Questions where bouncing around in my head some of them I answered myself some made my mind race.
I looked at the weapons both of them held and it was the same silvery, white color of the liquid that Alia placed on us.
We would travel during the day and absorb mana at night.
During the day we were encouraged to hunt for food so that the kids do not go hungry after training.
Alia gives us all small vials made from stone filled with the liquid telling us that if we put on more than a drop the mana would rush in and kill us, not specifying how.
And every night we would have lectures.
"Before the beginning of time there was chaos and in this chaos was a seed, this seed had all life as we know it".
"This seed exploded expanding out what our existence is now".
Alia basically describing the big bang theory had me wondering about the term 'Universal truth'.
A lot of what she is saying is written in scrolls.
"That is when the gods where born making this world and others, the energy they used to create was the primordial gas or the residual energy from this seed which we call mana" she said letting the white energy glow in her palm.
One could think of the association as a cult who believed in multiple gods but worshipped power.
I go to sleep that night with a lot of new thoughts to process.
We awaken in the middle of the night by Rumi who ushers us forward, apparently we were being attacked.
It was humanoid looking black ants that traveled underground and where the size of a small child.
They had antennas with large rounded eyes with mana used for pupils, just like the Sylph.
I knew these things could not see well and where augmenting their vision, I thought of a few ways to use it to my advantage.
Under Alia's command we retreat west.
I notice that Rumi is following her directions to the letter but he was much stronger.
I could tell every time he moved and when I used mana vision I spotted a light green energy pulsing out of him.
He provides cover by diving in with his two handed thin long sword killing in droves, but they're just too many and some get past him.
I draw my weapons and make calculated moves to defend myself running behind Allia.
I don't make exaggerated movements that could leak out any energy, thrusting my blade quickly between the big eyes or ducking underneath and slicing as I run past.
We quickly broke their encirclement and got out only losing one, the Larger Terra boy that spoke up earlier.
Another girl looked extremely broken because of it. 'They must have known each other' I thought.
By this night everyone had introduced themselves and built little groups of two or three with one of them bouncing between the groups.
The bouncer I considered the leader of this rag tag group of survivors, his name was Yuit.
Tall, handsome and Terra but he didn't treat Olim any different.
Yuit walked around asking everyone if they where hurt even checking on me the shortest and thinnest looking out of them all.
It couldn't be helped I was only eleven and these kids looked like they had steroids for breakfast.
"I'm alright, thanks" I said with a smile and thank the large six foot Terra with the blond hair and green eyes.
"That was excellent work young man" Rumi said.
"Thanks" I replied annoyed that he had time to look at me while in the thick of it.
"Do you mind if I look at your blades"? he asked.
I didn't hesitate to reject "Yes, I do mind" opening my waterskin and taking a swig.
Rumi started laughing and stuck out his hand in an Olim greeting.
"What's your name young man"? he asked me with a grin on his face.
"Ambrose" I replied politely while gripping his forearm.
It was the highest form of respect when a Terran offered an Olim greeting, I didn't miss on that detail and looked at the short haired strongman in a different light.
Our trip continued, not stopping to rest due to the attack.
"God, we missed a good chance to get Jun antenna" I heard Rumi tell Aria who ignored him, something she often does.
Due to the attack everyone was on edge, except for the mages I couldn't see it without mana vision, but I felt the waves of mana from the earth.
I knew they were scouting as we walked.
This was also training for the younger female mage, she was being trained to scout, evade and hunt with mana.
Her red energy flaring out every so often, to the children she looked more powerful but I could tell Rumi was leagues ahead of her.
Rumi was strong he held back a lot , I could tell by the way he swung his sword and the energy coming off of every move, he wasn't using mana, this was life force.
I think about my meditation in lightning and how my body was torn apart.
Wondering if they had similar training.
I was beating myself up for not building blueprints for an electron microscope when I had the chance wondering the difference between our cellular structure.
A month later Alia came to our camp fire as we meditated.
We had travelled for a whole month with only four to eight hours of sleep a night sometimes moving throughout the night, the children where exhausted mentally.
What was worse was their bodies where healed every meditation session leaving only dull aches and a ravenous hunger
"Great Mage how much longer will we travel" Yuit asked with a bow, everyone stared at her with pleading eyes.
"It's about four thousand five hundred miles to the Mage Association" she said while dropping off the mana liquid.
This bomb dropped on everyone left jaws slacked and after a moment I heard a hiccup from one Olim girl who was having an especially hard time throughout this journey.
"We will be reaching the border of the desert soon and that's when we will be picking up the pace don't fall out, the desert is the longest stretch and the sands shift if you get caught catching up will be impossible, even core mages have a hard time surviving the desert".
The last words implied a chilling truth, 'Most children die in this area'.
The campfire was silent as Alia gave us more mana liquid, it seemed she gave us more this time.
I quickly found out why, she almost doubled her pace going into a sprint, not slowing down at all.
The children tried to keep up, but they started separating into packs soon.
Yuit and a Terra girl and Olim boy in the front.
I was in the middle pack with a mix of an Olim girl and two Terra boys.
Bringing up the rear was the other five children a mix of boys and girls running as fast as they can trying to catch up.
The scenery didn't change like a regular desert in a sense that the country glades blended into drylands.
There was a clear divide between the cracked desert terrain and the lush greenery with patches of healthy dirt.
'How could this be' I thought to myself looking around in wonder.
We travel along the divide going south until two days later we reach an encampment that was heavily fortified.
It looked like a small castle in between the two opposing elements.
It had one outer wall and one inner wall the latter being ten feet higher so that they could shoot down anyone dumb enough to scale the first wall.
As we pass through the gates a man comes down from the ramparts creating an updraft greeting Rumi and Alia when he lands.
He was Olim with extremely dark skin but piercing golden eyes that made him look like a jungle cat.
"Here are the supplies, will you be resting here"?
He asked her as he handed her a bag along with Rumi.
"No we need to keep going especially at night when it is cooler" she said looking at the setting sun.
"Be careful, Ums have been sighted further south west".
They exchanged a few more pleasantries and information before refilling our rations and receiving cloaks that draped over our whole body.
They added an extra twenty pounds to us making running very difficult, but Alia did not change her pace at all.
The Ums that where mentioned by the mage at the fort was a centipede type beast that drilled underground, it's mouth had rows of teeth more than one could count.
We saw only a few at a time and Rumi took care of them quickly by sending explosions into the wide mouth.
It still left the children frightened leaving more than one to soil themselves.
We got more mana liquid from Alia as the days go by.
I help the other children out when I can.
Not being a good Samaritan or anything, I just don't have need for it, between my tempered body and life force I was doing fine.
Besides if my mana core purifies to quickly, I am afraid I would die and pass into the blender.
These kids are going to be my peers I might as well leave a good impression.
The Terra children grew up being taught about the inferiority of Olims, a violent nature is how Olim culture was described by their guardians.
A place where they eat human flesh and kill ancestors.
After seeing Olim mages, a cored Olim child and even the interactions between Alia and Rumi and the Olim mage they had a shift even they were not aware of.
It became more apparent when I handed Yuit my bottle as he had gotten injured tripping over himself when running.
It was bad with a deep gash in the forearm he used to protect himself from the fall.
"Thank you, I'm Yuit" he said formally introducing himself.
"Ambrose, nice to meet you" I nod at him sinking my teeth into the Um meat that Rumi hunted.
"You seem capable, how old are you"? he asked me as he rubbed tiny bits of mana liquid on his wounds.
"Thirteen this year" I lied.
"Gods above you're the youngest one here"! he blurted out in astonishment.
My body was sturdy and I was five foot four inches as tall as some of the thirteen year old girls.
Instead of looking like a big eleven year old I looked like a small thirteen year old.
"I've been working as long as I can remember" I said smiling.
After a bit of conversation, I leave the boy questioning his upbringing.
We move on doing ten to fifteen miles a day and all the children are filling out extremely well, we haven't lost anyone since the Terra boy in the beginning of the trip.
The winds where high and thankfully we had the heavy cloaks or we would have been blown away, the mages wrapped themselves in mana, acting as a beacon when the sand blinded us.
At times we would have to lie flat on the sand to avoid the winds coming from the west, it seemed as if Alia has a compass because when the winds stopped we where still on track going west.
Mid-day and the blistering sun rays are flogging the weary children.
With eyes glued in front of them they don't let their fatigue betray their ambitions.
Alia still sprinting ahead and the children albeit weakly are still keeping up.
Going around a sand dune Rumi suddenly sounded out from the rear and Alia stopped, a moment later a grim expression on her face.
"Were surrounded"!
Large Ums started coming out from the ground.
I draw my blades as I look at the incoming horde.
Explosions started going off as Rumi flicked his wrist and three loud explosions where heard around us.
'He didn't need a spark that was all his energy' I thought confirming what I saw earlier.
Alia doing the same and while making us a route out.
Suddenly a whirlpool started forming to the north of us ten yards away growing rapidly as more of the centipedes start crawling out almost like they where being squeezed out.
"The explosions are creating a whirlpool"!
Alia screamed out to Rumi but he didn't look so convinced thinking there is another reason for this.
"Hurry run"! we run as fast as we could, we where still caught in the whirlpool.
I couldn't be the only one not stuck, true to my character I played my part as the helpless child.
Rumi stopped his explosions and wrapped us all in mana heaving us upwards and getting us out of the whirlpool.
Before he could drag all of us any futher an Um came straight out of the sand directly below him, forcing him to drop us retracting his mana to cover himself.
Yuit and I where the last ones in the procession and where dropped at the edge of the whirlpool.
Feeling the suction take hold, we where waste deep before we knew it.
I turn to look at Yuit who has gone limp accepting his fate.
Grabbing him by the collar I threw him out of the whirlpool with enough force to be considered extremely strong but not mage worthy.
As he lands, he turns with a look of astonishment to see my serene expression be covered in sand.