The morning sun was not able to penetrate the thick fog that surrounded the ship, the weather was cold and damp in a secluded corner of the deck, Raymond, who could not sleep last night from too much thinking, was training on mana control and magic while Ron was leaning on the edge holding an old book.
Ron: Raymond magic is not just the release of mana, imagine mana as blank book pages and magic is the letters, and every magic you learn fills a page in this book, and the amount of magic you can learn depends on your talent and the percentage of your compatibility with the element itself. What you learned was fighting with Mana, but what I will teach you is the 'crafting' of magic. Do you remember the formation rank I explained to you? I want you now to try to merge black mana with another element. To do this, you must imagine, for magic also depends on the magician's imagination. Oh right, I forgot, at the beginning you must determine the element compatible with you. Wait a moment." Ron took out a paper from his bag and drew a magic circle on it, then said: "When you pump your mana here, you will know what element is compatible with you. If you pump your mana and it burns, this means you are compatible with fire, and if the paper is cut, this means you are compatible with air, and if it gets wet, this means water, and if it hardens, this means earth. These are the most common elements. But there are also intermediate elements such as iron, ice, lava, and hurricane, and the high elements are lightning, meteor, wood, and light, and rare elements such as darkness, light, blood, and possession. Fine, these are all the elements, and now place your hand on the paper and pump your mana into it."
Raymond placed his hand on the paper and pumped his mana into it. Raymond was waiting impatiently to know his new weapon that would help him complete his quest, and Ron was looking with great curiosity, what surprise will Raymond show again. After
Raymond finished pumping the mana, Ron and Raymond looked at the paper which did not react with the mana in any way. Raymond asked, what does this mean? Ron, who was still looking at the paper in a state of surprise, replied: "Well, I don't know either," and thought in his mind: What is this, why didn't the paper react with him? If it was because of the soul signature, I also have soul magic of the same category and it reacted with me, so is the reason for its lack of reaction with him because of the black mana? I don't know since there are no records about this matter. Hmm, well, if magic was not an available option, then well, this will suffice.
Then Ron said to Raymond: "It seems that I will not be able to teach you magic now, but if you come with me after the end of this trip, my grandfather might be able to help you. But now, what do you think if I teach you the way to control the power of the soul signature instead of magic? I am sure I will be able to help you since I own soul magic which is of the same category." Raymond replied: "Fine, anything is good as long as it makes me stronger." Ron replied: "Fine, but with all these powers you possess, why do you want to become stronger? If it is for the sake of survival in this trip, you are the one who owns the largest percentage of survival among everyone here."
Raymond: "Well, I don't know what scares you in the fog islands, whether it was the environment there or the magical monsters, but for me, from what I have experienced in my life, there is nothing more terrifying than
humans." Ron: "Fine," then thought in his mind: What? There is nothing more terrifying than humans? Is he really of our age? He speaks like my grandfather. Well, this doesn't matter. Then he said to Raymond: "Well, now to control the power of the soul signature, you must feel it first. Sit down and I will place my hand on your back and pump soul mana inside your body so that you can feel it, and after that, you search for it in your body." Then Raymond sat down and closed his left eye, and Ron placed both his hands on his back and started pumping soul mana, but after moments of pumping soul mana into Raymond's body, he felt something strange, which is that the soul mana goes to one place inside Raymond's body and does not distribute in his body naturally, as if there is something absorbing it. So he asked the spirits if there was something wrong, and the spirits replied to him: "Ron, this is something we must never wake up, you must stop what you are trying to do immediately, and also you must stop your teaching of him because everything you do is useless since what is inside him swallows the soul signature power. Therefore, he must control this power first so that he can use the soul signature in this way. He does not even feel our power that you are pumping into him." Ron: "Then what should we... well, this is something he knows for sure since he can pump this mana into his sword." Ron stopped pumping soul mana into Raymond's body, then Ron asked Raymond if he felt anything, and he replied to him: "No, I did not feel anything." Then he told him what the spirits told him. When Raymond heard everything the spirits said, he laughed loudly, saying: "I have become blind," while he remembers Maxim's words to him: "Listen to me, boy, you are already strong compared to those in your generation, I don't think there is anyone who can defeat you, and even those who are older will suffer in facing you. But if you face those who are at my level as enemies to you, I guarantee you that you will die before you take your sword out of its scabbard, and I think I carved this thing in your mind and your body. But what I will teach you now is the most important among all the things I taught you during the six years that I trained you. What was driving you to become stronger is revenge, and what drives you to live is rage, and what feeds both of them is hatred. These three are what drive you to continue. This is what I saw from you since I found you half dead near the port, and when you knew that I am a former mercenary and you kept begging me to train you. And since that moment, they kept growing inside you, forming a monster, and it is still growing even at this moment. And when you remember my words this in the future until you complete your quest that made you form this monster, remember what will make you stronger is what you will experience in what is coming, and your control of this monster, and this will not be easy because it will not allow you to control it easily, but it will in its turn try to control you. And this makes you have two paths, either to control it to become stronger and achieve your quest, or for it to control you and blind you from seeing what you have in your hands. It may delude you that you are weak and you need to train and become stronger, but it swallows everything you trained on, and for this, the most important is that you overcome it and control it, and if you achieve this, I promise you that even those who are at my level will suffer against you. Do you understand?" Raymond replied: "Yes, I understand what you mean well, but there is what I think you were wrong about, which is that there is no one in my generation who can defeat me, but there is one I could not win against before, and even now after all you trained me on and what you said to me now, with this I still feel that I will be defeated despite all this, and based on what his strength was six years ago, I think he is now at the same level as you, Maxim, or even stronger than you." "Oh, a person stronger than me, who is it I wonder?" "It is..." After Raymond remembered Maxim's words, he closed his eye and moved the mana in all parts of his body to find this monster that Maxim mentioned and the spirits as well. And after moments of searching, he reached the place that was swallowing even his own mana that he was moving in his body, and it was a dark mass of energy with high gravity. Raymond went with his consciousness to there and touched the energy, and suddenly his consciousness was attracted to inside it, and suddenly he hears a voice saying to him: "Finally, you came here," so he follows the source of the voice until three shadows appeared in front of him. The first shadow appeared as a man in his mid-forties with gray hair, one red eye and another with an eye patch on it, a white shirt, black pants, and on his shoulders a red cloak. As for the second shadow, it appeared as a youth in his eighteenth with red hair touching his shoulders, black eyes, a long-sleeved shirt, and black pants. And the third shadow, but the third shadow which appeared as a boy in his thirteenth was a mass of blackness without clear features. But upon Raymond seeing them, fluctuating feelings occupied his face: longing, rage, happiness, confusion, but what broke all these feelings was the sound of a wicked laugh that was filling the whole place. The sound stopped for a moment, then Raymond started turning right and left and shouted loudly: "Who are you?" Then a hand turned around Raymond's shoulder and the voice replied to him while whispering in Raymond's ear: "You make me sad, Raymond, you left me for a week and you no longer recognize my voice?" Raymond did not turn to see who was whispering in his ear and pulled his sword and tried to hit him, but he was faster than Raymond's hit and stood next to the three shadows. Raymond asks him: "Who are you? And also, show your true form, do not pollute these people by taking their form." He replied to him: "Hmm, but I have no form, for feelings have no form at all." Raymond replied: "Feelings?" "Yes, we represent your feelings. That one, what was his name... umm ah right, Gale, he represents hatred, and the other, Keilan, represents revenge, and the last one, you of the thirteen years old, represents rage, and I who take the form of Maxim represent confusion. Do you understand now?" Raymond replied: "Yes, but why are you the only one who moves and they are static?" "Well, this is because of your current situation, for what you feel most now is confusion, and the evidence for this is your calmness despite seeing your target of revenge in front of you. And also, I am the only one who moves here since six years ago, meaning since the beginning of your training with Maxim, and even two days ago when he appeared in that illusion array, I was the one who stimulated rage to move because if I didn't, your mind would have collapsed and you would have gone out of control. So why this hesitation?" Raymond: "It is not hesitation, for I still want revenge and I don't want to kill him, for killing him simply would be a mercy for him. I want to make every day he lives a hell until the day of his death, and even if he approached his death day, I will find a way that prolongs his life so that he suffers more, and even if he died, I will torture his soul and I will not leave it alone. But what makes me confused is a question in my mind and no one knows its answer but him." "Hahaha, I liked your answer, you deserve this power, I will grant you what you came for to achieve this quest of yours."
Raymond remained closing his left eye and extended his right hand and opened his fist and started applying what he learned from Ron and started imagining a fire, then a faint black fire started coming out of Raymond's hand, it was disturbing violently searching for something to devour as if it had a special will of its own. Raymond gripped his nerves, trying to control it, but he failed and the fire disappeared. Ron was watching accurately the monster in front of him, Raymond who was not learning but was absorbing concepts with a terrifying speed as if he was a black hole swallowing everything that approaches it. And at that moment:
The copper ship bell cut the silence of training, which rang three consecutive rings, a signal for the general meeting. The pirates, mercenaries, and adventurers gathered on the deck. Argyus stepped forward with heavy steps, his features were stricter than usual.
Argyus: "Listen everyone! The plan has changed. We will not go around the bone cliff as was decided. We will enter directly through the 'Passage of Silence'."
A dead silence prevailed, then voices exploded in protest. The passage of silence was a graveyard for ships, where it is said that the fog there devours minds before bodies. One of the pirates shouted: "This is suicide! The monsters there are of the peak rank!"
While fear was devouring everyone, Ron was smiling with excitement, and his eyes were glowing with a mad curiosity, while Raymond remained standing coldly, his hand touching his sword hilt, as if the danger does not concern him since it makes him approach his revenge goal faster.
After the meeting was dismissed, Argyus entered Prince Erik's suite. The Prince was standing in front of a large map of the continent.
Erik (without turning): "You have made a big fuss, Argyus. The crew is terrified. Why this rush to take the path of death?"
Argyus: "Because we no longer have the luxury of time, Your Highness. I received news through the spies I planted among the followers of the rest of the princes as a precaution for any emergency through the magical communication jewel, and it seems that your brothers, the other princes, have already set sail a month and a half ago. They are approaching the fog islands from different directions. If we do not take this shortcut, we will arrive to find the continent a big trap, or worse, we may find that they have seized what we came for."
Erik's eyes narrowed: "My brothers... always trying to take away what belongs to me. Well, let us go in the path of death, and what if there are monsters in that path, we have a monster here too."
Argyus in his mind: This pampered fool thinks that everything belongs to him because of the pampering of the Emperor and his grandfather, even in the party that celebrated the Emperor's birthday, he arrived at the party hall late, which is considered a challenge to the Emperor's authority, and he didn't stop at this only, for he was drunk and he even stood in front of the Emperor without greeting him and after that he shouted at the Emperor saying 'why are you sitting on my throne'. If it was any other prince, he would have been executed immediately even if he was drunk, but the Emperor only ordered the guards to take the Prince and lock him in his room. All this, first because of the Emperor's great love for him, and also because of his grandfather's status as an advisor to the Emperor and as a head of the strongest family in the Empire. But because of this, I am sure that the first goal for the rest of the princes is killing this idiot in this trip. And my teacher and his idiot master think that by sending me with him that I will protect him. Well, surely I can protect him from his idiot brothers and the rats they will bring, but when the opportunity arises, I will leave him behind and collect all the treasures my eyes fall upon and run away, hahaha.
By evening, the ship entered the 'Passage of Silence'. The fog became black, and the water turned into a viscous material like oil. Suddenly, the ship shook strongly that it almost flipped. The sound of tearing ship wood came to their ears from below. The lookout shouted from above: "It is not rocks! It... it is the 'Fog Kraken' tentacles!"
Massive tentacles emerged from the water covered with dark blue mana, and started pulling the ship toward the depths. Raymond, who was sitting in the corner, stood up slowly. He pulled his sword, and black mana came out of it.
Raymond (in a low voice): "Well, it came at the right time, for battles are the best way for training."
Ron (with a wide smile): "Hahaha, I knew that this trip would not be boring at all with you, and thank you, grandfather, for this fun punishment."