Zheng said, "So, we will be teleported to the place."
The bison bellowed; it couldn't stand Zheng anymore. So it walked to a corner of the cabin and laid down.
Zheng asked, "Why is it so mean?"
The emperor's countenance became serious.
"Life happened to it," he said, waving dismissively.
The prince understood the cue, and he didn't probe further for answers. He followed his father, and they approached the beast.
"Place both hands on the bison," Emperor Gerald said, placing his hands on the bison's trunk.
The prince did as instructed.
The Emperor said, "Now close your eyes. Do not open your eyes until you feel the ground rematerialize under your feet. Disobey at your own risk."
The emperor and the prince closed their eyes. The emperor said to the beast,
"We are ready."
The beast closed its eyes. The beast gradually shimmered away from this reality, leaving the royalties holding out their hands in thin air.
At some unknown place, the dream bison and two royalties materialised out of thin air. The men stood beside the bovine. It was just the royalties' essences that had been transported to this place, but they felt as real as they could be.
"It is just our essences that have been transported to this place," Emperor Gerald informed Zheng. "Any form of physical pain you incur here will manifest as a headache in your real body that is still in the cave.
Zheng was dismayed by the information. He got a sense of what this 'study' session was. He asked,
"Are we doing combat with a mage?"
Emperor Gerald replied, "Well, you are in Mana Land. So, you can say anything here is a mage."
Zheng became confused and anxious.
"What do you mean by Mana Land," he asked, taking a good look at the foreign environment.
The visitors were on a grassy plain that stretched for heaven knows how many miles. On what Zheng presumed to be the east side of this place was a lush rain forest that was more than a hundred metres from them. He could see the sides of the forest, which faded into the grassy plain.
The standout feature of this place was that there was no sun in the sky. The sky was violet in colour, with patches of aurora borealis dancing on it.
The emperor followed his son's gaze at the sky. He said,
"It is very beautiful. This is the power of magic."
Gesturing at the aurora borealis, Zheng said, "We call it phantom lights, but Muller says it's the aurora borealis."
"He said that it was a result of supercharged particles from the sun colliding with the atmosphere," he concluded in a disapproving manner.
To the prince's dismay, Emperor Gerald supported Muller, saying, "He is right."
Zheng said, "Oh, please, stop, dad. Muller claims to have been transmigrated into this world. He says a lot of bullsh*t."
Emperor Gerald wanted to say something, but the bovine's disapproving bellow stopped him. So he sighed and apologised to the bison. He looked at Zheng and said,
"I have limited time in here. The bovine can only keep one person in this place with its current power level. So it is going to be your guardian in here after I am gone."
The emperor paused for two seconds to let his words digest before he continued,
"We aren't mages, innate mages to be precise. We have been granted light-mage status due to a bloodline blessing from a Lord sorcerer."
The emperor and his four children were progeny of the Gerald bloodline. The emperor adopted Gerald as his title to create history for himself.
In the history of the legends of Camelot, Emperor Gerald Lucas was the founder of Camelot and the greatest emperor of Camelot. It wasn't just because of his benevolent service to his kingdom but because he fought to his last breath to defend Camelot from being trampled by a great earth beast, a red dragon.
The reign of Emperor Gerald Lucas ended 4,000 years ago.
The legends accurately noted that a good number of kingdoms and nations in the era of Emperor Gerald Lucas were trampled by the might of the beast. The emperor evacuated every citizen of Camelot and dispersed them in different directions that didn't lie in the path of the incoming beast. Then he gathered all his magical battle artefacts and stood outside the western walls of Mainland Camelot, waiting for the beast. The beast arrived, and an unfathomable battle ensued between it and the man. Unfortunately, the beast was relatively immune to magic, and it overcame the emperor and killed him. The emperor didn't die right away. He lived for a while to see the arrival of his ally, Lord-mage Spin-all Maximus.
After a while of battle, Maximus defeated the dragon, but great earth beasts don't die easily because of their mana affinity. The beast's soul lingered and wanted to escape. If left to be, the soul would still cause physical damage because its soul was as good as a physical body. Maximus cast a spell that bound the dragon's soul to Emperor Gerald Lucas, which in turn brought him back to life. Also giving him light-mage abilities that were intended to give him domination over the beast.
The spell made the dragon's soul a slave to the emperor's bloodline. Also, since the soul couldn't transcend, its existence would assure the existence of at least a progeny of the Gerald bloodline.
Back to normal time.
Emperor Gerald asked Zheng,
"Tell me the types of mages in existence."
Zheng rolled his eyes in annoyance. He hated being schooled like a toddler. He answered,
"There are lord mages, elemental mages, light-mages, and dark mages."
Mages were rare.
The Lord mages were the rarest kind of mages in existence. Most of them weren't powerful enough to be revered. This was because their bodies couldn't store enough mana; hence, they were nearly drained of stamina and mana after casting a simple spell. They were handy, but in some cases, they were almost useless. These types of mages could cast any type of spell, making the impossible possible. Another boon was that any lord mage who figured out a way past the mana problem was very powerful. No one could match them, not even a dark mage.
The elemental mages were mages who could cast spells that manipulated air, water, earth, fire, gravity, and magnetism. An elemental mage could only master two elements at a time. There were a bunch of them in existence. They were the less rare group of mage.