Volume 6 - CH 11

Location: Atlantis

Time: 12:16 PM

A clear sound of something falling on the floor.

He remembered it, and thought of it. There was a woman’s voice.

“Ryan.” His partner’s voice hurriedly came from behind, holding onto a heavy book, “I’m sorry, the parapsychology teacher was so damn stubborn. He didn’t believe the argument I proposed, so I had to demonstrate it to him once. What a waste of my time.” Chifuyu, who always wouldn’t easily compromise, was complaining while appearing above the teleportation array.

He turned around, without any particular emotional changes, “It’s fine.” Anyway, he has to wait no matter the length of the time, so for him, it’s not much of a difference.

“Instead, why did you want to eat at the flame park today? Didn’t you always eat at the white park?” Pushing his glasses up, Chifuyu stuffed the thick book deeper into his backpack.

“Flame park’s landscape is not bad too.” Lifting the limited lunchbox in his hands, Ryan said expressionlessly.

“Weirdo.” This was Chifuyu’s stereotypical heart felt words, “Well, since we’re here, let’s go in and eat.”

It is said that when Atlantis Academy was founded, a number of contracts were formed with the Elves, and the most important and most famous one was that the school itself is built according to the four main elements.

During the construction, four locations were set with four landscaping. White Park of the Wind, Clear Park of the Water, Flame Park of the Fire, and Stone Park of the Earth. And so the four major locations focused on the elements. After they formed a contract with the Elves and established the foundation for the school’s base, only then did they start expanding.

This is a basic common knowledge every student knows. Even if Ryan, who was only good at illusionary weapons and bad at everything else, after being in the school for so long, he very clearly understood this point.

After ending their scenic lunch journey, Ryan and Chifuyu very quickly went back to their class, and since the one o’clock period wasn’t the start of the class but was a short break instead, the whole class was in chaos.

“So damn noisy!” Olivia was the first one to freak out, “Can’t you guys see that someone is trying to have an afternoon break!? The person who is making this racket better be careful!” The class rep’s speeches have always been very daring. A few seconds later, the class was so quiet that the sound of someone writing could be heard clearly.

Ryan, who has always never been the cause of any rackets, continued reading the “introduction to spell-based skills” book in his hands.

These strange spell-based skills, even if he had looked through one book after another, the things he couldn’t remember remained the same no matter what. Reading them was similar to not reading them; so when everyone heard he was promoted as a White Robe, they were all exceptionally astonished.

Ryan closed the book he still doesn’t understand, before he finally realized there was someone who was carefully staring at him.

Lifting his head, he saw that it was the new student from the original world. The first time they met, he even got him dragged to the place of his mission, Yang Yang. He curiously crossed sights with him. Chu Ming Yang was stunned, immediately looked away like a thief caught red-handed and shrunk into his seat, not daring to look at him anymore.

Did he need something? Ryan didn’t understand his actions. The other person clearly seemed like he wanted to ask about something, but probably due to the class being too quiet, he didn’t dare to utter a single word.

He put his book away. Even after the genius-like Chifuyu taught him a set of sure-to-success methods to memorize stuff, he still couldn’t remember anymore spell-based skills.

He felt the illusionary weapons beside him making a commotion. Not just one, but a lot of them. After taking them out, he noticed a red gem that kept on vibrating restlessly, causing the other gems nearby to react similarly.

This illusionary weapon has always been rather unruly.

Suddenly standing up, ignoring all the classmates shocked by his action, Ryan held onto the weapon and headed out of the classroom.

Probably because the classes haven’t started, most of the classrooms were obediently staying at their usual spot. As soon as he left the classroom, he saw that there were still many people at the corridor, some were chatting or were on their way to another class to look for someone. During small breaks, the school didn’t force the students to obediently sleep in the class, and the students were allowed to use the time as they see fit.

Using an array to leave the teaching building area, Ryan found a secluded and quiet little pavilion. He took out the illusionary weapon and placed it on the pavilion’s table.

“In the name of God, I allow you to leave your body, Thermal Dragon.” After his fingertips tapped on the gem, the illusionary weapon immediately emitted a fierce raging fire, and within the flames, the figure of a woman appeared. Eyes with lines of beautiful totems slowly opened, and her golden pupils stared at him.

“What is it this time?” Ryan looked at the illusionary weapon’s spiritual body in front of him and frowned.

The flame spiritual body curved up a rather cold smile, “I was just sharing with the others… how touched I was regarding the first anniversary of meeting them.”

“First anniversary?” After hearing this, Ryan suddenly remembered, “It’s today?”

“That’s right, it has already been one year. I’ve been counting day after day, so it is today.”

Did the time pass so quickly?

This was Ryan’s first thought, “Did you count wrongly?” Since it’s impossible for illusionary weapons to flip the calendar, it’s possible she counted wrongly.

The flaming spiritual body suddenly exploded, “Don’t doubt me!” The woman roared.

“Alright then, it should be today.” Ryan scratched his head, “However, even if it’s an anniversary, what about it?” He doesn’t understand why Thermal Dragon wanted to remember the anniversary.

“It’s a memorable day.” The flames reduced, and the spiritual body reverted back to its cold smile.

“Oh.” What’s there to commemorate about?

“Shouldn’t you say a little something?” Raising her eyebrows, the spiritual body was dissatisfied with the other person’s reply.

“You want to take a day off?”

“…” The flame spiritual body was speechless.

Ignoring the flame spiritual body who angrily stormed back into the gem, Ryan was instead thinking of the things that happened in the past.

So it has already been a year.

The time passes really quickly.

* * *

One year ago

“River Water, is it really here?”

The second year after learning how to use illusionary weapons, Ryan, who was in third grade junior high, and with the help of a water elemental weapon, he had found a rather secluded place at Black Hill. Leading the way, was the water-type illusionary weapon good at detecting the area’s terrain.

His relationship with his illusionary weapons was different from the others. He thinks illusionary weapons are companions as well as combat power. Since they’re companions, there’s no need for them to always stay in gem form without communicating.

Thus, after he learned how to release their spiritual body, he tried communicating with even more weapons, and from the illusionary spiritual bodies and within the spiritual bodies, he learned even more things others don’t know about.

This practice apparently won a majority of the weapons’ satisfaction, and one by one illusionary spiritual bodies came to look for him, harmoniously getting along, forming a kind of strange scene in the eyes of other people.

The water-type illusionary spiritual body that was leading the way gently smiled and nodded, “It’s under Black Hill Rock. Because it’s too hot here, I’ll need to go back and hide.”

“Thank you.” Ryan returned the spiritual body back into its gem, and went down the path following what the spiritual body had said.

Black Hill Rock was once the place where the fire spirits lived. However, due to the change of the terrains as well as being invaded by other races, the fire spirits migrated from their usual residence, and disappeared into a more secretive place.

Carefully going down and exploring the path, Ryan listened to see if there were any strange sounds. In fact, Chifuyu wanted to accompany him for this expedition, but he felt embarrassed if he had to trouble Chifuyu every time, so Ryan decided to keep this from his friend and secretly came here to explore first.

He wanted to look for even more illusionary weapons, to unlock even more mysteries.

When did the Illusionary weapon’s spirit begin to form, and why is there a law for the formation. He wanted to understand these things, this is something he could instead of spell-based skills.

In fact, Black Hill Rock was not that tall. If one slides down the hill, it wouldn’t take more than ten minutes, so Ryan reached the bottom very quickly. The lower he went, the more he could feel the high temperature that came from the hill rocks. He remember Chifuyu mentioning that there was actually a volcano at the bottom? And in the end it was sealed by the fire spirits, and although the volcano would continue to flow, but it wouldn’t explode, forming a unique scenery.

Stepping on the ground, he felt a little regret for not wearing better shoes, because with it, at least he wouldn’t feel like the bottom of his feet was being cooked by a pan. He thought about it for a while, of a spell that could solve this… However, five seconds later, Ryan gave up, “In the name of God, I allow you to leave your body, Shimu.” He summoned another illusionary weapon’s spiritual body, it was a youngster who was around the same age as him.

“I know, I know, you need me for some kind of odd-job again, right?” The youngster said with a kind of tone that implied he couldn’t take this anymore, and then snapping his fingers, the entire floor’s temperature immediately dropped immensely.

“Big sister River Water wanted me to tell you she could feel the presence of an illusionary weapon here, but it’s character isn’t that great. The ground’s temperature probably had something to do with it.” Lying on Ryan’s shoulder, the youngster was lazy like a cat.

“Nn.” Ignoring the spiritual body’s action of hanging on his body, Ryan felt that after his feet have cooled down, he could start moving again. Shimu doesn’t have the ability to explore, he only has the ability to talk, so Ryan didn’t expect this guy to mercifully help out.

After walking a few circles, Ryan stopped walking once again. Even if the ground wasn’t hot, the air surrounding him was still very hot, causing him to wipe away his sweat in every few short moments. What kind of illusionary weapon would exist in this kind of place?

“Want me to help lower the temperature even more?” Purely coming out just to sightsee, Shimu asked.

“Nope, since it’s the earth’s temperature, it’s not good to lower it too much.” Chifuyu has always been nagging about being reasonable and being more reasonable. After listening to it for a long time, he was influenced by it and became reasonable. If it was in the past, Ryan definitely would have asked Shimu to lower down the surrounding temperature as much as he could.

Roughly going round another circle, Ryan still didn’t see any special phenomena, even the temperature was evenly spread out causing him to be unable to find out the abnormality.

If an illusionary weapon existed at a certain place, the air would definitely be different. But he has been walking until his body is almost dried up due to the heat, but there’s still nothing particularly different with the place.

“I think, it’s probably because you’re not fated to find it.” Shimu was floating at one side, sprinkling sarcastic comments.

Ryan didn’t really feel exceptionally different, and just continue to search.

“You…” Just as he was about to continue gossiping, the spiritual body suddenly stopped, “This is…”

Ryan, who also noted that something was wrong, immediately stopped. After noticing the spiritual body who was following him suddenly twitching, he yelled, “Shimu, hurry up and go back into your gem!”

Tiny flames came out from below the ground.

Since he was rather accustomed to this kind of scene, Ryan was attentively alert at the thing that was about to appear.

The flames slowly expanded, from the size of five centimeters becoming ten centimeters, thirty centimeters, up until it was almost as tall as him. A face like a wolf beast’s appeared within the flames.

“To enter Black Hill’s land, who are you?” A voice asked bluntly, “Within Black Hill, there are neither fire spirits nor water flowing. Intruder, what are you planning to do in this land!”

Ryan looked at the fire beast in front of him. He felt that this thing’s way of talking was rather similar to someone he knew.

“I’m looking for an illusionary weapon, I don’t know if that’s you, Mr or Miss.” He looked at the fire beast in front of him, his voice wasn’t shaken at all. He was definitely not scared of the fire beast’s roar.

“The thing you’re looking for isn’t here. Get lost!” The fire beast opened its mouth, red flames overflowing as it burned. It caused the temperature, which was already rather high, to increase even more.

“After I’ve found it, I’ll leave.” Ryan very honestly nodded, “I don’t lie.”

“Who cares if you you’re lying or not, you better get lost!” Suddenly jumping out of the flames, the fire beast blinked its golden eyes, murderously looking at him. The burning flames was incessantly being spat out from its mouth, looking rather frightening.

Looking at the very bad-tempered fire beast, Ryan sighed, “If it’s possible, I want to avoid fighting.” Rather than fighting with this fire beast, he wanted to spend more time looking for the illusionary weapon.

The fire beast opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, and suddenly sprang at his face.

“The one who signed a contract with me, please allow the attacker to witness your agility and braveness.”

* * *

The fire beast fell to the ground.

It opened its eyes wide,and after that unbelievable few seconds, its own dilemma was — a strip of something looking like a rope was tightly tying it up into a garbage-bag-like thing. No matter how it struggled, it couldn’t escape, “You intruder! If you dare, then let me go!”

“Good doggy, I’ll let you go later.” Grabbing onto the other end of the rope, Ryan, who was determined to not allow a foreign object to disturb him, tied the fire beast on a rock at one side. The rope was one of his illusionary weapons, and even if it’s a fire beast, it wouldn’t be able to break it.

“I’m not a dog!” The fire beast issued a roar.

“Okay, you’re not a dog.” Patting its dog-like head, Ryan continued walking around to look for the thing he wanted to find.

“Come back!”

Ignoring the roars behind him, Ryan walked around the area again. He don’t know why, but after the fire beast appeared, he kept feeling there was something around here. Unfortunately, he wasn’t as sensitive as Chifuyu, otherwise he would immediately have solved this problem.

“Bastard! Tramp! You inconspicuous intruder, who’s nothing but a piece of rock on the side of the road! Hurry up and come back!” The fire beast tied on the rock shook its head as it ferociously roared, “Stop right there! You damn human being!”

Ryan stopped walking, looking at the fire beast on the rock, and then tentatively took another step forward.

“You’re not allowed to go! You damn roadside commoner!”

A very creative way of cursing someone. He never thought there would be a day where he would be cursed by a fire beast in such manner. But this also proves there’s something around this area, otherwise the fire beast wouldn’t be so anxious.

“It’s over here?” After walking a few steps, accompanied by the loud continuous cursing of the fire beast, Ryan walked past a huge rock, finally finding the thing he was looking for.

On one side of the rock, a beautiful gem was embedded inside.

“So beautiful…” Immersed with looking at the gem’s colour and pattern in front of him, Ryan gently rubbed at the gem for a while. Even under such a hot environment, the gem was still so cold and wasn’t affected. This proved the illusionary weapon’s definite strength.

What kind of weapon is this? As passionate as fire? As tame as water?

He took out his small tool knife and inserted it into the rock, easily prying off the gem embedded in the rock.

“Thief! You thief!” The fire beast’s voice drifted from the other side of the rock, suddenly recalling Ryan back from his tranced state.

Walking back to the same spot, the fire beast was still tightly tied on the rock, “Alright, I’ll let you go.” He held out his hand, and the rope immediately loosened and went back to his hand.

As soon as it was released, the fire beast growled as it directly sprang at him.

Easily dodging it, Ryan lifted the rope on his hand, “If you continue, I’ll tie you up on the rock again.”

Sure enough, this sentence caused the fire beast to be wary of moving closer again, “Thief!”

It opened its mouth, its tone has reached a two thousand percent hostility, “Do you know what you’ve done! You roadside inconspicuous thief!”

“I just temporarily tied you on the rock.” Ryan’s tone was so innocent that it caused the fire beast to want to jump towards him and bite off his head.

“You destroyed this place!”

“Is it really that serious?” Scratching his head, Ryan was completely puzzled.

“You…” Just as the fire beast wanted to continue roaring, the entire ground suddenly shook, and a crack appeared on the ground. It clearly showed that the current situation has suddenly had a turn for the worse, “Hurry and get lost! Hurry up and get out of this place!”

Ryan saw searing red liquid appearing beneath the crack. clouds and more clouds of hot smoke was drifting up.

He suddenly remembered Chifuyu saying that there was a volcano underneath this place.

Looking at the illusionary gem in his hand, he suddenly understood why the fire beast was so agitated.

The gem was the thing that sealed the volcano.

* * *

“Ryan! Hurry and come up here!”

As soon as the second crack appeared on the ground, Ryan heard a voice that probably belongs to someone who came to save him. Lifting his head, sure enough, he saw that person’s thick glasses.

He didn’t even think before picking up the fire beast and throwing it up towards where his companion was at.

“You damn commoner, human being want to commit a murder—?” The fire beast roared in a parabolic way, falling down beside his friend.

“Ryan, don’t delay anymore, hurry up!” Chifuyu, who chased him down with the clues he had, didn’t even look at the fire beast. He urgently shouted at the bottom, “Currently, there’s signs of a volcano becoming active in this place. We have to leave at once!”

Looking at the gem in his hand, Ryan guessed the situation is happening because he pulled out the gem. The only fortunate matter in this misfortune was that the residents of this place had already left a long time ago. Thus, even if it exploded, no humans or non-humans would be hurt.

Just as he was about climb up, the floor thunderously shook. Ryan stumbled a little almost falling down on the ground, but his hand wasn’t holding onto the gem firmly, and thus it was thrown a certain distance away.

He can’t leave that gem here!

“Ryan! Don’t bother about that thing!” Chifuyu, who really wanted to rush down and hit his head, was flustered and exasperated, “You’d better hurry and come up here now!”

Only a few steps away. While he was thinking that, a slight breeze blew past him, “Boss, hurry and go up, I’ll get it for you.”

Shimu’s figure jumped across the fire’s light, and very quickly landed beside the gem. The thunderous sounds were very quick, the entire ground was cracked open. Just like pieces of ice from a glacier breaking apart. The entire ground beneath was filled with flowing red lava.

The high temperature caused Ryan to be almost unable to open his eyes. Despite what he thought, the temperature didn’t increase any further.

He knew, it was Shimu’s doings, “Shimu, come back!” He saw the spiritual body unstably floating a few paces away. Between them were a few lava rivers, and the hot air that caused the cracks on the ground to become bigger.

Holding onto the gem, the spiritual body was rather fearful as he looked at the searing flowing liquid beside him. Without the illusionary weapon’s appearance and the gem’s protection, a spiritual body is actually as fragile as a baby.

He was afraid. He couldn’t get across the lava.

Ryan look at the spiritual body on the other side all tensed up. He knew Shimu was only good at talking, but in fact he was very weak, “Wait there.” Tying up his hair, he attentively looked around, and sharp eyes not leaving anything to chance.

Chifuyu, who was above, was so angry and was about to climb down to knock his companion unconscious and drag him back up. Just as he was about to move, a certain red thing moved past his legs, speedily landing at the bottom.

“You damn roadside commoner, tightly grab on to me!” The fire beast nudged at Ryan’s back hard, motioning to him to grab onto its body, and then it jumped across the other side with Ryan. They quickly reached the side where the spiritual body was.

As soon as he reached the other side, Ryan immediately let go, grabbed onto the spiritual body and started inspecting him, “Fortunately, you didn’t get injured.”

Shimu smiled at him, “Idiot, I could have gotten back by myself.”

“Oh, I know.” Ryan took the gem, and allowed the spiritual body to return back into his own illusionary gem.

Coldly looking at the friendship and love between the human and gem that would have caused one to become teary, the fire beast disdainfully snorted.

“This time, it’s just great. Now it’s both our turn to be unable to get back.” The place that was used to jump over here has been destroyed by the lava, leaving no place for them to be able to do a double jump across.

“It’s fine, you will be able to get back.” Ryan stuffed everything that he was holding onto into his small backpack, including the new weapon, “Here you go.” As he was saying, he grabbed onto the fire beast’s neck.

“Stop! You damn roadside commoner!” The fire beast warily jumped aside this time, “You actually wanted to throw the honorable me! You damn roadside commoner! Not only did you not think of yourself as a rock on the roadside, you actually have the nerve to throw me across!?”

“If you want to be kicked across, then I have no choice.” With his hair tied up, Ryan’s eyes sharply stared at the fire beast in front, his tone gradually changing, “Don’t go against me, understand, little dog.”

The fire beast took one step back. Dog! To actually call it a dog again!

“I’m not a dog!” It let out an angry roar.

“Alright, I know you’re not a dog. But if you don’t obediently cooperate, I will turn you into a lava hot-dog. Do you hear me, little dog.” Ryan coldly glared at the uncooperative other-worldly animal in front of him, and said.

Angrily glaring at the person in front of him, and after a long while, the lava had engulfed more and more of the land they were standing on. The fire beast started to compromise, “Use me…” Chewing onto unclear words in its mouth.

“What?” Ryan clearly didn’t hear it.

“I said to use me, you damn roadside commoner!” The fire-beast suddenly exploded, similar to what happened before, raging fire burning in the air. Within the flames, a face appeared, and then it’s the body, a female’s face slowly opening her golden eyes. Her hair that was made out of flames were crazily flying about in the air.

Cold golden eyes looked at Ryan, “Take out the gem you had in your hand.” The indifferent tone shook the air, even the sound of the lava’s churning calmed down, “I’m the respected member of the Flame Clan who protects this place. As long as it’s flames, it’ll be my strength. Don’t think that I’m compromising with you. I just don’t want to die in the hands of a roadside commoner. If you think you’re qualified to control me, then hold onto the illusionary weapon in your hands, and look for my name. That name is the only thing that will allow you to summon me; that noble name.”

Then, the flames suddenly exploded again, the woman’s appearance dissipated, dancing around in the surrounding area.

Looking at the weapon in his hands, Ryan’s lips curved up an arc, “I definitely have the confidence of being able to control you, but not as a tool, instead as a future partner.” Just like the others.

“Thermal Dragon, the one who signed a contract with me, show your form, gorgeously unrestrained and arrogant, fire is your pride, my weapon, and then, help me to deal with the situation in front.”

And that, was the first time he had met with the illusionary weapon, Thermal Dragon.

* * *

One year later, present time.

“Thermal dragon is losing her temper again.”

The spiritual body let out from its gem was sitting on the table, lazily looking at him, “She said that the damn roadside commoner surely has brain with a clock.” As he was saying that, like a cat, he lay down and rolled himself on the table. Taking up a huge amount of space on the table, Shimu lifted his head and coldly smiled at him, “It’s very difficult to deal with women, boss.”

“Oh.” Scratching his head, Ryan didn’t know what kind of person would have a brain with a clock inside. He laid the flame gem on the empty corner of the table, and then he tapped it with his fingertips, “Thermal Dragon, come out and have a chat.”

The answer he received was a sudden spray of fire, almost burning off Ryan’s bangs.

“Next time if you want to adopt, you should remember to make sure you have the ability.” Rolling and lying on the table, the spiritual body said another sarcastic sentence.

“…” Helplessly scratching at his head again, Ryan once again tapped at the gem, “Thermal Dragon, are you coming out?”

Suddenly, flames once again exploded in front of him. A fire beast hasn’t been seen for a long time, was teary-eyed as it rushed out, “I want to leave this sad place! You really don’t care about the fragile minds of your illusionary weapons!”

Being stunned for a moment, Ryan felt that this kind of words should be more normal coming out from a certain school-mate’s mouth, “I…”

“I hate you! In the past I casually gave myself to you, and now you don’t even remember our first anniversary! You are simply not a good owner! I want to go back to the volcano, go back and burn with the volcano!” The fire beast burst into tears as it ran out of the pavilion, and wherever it went, the plants were set on fire, and some of them were even screaming.

If this continues, he don’t know how much payment for damages would be counted into his account by the school.

“Women who lost their temper are the most difficult to deal with, boss. You’ll have to move according to the situation.” Shimu was watching a good show, issued very irresponsible words.

“So, it’s already been one year since we’ve met?” Ryan, who has absolutely no concept of time, still didn’t know why the fire beast was freaking out.

“Who knows, it’s not like it’s our anniversary, why would I need to remember that?” The spiritual body rolled his eyes at him, rolling over with his tummy facing the bottom.

Ah… he could only resort to the ultimate trick. But Ryan had a feeling this will result to having no peace for a long period of time.

Tying up his hair, he glared at the back of the red figure moving away while burning the flowers and grass in her path, and said with a loud voice, “Little dog! Believe it or not, I’m going to tie you onto a rock again!”

This sentence was very effective, the fire beast rushed back in less than half a second, “I’m not a dog!”

Not even a tiny bit of progress. Ryan was speechless.

“Ryan Scar! Today I’m going to give my all to fight you to the death!”