Frantically, he tried to chant for the spell bend light, the easiest spell to use out of his a.r.s.enal, however, nothing happened. It was like an invisible wall had been put between himself and the arcane particles needed to cast this spell. Again, and again he tried to cast any other spell but to no avail, he couldn"t summon any energy from his body to cast them. Favian slumped down into the chair in defeat."Why can"t I use my magic?" Favian asked, looking at Aria with puppy dog eyes. The pain and confusion in his voice were apparent, and he was close to having a complete mental breakdown. "Why do these setbacks keep happening to me.", "There must be something wrong with me, it"s all my fault." these were a few of the thoughts running through his mind.
"The moment you went on the path to study shadow magic, you put yourself in a unique position. You won"t be able to learn any magic from basic or intermediate particles, at least that"s what I hypothesize, but you"ll learn shadow magic slowly again. I"m not sure why, but it has something to do with you having two cores in your body." Aria replied to her dejected student. She tried to console him as much as she could in the only way she knew how to. For the next hour, she made him a variety of tea from medicinal herbs, and gave him lots of rare ingredients to nourish his husk of a body. The transformation had taken a toll on Favian, and he needed to regain as much of his power as soon as possible, lest he becomes too depressed.
"Don"t fret too much, with the training I"ll put you through, we"ll whip you back to shape in no time. It"ll just take a lot of determination from you." Aria said as she gave a devilish grin.
"I made a deal with the devil didn"t I." Favian thought to himself as he looked at his master, who was enjoying his plight, or that"s the way he saw it at the moment.
Favian spent the next few weeks under solitary meditation as ordered by Aria. He had to regain as much of his former power as possible because once he had formed his second core, he became weaker than almost all other apprentices at the academy in terms of raw power. To consolidate two arcane cores meant that the world energy he pulled into his body only worked at half the usual rate, as it had to bolster another ent.i.ty. Without his game system, this further decreased his speed of cultivation, which could now be said to have been at only a fourth of his usual speed.
Slowly, Favian was able to relearn his two shadow spells, time stop and net of shadows, however, the amount of effort it took to get them to this level left him baffled. He needed some way to increase the speed of his training. Favian had not left Aria"s office for almost 2 months, as his meditation room was in the bas.e.m.e.nt of it. The world energy seemed thicker inside it, and made his meditation easier. The only things he did were to eat whenever she brought him food, meditate for as many consecutive days as possible, and sleep only when needed.
After two months pa.s.sed by, his hair had grown longer and thicker. There was barely any black colour to be seen in his hair, instead, it was completely dark purple, with black hues visible at the roots of his hair. His eyes had now similarly turned purple, and the way his hair reached his shoulders gave him a completely new appearance. Favian no longer looked una.s.suming, and you would be able to remember his face vividly in a crowd. The constant use of precious herbs and large quant.i.ties of food that Favian consumed had started to mend his body, and it wasn"t as weak as when he formed his second core. If Favian had to guess, his vital stats were probably all-around 1.1 or 1.2, and his intelligence and arcana should have been close to their normal amount.
When Favian attempted to practice casting his spells, he found that it somehow felt like two people in one body. It was like another person was trying to mimic his actions. After further inspection, he realized that this was related to the new arcane core he possessed. Unlike his arcane core which was a purplish-black and felt solid, this new one was a greyish black, and almost ethereal. It was almost as if it didn"t exist whenever he tried to make a deep inspection of it, weaving away from his strands of magic. The spells would fizzle whenever he was about to finish casting them.
Favian was hard at work trying to cast his only two known spells, however to no avail. There seemed to be something he was missing in his understanding of them. He had lost all memories of the information contained within the book "Darkness and Shadows" after his game system disappeared, and with it, he could only rely on himself to learn these spells again. It did seem, however, that the spells became much more advanced than before, and weren"t at all the same ones he had used. He knew how to use the spells, however, there was some sort of synchronization issue with his body, he hypothesized. He had just been about to put his theory to the test when a knock resounded on his door.
"Favian sweetie, it"s about time you leave your secluded training." Aria called out as she entered the room.
"Why knock if you"re just going to come in anyway?" Favian wanted to ask his master, yet stopped himself from doing. Favian had no belongings to pack up, so he simply left this chamber he had spent his last two months in. He felt somewhat sentimental about leaving this room as he knew the world energy outside was a lot thinner than in here.
After two months of gruelling practice, he finally saw sunlight again. The sun rays were difficult to get used to for a couple of minutes, but Favian relished in the way the sun-kissed his face. He was immediately brought to a large room which acted as the academy"s a.s.sembly hall. This room was rarely used, however whenever it was used, it was because some important information would be divulged to all of the students. The room was able to house roughly 5 thousand people, about the same amount as the colosseum could.
Favian entered the room with his master, however, he was quickly ditched by her as she found some of her friends seated at the staff area of the large hall. Looking around the hall, Favian saw huge banners covered different areas, labelling where staff and student seating areas were, and also divided the seating areas by the different year groups. Being a first-year student, Favian walked to the banner that was meant for him. On his way there, several students would look at him before murmuring to each other. Favian decided to ignore this and instead walked to a friendly face he hadn"t seen in a long time.
"Mind if I take a seat here?" Favian asked.
"Oh, sure thing, you can sit here... WAIT, Favian is that you? Your hair, what the h.e.l.l?" Dunkel exclaimed as he saw his closest friend at the academy for the first time in months. He was taken back by how different Favian looked now, especially his hair was pretty striking with its dark purple colour. Quickly he lunged in for a hug, having missed the only person who would listen to his talkative self for prolonged periods.
"Haha, how"s it going man? It feels like it"s been a million years since I last saw you." Favian said as he hugged Dunkel back. He missed his only friend deeply and wanted to send him a message telling him he was fine the whole time he"d been training. The realisation that Dunkel was more powerful than himself also acted as a driving force for Favian to keep working hard, and aided in stopping himself from falling too far into depression. He wouldn"t be able to stay friends with Dunkel if he fell too far behind.
Just as Favian and Dunkel sat down on their seats, a loud sound was made at the front of the room. Turbulent wind was formed at the main stage, and a boom resounded in the room as a man crashed onto the stage. He slowly stood up and dusted himself off, revealing a blonde man with an apologetic smile.
"Everyone, I"d like to announce that as of today, the purging shall begin!" he spoke with a loud voice, making sure that every corner of the room could hear. Gasps of surprise were made by exclusively the first-year students, who numbered the largest out of all the cohorts. All the other students and teacher"s simply sat unfazed as if they knew what was to come.