Chapter Twenty Six - Quins Training (Part 2)

Time kept passing and soon Noah had been with Quin for close to six months, in that time he had expanded the amount of time he could gather and release magic aura; his writing was a lot smoother and he could write short sentences without much issue.

He only had issues with controlling the magic aura. Quin had tried to teach him how to circulate it around his body but whenever he tried it his magic would overload his body and Quin would have to knock him out.

In the six months, he had been there the ring had only caused him to visit that garden and mausoleum once. It never even burned against his skin anymore, it was like ever since that visit the ring had fallen into a deep sleep.

Occasionally after training Noah would go hunting and take a seat a few miles from the house and take the ring out, feeling it in his hand and trying to read the inscription over and over. Only being able to make out a few letters but not all of the words.

He would feel the particles in the air and force them through him and into his palm, the ring would just eat the particles up but never react to it. Noah could only leave it as a mystery and push on with his training but there were days he would think about the dragon that he saw there and the egg that its tail wrapped around.

When he would think of the egg his heart would beat faster, just as it had on the day. Noah was sure that it wasn't his imagination but he couldn't tell.

After a few times of doing this, his trips would be weeks before he left to investigate the ring again out of all the inscriptions he could read: "A--a- H-a-a---" the other characters were too close together and weren't recognisable.

Even with everything that he was being taught, Noah wasn't able to figure out how the ring worked or how it could consume so much magic aura, some nights he would just pull the mana into his body and push it all over the ring which he would watch his black aura disappear into it.

Noah started his day like he did any other by getting up just before the sun rising, getting ready to hunt both his and his Master's breakfast as he put on an extra layer of clothing.

Just as he was walking out he noticed that the Master's room's door was open, letting him see into the room he had never seen before. There was a single bed at the back of the room, the wall was covered in different swords, the blade of all the swords was a crimson red as if they had been dyed in blood. Engraved in shaky handwriting were different names. Above the bed, a giant painting of a black dragon with white specks on the scales, staring into the sky that had a bright moon painted into it.

His master was lying on the bed, wearing nothing other than some shorts of linen. His whole upper body was toned and covered in scars, some deep some just barely breaking the surface; along the inside of his arm Noah for the first time noticed deep cuts on the inside of his Master's forearm. Suddenly realising that he had never seen his master in anything other than a long-sleeved shirt.

Letting out shouts for Leora, sweat covered Quin's body; his face screwed up as if he was witnessing something horrible.

Noah wasn't sure what to do at the sight, all he could do was close the door as quietly as he could and back out of the house. Thinking of what he just saw his mind drifted back to where Leora was, this place was meant to be for retired dragon riders and he had never seen her in all his time there. He knew he couldn't bring the subject up to Quin as he would be beaten close to death during their sparring sessions for bringing something up that he was told not too.

Walking through the forest, taking a glance back at the house. Worrying for his Master at what could have happened.

Setting up a few traps for some birds before continuing on to where he would usually find rabbits in plenty of amounts. It was a small clearing with loads of holes in the ground for the rabbits to live in and run about, but something was up.

There was a tenseness in the air and Noah couldn't tell what it was about it; he couldn't hear any of the rabbits running around like he normally could. Taking out the knife that he had claimed from the house he held the blade tightly and looked around the clearing for what was giving him the off feeling.

A small growl could be heard from Noah's left, in response he jumped to the right and stood in a stance where he could swing the knife and either attack or defend. A small hog came from behind a tree, it was around half a metre tall [1.6 ft] except for some reason it had two large horns coming out of its forehead like a devil's horns.

Even though it was quite small in height it had a very thick body and its legs had just as much muscle as Master Quin's arms. It snorted and growled at Noah; its eyes half closing and focusing on him.

Noah took a few steps back again, trying to judge how the best way was to deal with the hog in front of him. It kicked the dirt in front of it and let out a loud snarl before charging at Noah at full speed.

The legs on the hog were powerful and helped it come at Noah at around the same speed his Master would usually attack which was something Noah didn't expect. He jumped in time to avoid the charging hog and turned to face it.

It had kept running but Noah had suddenly had the idea to kill and cook it so he chased after the hog, barely keeping up. It must have known Noah was following it as it let out a few cries before speeding up, even more, making a sudden stop and twisting itself to face Noah again.

The hog charged at Noah, who just had time to jump again but this time tried to land on the ground by stabbing the back of the hog with his knife. The blade barely pierced the skin of the hog and just cut some hair off its back.

It let out a scream and turned attacking at Noah again. Being a little smarter this time Noah knew to use his training and pushed magic aura into the knife before assaulting the hog's snout and cutting into its skin.

After a short battle, Noah was the winner the hog had lost and was lying down on the ground letting out its last breath. He took deep breaths in, still confused at why this little hog had so much energy and fight in it.

He had to use both his hand's jus to drag the hog onto his shoulders to carry back to the house, but as soon as he had it over his shoulders; he heard a deep groan behind him and the feeling of an unpleasant heat on the back of his neck...