The training room morphed once more with me at the centre of a clearing in a forest. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I gathered my magic, getting ready for the fight. The loud horn sounded. I opened my eyes and simultaneously turned on my superspeed to the highest setting I could. I wanted to finish this as fast as I could. What I saw only caused me to jump back in terror. Three elves had already reached and were only slowing down because my speed had reached its maximum. Their knives barely missed my neck as they pressed on with murderous expressions. Six arrows came whizzing to keep up with the distance I had created between me and the three elves. I grabbed two in mid-air and dashed past others and went for the first elf ahead of me and stabbed her in the gut.
Reflexively, getting down on all fours, I swept my leg in a neat horizontal arc to trip the other attacker tripping together with the one I had just stabbed. I didn't allow them as I had grabbed each by the face and smashed them into the ground. That was guaranteed to knock them out as I had discovered in the previous fight. I sensed magic and turned noticing a fireball coming my way. They were all attacking this time. I turned in time to dodge a kick that was aimed at my head by the third combat elf. I grabbed him in a deadly lock disarming him as fast as I could and used him as a shield against the fireball which knocked him out. Bergstrom hadn't changed a thing with the setting that I ended with. How was this even a little bit fair? If this kept up I wasn't going to last nearly as long as I did in the previous session. Adrenaline rushed into my system once again and the thrill of battle got me moving. If I was going to win this, I was going to have to be faster. The only way I knew how currently was using the light armour that I had taken to North Armensia. A smile spread across my face as I watched five combat elves dashing towards me weapons drawn. When we had come here, Bergstrom had me yell for a combat suit and it had appeared.
I turned up my super speed and dashed towards the elves so fast that I wasn't giving them a chance to evade the sudden outburst, "Jeremy, Light Feather Armour," I yelled amidst tripping an elf while I also guided the outdrawn knife of another into the gut of another. They were starting to speed up and quickly started surrounding me in a checkmate. Spells and arrows alike were already air bound heading for me.
"Yes, sir," I heard Jeremy confirm. 'Perfect. I used the one thing I knew would knock back all my enemies. I let out a magic shock-wave which I had also learnt amidst the heat of battle. The only problem was that it used up a lot of magic. The elves began recovering as my armour also appeared. I really loved this army, I felt extremely weightless in this. I jumped around flexing my fists. The elves charged with renewed energy. Let's rumble, I smiled before I unleashed the full wrath of my speed on them, the armour was equipped with the perfect abrasive soles which made stopping easy.
Once again, I had leveled playing field, the elves were technically frozen to me as I made quick work of them. In the span of thirty minutes I was dealing with almost fifteen elves at the same time. I was getting tired faster this time though. I began to slow down eventually and the elves began to pick up their pace. There was no end to these things.
Training continued on like this with the elves backing me into more corners than I could count and I discovering tactics of evading them like fighting was second nature. The elves eventually pinned me again and Bergstrom made me fight them one more time before he decided that it was enough.
…..............
I sat quietly in class and ate my food while the teacher went through work submitted by students. Our class had been divided into five streams, so I could only imagine how many he had to deal with at the end of the day and attend to everything they needed to do. Which reminded me, I had never actually had a student interrupt us during our sessions and the thought had been racking my brain for a while. "Why don't you ever get consultation questions from students?" I asked him.
"Time is still frozen isn't it?" he asked and returned his attention to his papers leaving me to pick up the pieces from the clue he had just given me.
"Wait, you mean to everyone I have only been here for what, a millisecond?" I asked him and he looked at me with an amused expression.
"Eat your food and resume time," he said coldly before returning to his work, "I can't believe you're not even tired. You are supposed to be exhausted," he grumbled.
"I thought my strength is supposed to be replenished when I get a moment's rest," I said in a questioning tone.
"Yes, that only works in Armensia. Once you return to earth you are supposed to get exhausted immediately," he said, but that didn't exactly make sense so from reading my face, he continued the story, "Have you yet heard of magically activated worlds and magically inactive or dormant worlds?" he asked and I simply nodded 'no' and waited for him to continue his story. He sighed and turned his attention to me before he continued. "Well this is a story that was found in ancient scripts and deciphered by the people of Armensia. From these scripts, they got to know things about their world that was beyond their wildest imagination. The existence of gods, and powerful celestials that once existed a long time ago. Right now the seven legendary beasts are considered the most powerful beings in Armensia. But these beings made them look like children. Powers unimaginable by a normal human. It was also in these scripts that the Armensians first learnt of the existence of other worlds and the difference between a magically dormant world and a magically activated world.
In a magically activated world, the magic flow smoothly through all life in that world. It strengthens and nurtures the world. Like Armensia, this allows the inhabitants to use magic. But a world like the one we live in is magically dormant. The magic does not flow and is very static. This makes using magic very hard in such a world. The gods were very clever when they were separating these worlds. They needed a way to cross from one world to another without having lesser beings doing the same whenever they felt like it. So they make the only way to travel to different worlds a one way route. To move from one world to another, they much go through earth." he explained.
"I don't understand sir. How can that stop magical beings from traveling?" I asked.
"Magical beings are born in a world where magic is constantly flowing through them. So when they go to a world where magic does not flow like it is supposed to, their magic supply is cut off and they lose strength. Many of the systems in their bodies rely on this magic to function just like how our minds depend on gravity to tell which way is up. And for this reason they cannot travel," he explained. Something still didn't sit right with me.
"Then how the hell did Texan travel here?" I asked slightly pissed. I had now lost my appetite. Thankfully I had already eaten most of my food.
The teacher only sighed, "Do you think Texan wouldn't spring at the first chance to kill you if he got it. He was just talking and making threats that day. That could all have been a projection and he was really here," Bergstrom tried explaining, "There must have been... You know what, never mind. No use jumping to conclusions about this. I'll tell you what I think when I have done more research. So do not worry about it." he said.
I allowed a few minutes before I made another stab at making small talk. "How did you get into this school as a teacher?" I asked.
"Huh, what kind of question is that?" he asked.
"Come on. It would be too much of a coincidence if the new math teacher just arrived at the opportune moment to train me magic," I explained my suspicions to him.
"Oh, that's what this is about? Well to put your suspicions to rest. I applied like everyone else and got through the ordinary procedures," he said. I wanted to prod further on the subject but decided it would be wiser to hold my tongue. I remembered clearly that our old math teacher Mr Danny had taught us math on the first day. Then Mr Bergstrom had then replaced him on the second day as our new math teacher. In that same lesson, the guy had hexed my paper so I could feel sick and flunk his pop quiz earning myself these lunch sessions. Many people had approached me on how I had flunked that test including Mr Danny who was quite disappointed. But by then Bergstrom had told me his reasons for doing what he did and there was nothing I could do that could end up driving suspicion towards what we were doing lunchtime. As a result I had decided to go along with it.
"Oh by the way, I need this classroom for the students who will come in later for consultations. So eat up, resume time and then head out," Mr Bergstrom said snapping me out of my thoughts. I continued consuming the remnants of my lunch before jumping onto the next topic of interest that came across my mind.
"So, there is a new girl in school," I said allowing a small smile to show on my face.
"Oh, you mean the one that is always moving around with Jacob," he said.
"How did you even know about that? You never leave this room," I snapped at him having had my chances at gossip crushed.
"No. I don't spend all my time here. You just happen to have the best timing in the world," he said. "You're not jealous of Jacob, are you?" he asked with a bit of astonishment in his voice.
"Of course not, I already had my eyes on someone else," I said.
"I know. That was the word on the street before Sonia showed up," he said dismissively.
"Wait what. What do you mean? Who is gossiping?" I asked him rapidly not even knowing exactly what I wanted to ask him.
"Slow down. Calm down. Just so you know, you guys aren't the only ones who know about magic on earth. There are others besides your parents too. A secret society of sorts, so don't ever be that surprised when you meet someone who knows about it," he said once again like the information did not matter. The artras knew of people like our parents and Dan who knew about magic. But that was only because they were past artras. What Mr Bergstrom was implying that there were more people who knew about magic than we had originally known. "By the way, it has never happened? A Siege and an alpha being paired," he said.
"I guess we are a special," I replied with a wide smile masking the obvious worry that crept into my mind. "What is the purpose of pairing though? It feels like it simply takes away the free will of the artras."
"I wondered when you would ask that question," he said once again setting down his pen and getting ready to explain, "Over the years, artras faced a problem when they came to choosing their partners. Not all people on earth take it well when they are told about magic. So when these artras went into battle distracted they would come close to death just because they were distracted. It weakened the artras. So from then on, Zaraias picks out worthy people who he pairs with the artras to protect them from such."
"I guess that makes sense," I replied. Does this mean that Ciara and I were paired? I brushed the thought away before turning back to Mr Bergstrom, "would this explain Jacob's behaviour towards Sonia?" I asked.
"Yes, it could. But you cannot be sure. He may simply be impatient like most teenagers," he said, "now finish your lunch and get time moving again. Not everyone likes having a long day."
"We can both agree on that," I said as I finally finished my food and did as I was told. I got out of the class and realised that lunchtime had only just began.