To The North

Chapter 5

Darren found out that he was a unique when he accidentally set the Mallory's house on fire when Darren was hot tempered on how the mallory's insult and acted upon him.

Darren was treated like a pest, he was like an annoying itch that won't go away. Most of the townspeople hate him due to unique eye color and hair. Mostly Darren was always patient but when it comes to the Mallory's arrogance and attitude.

They treated him much worse than the townspeople combine. The townspeople only insulted him but the mallory's they beat him up when they saw him, they stole his bow and burn it, broke all of his arrows and stole items that belong to him and said
"Pest like you don't deserve anything you filthy swine". That hurt Darren a lot, emotionally and physically.

But one day, Darren had enough. The mallory's gone too far. Insulting his foster father and took his kill, beat up his father because of raising him. Darren was so angry that he had felt his palm getting hot. By the time Darren reach to the mallory's house, Darren's mouth involuntary spoke some weird language which had never heard or knew of. All of the sudden, fireball burst out of his palm and burned the whole house down in seconds.

Darren was in shock that he took off before the house burned down to the ground. He had hope nobody saw him doing spells. He was still twelve by then. And luckily no one knew about his unique ability except his foster father.

Every since that incident, Darren was motivated to learn more, it was a risk but it was a risk that he was willing to take. Years when by and he had learn more and more spells, but one day he was caught doing spells and he was ordered to be beheaded.
From there, he ran as fast as he could, took all his items, left a note for his foster father and took off. Been on the run for three days and now he had a wolf on his side.

But still out of curiosity, he can't help to wander on what the wolf had said before. What is the edge and how far is it if the wolf got tired just by traveling from there to here. Darren stared at the wolf whose is now sleeping. Darren could see the wolf chest rising as it snores loudly.

Darren again wonder what will happen if they reached the circumference, he didn't think he would made this far, let alone summon an ally to be with him. As Darren mind started to wander, suddenly he felt pain around his left wrist. He tried to suppressed his scream but it was no use and he scream. They pain was unbearable, it felt like a thousand fire ants had bitten him all simultaneously. Darren squeezes his hand to hope the pain would go away but it didn't.

He scream more and the wolf woke up thinking his master was attack. The wolf stood up on it's four legs and let a bark out. But he saw is that his master has in pain. The wolf quickly rushes to him to see what had pain him

The wolf was curious on what can be so painful that make his master scream. The wolf can't do anything but to see his master in pain. Darren had never felt pain like this. The pain was unbearable making molten iron spill on his skin makes that bearable.

After what it felt like hours but only minutes, the pain finally subsided. And Darren look at his wrist and found a strange marking. The wolf also look to feed his curiosity only to see it was a fusing mark.

"Took long enough for you to have that mark" the wolf with excitement. Finally the wolf can fuse with his master, so he could rest and fill his mana back. Ever since the incident with the guards, it had use almost all his mana to summon a thunder.

"What do you mean, was I suppose to have this mark?" Darren was confuse, how could the wolf said it took a long time to revealed this mark, was it a mark to so show that you had summon something or is it a side effect.

" what you had experience is the making of an infusing mark, that mark can allowed me to fuse with you when either I or you low in mana" the wolf briefly explain as it inspect the mark and licking it.

The mark look like a paw mark, Darren pushes the wolf head as he traces the line of the marks. He did not feel a bump on it. It was clearly visible but Darren could saw the intricate details of the paw mark. It appears as it was carved from inside out, explaining why it was so painful before it had arrived.

The wolf came closer wanting to get a closer look, Darren extended his arm and shows the wolf. The wolf look and differentiate it with the wolf's some sort of mark on it's left paw.

The marks are the same and much in the same size. But the wolf look weirdly at Darren. "How old did you say you are?" The wolf ask Darren as the wolf uses his claw to touch the mark. With the touch from his claw, the mark started to glow blue for a second.

"What did you do? Was it supposed to glow like that?" Darren ask the wolf since he just freaked out that the mark on his wrist glowed when the wolf touch it. "It was merely our mana connected to each other, our mana clearly connected which mean that you are truly my master" the wolf and bark happily, knowing that he has a very strong summoner as a master even though Darren doesn't know he was strong.

When their mana connected, the wolf felt a strong surge of mana. A mana which only could belong to someone who had experienced in spells and or summoning. But this was from a boy, who just found out he summon something, a boy who......

"I'm sixteen by the way, my foster father told me I was born fifteen moon after the hunting season." Darren told the wolf, curious why would the wolf want to know how old he was.

"I thought you were much younger than that." The wolf said as it now chase it's own tail. For a talking wolf, he sure doesn't talk much seriously. First he was this curious wolf on how old he was and studied the mark carefully and now he was chasing it's tail like a it was a squirrel attached to its's behind.

"Pardon me for my behavior master" the wolf stop chasing it's tail and sat beside his master. "The time our mana connected for the first time, I was hit by this strong surge of mana, you have a high number of mana Darren, a mana in level of an experience summoner or caster" the wolf said in an serious tone

"That is why you are able to summon a strong creature such as I, not many minor has that high level in mana. A minor caster has half as much of mana as a minor summoner while a summoner has half as much as a minor Mage." The wolf spoke, telling him more about what he needed to know.

As for Darren, he could not quite understand why the wolf is telling him this. "You might be wondering why am I telling you this. The wolf as it just read Darren's mind. The wolf didn't mind it the face Darren had given him and instead kept talking.

"The reason why I'm telling you this is because you're mana is strangely high, as high as a fully experience summoner. Unless you have practice on spells and summoning in a very young age, there is no way that high level of mana can contain within you. Unless you did practice at a very young age did you not?" Darren merely shook his head since he wanting to hear more what the wolf can offer.

"I want you to demonstrate a spell, any kind of spell. So that I can see how strong you are as you're mana should be." The wolf said and Darren agreed. Though Darren doesn't know how to use mana, he try to conjure one of his favorite spells, mist.

As Darren closes his eyes, he brought up memory on how does a mist look like. Very foggy as it can covers a man sight, a chilling cold wind of mist touches a skin can make someone shiver.

When the memory was in his head he began to say the incantation," Rii Fei Laa Saa"
And suddenly smoke came out of Darren's hand and a mist form, cover the radius in which they were in.

The wolf was in awe, he had never seen someone conjure a mist before. The mist hit the wolf's fur and the wolf shivers from the coldness of it. "One powerful spell, not only it can blinded someone sight but if it uses correctly, it could also give someone a chilly death" the wolf thought as it now has no sight of his master.

The wolf was still speechless since this was not a spell that is being use by other caster or summoner. " could he be studying dark arts?" The wolf thought, "but that would be impossible for someone to study dark arts to summon a uncorrupted creature such as I, probably they can?" The wolf by now was overthinking his way to make any total sense of this.

The mist started to clear up and the wolf can see his master shadow from the moonlight. As the mist started to disappear, the wolf can see that his master was full on closed eyes as they mist sucked up from his hand and as they mist disappear, Darren opened his eyes and the wolf now know why Darren can conjure such powerful spell in his minor age.