Chapter 71 71 The First Adventure

Chapter 71 Chapter 71 The First Adventure

With her back to him, her voice rang out impatiently;

"What's the matter newbie? You're waiting for an invitation or what? Let's go."

And thus, Nexus the alchemist/hunter/doctor surged forward excitedly, towards the new adventure that awaited him. Side by side, (but with Monica mostly in the lead), they left the cave-like bourse, and all the characters behind and poured out of the building into the afternoon sun.

The assaulting brightness outside struck Nexus' eyes in hot searing pain- very nearly blinding him.

"Damn it!"

He cursed as he pulled down his hat to protect his eyes from the sun's rays. He had been in the dark for too long. Beside him, Monica's lips sneered, releasing a long dry hiss. She was not impressed- at all.

"A little sunlight's throwing you off? You sure you in the right line of work?"

It was a trap.

She was baiting him, trying to provoke him to gauge his reaction.

Nexus' momentary frustration nearly forced him into complaining, or giving off excuses like an amateur. But he restrained himself, and tongued his way into a more proactive question;

"So what now? Where are we headed?"

She extended her hand towards him, and held out a roll of parchment to him. Nexus collected it, and unrolled the brown paper. It was a map. And circled at the bottom right corner, right on the outskirts, was what he could only hope was an open stretch of land.

"Follow me newbie," she said as she untied her horse from the open stable in front of the building; "We headed towards the green lush meadow south of here. . ."

--------------------

At that exact moment, back at the bourse, about fifty feet below ground level, the regal old man with the white beard was packing up for the day.

In the training area, the faint blue light had dulled to a fainter variant of itself. Since Nexus had left, it seemed the atmosphere of the cave had been subdued by his bright red eclipsing flames. The stalagmites overhead still hung, but even they suddenly appeared dull.

In silence, the white bearded old man packed up the papers littered on the two and a half foot table. Despite his apparent age, his arms moved with a surprising agility.

Bent over the table, his fingers curled around the slips of paper, and picked them up in shuffling noises. He went about his business mechanically. It had been a typical day at work. Nothing extraordinary had happened. He had suffered a couple of fools, but that had been it.

At the corner of his eye, a faint reddish-orange, pulsing, glowing light suddenly caught his gaze.

Frowning, he rose up straight to his full height. The optical anomaly was coming from the north-east end of the vast cave. It contrasted sharply with the dull hazy blue aura of the cave. More irritated than intrigued, he set down the papers in a neat pile on the table, and set course towards the light.

There was at least twenty feet of distance between him and the reddish orange light. His beige colored robes, a symbol of his simplicity, flowed behind him. Every one point two meters, his cane tapped on the rocky ground as his footsteps followed.

Halfway there, he under his drooping eye lids, and through narrowed eyes, he watched as red flames burned on defiantly.

The old man sighed when he remembered the cheeky youth from before.

"Ah, the arrogance of youth. So the young lad didn't quench his flames after all the theatrics?"

He began to wonder if he had been too hasty in awarding him the D-rank. Maybe he wasn't ready yet.

Cane scrapping against the earth, face scowling,and robe flapping, the old man arrived on the scene a few seconds later. From the unnatural pale blue light in the cave, it wasn't too difficult to see that the old man was not was pleased.

A dark thought streaked across his mind; what if he had packed up for the day without noticing the fire burning?

Sure,it was harmless at the moment. But leaving a budding flame overnight, in a deep basement was not a good idea.

He cursed again;

". . foolish boy thinks he's the first fire sage to put on a show. Next time I see him, I'll be sure to give him a piece of my–"

He didn't get to finish that thought.

On the ground, in front of him, was the residue of the rock which the Ni Yang boy had blasted with a blazing comet. It was still;

"Burning?" he gasped in genuine surprise.

Okay, maybe he hadn't given the boy credit enough. The lump of rock, which had been as tall as an adolescent child, and four times as thick, had been blasted to smithereens. No, not blasted. It had been melted- burned, and reduced to nothingness.

The remains of what was left of the inferno was just a jagged piece of rock. And even that was still on fire. The paltry flame was but a shadow of its once glorious self. But it was still burning- bright and red. It blazed rebelliously, retaining its pomp and pride, glowing with a reddish refulgence- giving off the faint impression of intelligence and awareness.

White beard's eyebrows arched as his eyes roved over the scene invesitgatively.

Unbelief was plastered all over his face. Mesmerized, he watched on for a moment. The reflection of the red flame danced in his irises. Then, his instincts took over.

Being a water mage himself, an intrinsic desire to demonstrate his superiority suddenly rippled through him in explosive blasts of inner energy. From the depths of his consciousness, it began to swell, rising like a towering wave, filling him with unnatural strength. As it saturated his thoughts, it took on the form of one word;

"QUENCH."

At his side, the old man's cane came crashing down to the earth. It clanged against the rock, bounced, and rolled away from him.

The atrophied muscles in his arms and legs pumped with girth. His cloudy gray eyes turned, blue- the color ice. His feet parted slightly as he assumed an assault stance. A rush of savagery, unlike never before coursed through his veins. Leaning into the rush, the old man surrendered to it.

He rode the wave pretty hard.

Like it some kind of ancient moonlight dance, white beard close his eyes, and his arms gracefully rose up from his sides. They sliced through the still air, arching till they clapped together over his white head. The tips of his fingers turned pacific blue.

Every single vein in his body screamed energetically as he executed the release.

His eyes flared open like a wild bull on steriods.

The sleeves of his robes struggled to keep up his powerful arms shot forward- together, parallel to each other, in the direction of the red flame. For a moment, there was no other sound- other than the deafening roar of tons of water bursting forth.

From the hollow of his hand, jets of water blasted out in powerful loud gusts. They gushed out with the intensity of a dam that had been let loose. All of that destructive water power headed towards the red flame, and bore down on it with a thundering blast.