marcus.

"Indeed we are, my name is Robert and you must be our tutor Sir Marcus", replied Robert as he looked at Damien gesturing him to come to greet their tutor and for once getting his head out of the books.

" Forgive me sir my name is Damien", said Damien as he hurried next to Robert.

"Let us not delay any further, shall we begin", said Marcus as he sat down on the chair near the board under which was kept a chalk. He immediately took it up and started to draw a landmark this was the continent of Pandora. The Elven empire of the elves and humans, Blood Haven empire of the vampires and humans and the Black Dragon empire of humans and dwarves.

"Today we shall start with the geography of Altair especially the continent we live on, Pandora", said Marcus as he used a stick to point at the eastern side of the map.

"This is the Black Dragon empire It occupies nearly the entire eastern coast of the continent barring the extreme southern sides. It further extends into the central regions of the continent. Next to the empire is the land of the elves, of course with humans, starting from the west coast extending into the central area it is the largest empire of the continent. In the South we have the empire of the vampires and humans which occupies the entire southern area of the continent, all three empires are divided in the centre by the Holy Trinity barren expanse. It is said that this land has been burnt so badly by a fight between a Dragon and Angel that it is unfit for living and can only be used as war ground by the three empires", explained Marcus as he paused to drink some water.

After this, he explained about the archipelago some 300 miles off the coast of the Bloodhaven empire. By the time he had ended his lesson, he taught Damien and Robert about the Dragon continent on the eastern side of the Black Dragon empire and that nobody other than the emperor was allowed to venture into that territory by strict orders from the first emperor. Then Marcus took their arithmetic and language test in order to gauge their skills, all these activities had taken nearly 6 hours.

"We shall end class today, tomorrow we will learn about the history of the Black Dragon empire", said Marcus as he left the library. He was a person who liked to do his job, it could be seen from his way of teaching Damien and Robert he enjoyed it thoroughly, however, he did not express it to his students. Hence, he left as soon the class was over.

"Damien I am retiring to my room, for now, I need to practice my breathing so that I can influence mana and become a Herald. See you at tea time, tell mother and the servants not to disturb me until then", announced Robert as he walked with Damien to his room.

"I will make sure nobody disturbs you, best of luck in your quest", said Damien as he walked towards his mother's quarters bidding Robert farewell.

It was still 12 pm right now,'Professor sure had taken his time to teach us.'

***

Some hours later.

Inside Robert's Quarters.

Robert was sitting cross-legged on the ground, sounds of deep inhalations could be heard. He breathed in an uncanny manner, his back was ramrod straight and his various muscles were tensed. In his head, Robert could sense tiny blue particles moving haphazardly. These particles seemed to cover the entire range of Roberts perception, there was not a spot which did not have these particles dancing on them. It was everywhere, Mana was everywhere.

'Move', willed Robert, 'Move, flow with me, mana.'

'Move on my command...', Robert tried again but to no avail. It had already been 12 hours since Robert shut his door and started to meditate. 'Why? Why can't I control mana, do I lack talent? Will I be a Low-Class mage ?', thoughts swirled in Roberts' head, his mind grew chaotic. ' Damn it, MANA MOVE, FOR GOD'S SAKE MOVE', Robert shouted in his head. He felt helpless and weak that he could not control such tiny particles.

Soon enough his will gave away, he sighed, and he was about to stop as his mind cleared.

'Huh?', the mana moved in a certain way, though still, the particles were randomly moving, it seemed as though they were pushed by an external force.

'So was giving up the key? Wait, am I stupid? The key was probably the placidity of mind or something like that?'

"Robert!", Damien's voice was heard outside Robert's room. Suddenly Damien's rapping on the door was heard finally breaking Robert's train of thoughts.

"Jeez Damien, what happened?", Robert opened the door and asked in agitation.

"Look here Robert there is a letter from Father", Damien's eyes were full of glee as he stretched out a smile.

Robert took the letter from Damien's hand and read it. As he read it, his face too broke into a cheerful smile.

"Guess tomorrow is gonna be interesting", Robert laughed.