Freya woke up and found herself drenched in cold sweat. She did not know why as the last thing she remembered was going to sleep and she could not remember anything past that point. She decided to not think too much into it as she noticed the time. She quickly took a shower before going downstairs and went straight for the courtyard.When she arrived, she noticed that a small crowed had already gathered. There were many familiar faces around and it did not take long for her to find Layla. At the same time, she also noticed Freya.
She waved at her at shouted "Freya over here, there is an empty seat you can use." Freya did not decline her offer and sat next to Layla. Their seats were located at the front row giving them a good view of the stage in front.
"I thought that I would need to go and wake you up, you almost did not make it in time!" Layla had a relived expression as let out a sigh.
Freya revealed a bitter smile, after all she clearly did not expect to sleep for so long. While she was tired, the other students were clearly worse off.
After talking to Layla for some time, an old man wearing black robes of a magus, slowly walked on stage. At first no one notice him, it was only after he walked up the stage that people started to pay any attention to him.
It felt like the moment you looked away he would be gone never to be seen again. He had no presence and any blind man would have no way of knowing of his existence.
Of all the magus"s Freya had seen so far, all but this old man had appeared overwhelmingly strong to the point that no one dared defy them. But, this harmless looking old man did not look like he could kill a fly.
However, the moment Freya looked at his eyes her sight was drawn to his pupils without her even realizing it. The darkness within seemed to be reaching out to her soul and slowly drawing it in. Just as she felt that she was about to walk down a path of no return, she came back to her senses.
It felt like she had been gone for years but in reality, the old man had only taken a single step. All of a sudden Freya noticed that she had forgotten to breath, her heart was racing and her legs were shaking, but she did not know when it had started.
As she looked around she noticed four other people had found themselves in similar conditions. They all had pale faces and did not seem like they would be able to calm down for the moment. As she noticed their deathly pale faces Freya wondered if her face was also the same shade of white, unfortunately she did not have any way of checking at the moment.
As she took a closer look she noticed that her friend, Layla was one of the people who were effected as well. She looked as if you had seen a ghost. In the meantime, the old man noticed all that transpired beneath him. He gave a smile which resembled that of a painting, no matter how real a painting looked in the end it would never be real.
Soon more people took notice of the old man on stage. But this time they did not reveal pale faces, instead they looked bewildered as no could figure out how he appeared.
As the last person turned his attention to the stage in front the old man spoke. "Welcome new students to our prestigious academy. My name is Leo and I am the vice princ.i.p.al of this academy."
As the vice princ.i.p.al confirmed once again that he had everyone"s attention he continued. "I a.s.sume that everyone here is familiar with shadow magic? Since that is the case let me ask you a simple question. Who among you can tell me what a shadow is."
At the sudden question, everyone was taken back at first. They thought that the question was going to be hard since it was asked by the vice princ.i.p.al himself, but who would have expected it to be so easy. Everyone knew what a shadow was and answering the question did not seem very difficult. The only problem was that when they recalled how mysteries the vice princ.i.p.al was they could not help but to think that the question had a deeper meaning.
However, no matter how they thought about it they still arrived at the same conclusion. They clearly could not read his intentions at all. Eventually a student gathered his courage and raised his hand.
The vice princ.i.p.al signaled for him to share his answer with everyone. "Isn"t a shadow just a dark area where an object obstructs light?" The vice princ.i.p.al shook his head but did not give them the correct answer.
A few more students shared their own interpretation of what a shadow was but none of the answers could satisfy him. In the end, no one could find the answer no matter how hard they tried.
"What you have all said is not wrong but it is not right either. The shadow you speak of is the one you can see. But the shadow I speak of is one of magic, while it is called shadow magic the name is in fact misleading. In reality shadow magic works on the concept of being in the absence of anything else. In other words, while fire magic controls fire and water magic controls water, shadow magic removes them and all others from existence and turns them into nothingness. It is said that anyone who controls the shadows can cover entire worlds in a single shadow and remove it… not destroy it.