Death, Devotion, Dissonance

When Evin found the strength to open his eyes, he saw Bella regarding him with idle curiosity. Behind her, he saw the metallic fog glittering beautifully like snow, which gave the noble girl a distinctly aesthetic look.

"Well, you have a lot of explaining to do," Bella said as she grabbed Evin's arm and pulled him up.

"About what?"

"About how you can create Hard Air already and also how you can make it not just 'hard'."

"What?" Evin asked, confused with the girl's choice of words.

"The thing you did with the hailstorm."

<Well, I suppose I should expect Bella to see what happened, but it's best to refuse now,> the Voice said, <I don't think I'll be explaining that to anyone yet.>

Evin was a bit disappointed by its decree, but he knew that some things were off limits.

"I can't tell you anything about that, sorry."

"Figures," Bella shrugged without care. "But I'm not so sure that the others would be so considerate towards you."

Evin had already refused to explain a few other things to Bella, and the latter didn't push for it as hard as Evin expected.

<Did you really achieve something so noteworthy?> Evin asked inwardly.

<Don't know. Maybe we can ask Leanne after,> the Voice shrugged, sounding tired from the mental exertion.

Evin then saw Phel and Leanne coming over, holding a first aid kit.

"Is your arm okay?" Leanne asked, looking at the arm that Evin fell on.

Evin flexed it a bit and replied with a wince, "Nothing seems broken, but it stings a lot against my clothes."

He was quickly undressed and saw that a large patch of his skin was rubbed off bloody. Despite Evin's protests, Leanne poured some alcohol on it to disinfect it and brought Evin away from the area which was covered in the gray, metallic dust and used the World of Life to slowly regenerate Evin's skin.

"What's that gray stuff, anyway?" Evin asked.

"Ketricite," Phel explained. "Ever wonder what happens if you batter something with magic non-stop? Well, it slowly turns dark and starts developing anti-magic attributes - slowly dissolving anything held together with magic around it and also making it impossible to cast a spell. Thankfully, it doesn't affect have any pervasive attributes, so it won't affect your mana-core, or the World energies inside you."

"Why have I never seen it before?" Evin groaned, understanding what just happened to him.

"It's rare to see Ketricite around the Northern parts of the kingdom, as not many people have the leisure to harass a patch of sand so thoroughly with magic. But, I'm sure you'll see it much more often in the South where the war is going. In Arcvallen, the entire royal palace is made of the thing to make it impossible for mages and Talismans to spy on them. Even more crazy is the fact that the entire southern battlefield had turned to Ketricite due to all the years of both sides flinging magic at each other."

Evin imagined an entire plain of magic-negating dark gray and couldn't help but shudder slightly.

'How the hell do mages function there, then?'

<It was mentioned once in history class, now that I think about it. I remember Teouka saying she was going to speak more about it later on,> the Voice clarified.

<Well, too bad we couldn't remember it during the fight.>

<Not that it would've helped with anything.>

As Evin was feeling numb from the regeneration of his skin, Abe floated towards his side, voice full of admiration and shock, "By the Empress' grace! You truly have started casting magic only two months ago? I mean I can see that it's true by the brightness of your core, but you truly make me question my eyes."

"The brightness of my core?" Evin asked back.

"It's a thing of the Cosmics… we can roughly measure when a mage's mana-core was awakened and how much lodestone they've absorbed by the brightness of their cores. It was one of the reasons why we were so opposed to teaching Decatur previously. Or any of the nobles for that matter. As far as I can see, on average, they've absorbed at least ten World Shards already," Abe explained.

Evin smiled at the Cosmics' words. At least he didn't have to fight Decatur for nothing. Well, he was very confident the Cosmics would still stick to him, but that didn't mean he couldn't worry about it.

At this moment, Decatur came over to the Cosmics with a proud expression, "I've won the fight. You're going to teach me, right?"

Abe looked like he was about to reply mockingly, but he stole a glance towards the Countess and seemingly decided to keep things civil, "I'm sorry, young master Decatur, but I never said that the winner would receive our tutelage. We only agreed to see the fight and make our decision afterwards."

"And?" Decatur demanded.

"And we've chosen Evin here. Truly, it's rare to see such a talent these days. It would be a disservice to our Agreement with the kingdom if we don't teach him to the best of our abilities," Abe acted oblivious to Decatur's dark face. "Truly, the Empress' grace must be shining on king Seth. I must say I wasn't so sure about teaching the human students our arts, but now that I've seen Evin, my confidence has been boosted."

Decatur looked like he was about to say a few other stuffs, but the Countess put her hands on his shoulders and gave him a firm look of denial.

"At any rate, thank you both for giving us such a pleasant fight," Abe continued to play the ignorant happy-go-lucky character. "I've always thought fights between the younger generation to be boring and slow, but today I saw how wrong I was before." Turning to the Countess, Abe continued," Thank you for hosting such a wonderful lunch. I've listened to my fellow Cosmics and they've told me that many of their business talks were fruitful. I'm sure the next year's lunch will be even merrier than this one."

"Of course," the Countess replied, understanding that the Cosmics' visit was finished, "The Cosmics are always welcome in my household. If you require any help, please don't hesitate to reach out to us."

She then bid the rest of the Cosmics farewell and asked the nobles to gather in her office for a talk. Evin also saw her whispering something in Decatur's ears. Some of the students decided to stay inside the Countess' mansion, while some of them were headed back to the city of Ankelite. Evin wasn't completely sure, but he believed that the Countess' mansion was located about two hours away from the gates of the city.

As for Evin and Leanne, they were promptly transported to the city through a portal Abe had created with no option to refuse. Once again, Evin found himself puking his lunch out, but thankfully, he could now do it in the comforts of his own bathroom.

When he was finished, he made himself presentable and went out of his room to find Abe and Rith talking about him with Leanne. When they saw Evin, Leanne told Evin to meet her when he was done and excused herself out of the room.

"Well, Evin," Abe began, "I'm afraid I have a great deal of questions for you."

…

Phel was sitting on a couch Decatur's room, listening to the latter rant about the day.

"It's all a fucking joke! All of it! The Cosmics, Bellaslayn, that damn commoner and my mother!" Decatur was saying as he walked circled the room for the nth time. "It's preposterous to think that a commoner would serve the king better than I will, but I suppose I can chalk it off to the Cosmics being ignorant of our ways. But how can Bellaslayn so casually mention that commoner's name when the Cosmics are searching for a suitable student to learn portals?!"

"Of course," Phel nodded enthusiastically, but inside, he was waiting for the other's rage to burn out.

Decatur was never one to think rationally when he was angry. Phel knew that even if he tried to explain things to him in this state, Decatur wasn't going to listen.

"And that damn commoner! Always hiding behind his illusions and shadows! How did he even manage to survive my hailstorm in the first place? He must've been hiding beyond the arena through some means!" Decatur said through gritted teeth and looked towards Phel, "You must've seen what happened, right?"

"To me, it looked as if he was standing right above you during the whole fight, standing on thin air… though that was probably just a layer of Hard Air. When the hailstorm reached his location, it looked as if the ice shards just dodged past him and then reentered their original path," Phel replied in his calmest and most understanding tone. "As for him staying in another place, I'm afraid it's impossible. After all, he did fall from there when you threw the Ketricite to the ceiling."

Truthfully, even Phel didn't know exactly what occurred there. Now that he thought about it, nothing really exciting happened during the fight: Evin made himself invisible to Decatur when the fight started; then he created two swords of Hard Air which he used to harass Decatur; then the hailstorm happened but none of the ice shards hit Evin; and finally Decatur was forced to use a flask of Ketricite, which resulted in Evin forfeiting.

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