"Gosh, that hurt," Sydra says as he picks himself up from the ground, his entire body covered in burns from the explosion. As he makes his way back over to Captain Zeis, Sydra activates his regeneration aura, and the burns on his body fade away.
"You're attempting to combine two opposite powers here, you should have prepared for a negative reaction," Captain Zeis says, "The way they were combined before was impure because they were constantly fighting against one another. This is why I want you to work on combining them in their purest state, as only then will they increase your power,"
Understanding what Captain Zeis meant, Sydra spent the rest of the day attempting to combine the spheres, however he failed every time. By the end of the day, Sydra had run out of aura, and his clothes were in tatters from all the explosions,
"At least I'm not the only one who had it rough today," Indra says, his body covered in bruises, "Thomas had me creating shields of fire and lightning, and then he would beat me with a wooden sword if they couldn't block it,"
"Tough, I spent all day blowing myself up," Sydra says as he looks around, "Where are the others?"
"They're all over by Jason," Indra says, pointing towards a group of guards surrounding clumped up together, "He's about to show what he came up with after gaining the wind aura,"
Walking over to the group of soldiers, Sydra feels the particles of wind around him becoming excited as they flow to the center of the guards. That is where Jason is standing, his arms raised in the air as the wind particles swirl between his palms. Gathering together, the wind particles form a thin green vortex, which Jason then lowers to be right in front of him.
"Are you guys ready to see something cool?" Jason asks, to which the guards respond to with shouts of encouragement. Smiling, Jason reaches his hand into the green vortex, his arm quickly following after it. Soon Jason's entire body has entered the green vortex, causing everyone to wonder where he went.
Before anyone can move, a green gauntlet made from condensed wind reaches out of the vortex. The gauntlet belongs to Jason, who walks out of the vortex covered in green armor, and with two circular blades made of lightning flickering in his hands.
Glancing around at everyone, Jason throws the blades through the air, controlling their movements with gusts of wind. As the blades spin through the air, Jason begins to move to, his body being propelled by the wind as his feet move with lightning speed.
Heading in the direction of the straw golems, Jason increases his speed, flashing from his position, to one that is right behind the first straw golem. At that moment, one of the circular blades he had thrown earlier slices through the straw golems neck and settles into Jason's hand, only to be thrown out again.
Once again, Jason flashes away, this time appearing in front of two straw golems right as their heads are freed from their bodies by the other circular blade. Catching that blade, Jason flips over another straw golem, throwing the blade while still in the air.
Repeating this process faster than most of the guards can see, Jason rids the entire courtyard of straw golems before returning to the group. All this had happened within the span of thirty seconds, and most of the straw golems had yet to even fall to the ground.
As the remaining fifty-seven straw golems fall, Jason peers at the onlookers from beneath his green helmet, "So? What did you guys think of my new power?"
As the guards cheer and rush over to pat Jason on the back, Sydra glances over at Indra, "Does he always master new things this quickly?"
"Sadly, yes," Indra says, a flash of jealousy appearing on his face, before it quickly passes, "It just means I'll have to work harder to keep up,"
After allowing the guards to celebrate Jason's little show for a few minutes, Captain Zeis steps forward, clearing his throat to gather everyone's attention, "Today has been long, and while some of you have improved, a lot of you still need more work. I hope that tomorrow will bring more results, but for now you are dismissed,"
Being dismissed, all the guards disperse back to their living quarters, allowing Sydra and Indra to meet back up with the others. It seemed that only Sydra and Indra were forced to endure tough training, as everyone else appeared to be in high spirits, as well as completely unscathed.
"What happened when you went into the green vortex?" Sydra hears Tio asking Jason as he approaches, "We were all wondering,"
"Haha, a guy has to have some secrets, doesn't he?" Jason asks, "I'm more interested in how Sydra's and Indra's training went, seeing how both of them look,"
After shooting Jason a look, Sydra smiles mischievously, "What was it you just said? A guy has to have some secrets, right?"
"Indeed," Indra says, nodding his head with a serious look, "We must keep our secrets secret, after all,"
Turning around, Sydra and Indra walk towards the carriage which had just landed to take them back to the academy, leaving everyone behind them baffled.
"Well, it looks like those two are getting along together well," Cho says, her eyes following Indra.
Getting onto the carriage, Sydra and Indra break out into laughter, before doubling over in pain, "Crap, I forgot my body is still recovering form the beating I received today," Indra says, holding onto his sides.
"Here, this might help," Sydra says, holding his palm over Indra's chest. Releasing the green lightning, Sydra uses up the little bit of healing aura he had managed to recover during Jason's show.
By the time Sydra was done healing Indra, the others had climbed back onto the carriage and it had set back off for the academy. Although the trip was short, everyone managed to tell a bit about what they had experienced throughout the day, and what they expected to happen tomorrow.
It turned out that although the others weren't covered in injuries, their days hadn't been much easier than Sydra's. Feeling better, Sydra parts ways with the others and returns to his room, where he finds Lucas and Kayla passed out on the same bed. On the table next to them is a pile of documents filled with the information that they had gathered.
'It seems their day was just as eventful as mine," Sydra thinks as he crosses the room and sits down on his bed. Thinking back to the day he had, Sydra decides to try combining the two types of lightning one last time, but on a much smaller scale.
After raising his hands in front of his face and extending his index fingers, Sydra creates two spheres the size of needle tip, and slowly pushes them together. As the two spheres make contact, tiny sparks of lightning bounce off of them for a few seconds before fading away, 'Did... it work?'
Suddenly, everything around Sydra goes black, and he feels as if he is falling through ground beneath his feet. Unable to see anything, Sydra attempts to use his other senses, but his body comes to an abrupt stop before he can discover anything.
"Where am I?" Sydra wonders as his feet make contact with something solid. Looking down, he notices a faint golden glow coming from beneath his feet, which becomes brighter as the seconds tick by.
With the light becoming brighter, so do Sydra's surroundings, and he finds himself standing in front of a grey mansion, the wood in shambles from decades of neglect. Other than the mansion, nothing else is around Sydra, leaving him no choice but to enter the mansion if he wishes to discover what's happening.
Making his way up the steps, Sydra pushes against the broken door of the mansion, which falls over and kicks up a layer of dust. Coughing from the dust, Sydra covers his face as he inspects the interior of the mansion.
"Why does this place look so familiar?" Sydra wonders as his eyes pass through the empty mansion. Seeing nothing dangerous, Sydra steps over the door and makes his way into the mansion.
"Hello? Is anyone in here?" Sydra calls out, his voice echoing through the empty corridors as he goes farther inside. Hearing nothing, he makes his way over to one of the doors and opens it, finding a staircase leading into a basement behind it.
'This isn't creepy,' Sydra thinks, taking the steps slowly. At the bottom of the staircase he finds another door, but before he can open it the door swings open on its own, and a person covered in shadows grabs Sydra's arm.
"Glad you came back to see me, we should discuss a few things," a male voice says, pulling Sydra through the door and shutting it behind him.