Radiance - The Alight Archives Book #1

43. The Next Challenge

Professor Newts gave his wand three twirls, and in the air above him, materializing from a puff of greenish smoke was a circular platform that expanded some seven meters from the lecture pulpit to halfway down the classroom. 

Erecting out of it were numerous shapes, each differing in color, size, and design. However, the tallest among them was a large spire—which looked almost like a crooked dagger with how it curved in the middle—that nearly reached the roof, formless flurries meant to replicate clouds spiraling around its sharp peak in a circle.

Below what was obviously a mountain was a canopy of trees, though this species possessed crimson-colored leaves and a darkish brown trunk, their roots rupturing out of the earth only to form a loop and dive back into it. 

Further past the forest, which encompassed the mountain on all sides, appeared a collection of small, box-shaped constructions that Elaine assumed was meant to be a city, a rather large one, in fact, given how the illusion couldn't account for all of it, resulting in a sum of buildings being severed in half as they protruded the translucent platform's circumference.

"Dragonspine Mountain," Professor Newts announced, one of his arms stretched beside him while his remaining hand kept ahold of the ruby implanted at the head of his cane. The professor strutted underneath the flickering image, staring up at it as if to admire his magic's craft, although this wasn't the first time he'd cast such an illusion, nor did Elaine suspect it'd be his last. Regardless, Elaine didn't think she'd ever get used to seeing a Professional Sorcerer use their skills right in front of her, and so she shared the professor's amazement, nearly forgetting that she was meant to be taking notes.

"While I'm certain many of you are conscious of its existence, I ask, do any among you know of how it came to be?" Much to her expectations, not a soul responded, either not having the answer themselves or because they were too anxious that what they had to say was incorrect.

Professor Newts' classroom was designed in such a fashion that there were four rows on either side of the room with an elongated, vacant space separating them. And so, in order to address the entirety of his class, Newts would have to swing his body one way and then turn around to face the next; an exhausting, if not tedious, exercise but one he was more than likely accustomed to. Elaine herself had chosen a seat in the first of the four rows on the right side of the room, sitting in between a stone-faced Mason and a yawning Fearne, the girl planting her chin inside of a palm.

Elaine might have been a lowborn from a countryside town that barely anybody had heard of, but even she knew of Dragonspine Mountain, as her mother would tell her and Ellend the legend every night before they were tucked into bed. The story went that during the Arcane Age, when rogue sorcerers and warlocks still ran rampant around the country due to the absence of the Arcanum, which had, at that point in history, yet to be established, a grand army of sorcerers descended on the valley of Vendlemere with the aim of claiming Aerlion City—the same city that was partially captured in Professor Newts' illusion—so that they could transform into a military base and raise an even greater army, forcing the people of the city to help as well.

But even during the Arcane Age some four centuries ago, mages were reluctant to reveal themselves as many still feared magic and any who practiced its power. It was the reason why this band of criminals assumed they could take over Aerlion so easily, as their forces consisted of seasoned hunters, warriors from distant lands, and disillusioned men and women claiming to be sorcerers. None of them suspected that Aerlion housed a sorcerer of its own, a local mage named Theron Gristle.

Now, this man was by no means a fighter. In fact, he was known in his town to be somewhat of a pacifist. However, when the day came that he saw an army numbering in the hundreds dot his familiar horizon, Theron was forced into action. Armed with a mere commoner's wand, he cast an unknown Lost Magic spell that allowed him to craft the planet in his image. With that single spell, Theron pulled an enormous mountain out of the crust of the earth, utterly decimating the army's ranks.