Sharp blades of gra.s.s shot towards Greyson that were not affected by his fire element. Quickly trying to dodge, some of his clothes got sliced up. Furrowing his brows, Greyson tried to use his own earth element magic to stop the plants, however, to his dismay, nothing was responding. He could not feel the normal presence of earth mana. Frustrated by the situation, Greyson used his anger to fuel his flames making them blaze even hotter and actually melting the metal like blades of gra.s.s. Taking a breather, Greyson looked down and grimaced at his pathetic looking state. His robe was sliced up with even his unders.h.i.+rt and pants ripped up as well so even patches of his skin were visible. There were some minor cuts and bleeding but he quickly healed himself. Trying to take out a new set of clothes, Greyson finally smacked his forehead realizing that he left his bag with Al. Knowing that he would get separated, he left Al outside hiding in an inconspicuous spot while his sh.e.l.l looked just like any rock in the surrounding. Greyson was not too worried about any of the beasts taking notice, Terra Beasts were also well known for hiding in plain sight in the mountains. Earlier his thoughts were not clear and did not think to take out his bag with his supplies in it. Wryly smiling, Greyson decided he would just have to live with his state and try to not let it get any worse. Otherwise he might be almost naked by the time he gets sent back out. The only blessing was that he could summon his magic tools if need be and they did not need to be right by him. During his time in the Idris Kingdom, Greyson did learn new engravings at this Blacksmith a.s.sociation. One of which tied his magic tools to himself so that he could summon them from anywhere and also prevented from others from being able to steal them.Pulling his attention back to his surroundings, Greyson saw that the garden was actually fairly small and hit flames had burned pretty much every to ash. However, there was no sign that he cleared this level and he knew this was because he did not yet find the leader. But where was it? What type of plant was the leader? Looking around there were no more remnant plants, so he was not sure what he was supposed to be searching for. Just as he was doubting himself, Greyson realized in surprise that all the plant life began resurrecting and coming back to attack him. Seeing this result, an idea popped into Greyson"s head about weeds. What is it that everyone always says? You need to pull the weeds out at the roots. Earlier, his actions did not ruin or effect the soil and ground too deeply, thus Greyson was starting to think that the leader may either be the roots or below the ground and supplying the plants with such unlimited nutrients to grow. Frowning, while thinking of a solution, Greyson realized this stage would actually be harder to pa.s.s without his earth element which he thought would not have been useful. None of his other elements were as easy to use to scan the ground and underground. Too impatient to slowly find means, Greyson looked to the virtual sky where grey clouds began to form. Torrential rain poured down soaking all the plants and the ground. After everything seemed sufficiently wet, Greyson feet began to pulse with strong lightning. Everything under him in the garden suffered from the electricity travelling through it. Before long, all the plants once again withered away while he felt something underground resist his attack. Pinpointing the location, Greyson hurried over in that direction.
He decided to use a new dark spell he learned as he slowly sank into the ground. It was called Shadow Ghost and was technically an a.s.sa.s.sination aiding spell. It allowed the user to become ethereal like a shadow and go through solid objects. However, it did not allow him to avoid attacks. If something tried to attack him, he would still get injured, it would not just go through him. Surprisingly, it became extremely useful during this test. Once he was underground, Greyson came face to face with a disturbing pair of eyes staring back at him. The leader was actually a Feynir! This was how people referred to almost Fey plant-life. They developed wisdom and intelligence and it was only a matter of time before they developed into actual Fey. This particular Feynir was a man-eating flower as could be seen from the teeth in the center of the petals where a mouth opening was. Two red eyes glared at Greyson in anger as a loud screech sounded out and the stems around the flower leaped out to grab onto him. Dodging lithely, Greyson did not allow them to touch him. Flipping his hand, the sword tattoo on his forearm lit up and Genesis appeared in his hand. Pus.h.i.+ng large amounts of his mana into the sword, one of the engraving lit up as Genesis expanded in size until it was ginormous. Unable to hold it steady in normal conditions, Greyson soon activated his dragon bloodline as white scales traced up his hands and arms. Swinging the sword upwards, the earth all exploded away and exposed the flower to the open air. Greyson knew that he was at a disadvantage if he continued to fight underground. His dark element still allowed him to move freely, but trying to keep one spell steady while fighting was difficult. If his concentration was broken then he would be stuck under tons of dirt which would leave him vulnerable.
Even more anger exploded from the Feynir as it continued to attack Greyson. Saying nothing, Greyson once again gripped onto the large sword which then burst into flames. Not avoiding the vines that came, Greyson allowed them to bring him closer. Smirking, Greyson could tell that although this plant gained intelligence, it was still a small amount. Stabbing his flaming sword down into the mouth of the plant, it screeched out in pain as the fire began to destroy it from the inside out. The plant burst into flames as two unwilling eyes continue to glare at Greyson. Per usual, a black door opened next to Greyson after he defeated the leader. Not stepping through right away, Greyson sat down and began to meditate to recover some of his mana. The garden was actually full of other elemental spirits except the earth element. Some moments later, Greyson got up from his sitting position and stepped through the black portal.
"FINALLY!" Before Greyson could orient himself, he heard a sudden scream sound out from behind. Jumping slightly in fright, he turned around only to realize that a raven-haired, red-eyed young boy was staring right back at him. Shocked by the nearness, Greyson quickly backtracked to get away from this new person.
"I have been waiting for 1 month! That ridiculous voice told me I needed to defeat my opponent, but it never gave me one this entire time. I have been stuck here just waiting for someone to finally be sent here. FREEDOM IS UPON ME!"
"1 month?" Greyson frowned as he felt that he had only been in this world for around a little more than a day.
"Hmph! Don"t look so confused, you probably entered after me. It is all random, just because you enter together does not mean you will ever see each other in the altar." Waving his hand dismissively, the young man seemed to see right through Greyson"s doubts. Finally getting a chance to look at his opponent clearly, Greyson was a little surprised by what he saw. The young boy across from him looked even younger than he was, however, his stage was higher. At the magister level stage five, this young boy had short black hair and blood red eyes with a cute little snaggletooth sticking out of his mouth. Black wings stuck out from his back hinting towards a bird magic beast background. While Greyson was observing his opponent, the young boy was reciprocating with the same. His nonchalance soon turned to excitement and shock which threw Greyson off. In almost an instant, the boy appeared in front of Greyson and got on one knee while grabbing Greyson"s hand.
"Brother-in-law! You must be related to Lady Rosalie, aren"t you?!" Before Greyson could even react to pull his hand back, he was shocked by this young boy"s words.
"Uh... How did you know?" Deciding against lying, Greyson was curious how this boy could know right away.
"Hmm... I guess I should say that you guys just have a very similar aura and could even pa.s.s for twins. Obviously, there could definitely be people out there who look similar, but this similar? Plus, I can see the obvious Snow Dragon traits on you. You look just like her AND you are from her father"s tribe. I know she has multiple brothers who are scattered everywhere. It doesn"t take a genius to put the two together." Although he spoke nonchalantly, Greyson could tell that this boy was obviously very proud to explain his logic. His red eyes s.h.i.+ned in happiness before turning extremely ugly. "I have obviously been waiting so long for my chance to beat the living daylights out of my opponent, but what kind of fate is this? How could I beat up my future brother-in-law? What if he goes back and speaks badly about me to his sister..." Not even bothering to hide his thoughts, Greyson"s opponent spoke his concerns out loud.
"Hey, excuse me, but I think you are getting the wrong idea about something. I would never do anything like insult you in front of my sister if you beat me. If anything, I might even say she should consider you since you are strong. My sister despises anyone weaker than herself, so you have to at least get past me. Plus, it is not set in stone that you will definitely beat me anyway! Also, who are you calling brother-in-law?! My sister has never mentioned you to me ever." Disgruntled by such an a.s.sumption about his character, Greyson felt insulted. He also did not like the fact that this opponent seemed to a.s.sume that if they fought, he would definitely beat Greyson.
"Well, it is one-sided for now. But I believe that I will eventually move your sister. It is only a matter of time." Completely blowing off Greyson"s words, the boy was not offended nor disheartened at all. Such shamelessness was a real eye-opener for Greyson. "You sure you want to fight? I won"t go easy you know. It"s not that I don"t want to, but I don"t know how. All of my tribe"s attacks are rather explosive and uncontrollable."
"Who are you anyways? You know that I am Rosalie"s brother, my name is Greyson." Properly introducing himself, Greyson was curious as to what magic beast this young boy"s original form is.
"Greyson, is it? Nice to make your acquaintance. I am the Black Blood Hawk Prince, Michail." Bowing formally with great poise, Michail politely introduced himself. However, Greyson"s concentration was already no longer on his opponent himself but the name he spoke earlier. Black Blood Hawks! They were a strong aerial magic beast which focused almost only on attacking. Their element was actually s.p.a.ce. They could travel extremely quickly and their s.p.a.ce spell attacks were frightening as they ripped the s.p.a.ce around their opponent. The blood in their name refers to a special suicide ability that the race could use at a time of emergency or maybe the desire to take down their opponent with them. They could burn their bloodline and create a small black hole that would suck anyone near into a different s.p.a.ce and usually kill them. If the opponent was a s.p.a.ce magician then he could probably escape relatively unscathed, however, this spell was still extremely destructive so most tribes do not try to push the Black Blood Hawks. There is also the reverse to it, though, and that is that if you don"t push them very hard, they would never risk something like that spell. No one really willingly wants to die normally.
Thinking of the abilities of his opponent, Greyson did not bring himself down and instead got excited for a good sparring partner. The two boys moved to one end of the room each and just looked at each for a little as each of us were cautious as to who would make the first move. Patience in Greyson was unsurprisingly lower, as eventually he made the first move to attack. Despite his young looks, Greyson knew that his human form was young because in beast years he was considered young, however, he could actually be almost a 100-years-old or more. Just thinking back to Rosalie"s dragon friends that were actually all young and beautiful looking, but so old, Greyson knew that he could not a.s.sume just by the outside looks. The Beast Empire definitely had many different things to get used to.