Riz was not able to talk much with the robot as he was taken through one massive structure after another, buildings that seemed to be made to serve a purpose but there was nobody to serve anymore.
The robot took him through a massive gate that took him to a new sector which was just as empty but there was a gaping hole at it's end which seemed to open in space and what seemed to be machines at work, diligently creating more of what was already plenty, buildings.
"We take part our ways here." said the robot as he landed on the roof of on of the shorter buildings.
"Can you at least tell me your name?"
"I would rather not, if you get caught and spill your gut, I don't want to get into system's crosshairs." Said the Robot as he gently pushed Riz out of the door, "Tell you what, If you manage to survive and we meet again then I will tell you my name." said the Robot as he closed the door and took off.
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Riz found himself a place in one of the residential buildings where he sat down thinking what he was supposed to do and who was this system that mother and the robot were talking about.
He had no way to know about it now so he stopped thinking about that and opened up his bag that contained a dimensional storage box that contained food and other essential items that would sustain him for the coming days.
He then took out the ominous black cube that took him on a strange journey into a land of dragons and giants and most of all people. He had learned a lot about different technologies but never in his life had he seen such a box. It didn't seem to have any joint or screw on it yet it reacted to it's touch. Even the reactions were just something he could feel and not something visible.
In his current state where he had no idea what to do the cube seemed to be the only question he could do something about. Just with a thought the cube reacted like it had a connection with him and the spider like thing latched on his face and his vision went dark.
_____
"What do you plan to do with him Mikael."
"What we should have done a long time ago uncle, carve him up and extract what rightfully belongs to me."
"Don't be foolish, we don't know if that is how this thing works, if you act prematurely it could end up costing you everything." there was a long pause and after a sigh the voice resumed with a calm coldness, "besides if the need arises you can always resort back to your method."
"What if the kid is not easy to deal with? You know what happened on the battlefield."
The cold voice scoffed and said, "Don't worry I did a background check on this one, He is just a kid named Trevor from a sub family of the Garison family, nothing points at him being anything but a trash."
Riz was about to open his eyes when a voice from the inside said, "I wouldn't wake up right now if I were you, just keep pretending to be asleep."
This sudden voice in his head jolted him a bit which drew the attention of the two people talking beside him but Riz took the advice of the voice and keep himself still.
Mikael after some time said, "Look at him sleeping like nothing has ever happened, It makes me want to choke him to death."
"Let's go nephew, and be wary to not let out this feral side of you outside in front of others, there will come a time when you are so powerful that nobody will have the guts to question you but until then we take our steps with caution, You are still not a match for the Holy knight and there are still some hidden monsters out there we should not provoke."
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After some time passed the voice inside Riz said, "You can open your eyes now."
It wasn't until now when Riz had the time to think about the voice in his head, It seemed familiar to him, "You sound like… the Queen."
"Heh" said the voice in his head which seemed to be a pitiful one, "I am the Queen."
"But… how is this possible? what is happening?"
There was a long pause after which the queen said, "I don't know either but if we are speculating then I suppose I died in the battle field but a fragment of my soul was able to attach itself to you for some reason."
To Riz that seemed like a fiction coming to life, souls and all meant not much to him as someone who believed in science but remembering what happened in the past with dragons and giants it seemed like a very plausible answer.
"So… is there a way to revive you?"
"You could find me an empty homunculus but put aside the impossible task like that even if you did manage that I wouldn't likely be able to take it over with my soul's fragmented state. In all senses I should have died but for some reason in your body I am able to survive." said the queen and feel into deep thought contemplating the reason for this but there was no way to find that out at the moment so she said, "Well that aside we need to get out of here, I never thought Mikael will be such a two faced personality. You need to warn your parents and get as far away from here as possible."
Riz for a moment was paralyzed hearing the word 'parents', someone else other than mother whom he could call known or family. But he had no idea who they were.
"Trevor?...Trevor!, are you ok ? Didn't you say your name was Riz back then?"
Riz snapped out of his thoughts and he thought of how to explain his situation but there was no way he could explain that he was not from this world without sounding crazy so he thought against it and said, " I don't… remember who my parents are."
After a short silence Fiona said, "Looks like you sustained some injuries in the battle which would explain how you messed up your name and place during the battle, the later battle probably didn't help you. If only I had my body here I could have helped you. But we already know you are from Trevor from a subfamily of the Garison family and I know where the Garison family is in Ardria, so we can start from there."
"But how would we get out of here? Mikael said I have something he wants, would'nt he chase me?"
"That is precisely why you need to run, I guess you can't sense it but right now you have the dragon's legacy inside you. Right now it's not fused with you so if someone kills you then it will be transferred to them. So in the mean time we need to find Holy knight who was sent out on a mission, he would be able to keep you safe until we can extract the legacy from you"
"What is a dragon's legacy?" asked Riz as it was a completely new concept for him.
Fiona seemed a bit surprised, "looks like the damage is more extensive than I previously thought. Anyone on this continent will be able to tell you what the dragon's legacy is. It's how the continent's name came to be, The dragon head continent. This is the legacy of the dragon god who descended in this world and spent his final days here."
For Riz this was all new information and he could very well have gotten himself in trouble with his lack of common sense for this new place but luckily the dragon queen Fiona thought it was something caused by damage to his brain so he thought he might be able to know more about this place from Fiona and even get a clue to how he was here and what relation was there between here and the desolate world he came from.
"What does dragon's legacy contain then?"
"No idea."
Riz after a confused pause said, "But you just said it's the most important thing on this continent and you don't even know what it is?"
"Yes because it's the legacy of a God, just the potential of that is enough to shake the mortal world, let alone a single continent."
To Riz it meant not much if it was the legacy of a God or a King, he was unaware of how the world worked but in time he will come to know lucky of a chance this is and how unlucky it is to have something like this without the power to hold it.
Riz suddenly and involuntarily moved his left hand and kept it on his heart.
"Don't worry it was me." said Fiona understanding the confusion caused by the her actions, "I can control your body to some extent when you are not paying attention or if you permit me." said Fiona as a blue energy flowed from his palm and went into his chest.
Riz could now feel something foreign was lurking in his body around his heart, it wasn't a physical object but it was a different feeling. Like some kind of energy enveloping the organ but the blue energy he was releasing felt like an extension of himself. This distinct feeling of own and foreign was a completely unique experience for him which was saying a lot as he had played many games with photorealistic mechanisms that allowed one to get lost in those worlds. In comparison to that this was like he had grown a completely new organ that he could extend out of his body.
"What is this feeling? What is that energy?" Riz asked, he could feel the fluctuations in Fiona's soul inside her which gave the same feeling as he got when she was feeling doubtful of him for asking about dragon's legacy. But a little after that it changed to the feeling of understanding which she had when she justified it with his memory loss.
"That is you aura, it comes from you magna core. I thought it was because you were too weak that you could not feel the legacy bound to your heart but it looks like you will need an extensive rehablitation."
Riz noted to himself to be a bit more conservative next time in asking his questions so as to not expose his origins. As much as he wanted to trust Fiona he had no idea of how the events may play out if he told her everything and that was a risk he was not willing to take. He also enjoyed the feeling of having a secret, this was something he could not have in front of mother as he was constantly monitored.
"Can you teach me how to control aura?" asked Riz with excited anticipation to explore this new feeling.
Fiona sighed and said, "Once a queen now an elementary auralist for a spoiled rich kid."
Riz "…"
"I can't hurt to teach you." said Fiona sigh more deeply this time, "it's not like I have anything better to do."
Riz suddenly sat down cross legged. "Can please ask for permission first before moving me?"
"You can block me, I don't control you. It's just that you have no control over yourself, like you are completely new to this body."
Riz was a bit taken back by this surprisingly close analysis by Fiona but kept himself composed on the outside. He tried to change the subject off from this so as to not let Fiona create a train of thoughts and lead to a new conclusion, "What should I do next ?"
"Cup your hands around your umbilicus like you are carrying a sphere that connects to it. We use this position to teach kids to orient themselves with the magna core that is directly inside in that position. It is also the position most master prefer when purifying their core."
"Purification?…" said Riz realizing he was asking dumb questions again, so he poorly acted like thinking about this was causing him headache which poor Fiona bought and ignored his lack of common sense at this point.
"Magna orb when manifested is turbid in nature and with growth and cultivation it becomes a purer from. We divide it as Black which is the manifestation color then it goes to brown, orange, yellow, silver and finally white core. There are three sub divisions based on the intensity of purification from 1 to 3. you are currently at black 2 which is very bad considering you even come from a rich family like Garison family, even though you come from a sub family you should still be better of then average people but your core level is bellow average at best if not utterly garbage."
Riz, "…"
Fiona sighed, "It doesn't matter, this might be a blessing in disguise. With this low of a level you can blend in the common people very easily. Which is good till we find Holy knight and extract the legacy out of yo…."
Riz in the meanwhile had been spacing out as he started feeling the magna core. He felt like it matched how a star reactor worked. The core was like a shell holding a star inside and the better your reactor the more powerfull of and efficient will be your star and it's energy extraction respectively. Though he felt like his comparison was good but the scale was very different and the core concept was different as the purity of magna core also helped in growth of the Aura capacity and strength.
His mind was already whirling and purifying the core and finding ways to use this core and improve it, this was like inventing to him, It kept his mind going and distracted from himself which he found sometimes too alone.
Before he knew it in moments his core had gone from black 2 to black 3. He then felt like he hit a wall and suddenly felt like a jolt and then metallic taste filled his mouth as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"You… What… did you do just now? Your core just went from black 2 to black 3 peak even impacting brown color."
"I was just trying to feel and understand the magna core as you said. Why is it so painful?"
Fiona was speechless for a considerable amount of time, She thought she had seen everything in her years of life but even to her this was something new. She had seen geniuses having achieved yellow cores at record ages but never in her life had she seen someone just go up levels like this in an instant.
"It's a wonder you haven't collapsed."
Riz, "…"
Fiona sighed again this time though the sigh felt a little different to Riz. Fiona in her thoughts was trying to justify what she saw but couldn't think so she just left it at that and said, "What you felt was was a blacklash from you Aura lines, they couldn't hold sudden increase in Aura pressure caused by your jump in level."
So they were like blood vessels Riz thought, what he cause was something akin to a sudden rise in blood pressure. He figured he will have to do this gradually in order to accommodate his Aura lines.
He suddenly felt like he needed to explore these Aura lines more so he sat down again started circulating his Aura in the core. He found that this works more like a motor, the more you circulate the faster the Aura flows.
He started exploring his Aura lines and how they were anatomically arranged and found that they closely followed blood vessels in pattern but unlike blood vessels they opened outside and the faster he circulated the faster these outer openings leaked his Aura out.
To him it felt like valves but it was considerably harder to control these as they were large in number and hence required a significant amount of attention. Although it was hard but it was only hard in relative terms but in absolute terms this was barely any effort for someone like Riz who would did thousand of calculations like these in his free time subconsciously.
In a short period of time he was able to take full control of his valves and he stopped all his Aura from leaking. Looking at this Fiona was again dumbstruck, although Riz's control was not perfect he managed to suppress his Aura to such levels and he was only at black 3 core. This was a skill that even orange core mages wouldn't be able to do to such a degree of perfection and considering that he had just now come to know about the Aura lines this was even more impressive. This would allow him to create more pressure in his aura lines and get them ready for the next level in no time. This would also mean in his current level he could even output more power than a brown 1 core or maybe even a brown 2 core but that was only a speculation at this point.
Given proper training he could be an absolute genius among geniuses. All her negative thoughts about being and Auralist to a black core were now shaken and she felt even excited to teach Trevor and see where this young man will go.
Just as she thought she had seen enough surprises for the day she was even more slumped with what happened next. Never in her long life had she imagined she woulds see such a thing.
When Riz was circulating his aura he was able to analyze the foreign energy near his heart. Although he had limited medical knowledge he had studied about transplantation technology which was a part of his basic medical studies. But even with his limited knowledge in the subject he was able to form a connection with the energy and not let it be rejected by his aura lines or core.
Doing this he suddenly found himself bombared with memories. At first he was unable to understand what he was seeing but as he got more and more of these memories he understood is was some kind of a skill related to aura.
This skill would allow him to strengthen his body and aura lines, with each added memory he felt like this was something he had always known but he also knew that this was not true. This was like understanding a book without reading it which was very fascinating to him.
To him skills were like applications while his magna core was the processor on which they ran. He tried running this new skill and ran his core at maximum speed and he could feel his body become stronger and the process was automatically purifying his core. This was without him actively trying to purify. But soon Riz felt drained his vision went black as he fell into a slumber.
Fiona on the other hand could feel that Riz had just broken through Brown 1 level and was steadily rising. In her bewilderment she had failed to notice initially that he had made a connection with the dragon's legacy but noticing that rendered her completely speechless. All she could do was watch this spectacle unfold.
"To think that such a monster existed in this world, how was he not noticed until now. He overdrew his core running a skill that was beyond his current level fell unconscious just now. To think that such a fool would also exist in the same person who could not even tell when he was over drawing on his own core."
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Riz woke up on the bed of his room in the residential building he was taking refuge in. The black cube was in his hand.
He immediately got up and tried to make the cube react to him again but was unable to do that.
Looks like I fell unconscious, I didn't notice I was overdrawing in my excitement. I guess I can't get back in until the body on the other side is ready to be woken up.
Riz threw himself back on the bad and held the black cube in his hand as he examined it closely trying to understand what it was but still couldn't muster a single clue, but he kept staring at the cube like it was some hypnotic object thinking about all the experiences he just had.
He still remembered the skill that the dragon's legacy taught him but there was no way of running it as he did not have any magna core of aura in his current body.
He then thought about what he should do there once he woke up, how would he run away from Mikael and his uncle.
This lead him to a realization that he was also on a run here from system. He had no idea what this system was but he knew he cannot stay here for too long otherwise the sacrifice of her mother will be for nothing.
The AI that was named mother, can he consider her as her parent? What did it feel like having parents for Trevor?
His thoughts were leading him to more and more questions he had no answers.
He steeled himself up and cleared his mind and thought of what he should do next. He remembered the Robot that left him here said that he should find a terminal he wants to find some answers. So he decided to take himself on a long journey to a terminal which would be on the edge of this massive city as far as he knew. He calculated that even if he was on the edge of the city it would still take him over a week to reach the real edge where he may find a terminal.
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