CHAPTER – 6

RED SPIDER LILIES

It has been almost more than a year since I met mother and father and started living a peaceful and happy loving life here with them. Learning magic and all kinds of fighting combat techniques from them.

I have finally completed my single sword swordsmanship training and dual wielding under the guidance of the one titled true hero of this world, Caroline, my mother.

“Yeah.” I responded to my mother, in the training grounds.

“Alicia you have completed and learned all the things I had to teach you to. And now,”

“Yes.”

“But now it’s time to put those things to use….”

“Yes.”

“So…”

“So again…”

“We are going to have you give a test. And you are only allowed to leave when you pass in it otherwise you will have to learn everything from basics again.”

“What…” A test even in a fantasy world. What kind of torture is this and if I fail it’s like being punished to a summer revision-class session for aeons.

It does seem a good offer that I can live here a bit longer, but I need to go outside and see the world for myself. And I don’t want to fail and make my hard work both I and mother had put in and everything look meaningless. I want to pass with flying colours if possible to make them feel proud and me happy.

“So, what and when is the test gonna be?” I asked a bit terrified.

Knowing mother, she could ask me something terrible or make me fight her one – one. Usually if we start battling we never could reach a decisive result to announce one winner. But I had to always keep myself on toes and hyper active when fighting against mother, but to me she always occurred to be a natural.

Her flawless and elegant fighting style always captures my heart and I always keep on looking how she moves during her fight, her small movements, quick attacks, massive mid-battle hits and final decisive blows.

Within time I wanted to be so much like mother that I adapted to her fighting style, whose own fighting style is the combination of best of all sword techniques she has learned and her own experience on the battlefield.

“For, that let’s head to one of the floors.” Mother winked at me. She looked excited which in turn made me doubly super-excited. I knew something awesome was going to happen. Mother and father never go to other floors to fight monsters. Actually they never fight unless training us.

But here we were on floor 95 – a marshy plain area. And the monster in front of us was a horde of titan appearance and a four handed ‘Quadarms’. Maybe it sensed our presence and shot a bloodshot four eyes towards us.

But I was waiting for mother’s instruction. Because both of us knew even if it they were a strong bunch of monster, it was neither a match for both of us.

“Watch me, carefully Alicia.” Saying this mother closed her eyes and for a second concentrated.

I used my analysis skill, my ability to observe soul core and its subtle changes and the magic energy flowing inside mother’s body and in that of the immediate surroundings.

I had my eyes everywhere. I had to learn fast and become strong, so I needed to observe carefully and be a good listener. And most important of all practice endlessly to my heart’s content. To be honest it felt so fulfilling, I had never been so passionate about doing things eagerly, because then I had nothing to do with the future. I found it quite bleak and to be utterly dark for me.

But now there was a string of shining light and to hold on tight to it every day I have to wrap it around my hand, tighter and tighter unless I reach my goal. Being pulled closer to the bright ideal side of your dreams is something I could have never hoped to achieve in my previous life but now when I have mother by my side, I think everything becomes possible for me.

I won’t stop… I have come this far so I cannot burnout at this point of time.

I wanted to know more, anything and everything that would help me to achieve whatever I wanted to be in this world.

And then, it finally started happening.

Magical energy outputs from her magic veins were bursting with overflowing amounts of magic power. Then there was like a sudden bombing inside her soul core with ever-increasing increment of light from it. She was constantly burning large amounts of magical powers and life force and focusing it all on her sword.

She opened her eyes, her body covered in a golden light aura she raised her swords and taking a new kind of stance like forming the two sharp blades of a mixer grinder.

“Dual Wielding. Star Drive. Fourth Form Platinum Jaguar. Phantom Spirit unleashed.”

In the next instant the marshy plains, suddenly transformed into an evergreen dense jungle, with lights of small canopies over the lush green tall grass which grew out of nowhere. In front of my eyes several bright star like lights appeared and joining lines to each other by connecting the dots, a jaguar sprung into life, with a much larger body than the already gigantic titan moving towards to attack us. It led out a deafening unbelievable roar and running on the ground it leapt on the titans and tore each of their bodies into half in a single bite.

After that everything reverted back to normal, but the only difference was that those level 7000 titans was defeated in a single sword strike, no by a jaguar or by….

I had never seen a sword technique until now this powerful to defeat the enemy in a single blow.

I really don’t know what exactly it is but mother is always awesome because she always has some new kind of technique to show me.

We returned back to our training grounds but all this time I have been thinking how to use or replicate the same move after using analysis skill on it.

But I was specifically waiting for mother’s instruction on what to do next. And also my concerns regarding the test which I still did not get it.

“Alicia, I am sure this was your first hand experience with it. So tell me what do you feel about it? ”

“It was totally awesome and that star jaguar appeared out of nowhere and killed those monsters in an instant. I want to learn it too… teach me how to do it too?” I knew I had a twinkling star in between my eyes, those were meant to show my eagerness to learn.

“Now that I expected you to say. This is what we call Aural Arts. The most supreme and powerful combat technique in the entire world.”

“Supreme and powerful in the entire world…” I gasped in excitement.

Now I wanted to learn this technique even more.

“As for your test it is to learn this Aural Arts all on your own.”

“On my own…” I shouted in surprise. This was the first thing mother ever told me to do on my own.

“Yes, you can take all your time you want, but you have to create the most powerful aural art for yourself that you can use in combat. The next time we train it will be when you complete this task. That’s all for today.”

“But… but… I wanted to learn it from you…everything.”

“It’s alright because I know you will make a totally new kind of aural art that would surpass mine. So I will be waiting.” Mother gently stroked me on my head and then finally left.

I was still speechless.

How I am going to do something on my own. I might be good at creating new magic spells because it is easier to imagine a phenomenon and ask for it to happen. But creating a fighting technique all on my own. If it is the strongest, then shouldn’t mother especially teach me this, if that’s the case.

I think I later understood why. When I started collecting information on this Aural Arts technique.

It is not specifically designed just for swords but all kind of fighting techniques. More importantly it’s a technique designed by god’s themselves to control the flow of life energy inside the body and in the outside world that brings phenomenal changes that is desired by the user’s mind into reality. More like forming a meta-physical territorial plane of your own imagination…

It is like creating your own world domain of imagination and trapping the target inside it. Once this new field phenomenon takes place, the user’s overall ability is tremendously magnified and any attack deployed becomes a guaranteed hit.

Manifesting an aural art requires vast amounts of magic power, life force, high mental fortitude and a clear peaceful mind. Hence this also makes it the most difficult fighting ability to master. There are very few who can teach it, even fewer who learns it on their own and still even fewer who manifests it accidentally based on a crisis or an emergency desire.

The longer you train in it the better and more refined this combat art gets.

So the requirements are to construct a real tangible environment that I want and then use it to my advantage to defeat an enemy. Mother used a phantom beast constellation which matches with her own unique ability – Phantom Materialisation.

The thing is I really don’t know what I can imagine when I don’t know what I want it to be like. I didn’t want to rush things so I have to regret it later on. Mother did tell me to take any amount of time I wanted…

But seeing mom, perform it once I wanted to do it too, so I was getting impatient at the same time. Quite contradictory, so I started hitting the library and tried to learn more about this thing and its other users. I asked father and he too has one of his own. But he refused to show me saying that mother has instructed not to. It was a test after all so cheating is not allowed.

Well, for now I decided to ‘observe’.

“Keep a look at your surrounding and try to ponder deep in your heart. You will find your answer.” Quite a clichéd and ambiguous statement for a realist like father. But mother did tell me that people of this world do like these kind of dramatic dialogues because Gods too used it to sway the hearts of people and gain popularity.

I wondered if they were having an idol contest for fans before war that they needed to get people’s attention so badly.

Well that hint only got me fired up and I started to investigate things even deeper with much more interest and zeal.

I tried to look inside things, broke things using my [DISMANTLE] spell and later put everything back to its original using my [EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE] unique ability.

Anything I went around I dismantled it, I started breaking all kinds of magic stones kept in the alchemy lab, breaking all kinds of tools and weaponry in the storeroom and did not even left the antique. There was no problem in breaking stuff around if I could just use equivalent exchange to fix it back.

Though this did lead to accidents like I once allowed a poisonous gas to release from a ‘do not touch’ vial, or father accidentally pressed a fragile piece of actively cut explosive stone tightly, which later led him being bed-ridden for a week. Though I healed him with my healing magic but since I have been screwing around with his library tower, he has got mental scars and do not want to go their again until I had given my test and he had already decided to stay until then locked up in his room.

Well, it’s not a pleasant feeling to have a live-bomb blast accident in your hand and then you are asked again to cross a road filled with landmines. But I am sure he will get around it soon….if possible a little more than sooner.

So, I have now got all the freedom in the library now, when suddenly the magic circuit inside an artifact fissioned into two and blew apart the right top half of the tower.

Now, that’s something I can’t fix if nothing is left there to fix…

***

UNKNOWN FOREST AREA

“This is not working at all. I have been at it for more than a month but I couldn’t find anything of use.”

I raised both of my arms which had gotten tired of flipping thorough pages and stripping off of things.

“What a waste?” I sighed, as I kept on walking in unchartered forest land. I had never been into this area.

It’s not like I think I should waste time exploring around or tinkering with my free time, but the thing is … I am kind of lost, here.

Thanks to my almighty divine gift of getting lost, and forgetting the way back home. So I helplessly kept on walking, and walking without food and water over the tough road covered on both side by a gateway formation of trees.

I was too embarrassed to call someone for help and say that I got lost and couldn’t find my way back in my own house. I cannot falter here. If I can’t even do this on my own how I am going to search for Athena or save the world.

I kept on moving my legs which eventually got bored too, just then I saw the road ending near a huge wall of bushes and a small white steel gate decorated with beautiful flowers over it was open. I quietly walked in and surprisingly I found mother there, looking down on earth.

No, I think more appropriately she was looking at some stone tablets… grave stones, was someone buried there. Was it mother’s relative, a friend or comrade.

I quietly walked in and stood beside mother, who had a sad expression her face. But I could tell that she had already moved past that crying stage or feeling sorry for those who lost their lives and wondering why we were the only ones who were left behind.

She had made up with the situation and I think she was just reminiscing about the happy past she had spent together with them.

“So you found this place Alicia…” Mother’s voice had deepened somehow, maybe she was overwhelmed with her own emotions.

Maybe it’s better to not tell her that I stumbled here since, I am lost. Well I think she has figured out that already, when she smiled at me at the same time. It’s scary to know that she can predict what I am doing at any given time.

I gently held her hand which was warm even with how freezing cold and windy it was here than other other places in the mansion. Mother held my hands tightly back, as though she found a driftwood in the sea.

I ducked a little to see the names engraved on the grey stones – Nafanya, Maltina Efil, Leon Amos …..

And several other names… as I started thinking more about what these meant; my eyes stopped at another unbending sight.

Near the foot of some of the stones several beautiful red flowers growing. I had never seen such gorgeous flowers that smelled so pleasant. As I tried to knell lower to smell it more up close and take a closer look at its soft delicate thin petals and long anthers… mother was watching me like a child playing in a garden.

“Those are called Red Spider Lilies. Aren’t they beautiful! For them to grow here its quite unexpected…”

“Well you see in this world these flowers are very rare and growing them is very difficult. Just a naturally occurring bunch of these to be able to see, we should consider ourselves lucky.”

“So they are that special, should I pick some and take back home.”

“No, I think you should avoid doing that, at least when they are growing near a grave.”

“Why is that?” I got intrigued and curiosity got a hold of me.

“It’s related to the people’s belief here that these are flowers of death and helps the souls of the dead to pass on and tell those who are alive that all their last wishes had been fulfilled. Well I like to call them last goodbyes flower.”

“Flowers that fulfill wishes…” I kept on staring at them.

In this world almost all of my previous wishes were fulfilled and now it’s my turn to fulfill the wishes of those who love me. I wonder whether my parents in my previous life had any last wish. Did their wishes come through… there is no way for me to know now is there; so it’s not worth dwelling into the past.

But I think I understand, much better now, seeing mom spend so much time here quietly looking and watching the memories they might have spent with them together. People with fulfilling lives, live for an eternity in memory of others. People who are strong and courageous enough to do what they want to do, always shines brighter than others. And even if their souls are somewhere else, if there is someone who remembers them, they can come back in any form.

“Alicia, it’s time to go.”

“Yes, I think I asked Flora to make pudding. She would be almost done with it by now.”

“Well, then we shouldn’t make her wait any longer. Did you come up with any thought and is there any progress you made with your learning for the test.”

I for some time stared at the blank in the air and then smiled back at mother.

“I think I do have an idea now that is worth-trying for…”

***

///////////////////// INFORMATION BROCHURE ///////////////////////

Ø Nafanya – goddess of fighting spirit

-Offered her life to protect Caroline from an evil god

Ø Maltina Efil – high elf

– Companion of Caroline while adventuring

– alias Mal

Ø Leon Amos – demi-human

– Subordinate and companion of Zylon

– Died during the Great War

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

FLOOR – 95

We were back on the same floor where mother showed me her aural arts.

I was finally prepared for the test. It took me another month to come up with this and I think it was worth the time I had put in it.

We decided to first use it without any target and see its natural effect in the area. We needed to measure whether it was successfully developed or not. A slight mistake in controlling magical power can cause the whole territory to demolish and collapse on itself which can cause harm to the user. So mother was here to prevent such an accident.

She had already prepared several of those stones that are able to restrict my powers after father overworked himself for another two weeks and somehow managed to create them. To be working like a black company employee, and worked to the bones by mother was not a firsthand experience for him. So everything could be said that, it’s all in the good.

Producing them is really a big hassle and the process needs are humongous amounts of refined ores, magic of the alchemist in huge amounts and top-notch precision in forming the internal structure of the crystal.

By far what I understand, these Teneo stones have the ability to convert magic energy into light form and then they infinitely reflect themselves inside the crystal structure which later makes it glow and is able to store it safely. This concept reminded me of the total internal reflection phenomenon we used to study in a diamond.

But now, I needed more than ever to focus on myself on what I really wanted to do in this new life and with the power I have developed over time.

That’s right, aural arts are not just elementary combat skills – but the mettle which I hold on to and the resolve with which I have been fighting in the battle.

I concentrated on my magic aura and the deep magic concentration seated in the black mist that covered my soul core, at least that’s what mother told me when I learnt how to look at my own soul core. At first I found it quite confusing because I had never seen or read anywhere of a soul core you cannot see, but I still feel an incredible amount of energy when I try to reach deeper into this black empty mist in my consciousness.

My eyes glowed and my body covered in a mixture of dark and light aura, magic with overwhelming pressure radiated out from my body.

I expanded my consciousness around me, reaching further and further to cover as much area as I can and bring all the possibilities to life.

The future I want to see – the future I want to carve out with my own hands and the future I want to live in….

I muttered this in my head as if I were giving myself a suggestion, and conveyed the image I had developed in my mind as two scabbards materialized near my waist, I pulled out my two swords from them and poured all my life force I could muster into my swords to bring out the possibility I wanted to see into the present reality.

***

CAROLINE ASCALON ASHBORN

For the purpose of test, I brought Alicia back to floor 95.

She took her position in the middle of the floor and there were no other monsters on this floor because I had already wiped them all out.

I had been waiting for a long time to see what Alicia could come up with her aural arts, the grand-daughter of my master, one whose own aural arts at full strength had the potential to destroy worlds at her full power. Even when she taught me, I had to give the same test of making my own aural arts style.

The aural arts she displayed was not only just an attack, but it was like creating life itself, even today her true prowess lies in a different plane where I can never as a mortal hope to reach. But Alicia, who has a totally new power in her grasp, who doesn’t bother herself with the limits but always looks ahead and tries to find solutions instead of looking at the problem and complaining, only she can probably do it.

As her teacher and a student of my own teacher, that would make both of us proud.

“Show me, Alicia, the ultimate aural arts you developed for yourself, the fruits of your hard work and your resolve to manifest your dreams into reality.” I clutched my hands tightly in anticipation as it began.

As the dual blades of White & Black materialized, the air started vibrating in the environment just by their presence. They were truly the ultimate weapons, a weapon which surpassed all logic and can even defy the authority of Gods.

The force field I had put in the area was already destroyed by the magical aura Alicia was radiating unknowingly. It might be even ten times stronger of what I already showed her. To go beyond her normal limits and delve deeper into her life force reserves.

To be able to pour out the true desire of your soul – that’s the true essence of aura arts.

All, the Magitite ores in the areas were glowing brightly more than ever in response to the increasing magic density.

And then she finally started composing and deploying her own territory, overwriting the current form of creation and turning into that of her own.

Brandishing her white and black swords, she brought them in a form of X and finally let them loose.

A sky… a black pitch-night sky formed out of nowhere and the ground covered in a shallow pool of black water, which for some reason did not wet my legs. Thousands of red buds rose up from this black water, and then magically those red buds twisted and then blossomed into beautiful flowers. Red Spider Lilies. I instantly recognized them. No matter how far I looked, there were these flowers lying everywhere and their sweet smell overwhelmed my nose.

The rare Death Flower and one which guides and the souls. And yet…

It was such a serene and peaceful view that I failed to notice when the sky cleared and Alicia was looking at me. For how long was I lost in thoughts and the beauty of the view?

The black pool was gone, that means the territory had faded away, and when I looked in front the dimensional boundary between the walls of two floors was utterly destroyed and pulverized and through the huge hole that opened into floor 96 lay a wasteland.

Wrecked ground as if hit by a stream of missiles and finally a devastating earthquake there was not a single monster I could sense in the dust cloud in that area.

“So, mother how was it?”

I again looked around to confirm what actually did happen, for a careful person like me to be caught up in the moment, in that time the energy slash that came out of the combined effect of the force of the two swords, destroyed the wall, then the dimensional space between the two floors by crossing the threshold energy and finally even cleaned all the monsters who might have been inhabiting floor 96.

It was beyond expectation… that’s the only thing I could come up with.

“Alicia you…pass the test with full marks.”

“Yes.” Alicia was exalted to hear those words and made a short jump like a kid in her overjoyed state. But sometimes I really do forget that she is only a kid three years old, and having expectations and putting responsibilities on her is not what I should be doing.

Because she was reborn some of her ways of thinking and reflexes had been reset to that of a child, but since she was about sixteen years old when she reincarnated she also acts maturely because of that and then she also living in her previous life’s body. Maybe that’s what she unconsciously chose for herself, and is fine with that choice.

And blaming everything on fate is not how I do things…

“Alicia let’s go back and prepare for your victory celebration.”

“A celebration…”

“Well let’s have a party, that’s what I want to say.”

“Then I and Flora should start on the preparations for it without further delay. But something is still bothering me.” Making a concerned look was something I do not see in her regularly.

For some time I actually felt bad that she would be the one preparing food items for her own celebration but she seems happy the most while doing this for us.

Don’t tell me she is fed up with making food for us now, while all we two have been doing is sit around and eat like gluttons.

“What is it Alicia?” marks of hesitation messing up with my face a bit.

“It’s just that I couldn’t come up with a name.”

“What…” that’s what concerning her.

“Didn’t you call out an exciting name when you released your aural arts? I want one too. It was so cool to shout it out loudly.”

Wait! Even I feel embarrassed a bit but with practice, I later realized that it had become a part of it already – a habit – that I just couldn’t get done with it.

“Don’t worry; you will eventually come with a cool attack name, if you keep practicing it.”

“Umu.” She made again a cute expression, which brought relief to my eyesight.

But it’s true no matter how magnificent the view was nothing could beat my daughter’s loveliness.

Maybe I need to do something about that, who knows when scary bad men might try to attack her and she usually gets lost in her own house like that. I never saw someone with such bad sense of direction or maybe they are actually destined to get lost every time on their way if they are travelling alone. Then this world does not even have a GPS system, but for a problem of her as severe as that, even this advanced technology cannot suffice and will fail.

She also doesn’t like to attract attention, but honestly with such a beautiful figure it’s an impossible feat. But she doesn’t realize the fact herself. Maybe I already do have the perfect ideal solution…that thing which I used myself during my travels might work for her. So I am going to use it for later.

Before leaving I checked back at the place and was baffled to see that the garden of Red Spider Lilies was still growing on the infertile land.

That time I realized the amount of power Alicia could exert is unbelievable and to measure it is a foolish venture.

When an aural arts lifts off, all its effects are vanished, but even for me who witnessed several God’s fight during the Great War an Aural Art whose territory effects lingers in real time was unheard of.

***

ALICIA ASCALON ASHBORN

How did it come to this?

Was father trying to get back at me, for putting him through hell during my wrecking….training hours I spent in his workplace library.

After mother proposed of a test and the celebration party, he too announced of a test from his side. I had to master an intimidation technique primarily used by demons to exercise control and authority over other demons.

Even though he did not tell me a specific name for it, because there isn’t one. I call it – ‘The White Room’.

It’s exactly as it sounds.

As I and father stood facing against each other in the training grounds. We did not had any weapons on us, we didn’t need to. So the question was how we were gonna fight.

In this process, we had to create an environment and by releasing a killing intent like overwhelming aura of magic power we needed to shake the consciousness and will on whom it is to be forced upon.

This method had its own application and I would say various advantages. We could pass out judgments and no one would dare to question us. Hence solving conflicts without having a bloodshed.

Hence a brilliant idea.

A strong wind blew by, when both of us at the same time released vast amount of magical aura in the surrounding and tampered with it. Quickly constructing the white room will definitely ensure my victory. Thinking like that, I pushed force outward all of my magical energy in a controlled blast.

By already learning aural arts, it became quite easy for me to learn this technique; maybe father was waiting for this too to happen.

All the surfaces are smooth and the same texture, everything the same colour, no furniture; everything is white – locked in a completely bare white room.

Both father and I were standing now in front of our white throne facing against each other eye-to eye.

Everywhere I looked there was everything painted in white and the unknown source of light would have been similar to a multitude of chlorofluorescent bulbs glowing simultaneously.

Over several white stairs and a long white throne I stood from the seat and stared at father’s eyes who too was standing in front of a similar throne.

But since our gazes were along the same straight line, who actually won.

When we think about it, since I am less in height than father, that means the height of throne which manifested by my power was much longer and had more stairs in it.

The power of an individual will be determined whether he stays on the ground or if he has reasonable power to compete with then how many stairs long his throne is.

Stairs are a representation of the potential and magic capacity of the individual. There is a 2X power difference as you advance in each stair.

Since there is a difference of five stairs between me and father, that means there is a difference of (=25) 32X in our magic reserves.

Hence claiming my victory, we decided for another celebration, and mother as usual was enjoying and complimenting my food. While father was sulking in a corner, even though he proposed the test, the fact that he had been outdone even though he has the title of ‘Magic Emperor’ is a die-hard fact for him.

Well, what I really wondered about was, now that I have completed and learnt everything from here that I could, it was now specifically time I visit the outside world and make a place for myself on the surface.

I was finally going to leave in almost another month and mother and father were already aware of that fact, trying to spend and give most of their time to me. It made me happy. Which would only make it much tougher to leave but at the same time it only filled my life with more happy memories to make.

And by any chance a hopeful future by their blessings.

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