35 A week later

Ark got up from his bed with his eye twitching nonstop.

"I don't like today."

(Dawn) Why is that Sir?

(Dusk) Something just doesn't feel right.

(Dawn) Why?

Ark walked towards the window and flung it open.

It was stormy and grey outside with no hover cars to be seen.

I have a really bad feeling.

Ark walked away from the window and proceeded to head downstairs to the cafeteria. He noticed that the bed that usually contained a snoring James was empty.

Very ominous.

"Dawn, what time is it?"

"Six am sir."

James woke up early? Super duper ominous.

Ark went down the stairs and entered the cafeteria. Sitting at the very middle table in the cafeteria was James.

"Hey- HEY JAMES!"

Noticing Ark hollowing at him, James stood up brightly and patted at the seat next to him. Ark took up his offer and sat next to James.

A bit skeptical, Ark glanced at James.

"Why are you awake so early?"

James gave a shrug.

"Just because I think I need to work out and train more."

"And why do you need to do that?"

"To become stronger."

(Dusk) JAMES HAVING A REVELATION THAT WORKING OUT WILL MAKE HIM STRONGER! SOMETHING IS WRONG, VERY WRONG.

Ark ignored the uneasy feeling in him and took a look at the food on James's plate.

Ark immediately made a face.

"Why is it black bread?"

James sighed.

"Apparently the dorm mistress was out shopping when a black cat came and crashed into a mirror. The sound of shattering scared the mistress and she let go of her umbrella which flew into a shop. When she went to go retrieve it, a couple beggars stole the food."

Those were a bunch of sequential unlucky events that happened all at once, how coincidental.

"So we need to eat this shit instead."

James took a bite with an expression that looked like he was chewing on aluminum before replying.

"It's not that bad..."

"I swear rats are tastier than this."

"You never ate a rat."

"I did, and it tasted a hella lot better than this. Why can't she just give us regular bread? It's better than this."

"Black bread is apparently more nutritious."

Glaring distastefully at the pitiful excuse for food, Ark got up.

"Food should taste good, no matter how nutritious it is. You want to go hunting? I can cook us something if we catch something edible."

James immediately got up and saluted at me.

"Lord Ark, shall we depart immediately?"

Laughing at the hopeless boy in front of him, Ark picked up the black bread.

"Imma take care of this."

Ark chucked it across the room and swished it perfectly into the trash can.

"HEY YOU KIDS! DON'T THROW FOOD IN THE CAFETERIA!"

"Ah shit... James, are we calling the gang?"

"Why not?"

"Kay, Dawn, please call the gang."

"Yes sir."

"Dude, I always get jealous, your AI does everything for you. I still need to use a phone to call."

"Shut it James."

Ark did a two finger salute at the angry dorm mistress.

"Sorry ma'am, I won't do that again."

"YOU GET OVER HERE-"

"Bye~"

Space seemed to bend as Ark along with James swirled into oblivion.

The dorm mistress sighed.

"I'll let you go this time for that amazing escape."

—————————————————————

James was waiting in front of the forest next to a DZ manager with a sword hanging on his left hip.

Ark was up on the tree while lazily sharpening his knife while a bow was slung over his shoulder.

"When are they going to come?"

"In about a few minutes, they don't have your teleportation skills you know."

James let out a sigh.

"How do you even manage to be this active after exhausting you mana reserves? I fall asleep every time I use up all my mana."

Ark sighed.

"James, this is why you need to pay attention during class, or at least try to read a book."

"Never."

"Sigh, try to remember this. In your body, there is a mana reserve. This consists of the pure mana that your body produces over time. However, there are mana pools that you have based on your affinity. These pools collect mana from the environment. when casting a spell, if you run out of the elemental mana, your body takes the pure mana and converts it."

Ark put on a serious face and tried to act like a serious teacher.

"When you exhaust your mana, you use up the mana in the reserve. When I exhaust my mana, I only use up the elemental mana in my shadow pool."

Ark looked down towards James.

"Do you understand?"

"No."

Ark sighed.

(Dusk) HOLY SHIT!

Ark almost fell out of the tree.

WHAT THE FUCK DUDE! YOU JUST EAR RAPED ME! or is it mind ****???

(Dusk) YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MAN! I WAS EXPLORING WHEN I FOUND-

I'll just go in myself.

"Hey James."

"What?"

"Wake me up when they arrive."

Ark closed his eyes and concentrated.

When he opened his eyes, he was in the now familiar room.

Ark looked around and saw that Dawn was on her throne reading.

"Hey Dawn."

"Yes?"

"Where is Dusk?"

Dawn tilted her head towards a door.

"Outside sir."

"Thanks."

Ark ran out and saw himself running towards him.

"What's the big deal-"

"NO TIME, JUST FOLLOW!"

Dusk grabbed his arm and dragged him towards god knows where.

Ark soon realized where they were going.

"Is... is that a fountain?"

"Yes!"

Now out of breath, Dusk rested before answering.

"It's our mana reserve, the water is clear and pure so it's probably non-elemental mana."

Dusk threw his head towards another direction.

"If we go work along with the color of elements theory, then that's our shadow pool."

A fountain filled with a pitch black substance was located in the area that Dusk was staring at.

"The red pool represents fire and the golden one is what I presume to be soul."

Each of the fountains were the same size however, they differed in the amount of liquid in each one.

"They seemed to be placed in a circular pattern or at least from what I've seen so far. It's not really a circle right now, maybe 25 percent of a circle."

"So this means that there are an estimate of 12 elements and that we might unlock nine other elements."

"Yep, it's a bit overpowered isn't it?"

"Is it? I mean we do unlock affinities for elements, however, we can only use the actual ability when we wear our mask or when we are in trouble."

"True, although we have elemental abilities, that is only when we use our oculus. Even when we use it, it only lasts for ten minutes before it stops drawing in mana from the outside. Without it, we become normal mages."

"So it will take an unbelievable amount of time and effort to truly get overwhelmingly strong by relying on our oculus."

"But if we manage to get strong without it... we would be badass while using it."

"A good thing is that while we can only use the oculus for ten minutes, it's ten minutes for each element. So thirty minutes now, two hours eventually. We don't even know if the time will increase or not."

"True."

"I wonder when it will mature, or if it already has matured."

"ARK."

Ark felt a head splitting headache as the world around him swirled into a different picture. A picture of the ground coming closer towards his face.

He immediately twisted his body and landed on his feet. Ark got up from his awkward position to look up at the girl who had almost killed him.

"Stop sleeping on the job."

Ark sighed.

"Nice to meet you too Kali."