Chapter 4: Magic Spells and Treasure hunting

Characters:

Fei(formely known as Mai) - Our genderbending protagonist.

Ai (real name Miki) - Mai's best friend and love interest.

Firgin - Human boy companion.

Mlei - Human girl companion.

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Somwhere, in the tower city of Fel, our heroes Fei and Mai are getting acquainted with their new buddies Firgin an Mlei. 

Firgin shares this worlds history further. According to the legends, the elves had once shared their secrets with humans when they first arrived from the sky in colossal ships. Those ships, now nothing but distant memories, had dug deep into the earth after different calamities fell upon the world, giant floods, mudslides, earthquakes, storms and tornadoes. These ships, unable to move have been burried under tons of rocks, resembling mountains. Some of them are still waiting te found again.

These ships have sent drones and robots all over the world, to explore and find fuel sources for these massive ships. What the fuels are made of, no one knows.

I couldn't help but feel a strange sense of awe. "How did they even lose all of this knowledge?" 

Ai sat beside me, her expression thoughtful. "Thousands of years… it makes sense. It's like trying to rebuild civilization from scratch when you've lost all your books and teachers and the machines do not make sense to the new generations. Like those that happened on Earth with Egypt, the older civilizations have better looking pots than the newer ones."

The thought gnawed at me. For a civilization that had once flown in advanced spaceships to regress so far that they had to rely on magic to power everything—there was something tragic about it. But also... something exciting.

I grinned. "Just think about it, Ai! We could become legends here! Ruin explorers, magic users... heroes!" The thought of it made my heart race. "And imagine—me, the hero emperor of this world! Bwahaha!" I chuckled to myself, lost in the absurd daydream of an empire under my rule, filled with devoted subjects and admiration from everyone—thousands of beautiful women beside me.

"Fei…" Ai's voice cut into my thoughts, an eyebrow raised in suspicion. "You're thinking about something weird again, aren't you?"

I snapped out of it, trying to play innocent. "Weird? Me? No way!" I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks, and I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. "Just... thinking about the possibilities of adventure, that's all."

"Sure," Ai said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Adventure."

In truth, we had a long road ahead of us. Firgin and Mlei had suggested that we needed to learn magic if we were to fully assist them in exploring the ruins. 

Of course, I was all for it. Magic - just the idea of wielding it felt like stepping into a game, only this time, it's real.

The next few months became a whirlwind of training and discovery. 

We traveled across the land, fighting our way through forests, mountains, and caverns, gathering rare spirit stones that would help us trigger the magic within our bodies, triggering our magic affinities. These stones cannot be bought from shops, as they are part of rite of passage as a magicians.

 The battles weren't easy. We faced slimes that melted clothes, goblins that were annoyingly fast, and orcs whose strength was no joke. But nothing was as terrifying as the drakelings—miniature versions of dragons with sharp claws, cunning and deadly. Luckily we have Firgin and Mlei with us to assist us along the way fighting these foes. We all ran when encoutering drakelings, as they mostly resistant to magic, with poison breaths, corrosive breaths and some, lightning breath. Good thing that we didn't encounter any dragons or we would all have been toast. Other monsters were easy to kill like wolves, fox like monsters, some bug like monsters and some crawling monsters like huge armored worms. 

Eventually, we gathered enough spirit stones to discover our affinities. Mine were fire and earth - not what I was hoping for which sould be fire and lighting but it would do.

The raw, destructive power of fire combined with the stability and strength of the earth is probably a good combination when fighting drakelings.

 Ai, on the other hand, had water and nature---elements of fluidity and growth that fit her personality perfectly.

 Firgin and Mlei couldn't hide their delight when we revealed our progress. We'd passed the tests at the magic academy, becoming novice students and more importantly, we had become their equals. Correction: Almost equals.

The moment Firgin welcomed us into his team of ruin explorers, I felt a surge of excitement. 

"We're actually doing this," I whispered to Ai as we stood on the beginning of a new adventure. After signing up as novice ruin delvers, we sold the rest of the magic stones and bought our gears. I wear a metal mask, metal greaves and metal shoes. I don't have the budget for metal body armor and metal pants, so I bought leather instead. I also bought some short sword and a shield. Balance weapon for an dventure.

Mlei, having learned barrier, magic shield and ice wall, opt to go full offense and bought a level 3 magic wand.

We then head to a newly found ruin nearby. Basically a hole in the ground, but if you go inside, it's a labyrinth. Probably created by a robot searching for fuel underground. If there is a robot there would be a ship or a base. That is what normally happens. Unless you find a drake nest or a dragons nest, which would then be terrible. I subjugation team then is usually sent when this happens.

When we have gone pasts the different holes and and caves underground, we found ourselves looking at a huge cavern with a massive ship.

"Wow!" Firgin exclaimed, "This is probably the biggest ship that I have ever seen!"

" I wonder if they found robot that manages it?" Mlei replied.

The hum of ancient technology mixed in the air, sending a shiver down my spine.

Ai smiled at me, her hand resting on my arm. "Are you getting chicken now Mai err Fei?"

"Chicken? Me? Ha! Never!" I laughed at her foolish attempt at annoying me.

We looked into a panel of some sorts in front of the ship. 

Firgin reads the words underneath the panel. The ancient text says, "Enter password."

"What could it be?" Mlei asks. "We could never open these damn ships!" Kicking the side of the ship.

"Careful now, it's defense system might still be active." I said to her.

Mlei stopped kicking and backed off slowly.

"Hmm... Try the word password Firgin." I told him.

"Password huh? Surely you jest. It couldn't be that easy." Firgin says.

"P.A.S.S.W.O.R.D."

"There." 

"PASSWORD ACCEPTED."

Mlei and Firgin smacked their faces together. Thousands of years trying to enter these damned things, and the password for them is PASSWORD!?

Firgin and Mlei kicked the ships' side together in anger.

Mai and I controlled our laughs. The absurdity of this situation.

Clearly whoever thought of these ideas have a great sense of humor or were gamers. 

(To be continued)