Code of Rainbow: Ancient Barons and the Returned Assassin (Book 2)

‘Catch it, Kraigen!’

‘You can make it, man!’

‘Ahhh – I can make it!!’

Splat! Kraigen’s voice stopped, as he fell into the mud. The next second, the ball dropped on to the ground too, several feet ahead of him.

‘You okay, buddy?’ Brian from the rival team picked up the ball, but he didn’t go in for the attack because he was concerned about the chubby boy in front of him.

‘I’m fine…’ Kraigen lifted his face from the grass and spat out the mud in his mouth. ‘Sorry, Soarame.’

‘You did well, man.’ Soarame rushed up from behind. ‘You were almost there.’

‘I blame the gravity.’ Kraigen brushed off the dirt from his body. ‘It’s discrimination against people like me – I thought our school forbid that!’

The crowd chuckled. Since Kraigen made friends with Soarame after the Fledglings’ Tournament – that was one year ago – he had become a lot less provocative, and tended to make fun of himself. To return the big favour that Soarame’s crew did in healing him, he had joined Soarame’s Dragon&Empires team without hesitation.

With Kraigen’s talent in both Wind and Fire, he was undoubtedly a good wizard, but he had an ongoing problem – his growing weight. Unlike Kardiac, who grew in bulk and strength, Kraigen just grew fatter and flabbier. However hard this poor boy tried to lose weight, he just couldn’t do it, because his body acted like gaining weight just by drinking water. As a consequence, even with the help of Wind magic to speed him up, Kraigen still couldn’t run as fast as he should be able to.

Right then, Soarame’s team was having a friendly game, and their rival team was led by Brian, the nice boy who had once given up his position to Soarame during practice in Rodka’s team. When Rodka graduated and left the school, Brian became the captain of the remaining team, and they were still one of the best teams in the school; Soarame’s team was not really a match for them.

‘Game! 3 to 0, the Pathfinders won!’

The time was up, so the referee announced another victory of Brian’s team, named “Pathfinders”. It was the name chosen by Rodka when he founded it; and the proud founder was already out there in the real world, finding his own path.

Soarame’s team was named “Resurgers”, for his resurgence experience during the MagiMax battle one year ago. The official teammates included: Kardiac and Kraigen, both Fire and Wind, Omifo the Lightness and Earth, Alicey the Wind and Earth, Dileys the Water and, of course, Soarame, the well-known Water Captain who was also able to fly. This was a pretty strong and imposing team because most members were capable of more than one lineage, so that they could often swap roles if needed. However, there were two problems: apart from Soarame and Dileys, the rest were all just Grade-4s; plus they didn’t have a good Darkness player on the team. Therefore, every time they practised, they had to borrow a Darkness player from somewhere, or simply give up that role.

‘Soarame, for what it’s worth, you should really start recruiting an official Darkness player.’ Brian handed over a glass of juice to Soarame and sat beside him. ‘I know you’ve been keeping that place for Halgon, but he’s been missing for a year…’

‘I know, thanks.’ Soarame cracked a smile. ‘I’ve got plans.’

‘Okay.’ Brian sighed inside; this was not the first time that he’d tried to persuade Soarame. If the Resurgers had a good Darkness player, there might actually be a chance for this team to enter the cross-campus Championship and make it to the semi-final, even though most of them were just Grade-4s.

So far, Halgon’s secrets had been well kept – Soarame hadn’t even told his best friends because it wouldn’t do any good to either side. Since Rodka had left, Soarame and Sachastain were the only two in the school who knew that the seemingly nondescript boy had such an unthinkable background. Soarame had been worrying that Max might broadcast Halgon’s secret, but fortunately nothing like that seemed to have happened so far.

Although the mysterious boy had been missing for so long, Soarame still believed that he would come back one day. Maybe this very day, when Soarame went back to the dorm, his best friend would be sitting on the couch and smiling at him, as quiet and low-key as always. That was why Soarame insisted on keeping the Darkness spot for Halgon – as soon as he came back Soarame would give him the role; but it would be unfair to the original Darkness player if he had recruited one in the meantime.

‘Dileys, you were amazing!’ The friends in the Resurgers praised the Water girl of the team, as she’d made several good moves in the game. After Rodka had gone, Dileys had been very sad and dejected to begin with. But once she’d got over it, she became a lot more focused on her magic practice, and now she was in Grade 5. The friends were guessing that she was aiming to graduate as soon as possible so that she could go out there to find Rodka; but Dileys never commented on this.

Thanks to Soarame’s superb plays in quite a few tournament games during the past year, no one dared to underestimate Water players as they used to do. Therefore, with the growing Water pride, more Water girls joined the game and made different attempts to prove themselves – Dileys was one of them. Although she was not as good as Soarame in terms of precise control of Water elements and accurate aiming, she was talented enough to have her own style of play, with her icearrows doing remarkable damage and her healing spells covering the whole team’s back.

Creak. The door opened. Soarame and his roommates went back to the dorm, and the first thing that they heard was a series of noises – a little white tiger was running up and down, with a hat held in his mouth. On his back was a little loris-like monkey, waving a pen in his hands and dancing like a swordsman.

‘Oh Libral… Icer, Pipi, not again!’ Omifo hurriedly grabbed the two in his arms. ‘How many times have I asked you to stop messing up my stuff? And where’s Gaga?’

Just then, a yellowish brown ball rolled down the staircase and landed with a “plonk”. Then the ball climbed up clumsily with a silly smile on its face – it was the duckbear, Gaga. This little fluffy ball was the creature that had hatched from the duckbear egg; Catheray had named him after his quack, “Gaga”.

‘Oh dear, Gaga!’ Catheray hastened forward to pick the poor animal up. ‘You fell over? Are you hurt?’

The friends all came forward to take care of the little ones. ‘Snower is sleeping upstairs?’ they asked.

‘As always.’ Soarame answered absently. He had been checking around the dorm – the boys had upgraded it many times in the past year. The entire building had been enlarged, the shapes and colours of the rooms had been changed several times, the straight staircase had become spiral, and a fireplace had been added in the living room because the friends liked the style. However, none of these was Soarame’s target; he was checking if Halgon, by any tiny, tiny little chance, had come back to them today.

‘He will come back.’ Kardiac put his big palm on to Soarame’s shoulder. This boy had totally changed his appearance – he had grown to be a head taller than most of his friends, and looked bulky and muscular. If the friends hadn’t been with him every day, they wouldn’t have believed that this was the same boy who once looked chubby and funny.

Because of the change in his shape, Kardiac had been playing as the main attacker in the team; once he had flame in hand and started charging forward with the help of his Wind magic, he looked like a mad bear and could hardly be stopped. Usually, the scores got by Kardiac alone were enough for the Resurgers to win a game. As a sharp comparison, Kraigen was so jealous. ‘This is so unfair… We used to “think alike and even look alike” – as you said in the hospital!’

‘Don’t say that; what’s good to be alike a mad bear?’ Catheray hurriedly attempted to comfort the sad Kraigen. ‘Gaga is also a bear, but much cuter than Kardiac. Well, alike you!’

‘Before I cry, I’d better be off.’ Kraigen almost fell over on hearing this. ‘See ya!’

With chuckling all around, Soarame’s sadness was diluted a bit. He walked to his table, fetched a canvas and watercolour bottles, and started to paint the “much cuter bear”, Gaga.

‘Gaga, Gaga.’ The little duckbear seemed to quite enjoy being Soarame’s model; he turned his round fluffy bottom around and made a pose. Believe it or not, Catheray did have a point – this pose made Gaga somehow look like Kraigen, with his chubby belly and all that. Soarame’s favourite part of the duckbear was his beak, though; it looked indescribably amusing on a bear’s face and Soarame just couldn’t get over it.

‘Soarame, I think you’ve got it.’ Kardiac couldn’t help praising him; the mind painting work was as vivid as a photo. Moreover, it was in full colour, a big improvement from Soarame’s first monochrome attempts. ‘By the way, the good part of a mad bear over a duckbear is that he’s much less narcissistic.’

‘What, you are jealous?’ Catheray teased, holding Gaga in her arms with deep affection. Since Kardiac had given the duckbear to her, they’d been getting really close. Now that Kardiac had surprisingly become such a tall, fit and handsome boy, many girls were so madly jealous of Catheray, “the lucky one”.

‘Soarame, this year’s championship is coming, and you are still the only Water captain.’ Dileys came along. ‘If you really want to make the Water pride official by leading our team to victory, you really need to think about our Darkness player now.’

‘I know.’ Soarame sighed. ‘It’s a shame that Sachastain can’t join us, not even temporarily.’ Thinking about Sachastain, Soarame sighed even more. He had been exhausting himself trying to make the mysterious warrior confess that he was the one in the unnamed biography from years ago, but just couldn’t manage it. Soarame had had to give up eventually; part of the reason was that he thought that Sachastain might have signed a magic pact to keep the secret forever.

‘Dude, if Sachastain could join us, we’d be guaranteed to be the champions!’ Kardiac teased Soarame. ‘Anyway, you are the captain. It’s up to you to make the tough decisions, so I’ll just go and have a good nap now.’

The friends split up; some went upstairs and some left. Soon enough, Soarame was the only one in the living room. Looking towards the empty couch, Soarame took a deep breath, and turned around to go upstairs. Just then, he suddenly froze –

There was someone, appearing out of nowhere, sitting on the couch now.

With a quickening heartbeat, Soarame turned around slowly, but the figure he saw was not the one that he was expecting. Although sitting on the couch, the figure still looked large and tough – he was a bulky man with long, dark red hair over his shoulder, a pair of bushy eyebrows and bright, sharp eyes. Looking at his eyes, Soarame sensed great power and stateliness. It was the second time Soarame had felt such a strong impact when he looked into someone’s eyes – the first time it had been Aertiuno, but the feeling he’d had then was quite different.

‘Not bad.’ Just when Soarame was hesitating as to what to say, the strange man curled one of his eyebrows, looking a bit surprised. ‘Magic-magnetic Physique is non-trivial, after all.’

‘Excuse me?’ Soarame had been on guard since he first noticed this uninvited guest. After the MagiMax incident, Soarame had not been off campus but was always alert anyway. However, he was interested to hear the strange man’s words. ‘Magic-magnetic Physique?’

‘Yes, your master didn’t tell you that?’ The man looked a bit confused, but nodded soon enough. ‘Right, this term is not that well known, after all. Or perhaps he’s trying to protect you by not telling.’

‘Wait a minute…’ Soarame’s breath suddenly became heavy; a flash pierced through his mind and he seemed to recognize the identity of the strange man, but he still tried to be cautious. ‘My name is Soarame, how should I address you, please?’

‘Smart boy, you know I already knew your name.’ The man teased. ‘It’s an unfair trade.’

‘Err…’ Soarame was not sure what to say next, but the man didn’t make him wait for long. ‘You can call me Ecrif. Your guess is right – I’m the one from one year ago.’

‘No offence, sir.’ Although Soarame instantly felt a buzz of elation, he tried hard to suppress his excitement. ‘Please prove it.’

‘You could see me right away because your split vision caught the colours of magic elements around me.’ Ecrif seemed unsurprised at Soarame’s reaction. ‘That’s thanks to a special gift of yours, and it has a designated name – Magic-magnetic Physique.’

‘Not enough.’ Soarame was excited to learn this, but he tried to look expressionless.

‘You thought I was Halgon in the first place, but then you saw red and blue instead of yellow and black.’ Ecrif was patient. ‘That’s why your heartbeat quickened for just a second, but not longer.’

‘Still not enough.’ Although claiming that, Soarame was pretty much convinced already.

‘But you didn’t think it through.’ Ecrif looked at Soarame with a meaningful smile. ‘Half of Halgon is a you-know-what creature, and that half is actually a top tier. So he always had gifts in all seven lineages, and wore a magigear to conceal them, except for Earth and Darkness.’

‘WHAT!’ This time, Soarame was totally shocked. ‘How do you know all of this story?!’

‘Oh, that’s not an “all”, it’s just a part of the story.’ Ecrif smiled casually. ‘Have I proved it?’

‘Yes, Your Honour.’ Soarame was embarrassed; he hurried forward to salute. ‘Thanks so much for saving me and my friends!’

‘Wait, you can’t call me “Your Honour”.’ Ecrif waved at Soarame. ‘But I got your gratitude.’

‘But you are a Halfgod, right?’ Soarame had to ask. ‘I’ve learnt about those stories; a wizard should address a Halfgod as “Your Honour”, just like a civilian does a wizard… isn’t that right?’

‘You know about Halfgods?’ Ecrif smiled slightly. ‘That’s impressive for someone of your age. But I’m not a Halfgod, for what it’s worth.’

‘Really?’ Soarame was surprised. ‘If my Legendary master couldn’t do something that you could do, what else could you be?’

‘The world is big, Soarame.’ Ecrif didn’t answer the question. ‘But whatever I am, you still shouldn’t call me “Your Honour”. Don’t ask why, but trust me, there’s a good reason for that.’

‘Okay…’ Soarame was confused. ‘What about my friends, then?’

‘Yes, they can address me that way, but you should not.’ Ecrif nodded. ‘You are asking a lot of questions, boy.’

‘Sorry.’ Although Soarame was madly curious, he had learnt from Scankeen when he was little that it’s a bad idea to ask unwelcome questions, especially to a powerful being. Therefore, he had to swallow all those question marks writhing in his stomach. ‘Thank you, sir, for rescuing us.’

‘You’re welcome.’ For some reason, Ecrif sighed. ‘Soarame, I don’t want you to feel bad, but that rescue did come at great cost.’

‘Oh no!’ Hearing this, Soarame instantly became nervous. ‘Is it because of the Icedragon?’

‘No. The Icedragon is nothing.’ Ecrif shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s hard to explain. I just want you to bear in mind that you need to be a good person, a righteous being… to be worthy of the high cost paid in saving you.’

‘Yes… yes, of course.’ Soarame was more confused this time; none of Ecrif’s words made sense to him. ‘But… may I ask what cost that was?’

‘Not yet.’ Ecrif got up from the couch. Soarame was surprised to see that this man was even taller and bigger than he had estimated, at least 8 feet tall; if Kardiac had been standing by his side, the mad bear would look more like a human Gaga.

Gaga… Wait, what are Kardy and Omi doing? Soarame suddenly thought; there’s no way that they wouldn’t bother to come down and check out the loud talk, especially Kardiac. ‘Sir, did you put a sound-isolation seal around us?’

‘That is a trick in Wind, which I don’t practise.’ Ecrif said. ‘But it’s not the only way to isolate sound.’

‘It’s not?’ Soarame was interested. ‘What else?’

‘You ever wonder why sound can be isolated?’ Ecrif looked at Soarame, but found the boy disappointingly clueless. ‘It’s because the vibration of air can be constrained by Wind magic – have you ever wondered why there’s sound in the first place?’

‘Because… the air vibrates?’ Soarame was smart enough to pick up the hint.

‘Exactly. The air vibrates and passes sound to our ears. And the air is made from Wind elements so Wind magic can control it.’ Ecrif was intelligent enough to spot Soarame’s trick, so he decided to educate the boy with basics. ‘Think about what you saw when a sound isolation seal was set up.’

‘Ah.’ Soarame smacked his own head hard. As Ecrif said, he could vividly see the grey-coloured Wind elements immobilized around the sound isolation seal, compared with how they floated around and randomly shook in their normal state. He also recalled that when he conjured wind summoner, the grey dots gathered and moved so that they gave rise to actual wind – that’s how Wind magic works.

‘Good. Now you know, as long as you can immobilize Wind elements, you can isolate sound. There are different ways to do that; for example…’ Ecrif came over to Soarame as he spoke. ‘Any Halfgod or above can summon a Godrealm around him, so that within his realm he rules. That means that not only can he restrain the air within the range, but he can also control everything else.’