Seth Chapter 69

Cyrla stuck next to Seth as they walked onto the towers.

Only people with permits were allowed in the towers even though most common people could tour around the academy grounds, and Cyrla helped them get access even though Rebecca had her permit in her hands.

It was an easy climb after that with the wide stairs and each floor was massive with countless rooms. It seemed like different areas were divided for classes and the staff quarters alongside places like library, observatory and potion labs.

As they climbed, he saw murals made up on walls of mages fighting monsters, ranging from dragons to golems. There were also symbols carved alongside the railing which he had no idea of.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to ask a lot about them as Cyrla kept asking questions.

“So, Seth, where are you from?” She asked, her eyes peering through him.

“I am currently based in Sacria City,” he said, trying to avoid giving any information that might connect him to being an otherworldler. “I’m an adventurer there.”

“I have heard of Tunnels of Grithza. There was some disturbance there recently, right? I heard about it,” she said, then looked over at Rebecca who walked with an easy to notice forced smile on her face. “Are you in the same party as Rebecca?”

“No, but we are close and did quests together in the past.”

“That's so cool. Then she must have seen you use all sorts of skills using abyssal mana. You know, I have a very deep interest in different types of mana and the one you use is pretty rare.”

She kept talking like that, moving on to talk about different types of mana she had encountered ranging from the common elements to stuff like cosmic mana which he was hearing for the first time.

“Once I was in a dungeon in the Arkasian deserts, there were sand demons that used to use a sword made entirely of sand. If you ever venture there, you should be careful about it. Though, I'm curious how your abyssal mana would work against something like that.”

Her eyes glowed as she looked up at him like he was a lab rat. Seth almost shuddered before changing the topic.

“How did you sense my mana?” he asked. Since his control of mana had gotten better, he doubted he was leaking any of it, especially after Noah had put out all the residual waste from inside of him.

“Oh, it's because of a skill of mine. I can sense mana due to it and since I have seen abyssal mana once before, I was able to match it with that.” After saying that, she smiled. “Don't worry, I haven't peeked into your status since I have no appraisal skills. I do wonder how strong you are.”

“And why are you so interested in him, Cyrla?” Rebecca asked, glancing between the both of them.

“Because he's interesting to me and I would love to have him for my research for a day? Only if he permits though,” she replied as they paused in front of a door that led to the stairs of the next floor. “Why? Does that bother you, Rebecca?”

Rebecca struggled to answer as her mouth opened and closed, and frowned.

Before she could say anything, Seth said, “Well, I think it bothers me. We are here to meet Rebecca's master and I don't really have a spare day to spend with you.”

“Is that so?”

Cyrla looked downcast and Rebecca's face brightened as she nodded her head.

“Yes, and I think we should be on our way now. It takes a while to get to the third tower,” she said. “Let's catch up some other time, Cyrla.”

She quickly pulled his hand and started walking towards the stairs.

Cyrla sighed and looked at Seth with a polite nod, “Okay, let's meet up again since you will be in the campus. Seth, don't be a stranger. I treat people who assist me in my research well.”

She turned around after that and Seth didn't get to reply as he was dragged away. Once they had walked a certain distance, Rebecca stopped and took a sigh of relief.

“That was intense,”

“She does seem rather persistent, doesn’t she?” He said, looking around the corridor they were in. It was rather plain and seemed to be a path connecting the towers.

“Yes, until she wants something. She's one of my more eccentric classmates from my time in the academy, and no, I don't like her. We were friends simply because we had a lot of classes together. She always tried to put her nose in my matters.”

Seth nodded. He had classmates and colleagues like that. He briefly wondered how they were now, but shook his head to not get lost in his memories of Earth.

More often than not, they were painful since he was trapped here.

“So, what now?” he asked.

She thought for a bit, craning her neck over a window by the wall to look at the position of the sun. “I think we should go meet my master. It's still afternoon. He should be in his office if I'm not wrong. We can look over the academy later on.”

He nodded and Rebecca took the lead.

They didn't talk much as they moved to the third tower. Students, staff and what seemed like other professors gave them a lot of curious looks and once in a while, Rebecca would stop by to talk to a few of her old teachers.

Like that, they came in front of a door in the upper chambers of the third tower.

There was a symbol of a cane drawn on top of it and without wasting a moment, Rebecca knocked on top of it.

There was no response.

She knocked again, and yet again, the results were the same.

Looking up at her, Seth asked, “Is he not here?”

“He normally is in his office in the afternoon. Wait a minute. He might have used a spell to not hear any noises from outside. He sometimes does that.”

“Then, what are we going to do?” He asked and Rebecca looked around them before putting her hand on the doorknob. Then, she muttered an incantation.

The door opened the next second with a creaking sound.

“It’s a spell used to manually lock doors and could only be used by an incantation taught by my master. It was the first thing he taught any of his apprentices.”

She walked in ahead as the room revealed itself to the both of them.

Seth had to admit it was quite spacious with long bookshelves placed on either side of them and chalkboards occupying the centres with complex diagrams and structures drawn on them. They seemed like spells, but he couldn't be sure.

A stair went up in the back and there seemed to be another room there.

One more thing he noticed was that weapons like swords, spears and staffs filled the walls like showpieces, and there were also other artifacts like a raindrop shaped pendant that sat on one side of the room. He kept looking at them for a while.

The whole room smelled of dry wood mixed with something burning. It was also not tidy with dust everywhere.

As they walked, he picked up a few blank pages from the ground and put them on a desk before looking back at Rebecca who seemed to be searching for her master.

“So, where is—”

“Who has dared to walk right inside my office when I'm in the middle of my work?!”

A loud, gravelly voice echoed from the upper room.

Both of them heard footsteps before a man stepped down the stairs holding a book and looking pissed.

He wore black mage robes and was fairly short with blonde hair and a dirty face that might need a wash. If Seth didn't know better, he would have assumed he was a dwarf as the man was even shorter than Rebecca, being 5 foot.

White beard covered his face and he walked with a cane, the same one he had seen on the door before entering.

“Master!” Rebecca brightened as soon as he appeared in front of them and stepped forward for what Seth assumed to be a hug, but the man swung his cane, hitting her leg.

She winced, looking at him with a pained expression.

“Rebecca Heller, I have told you before. If you plan to visit me, you need to write a letter in advance. I was preparing an explosion spell to blast off the intruders.”

“Master, I did send you a letter,” she protested as another attack came towards her other leg that she blocked with a barrier. “I have sent you a lot of letters in the past few months.”

“I have been busy with stuff and haven't been looking at my letters. Since last year, I have gotten too many applications to take on apprentices, but none of the new candidates are what I'm looking for. They think they know too much, so I mostly ignore them.” he shook his head in a disappointed motion. “So, why are you here and who's this person besides you?”

His eyes fell on Seth and he took a step forward. Straightening his back, he introduced himself, “My name is Seth Williams, Rebecca's friend and the reason we are here.”

“My name is Kalrus Margrave. Professor here at the BlackStone Academy and Rebecca's mentor,” he said, his voice like a boom of thunder as he looked at Seth. The next second, his cane moved and Seth barely had time to jump out of its way. “An Agility class? Maybe a rogue? But you reacted faster than one would. So, probably an assassin.”

As he got back on his feet and put distance between himself and Kalrus, he asked, “What was that for?”

“Just a small test of mine to understand you better. I don't like to check the status of random people. It's rude!” He said. “If you had used magic to defend, I would have assumed you are some sort of a mage, but you jumped back just in time, so a fairly high levelled assassin.”

“I can be a warrior too.”

“I don't see a sword or some other long form weapons on you,” he shrugged before walking up to a desk and putting down the books he was holding in one hand.

“Sorry, he's kinda eccentric,” Rebecca whispered to him as Kalrus turned back.

“So, you said you are here for something,” he asked, looking at the both of them.

Seth glanced at Rebecca before taking out The Dark Blade from and putting it in front of Kalrus slowly. The old mage looked down at the blade, the runes engraved on it and the energy it seemed to be giving.

“It's called The Dark Blade. I wanted you to inspect it,” Seth said as Kalrus took the blade in his hand.

“It's a ceremonial blade used by cultists.”

“Yes, Rebecca said you have a mastery in weapon appraisal, so we came here. There were also a few other questions I have on certain topics and we thought only someone knowledgeable will be able to answer those. So, we came here.”

He waited for a reply as Kalrus inspected the blade. His eyes seemed to shine as he held it in both of his hands and squinted his eyes.

Seth guessed that he was using some sort of a skill, probably a higher level of the one he had.

Finally, after a few more seconds, the glow dimmed as he looked up at Seth.

“You have come to the right place,” he said, his eyes seeming to be burrowing through him.

Both of them smiled and Seth began to ask his questions, “So, can you—”

“Unfortunately, I'm not going to help you out with it.”

His face strained with that reply.