Chapter 6 “Fire“

Chapter 6

After the boulder hit the ground it caused an overwhelming shockwave, blowing everything meters away.

"Whew. That could've hurt." Julian had teleportet himself hundreds of meters away the moment the boulder would have hit him. But to his surprise it wasn't an actual boulder. It was a huge golem made out of flaming rocks, standing at about 15 meters tall. 

Thinking it had hit it's target, it went on wandering aimlessly through the stone dessert.

'What an interesting fellow... It doesn't seem to be a normal beast, since they are based off of normal animals? Well, I might aswell just see what kind of beast crystal it drops. Without another thought, he took his weapon out of the void and teleported above the golem.

At this point of time, Julian had brought his teleportation mastery to a whole new level. He now could teleport 300 meters three times a day and short range teleportations could be kept up for hours.

After teleporting above the golem, he lifted his scythe over his head and swung down with all his might, trying to crack the golem's skull. But instead of his anticipated — swing down and destroy the golem — the attack didn't even scratch the stone to begin with.

'Huh???' The rock golem, having noticed Julian's reappearance, swiped over his head to get rid of him as if he was a fly. But Julian just dodged by teleporting. This would go on for many minutes — Julian trying to find and attack the golem's weak spot, before having to escape the golem's own devastating attack.

Julian, after realizing he couldn't beat the golem in this way, teleported hundreds of meters away once again.

'This doesn't seem to be working...' thinkinng of a solution, he found a plausible answer. 'This thing doesn't seem to be alive, could it just be a puppet, created by huge amounts of mana accumulating in one object over a long span of time?' He didn't know at that time, that his assumption had actually almost grasped the logic behind the creation of this golem.

Julian scouted the surroundings for a moment, before teleporting in front of the golem. "Hey! I'm over here!" Julian started to call for the golem's attention.

The golem started to follow Julian into an unknown direction.

'It should be here somewhere...' Julian went down a steep slope. 'Here it is!' 

The golem, that followed him all along slipped ehen going down the slope, slowly rolling into the depths.

*Splash*

Julian had lured him to a river, that was going through the edge of the rock desert.

The golem tried to move out of the waters, but while it was doing so, it's flames started to extinguish.

The movements of the golem became rougher with time and got slower and slower. With the flames extinguishing, it started to crumble. To Julian's surprise, the flames didn't immediately extinguish as it touched the surface of the water. The golem reproduced flames almost as fast as they were extinguished, letting it struggle for a longer time.

After almost an hour of constant struggle, it finally crumbled. 'The golem's power actually came from it's flames? They seem to be infused with magic, giving the golem the ability to move and react. The flames were like the muscles and nerves of the golem and the rocks were the bones, supporting the heavy weight.

'Now let's see where the source of your energy is!' Julian dug and dug for hours. It was really hard to find a fist sized stone, in the middle of this huge pile of rocks. The water that was flowing through it didn't really help aswell.

After hours of searching through the rubble, he found a, with fiery red glowing, crystal. The sun had already set, and the sickel-shaped moon glazed the world in a deep, beautiful blue.

'Finally, after hours of painful search!' Julian stuck his arm in a crevice within the golem, grabbing the crystal and carefully removing it from the corpse of stone. It's fiery red glow pulsated together with his heart, glowing brighter with every beat and darkening before the next.

Julian felt somewhat attracted to it, just like a man, that hasn't eaten anything except raw meat for a year, standing before a meal that shows the chef's culinary skills.

Julian knew he couldn't eat it, so he resisted against his urges and put it into the void and continued moving

[…]

That is how he got the beast crystal.

As he moved down his path to the elven capital ‹Alfheim›, he went across a small town called ‹Rym›. When he arrived there, unlike the guards in the village they didn't stop him, but they were whispering about something as he was passing through. When he was walking through the streets of the city, he noticed the people on the streets whispering to each other aswell when he passed them. Not understanding why, but also not interested in it, he looked for a pawnshop to sell his crystals to. He had his cloak on him, so noone would notice his looks, just what were they whispering about?

When he was looking for it, he found something that piqued his curiosity. A big building was standing in the middle of the normal houses and shops. On the outside of this building stood a single word, carved in with elven charakters. ‹Guild›.

This word reminded him of his home world, where this concept existed. Beautiful ladies standing at the counters, strong men drinking and having fun and quests hanging on a pin board for the adventurers to pick one, if their rank was sufficient.

'If I remember correctly, I should be able to sell items here? ' In the games he had played, he could sell and buy items in those ‹Guilds›.

Julian stopped in his tracks and turned to walk into the guild. He opened the door and saw a bunch of muscled humans with cuffs around their necks sitting at the benches, eating and drinking while laughing and conversing with each other. Although when they noticed Julian coming in, they stopped talking and stared at him starting to whisper just like the elves outside.

At the counter a small and frail, younger man stood, probably to help the muscular men out with accounting and other affairs that don't need muscles.

'I've read about this in the history book. Humans who were captured in war or other hostile interactions, are used as fighting slaves to secure the safety of a town or village. They are bound by a magical cuff, which are often placed around their neck, but can also be placed on their arms or legs. If they don't do what their "Contractor" wants, they are met with huge a amount of pain.'

It was as if by fate, a man stood up and blocked the way of Julian. This man was the most muscular and biggest out of the bunch. He had the best equippment of the slaves as well. Having a shiny greatsword on his back.

"So you are the "Mysterious Ghost" who is said, that they can vanish into void. The dark, purplish cloak and the black mist that covers your face. Not to forget the plain scythe you are wearing. You look exactly as they are described." The man said in an imposing, deep voice, trying to intimidate Julian.

'There are rumors that the Mysterious Ghost has beaten a horde of barbarians and the Flaming Rock Giant, that pressured even the authorities of this city. If I can beat him up, my rank will most likely rise and I will be able to transfer to the capital, living a better life' The man let out a slight grin in his mind, but still looking at Julian with a proud and strong grimace.

While Julian was fighting the golem, a scout of the town watched him on duty. When he defeated it, the scout headed back to town with his horse, to report the situation. This information immediately spreaded throughout the town, also heading into the further away cities and villages.

'Mysterious Ghost? Why is he calling me that? Could it be that someone spotted me while I was going through the forest? But is all of that really enough for such an interesting and imposing title?' Julian was crazily confused of what was happening, activating his ability to have more time to think.

'Since this information seems to spread pretty fast, I should maybe change my voice to fit this name aswell as to not reveal my identity if possible. It would be bad if I went to school with such a title.' Julian only imagined how it would be like, if everyone would know his "nickname". Making friends would be harder than even graduating.

"What do you want?" Julian asked him in a distorted and ghastly voice, sounding horrible, but intimidating at the same time. Julian changed it by modifying the way his vocal chords functioned.

'Fuck! What is wrong with his voice?!' The man was heavily confused by this change of events. 'Is he even human?' He questioned himself.

"I-I, Yorei Goldre, will see if you really are as strong as the rumors say!" Yorei unsheathed his greatsword before swinging down with so much power, it would make ordinary humans shiver in fear.

But Julian, having faced much more terrifying foes, just teleported behind Yorei, before cutting off his hand with a flick of his scythe.

It was so fast that Yorei took multiple seconds to find out what happened. When he noticed his arm laying beside him, he started screaming crazily. Julian had only one thing to say to him "You should give up your career.", before going up to the counter.

There, a young man with dark-brown hair stood shaking in fear. "H-How may I help y-you?" he asked Julian in a polite voice.

"I want to sell some beast crystals." "Of course. How many would you like to sell?" The young man asked, still in a shaky voice.

"52 Minor crystals." As Julian spoke those words, the man's eyes almost flew out.

Although they were very easy for Julian to defeat, killing dozens a day, normal people who can't teleport, can only harvest 1 or 2 every day.

Julian just directly opened the void, dropping the 52 crystals on the counter. With his secret identity as the "Mysterious Ghost" he didn't need to hide his skills anymore.

The young man was getting more and more baffled as time passed. "T-These are 30 high-grade crystals, 13 middle-grade crystals and 9 low-grade crystals."

"They are worth a total of 32 gold and 3 silver coins!" The man happily stashed the crystals away, before putting 32 gold and 3 silver coins on the counter in exchange for the crystals.

'This big trade could get me up a rank.' The man enthusiastically left the counter, bringing the crystals away in a bag.

Julian also left in the meantime. 'Since I've got 32 gold coins, I can pay 1 month of tuition. I also need to find out how I can get an element to accept me, so I can create a magic circle.'

'Hmm? Now that I think about it, why are beast crystals worth so much? They wouldn't be used only as accessories, would they? Since they contain a big amount of mana, maybe they can be used to awaken an element?'

Julian wanted to try it out immediately, so he headed out of the town before searching for a hidden spot in the forest, where he wouldn't be disturbed.

He found a good place behind a bunch of bushes and vines. Julian sat down on the flat rock in a lotus position, holding the beast crystal of the ‹Flaming Rock Giant› in his hands.

'Maybe the mana works similar to my soul essence. The crystal is the container and I only need to guide it through my body, before forming my first circle with it.'

Julian imagined pulling the mana out of the crystal like a thin thread, leading it through the whole body, before wrapping his heart with it. When he "sowed" the thin thread of mana through his blood vessels and heart, his blood started to boil and his heart started to squeeze itself.

"Ueghh" Julian vomited a bunch of blood as his blood vessels started to burst under the huge pressure. His nerves raging with pain and agony.

He didn't know at the time, but it was a death sentence in the magic world, to force an element into submission. It would try to fend against you in any way possible, even shredding your body into millions of pieces in the process. 

As soon as Julian noticed that something was wrong, he slowed down time. 'What is wrong? What happened?' Julian stopped guiding the mana and concentrated on reconstructing his body. Everytime he repaired his blood vessels to a certain extend, they would twist and explode again. This went on for hours of real time. In his mind, a bunch of years had already passed. He was slowly getting crazy, because he had to repair it over and over again.

'When will this finally end?!' Julian slowly couldn't keep up anymore. His blood rushed out of their vessels and split his skin. Red blood started to strike a pattern all over his body.

Chapter 7 END