As the new semester approached, Eclissi met with me more frequently. I showed him my progress with mastering Death Energy and he was incredibly impressed. "Before we do the procedure, there is one thing that I must mention. Once we do this, you will need to find a way to mix basic mage studies with that energy. Otherwise we would draw attention."
Eclissi was right. I would have the eyes, but unless I could somehow pretend that I could use Will, someone would eventually figure me out. But that would be for future me to deal with. Currently I was struggling with trying to take his eye balls out.
"Who would have expected this to be such a challenge?" Every time I got a decent grip my eyes would start hurting.
"Well, you could use the energy to help you. You yourself discovered by yourself that your Death energy had ties with Life too."
"So?"
"If you control the energy for the purpose of Life, in theory you could control your body."
"In theory? Huh." Eclissi's tip was too detailed to only be a theory he just came up with, but I followed it nevertheless. The ash grey mystical energy flowed throughout my body constantly, all I had to do was command it. Using words was the easiest way for now, the shorter the phrase the better. "Don't die, sever."
Trying to cast two abilities on polar ends was taking a toll on me mentally, but I continued. The eyes had been perfectly cut from their endings, enveloping me in darkness. This feeling was overwhelming. I could still smell the air, feel the table, taste the lingering aftertaste of pork, but I couldn't see. I hurried to ensure the surgery would be succesful, I only had seconds to place the awakened eyes.
"Don't worry Mort, here." Eclissi gently placed the marbles back and I could feel the nerves attaching. Light hit the new eyes and it felt like waking up after sleeping for an etternity. The light hurt at first, but the, or should I say my, eyes got used to it eventually.
At first I believed this was a failure. "Everything…looks the same. Is there like a phrase or chant that activates them?" Even with the eyes of a past Conjuror, I still couldn't witness the true world.
"No. All you simply have to do is wish to see Will. Once you accomplish that, you will be able to switch from seeing the material world to the Will world, and vice versa."
Let me see Will.
Unknown to Mort, his eyes started changing to a brilliant ruby red, and for the first time in his life, he was able to view Will without the artefact. Eclissi was somehow even more pleased then Mort, possibly being the emotions he felt as a mentor, or some other motive.
But far away from the pair, back in the world controlled by the child in an adult's body, Chelahree was fabricating creatures and pitting them against each other. The survivors would fight on for the sake of finding the one perfect species.
Every attempt, she grew closer to forming what she would consider perfect. All for the sake of getting to that boy with her eyes, for that hidden ability she wished she possessed. "Life Giver! I must have it. I need it!"
****
My friends were shocked to see me when the break was over. It wasn't just my ability to see Will that surprised them, but my stature too. My body suddenly bulked after I finally began to understand what type of energy I had within.
"Mort what kind of training did you do with that knight? You look like an escaped experiment." Nova and Adrien had to hold me back from attacking Lucien.
"First Sandpaper and now slander! I ought to cut your tongue off."
"Still though, Mort you've definitely changed. Your whole personality has gained an edge to it. You don't have that timid posture anymore and the paleness in your skin seems to have disappeared."
Nova was right. My body stopped looking sickly and seemed to return back to normal. For the rest of the breaks we talked about what we spent our time on. Adrien started to learn archery while Lucien started to use the sword.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted professor Don Contrer approaching this little group of misfits. "Ah Mort. I was just looking for you. Would you mind coming to my office for a minute?" Uh Oh.
"Ohhh Mort's in trouble," laughed Lucien.
"Not really. It's just a discussion about his grades and studying. You'll have one soon too, Lucien." The boy gulped at the thought of that. "Anyway, it won't take long Mort, 5 minutes at most."
I joined the teacher in his room where piles upon piles of paper took up half the empty space. "Is this all the work you have to mark?"
"Ah," Sir Contrer said as he looked at the piles, "That's just half. The rest is at home still needing to be marked. Now, the reason why I called you here was because of something else." Don opened a draw and pulled out a colourless crystal. "Do you remember this experiment?"
"I did." It was the crystal that seemed to not have a distinct colour, but two. "It was a Fire crystal in the end."
"Yes, it was after you used it. Mort, this is a Splitstone, a manufactured crystal that is still in its prototype stage. This was created to have equal amounts of two colours of Will strands. But you somehow changed that. It now has more Will strands of Flame than Water."
Oh shit. I knew at that instant what happened. I used the Element of Death subconsciously. Crap what do I say now. I can't say that, that I'm the sole user of this unrecorded element. This was the issue that Eclissi warned me about. I needed to come up with a believable lie.
"I, uh. To be honest, I only recently realised this but I used Will to do something mages could. I used magic to destroy the blue Will strands." I'm going to pretend that I used destruction magic.
The professor looked surprised, even scared for a minute. "My god…you used Will Destruction at your age? And subconsciously too…" However, instead of praising my accomplishment, he started laughing. "As if. You can't even see Will! You couldn't have done that-"
Before he could finish his words, I picked up the crystal and looked through it, directly at Don Contrer. My red eyes seemed to pierce right through this faulty product. "It may sound false and unbelievable, but that's the only explanation that I can offer."
After the meeting, there was a large scandal within the higher ups, with the main topic being Mort. "That child is a genius! We must make him this generation's prodigy!" There was infighting between the staff. Or so I heard. This was all told to me by the nurse, who asked me to come in for a checkup.
"Well, congrats on your awakening Mort. You now don't have to keep asking for experimental drugs."
"Aha! So they do exist." Miss Visage laughed at my reaction.
"Yes, they do. But very, and I mean very, dangerous stuff. It's all experimental with grotesque side effects. Also, you've been busy," she said while pointing to a newspaper. "Fighting terrorists at your age, must be a true patriot."
As we talked about the event, a breeze blew by and something itched my eyes. "Oh, I think I got sand in my eyes." My eyes teared up a bit, but the pain was minimal. "I'll see you later. I have Artifact Study next."
As the name suggests, this class focused on teaching about how to make tools that help ordinary people using mages and Conjuror's knowledge. It was the one of the more popular classes as many people choose to specialise in Artifact Study and Creation in their last two years in the academy.
I do like it, I think it's interesting, but my original plan was to study Will. I doubt I can do that, since I became Imprinted. There's also the fact that I need to report to the Emperor of Dawnbreak and to convince him that I'm not a devil or demon. I sighed as I could predict that my future would be full of hassle.
"Alright class, for today's lesson we will be focusing on incorporating sonic properties into tools. How could a piece of technology that's based on sound help the ordinary person." Professor Gizmo, if it wasn't a giveaway, was a designer, creator, inventor and many more things. An older gentleman in his 60's, his age has only sharpened his mind as he still creates technology for the royal family.
"Sound is what we call vibrations and they can be loud, quiet, whatever." He grabbed his cane and smacked his desk. "Bet that woke up a few of you. That loud bang came from the vibration of the air. The more power I put into the hit, the stronger the vibration. Back to my question, how could sound be used by an ordinary person?"
My classmates put their hands up and shouted answers, some better than the rest. That was until one person put their hands up- a transfer student who moved to this Academy at the end of last semester. "Communication between large distances."
"Oh? And how would someone be able to achieve that, uh, Martin was it?"
"Yes. If you could store the pattern of vibrations that speech had, you could transfer that pattern via some sort of transport and someone would be able to decode that pattern."
Now this guy was a genius. He just came up with a revolutionary idea that no textbook had ever mentioned.
"Oho young boy, what you are talking about is something I am currently trying to design. I call it the telephone. It transfers a person's voice through vibration via a metal wire, and the receiver has a piece of paper that vibrates at the right frequency to form speech. Now it has been somewhat impractical, but you boy," Gizmo said as he pointed his cane to Martin, "You could solve that. Clap for the new student."
The class clapped, but there were some who seemed annoyed at the young genius. I could see a group of thugs looking at him with vicious eyes, potentially harboring ill intentions.
"Now Mort!" The sudden call of my name woke me up.
"Huh? Ah yes Sir?"
"I hear that you're a genius now, which is strange. I thought you were always a genius, long before you awakened your eyes," the professor walked in circles at the front of the class. "I've also heard you're a hero! I read in the papers that you went up against a terrorist and were able to keep up."
"Ah yes sir. I was lucky-"
"Yes you were lucky!" The same group of students who gave a serious death stare at Martin now tried to heckle me. "It's only because of that nice weapon that you were able to drive away the criminal."
I slammed my hand on the table. "So what? I had the skill to use this weapon and the brains to drive off that criminal. Yet what have you accomplished, other than sully your family's name trying to attack a Solei student."
The gang were taken back at my comments, especially the ring leader. "She deserved my wrath! Do you know the humiliation I suffered because of her incompetence-"
"Boy…I suggest you keep the discrimination outside of my classroom." From the professor, a suffocating aura, that of hell itself, emanated. The arid hot air started making me hallucinate. I need to do something. In that moment, I wrapped my body in the Death energy, letting it float just above my body, and wished for the death of the aura near my body.
"S,Sir stop!" While I was able to find a way to protect myself, the thugs seemed to fall one by one, like insects. The only other person still somewhat conscious was Martin, who seemed to even be relaxed.
"My apologies class. As a treat for having to endure that, I will cut the lesson short for today. Mort and Martin, however, you two must stay just a minute to tell what techniques you used." Gizmo pulled on his moustache as he was intrigued. "Martin you can tell me privately if you feel sh-"
"I lowered my body temperature. I simply used Will to form a phenomenon that would lower my body's temperature through sweating and increasing my blood flow."
I had my mouth open at that statement, and when I looked at Gizmo, he had the same expression as me.
"Simply genius! Being able to shape your Will to the point where you can amplify natural phenomena. My, you're on the grasps of being a Conjurer!" This was really impressive. You would only see this type of talent back in the past, during the Golden Age of Magic. "Ahem, now Mort, how will your answer compare?"
I already claimed that I can detangle Will…guess I'll be rolling with that from now on. "I applied fundamental knowledge of Will Destruction. I destroyed the aura you produced by destroying the tightly knit strands of Will."
"Oh? So the other rumour was true. Will Destruction, or more accurately, Will Detanglement, is a process of destabilising a Mage's or Conjurer's Will in their magic and spells. To be able to even put it into practice is, well, phenomenal." The professor put his hands on both of our shoulders. "How about I recommend you for the Continental Bout?"
What?! No no no! Anything but that! "Aha, I don't know sir…I wouldn't want to bother-"
"We kindly accept the offer, thank you." Martin bowed as he answered on my behalf too. I felt like crying a little. The Continental Bout was purely just a fighting competition with nothing but your body. So no weapons, but Will and Imprinted were allowed.
"Good! I will get on that right now. Prepare for the competition, which should be this summer. So…3 more months. Prepare and good luck."
I walked away sullen, but Martin called my name. "Mort, that was rather impressive."
"Ah. Thanks Martin. You were rather cool yourself." No laugh. "Not funny, got it."
"I wanted to say congrats on awakening, I heard you had struggled with ridicule until recently." He extended his hand out.
"Thank you Martin," I said as we shook hands, "If you need help or someone to talk to, I'm there." Across Martin's face, the stoic and smart look disappeared, now showing the cheerful smile of a child.
"Thank you Mort."
Now that I had been basically drafted to a continental fight that would for sure lead to the discovery, I need to make a plan with Eclissi. This will be the stage for my true self to awaken as the Avatar of Death.