Corrupt Light Dragon

Chapter 1: The Compliant Mugged

Ugh. I'm so hungry.

I looked from left to right and ahead but all I saw was an endless, dark forest. The unforgiving summer midday sun was continuously sucking the life out of me. I had been trekking the road for a week now, living off of the land but really, can anyone blame me if I get sick and tired of eating rabbits and birds just to survive?

I want to eat some bread!

My stomach growled at the thought of munching a soft, warm, tasty and probably fancy flavored loaf of bread. I sighed and resigned to my fate. I'll just go look for a rabbit...again. A wave of nausea hit me as I thought of eating the usual menu: Charred Rabbit.

With a heavy heart, I gathered the forest’s rion and created a light orb which I then left on the trail to serve as a marker, so I don't get lost during my hunt, and proceeded to search the wild forest for game.

I remember when Master first taught me how to make a light orb. He first explained the origins of Rion in the most loquacious way. According to him, rion is the magical energy present in everything and especially most abundant in living things. See, the First Dragon from legend made the continent magically stable by infusing everything with magical energy or what magician scholars call Rion. So now everything contains some rion, even light, shadows and rocks.

But just because every living thing contained some amount of rion did not mean everyone could be a magician though. It took skill, talent and a demon for a teacher to become a competent magician like me!

Master once explained that there were two types of magicians – a rion user and a rion manipulator. The first type, the rion user, uses the rion inside the person, manipulating it and creating a physical manifestation for the rion. For example, I could create a light orb using my own rion which was already present in me since birth. The latter type uses the rion already present in the environment and manipulating it using the rion inside the person. For example, instead of purely using my own rion to create the light orb, I could gather the light of the sun and make them converge into a single point using my rion as a guide.

There were several advantages and disadvantages to each type of magician. Rion using is very easy since the magician uses the rion already present in them since birth. The ease could be compared to writing with the dominant hand. But because it taps directly into the magician’s energy, using it for a long period of time could be strenuous. On the other hand, Rion Manipulators uses considerably less rions than Rion Users hence energy conserving but the art itself is harder to master. It could be compared to writing a stylish calligraphy with the non-dominant hand.

In my case, I am adept both ways (My demonic Master made sure of that) but I prefer being a rion manipulator. I treat rions the same way I treat money. Why should I spend my own rion when there are free rions everywhere?

Where was I? Oh yes, the wretched rabbit. To track the rabbit, I made use of light magic.

Light magic, as the name implies, means manipulating light with rion. The way it works is that as long as the rabbit is somewhere within the light, I can sense its presence. Of course there are limits like the range of my vision and whatnot but then it's just a rabbit in a forest. How hard could it be? It didn'ttake long to spot one. I swear rabbits are everywhere in this forest. As soon as I spotted one though, I gathered a small amount of light at my fingertip and then condensed it to a small point. I took aim and fired my light round straight through my rabbit’s heart. Hunting rabbits may help with my aim but seeing a rabbit again, I can't help but cover my mouth in disgust.

Don't worry, Chryisle. It's only for the road. When you get to the next village, you'll have all the bread you can eat.

I went to retrieve my rabbit when I suddenly heard distinct noises. They were voices of people. My only thought was when there are people, there is a village and when there is a village, there is food!