Staring directly in the eyes that was responsible for everything that happened in his life, Fen was actually conflicted.
Obviously, there was hate. From how he betrayed him, how he sold him… Not only was their master killed in the process, but this fake friend of his actually turned out to be the one who sold him out!
Yet…
If one were to push all the negative emotions aside for a moment, not forget them, push them aside… Then Basil actions would also be the founding stone for Fen's rebirth!
From how he obtained those strange powers, through the chance at living the life of his dreams as arcanist… This kind of reasonable thinking…
Was nothing but an escape mechanism that Fen used, in order to calm himself down. The true face of the hate that was burning inside him was akin to when he would actually ignite his flames internally!
"Your step-brother?"
Taken by surprise, Basil stood in place with his head tilted, as if he was trying hard to remember something.
"Wait, are you Galvan?"
Suddenly recalling a single name, a name that was as familiar to him as it was to Fen, Basil opened his eyes in shock.
'It seems it worked for the moment…'
Even without looking around, Fen could tell that people from his class that were watching the scene were puzzled. As long as he allowed them to wonder and ultimately voice out their questions, then this chanced meeting would end up in a disaster!
"While I tasked you with taking care of my little brother, I do not recal giving you the right to call me by my birth name. Unless you are looking for the reminder of what happened in the past, I would advise you to use my family name instead."
Placing all his chips on this one story that their master told them only twice in his entire life, Fen took the most authoritative look that he could afford while looking at his fake friend.
"Ugh… Sorry…"
Backing out a few steps, Basil clearly couldn't believe what was happening. While it was true that this old story about how Fen appeared in the village included the person of his brother, it was nothing more but a passing mention!
Apparently, Basil originally bullied the lost orphan - how he liked to call Fen. When the young man's brother arrived for once in the village, too busy to take care of his younger sibling, he paid their master to properly groom him into adulthood, while giving Basil a proper educatory beating.
Ever since that time, Fen's fake friend held his brother in high esteem, as if the memory of this beating was lodged deeply in his bones.
"Since you are not willing to talk, I guess I will have to check it myself. Since we have three more days before the tournament, I think I might manage to pay the village a visit."
Throwing all his cards away on this one play, Fen swept his robe to the side, turning around on the spot. Cutting the talk with Basil would make it possible for him to actually believe that the perfect image of Fen he saw in his eyes would be translated into his former friend older brother.
As long as he could throw them off the track for now, then even if Basil would attempt to set a trap for him back in the village in order to cut the potentially a loose end. Because instead of visiting that burned down place for absolutely no reason, Fen could actually ask Stiel for the graduation token before leaving the country altogether!
"Wait a moment!"
Just as the young man was about to step out of the place accompanied by Kaisha who continued to looked at him with worry, the same man that threw his weight around before, stopped the young arcanist from leaving.
Raising his eyes at the new enemy, Fen could feel how the fires of his hate were slowly getting closer to the point where they would ignite his real flames. Given how the young man trained his control daily, this immature reliance of one's emotions in order to invoke his power was gone… But it didn't meant that Fen's troubled mind could handle the stress without a break!
"I can't allow you to leave after you dared to disrespect your senior!"
Openly bringing his arm up as if he wanted to shoot fireballs from it, the same annoying fuck that dared to butt into Fen's class meeting, actually threatened Fen!
"Remember your brother, as he was the true paragon of fire."
This single sentence appeared in the young man's mind. Second to last of the sentences that his deceased master would use to close of the only story about his past that Fen ever heard.
Crack.
The reality in front of the Fen suddenly fell apart, freezing both his mind and his body in place. In a very familiar fashion, the broken pieces of the world around him suddenly gathered in one place, before turning into a huge, flat surface.
"I name you the first paragon of fire."
A row of people was kneeling in front of a huge altair, on which a strange ceremony was taking place. On it, a man donning extremely simple robes was placing a single petal of some kind of flower on top of another young man's head.
"Be the light that will shine through the abyss of ignorance."
Crack.
As soon as the standing man placed the petal on top of the other person's head, the vision once again broke apart, raining down into the endless darkness below.
Flash.
This time, those strange visions didn't bother with assembling the screen again. Simply manifesting it on the spot, Fen realised that at least, according to Firo's words, his bloodline was giving him access to yet another set of the memories hidden in it.
"That would be the last one according to our count."
The perspective changed. Fen no logner watched the events from the comfortable, elevated position. This time, his vision was blurry, with hints of red all over it. Standing above the source of the images, two men dressed in similar uniforms were debating over something.
"Wait, this one is still breathing."
Looking down right at Fen' one of the men moved to the side, revealing a long, bloodied sword in his hand.
"But you have to admit that they came up with a nice word. How about we use it ourselves?"
Speaking casually like that, the man buried his sword into the chest of the man's whose memories Fen was watching.
The vision started to fade away. It seemed as if the image was turning less and less bright, indicating that this hallucination was slowly coming to an end?
No!
So far, every single vision of Fen ended up in this vision plane crashing! Did that mean that he was experiencing a death of one of his kind right now? All the way till the end?
"Let's use it in the same way, for those who are confirmed to be exceptional!"
With those words, before the atmosphere in Fen's mind could deteriorate to the point of absolute depression, the visions finally broke, revealing his eyes back to the exposure of the lights of the reality.
Still shocked by this vision, Fen decided to go with the flow. After all, wasn't his body telling him something? How dense would he have to be to not use something that his entire strange soul came up with right in the moment that he needed it?
Taking a look at the hand in front of him, Fen looked at the man in front of him with a stare that once could only give to the toddlers, cutely failing to move on all fours.
"Boy, you realy don't want to mess with paragon, don't ya?"
Allowing himself to use a tiniest bit of the strange accent Fen heard from few merchants he met, the young man allowed the tiniest hint of his own fire to light up within his head. Feeling the dose of energy instantly entering his flow, the young man could tell that his entire disposition would change drastically from doing so.
Just like he could feel the air of danger around the veteran that he fought with before…
This single memory.
The memory of the face hidden under the helmet, that just now turned familiar.
How come Fen never felt any sense of conection to it beforehand?
And then it struck.
That face was exactly the same as the face that he just saw in the memory vision of his bloodline!
'Does that mean…'
Realising that he most likely fought with someone who killed scores of his breathen, Fen's heart rate skyrocketed. With his vision darkening and the reins that the young man held over his internal fire slowly crumbling, his aura turned so dense that even Kaisha backed out.
"Now, now, stop it at once!"
Sensing the danger of the situation, Stiel finally intervened. Pushing his body directly between the two young man, he slightly tapped Fen's belly, the only place that wasn't visible to anyone else, before looking at him sternly.
"I don't care how high you think of yourself, but this is a fellow student! Don't you dare to act rashly!"
Gently placing his outstretched hand on Fen's arm, Stiel lightly but decisively pushed him to the back, making sure that his student was back to his senses.
"Just like you said, we have three days before the tournament. Everyone else, have fun touring the place. And you, mister paragon or whatnot, are coming with me! If you want to visit your little damned brother, you better have a long and serious talk with me first!"