A month later.
Chase had felt himself becoming stronger and stronger during this past month and he felt proud. In fact, it was the proudest he had ever been in his whole life.
"You've been doing well master." Tridius beamed. He was very happy with the progress of his master and it appeared that his training had paid off, causing Chase to become more confident in his abilities as a fighter and a student.
In fact, the training program was simple: The moment he woke up he would study his textbooks, then he would do a morning jog of about 10 kilometres and then came in the push up and sit-ups before engaging in shadow boxing and finally sparring with Tridius. Before he went to sleep, he would study again. The food wasn't an issue as Tridius always brought him something to eat and Chase had never questioned what he had been given since he somewhat trusted him now.
"I think it's time to confront the tower." Tridius voiced, stretching.
"Do I not need more training first?" Chase asked.
Tridius shook his head. "You're strong enough to attempt the first few stages and you'll get stronger as you advance." Tridius started walking and Chase followed. "Jump on my back, I'll take you there immediately." Chase obeyed before it slowly started raising itself up from the ground and in a matter of seconds, they were up and away.
They were going pretty fast and they reached their location in about ten minutes. They saw a tower going higher than the clouds and Tridius headed towards the top.
"The tower has a hundred floors which get harder the further down you are." Tridius explained. He doubted that his master would hear him at such high altitudes so he had decided to use telepathy instead.
"Shouldn't it start at the bottom so we can make our way up?" Chase telepathically asked.
"This tower doesn't work like that." With that, they arrived at the very top of the tower. Chase felt himself suffocating a bit but it was manageable. Upon reaching the top, a door inside the wall opened allowing the people outside to walk in.
"How are you going to get in?" Chase asked. "The door is pretty narrow."
"Don't worry, master." he replied reassuringly. Just then, smoke formed around Tridius and his unusually huge form turned into a cute pet like form: He became a cub wolf. He was as white as snow, his nose was black and his eyes were light blue but this time he had black pupils. His ears were light blue on the inside but white on the outside. His tail was a shade of blue and white and his paws were white. The part above the paws had ice fragments and his wings had disappeared into his body. The rest of his body was white with some shades of blue here and there and an ice stud could be found in his left ear.
"Cute." Chase said Tridius jumped on his master's shoulder. Tridius hated this form because he knew that he would be called cute. He was meant to be scary and fierce looking, not cute!
"Alright master, enough of that, let's go inside." Tridius said, ignoring his master's attempt to tease him. Chase wearily walked inside the room and jolted a bit from the lights suddenly turning on before taking in his surroundings.
The room was quite spacious but there was nothing particular about it, just empty: the walls were white washed with holes all around the room. Upon stepping inside it, the door automatically closed behind them and it wouldn't open again.
Suddenly, an arrow flew out of a part of the wall and headed straight for Chase. Chase instinctively dodged but he knew that he wouldn't be lucky the second time. A sound was heard a couple of metres and the boy looked straight to realise that a door had opened for them.
"Be careful master, the door wouldn't just open to let you go through easily." Tridius warned. Chase nodded and started walking towards the door slowly. An arrow sprung up on him again and this time he was ready for it and perfectly dodged it but upon the arrow touching the floor, it had slightly melted the ground where it had landed but the wall closed up in an instant.
"Poisonous arrows?" Chase thought to himself as he anticipated the next arrow and swiftly dodged it. The further inside he went, the number of arrows multiplied and it became harder to dodge. The exit was at least thirty metres away and it was literally raining arrows. At some point, the arrows slowly started showing new features: Some of them had fire on the tip whilst others had ice or lightning on them and some were travelling very fast because of the wind element that they were attributed.
20 metres left, but Chase felt like it was more than that as the number of arrows flying increased once more.
"Use the elements that you learnt during the past month master." Tridius advised. Chase was still dodging but he had processed Tridius' instruction and waited for an opening. But, there was none.
The arrows were coming so fast that it was not possible to cast an element. A couple of arrows would have allowed him to but there was too much and their speed kept increasing. Chase felt sweat pouring out of him as he dodged the multitudes of arrows approaching him, what to do now? he questioned himself but even his thinking was hazy.
But, the room suddenly turned cold and nothing moved. Chase wondered what had happened but Tridius gave him an explanation.
"I temporarily froze the room." He stated. "You were going to keep on dodging until you wore yourself out so, I had to step in."
"Thanks." Chase gratefully transmitted. "I should have trained more on speed and stamina." He reflected.
"Don't worry about it master, " Tridius said, "You're fine."
"If you say so." Chase didn't know why but he trusted this random companion of his even though they had just met a month ago.
"But, " Tridius continued, "This is the only time I will be helping you master, you are on your own now."
Chase nodded and walked towards the door, taking the stairs leading down to the next stage.
*****
Rumours spread fast and a month after Chase's disappearance, everyone knew who was involved. Nobody cared about him, it was only for the gossip.
"I heard that Lucas was involved in his disappearance." A girl told her friends as they sat at a table inside the cafeteria.
"What did you expect?" Another girl asked. "If it's Chase, Lucas is definitely involved." Everyone around the table agreed and in about ten seconds, he was forgotten.
"I heard that they beat him pretty badly." A group of boys inside a classroom talked amongst themselves.
"I saw Lucas and his friends when I was coming back from your birthday party during the storm, and they seemed frightened." Another boy commented.
"Tell us more." Someone else said. But before he could continue, Lucas walked by, looking quite pissed off, causing the group to shut up.
They all watched him walk by and made sure that he was out of earshot before resuming their conversation.
"So, I was heading home straight after your party, " The boy finally spoke up, "Then I came across them but they looked quite lifeless and there were slight traces of blood on their clothes and shoes but as soon as I saw them I hid."
"Are you some kind of coward?"
"Yes I am."
"Good to know." Was the reply he heard. The boys quickly moved on from their conversation about Chase and switched topics
Meanwhile, Lucas was heading to the principal's office since he was called there. He didn't want to go but he kind of had to. Finally he arrived and went inside the office without knocking before taking a seat untold as if he owned the place.
Maria sighed and looked at him straight in the eye. "Tell me what you did to Chase. Don't you dare lie to me since I already know."
"So if you know, why am I here?" Lucas rudely asked.
"I just wanted to hear it directly from you."
"Well I'm not saying anything."
"So I guess you know what happens now?" Maria asked as she classified a bunch of folders on her desk. "Are you going to reveal who was with you?"
As much as he wanted to snake, he decided to say silent, awaiting for the principal's verdict.
"You're excluded for 6 months." She stated. "If you don't want permanent exclusion, you better fess up or I will sell you off to the police for attempted murder."
Lucas knew that he didn't kill Chase but he found it pointless to argue and just accepted his fate. Maria could have handed him to the police but Chase was possibly still alive and they didn't plan on killing him but, even if he went to the police, he would be released quite quickly but the amount that his family would have to pay would be huge. Even though everyone was quite well off, they didn't want to waste more money than necessary but he knew that Maria would pull some strings, possibly giving him life in prison.
Lucas stood up and walked out, slamming the door behind him as he left.
Maria scoffed.
"What a rude boy."