Silas slowly walked outside, in a few moments his spell would have accomplished its purpose. He grimaced in pain when the voice of Daniel who was shocked at his present appearance entered his ears,

“Disciple Brother, what happened to you? Is the master displeased? It is all the fault of that brat, isn’t it? We should contact our master so she can reach the Great One.”

Each word spoken by Daniel only increased Silas’ rage and irritation, he had gone over the shoulders of his master and contacted the Archmage directly, it was all because of greed. He knew such a great find would give him considerable rewards.

Yet with this setback, he was now on the clock, and his future was grim if he failed. His anger burst out and he seized the young Acolyte by the throat, “Silence you whining mongrel, your foolish attempt at jealousy may have pushed that boy far from our reach. By the Light, if I’m able to, I should kill you now.”

Daniel’s eyes were wide with surprise and anger, “What do you mean?.. I…”

Silas sneered and threw the boy roughly to the side with so much force he slammed against the rubble of the collapsed building, he broke his left arm and fractured three ribs. Daniel let out a scream of pain as his body spasmed.

Silas walked to him and stepped on his throat, he licked his lips, and Daniel could hardly do anything but claw at his feet using both his arms, disregarding the intense pain that was emerging from his broken hand.

Silas looked at the thrashing boy beneath his feet, the mania and cruelty in his eyes growing, as they seemed to be feeding on the pain his half-glass body was inflicting on him. The pain made him more manic and his mania increased his sense of pain, this unholy feedback was causing his mental state to rapidly distort.

With an effort of will he suppressed his cruelty, rotating his Spirit Matrix and sending cool streams of Aether into his Spirit to reduce his pain and irritation.

Removing his feet from the throat of the boy, he growled, “Finish the selection of candidates, when you are done, lead them to the western gate of the town, we shall leave when I return. All memories of this day had been wiped from their heads, so be careful with your words. Go!”

Suppressing the anger inside his chest, Daniel nodded, pushed himself to a sitting position, and began struggling to stand up. Silas regarded him for a while like a small child who plucked out the legs of an ant and watched it squirm.

He chanted a spell of Reinvigoration on the Acolyte, and Daniel sprang to his feet as if he had been shot full of adrenaline, Silas tossed a healing potion to the Acolyte and brought out his staff, he chanted a spell and the wind carried him into the sky where he vanished a few moments later, following the trails of the glass hounds.

The signs they were giving him were that they had caught a scent. It was of the Alchemist. Silas’ smile was as wide as a crocodile’s.

Daniel drank the bitter potion while muttering in his mind that he expected Silas to give him the bitter ones. He looked away from the shrinking figure that had vanished into the horizon and proceeded towards the direction of the Town’s hall, the sooner he was done with this assignment, the better. He could then claim his reward, so he could use the resources gained to push for the rank of Mage.

After all, he was more talented than Silas, he had the potential to become a Rank 6 Mage, maybe higher. He would keep all the injustice he suffered and they would be repaid a hundred times over.

®

Andar stood with his eyes closed a thousand miles up in the air. Standing on the body of the Cloud Whale he did not feel that he was in the sky, instead it was almost as if he was on solid ground.

Except for the deep reverberation of the heart of the Cloud Whale underneath his feet, he could pretend he was still standing on the ground. There was no sign that would show he was moving with a distance-devouring pace.

There was also no wind around him except a slight breeze, the intense wind generated by the movement of the beast was blocked by a faint blue corona around the Cloud Whale that kept air and any other obstacles away from it, like a shield.

His brows were furrowed in concentration as he explored the Script that was on his left forearm. He was hoping to create a deeper connection with it, as the makeup of this Script was deeply fascinating.

Something surprising had occurred during the process of imprinting the Scripts in his skin, that had shocked his Master to the core.

Andar frowned when he heard a low rumble and a joyful exclamation from the Cloud Whale but then that frown turned to a smile when he got the feedback of the Cloud Whale’s emotions through the Scripts.

The rumble was the sound of the Cloud Whale breaking past the sound barrier, after a decade of sleeping the young Cloud Whale was celebrating the chance to finally roam the skies.

It was a Cloud Whale equal to a Rank 2 Mage, its speed would keep increasing until it would be moving at five times the speed of sound.

Andar was very satisfied with the speed of this beast, which meant he would reach the Location for the Interplanetary Teleportation in seven hours.

There were many challenges to fuse a Script of this level to a Mortal, by general consensus and common sense, everyone else would say it was impossible.

Rowan outdid himself when he remade this body.

There were three problems to solve to fuse the Script with Andar, the first was the Aether requirement, the second was the carrying capacity of Andar’s body, and the Third was the mental strain.