|Of the countless mysteries on our planet, the shards of origin are something that has eluded everyone, even their holders; who are granted unimaginable powers through the shards. Powers I believe can stand against the gods themselves. And I propose that these shards weren't made by the gods as these shards are believed to possess two affinities that counter each other. It is not known when these shards had first appeared, but they were cause for the start of the new era; an ear where there are no wars between the different races. Instead, they now stand against the abominations have invaded our planet...which the shards had a played a major role in happening. You see, this universe we live in follows the law of equivalent exchange...which balances the powers inside it...But the shards of origin don't follow this law; which I believe had made the universe act to destroy whoever hold them; and what is better than tearing the reality apart and sending vicious abominations inside it to destroy everyone in it?
Call me a madman, but this is what I believe, and I may not see the light of the day tomorrow, but I want to spread this theory all over the known world.
*Year 2347. A paper written by Dr. Simon Sauron about the shards of origin.*
********
The desert was barren with tall sand dunes and no creature in sight, but this was all illusion and one would only see other creatures after going out of the invisible dome around the gate...at least that's what Masato had learned from Miss Cordelia despite Luna's protest which was ignored by both of them.
Masato had already explained what he had done before to Luna with Miss Cordelia backing him up.
"A soul weapon? That's a soul weapon? Do you two think that I'm some sort of gullible fool or what?"
Of course, Luna had vehemently refused their claims in disbelief. But Masato knew that anyone in her place would definitely treat their claims similarly.
Even Masato felt absurd after going through what he had said to her while showing his sword to her; 'So this is a soul weapon, but I'm not an awakened.'
A soul weapon was something that every awakened had but awakened were very few and even then Masato's sword was of a very high rank, albeit it had dropped in rank after he had gotten it from his dad; which was an anomaly in itself since soul weapons couldn't be used by a mundane human in the first place...
Thankfully Luna believed them after she learned about where the soul weapon had come from...but the look she gave to Masato after that had made him uncomfortable...
"What? So you're Sir Amon's son?!" Luna had said with wide eyes.
"Yep, do you believe me now?" Masato said in exasperation.
Of course, Cordelia had to assure her again and then Masato had finally exited the 'dome' after saying his goodbyes to Miss Cordelia and the senior Luna, who turned out to be the personal disciple of miss Cordelia...
******
The desert heat was unbearable, and even so with the presence of two suns in this strange dimension...but Masato was already used to such heat as the Nylmar empire was a place where such terrible heat was quite common. And there were only speculations about that as it wasn't scientifically possible for the empire, which was close to the north to have such high temperature.
Masato was some distance away from the gate, which had magically vanished as soon as he had come 'outside', and he hadn't seen a soul till now, but he stayed vigilant nonetheless.
'Expect the unexpected' Masato said in his mind.
And his vigilance paid off as he could hear something far towards the north-east, and he instinctively knew that it was coming towards him....even though he had no idea what was even coming.
Looking around Masato spotted a tall sand dune left to him, and he carefully walked to its.
Then he beamed a holobinocular from his spatial card, and peered at the thing that was moving towards him...He could see the sand being dispersed, but he didn't spot anything else...and that thing was really moving towards him as if it could sense where he was.
Masato guessed that it was some kind of underground creature, which could sense tremors from the surface. However, Masato was kilometers away from it, and it still had sensed him...and since he was in a desert; there was only one creature that may be chasing after him...
A sand worm...a freaking sand worm that he had seen in movies from old era...
If he was correct and the thing chasing him was a sand worm then he had no way to kill it...as a sand worm could reach up to a half a kilometer in length and had sand affinity which made them a pain to deal in deserts, and guess what? You could only find them in deserts...
"Damn it!" Masato cursed after reaching the conclusion...
But why were the people from the academy sending such monsters to the first years? Well, the simple answer was they were heartless and wanted them dead, but that would be wrong as they were no ordinary first years, and sand worm were so common that people had included them in webtoons, novels and countless movies.
Even Masato had a chance to deal with them if he used trickery but facing the sand worm directly?
That wasn't possible unless he could fly high in the sky and bombard it with spells...maybe Elicia could do that with her gravity manipulation, but even he knew that flying with time affinity wasn't possible, heck she could even flatten the worm like pancake at higher levels of mastery...
While Masato was thinking of ways to deal with sand worm, the bastard had already crossed a kilometer and there was only some distance between it and Masato...
However, Masato wasn't worried though as he had something that could tilt the odds in his favor; he beamed 'flash' , and rode upon it and moved north-west, while constantly looking back, and sure enough he had lost sight of sand worm, which hadn't been able to sense him since he was hovering above the ground while moving in a confusing pattern instead of straight line.
Masato sighed in relief, but suddenly remembered something; "The hill!"
In his haste Masato had just chosen a direction where the sand worm had to chase him in a straight line and forgot about the hill, which was in the north...and he could feel that the sand worm was still around the place he had come from...
"Shit! Now I either deal with the worm or take a detour and go around the worm towards the hill."
he thought with slight anger. He already had to deal with a sand worm even before reaching the hill, where he was supposed to reach, and he didn't even know what awaited him there.
Masato then looked at the direction where the worm was, and then he looked at the faraway hill.
Then he made up his mind.
"What use there is in running, and reaching there if this was the purpose of the test? I'll probably fail it and be sent to the artificers to be a mana battery...plus, miss Cordelia had said that someone was overlooking this dimension and there would be no threat to my life...'' Masato thought with slight worry, but he had to do this for his goal anyway...
Masato suddenly recalled what his dad had said to him years ago...
'Remember Masato, when trouble finds you, and you have the choice to run away; simply do so.'
"Yeah, I'll just run away if shit hits the fan." Masato said with a chuckle and moved towards the sand worm.
*******
Meanwhile, in a mansion at the center of the desert, surrounded by sandstorm masking it from everyone.
In one particular room there were three people lounging around and in front of them were multiple holo-displays showing various groups of students either engaging with sandworm, while some were running away from it in foot while some were flying away using various artifacts. Some had wings of light behind their back, while some even had jet packs on their backs.
It may seem easy for the people flying away, but they were getting shot down by a bird that appeared to be a vulture but with a rotten head, and it had long beak which was ebony with large jet black wings. These birds were sending out blades of sands from their wings to the to people who were trying to fly away from the sand worm.
But these three had their attention on one particular display which showed a Grey haired boy moving towards a sand worm while conjuring bolts after bolts, and keeping them in a quiver which was strapped to his right waist.
"See? I told you he's like his dad. Now, cough it up." A woman who was wearing pretty revealing clothes befitting in a desert said with a smirk to others in the room.
"Hah...thought he would back down...what shitty luck. Here; you win." another person said who had a goatee and wearing a formal black suit as if he was on a funeral while handing a red crystal to the woman.
"Well, a loss is a loss. Please take this, miss." The third guy was the weirdest one as he was wearing a fur coat over thick robes with mufflers in his ears. He also handed a red crystal to the woman.
These three were the professors of the sunglade academy and no student would think that they were currently betting on the students while they were going through life-threatening situations.
"Haha, Thanks to you two; I think we should do this often." the woman said with a sly smile.
"Nope, never gonna bet with a cheat like you again." The suited man said with a snort.
"Aww...Didn't I tell you I won't use [clairvoyance]? Is my promise nothing to you?" The woman quipped while wiping away non-existing tears.
"Trust you? Hah! I bet against you because of this furball, not because I trust you, Malenia. " The suited man said while sneering.
"Hmph! You're no fun Tom." Malenia then started to watch the holo-displays again where Masato was moving towards the sand worm.
"So, do you guys think he can beat the sand worm?" The fur coat guy said to the others.
"Nope. He can't do it alone, he needs help from Elicia and maybe Hellen as well." Tom said while looking at another display where two girls were moving through the same hill that Masato was.
The view then changed, and showed that the sand worm was right in the middle between Masato and Elicia. There was another display that showed the map of the desert;
In the center was the mansion these three guys were in and the hill the students were supposed to reach was at the north of it. With the students moving in from all the direction of the hill, placing the hill at the center.
Elicia and Hellen were at the western direction while Masato was at north-western direction.