Starting from the end

“And with that, just recite the spell”

“As the river flows with water, my body flows with blood, obey my command and erupt in my hand! Water shockwave!”

I was against a rock reciting a spell that Beatrice was teaching me. When I finished, the rock was left with a hole in it, it was not big but it was enough to defeat a creature. That was my fifth time doing it and I fell to my knees.

“How… is that?”

I said while panting, and Beatrice looked at the mark and touched around.

“Better than before, still, you need to make sure to do a deeper hole”

She opened her book and started reciting the same words as me and when she hit the rock it went all the way through, it wasn’t, a whole meter was through and I just sigh.

“Your abilities lack, and your mana is not enough, keep working on it”

“Yes!”

Beatrice smiled and she went with the rest of the group and I followed her behind.

“How was it?” —Elizabeth said while passing me a bowl of soup.

“Not good, still have a lot to learn”

“If Ryu manages to get his mana flow in contact, not only will he make a more powerful attack, he will decrease his mana consumption, meaning he would have more chances to use that attack” —Beatrice said.

“Meaning that he is doing a pretty good job, I guess having a good master works pretty well, a shame that me and Elizabeth doesn’t have that”

Alexander laughed while Elizabeth was pouting after hearing that and I just laughed, after eating we checked again the map and we tried to find the entry of the location we needed to enter, we tried to search for a bit but after a few minutes we met again.

“No, I can’t find anything” —I said.

“This is quite familiar, you remembered?” —Elizabeth said

“Oh yeah, this is like that time” —Alexander said.

While we were getting a bit nostalgic, Beatrice was on the floor, and after drawing a magic circle on the floor she said.

“Nature, you are a blessing to all of us, show me way to the one that is not from your leaves and trees, the dirt and the rocks, a place where it may be from you but at the same time will not. Clairvoyance!”

After that, a small shockwave went through the floor and Beatrice stood up.

“Follow me”

The three of us remained flabbergasted and followed the lead of Beatrice, she then stood in a place where there was nothing, she then kicked a piece of air but her feet bounced back.

“This is the entry”

Beatrice entered the place and she disappeared. We entered immediately and the whole scenario changed, we could still look outside, but it was like that place was ripping reality.

“You are awesome, Beatrice! I didn’t know magic like that existed! Well, not like I saw anything really magic, that was amazing!”

Alexander was overjoyed, pumping her arms up and cheering at Beatrice, Beatrice hid her face with the book.

“T-That’s just basic magic, don’t need to praise me for that”

“Where we come from, magic is the exception, we don’t have the chance to see it in action, so it is really fantastic” —Elizabeth said.

Beatrice smiled, hiding her smile with the book and we continued.

I draw my sword out and went ahead, the place was illuminated by torches and the floor was made with wood, now that I was taking a better glance at it, the place was similar to a tower rather than a cave, we entered and opened some doors and we found a bunch of books which Beatrice started to look at it in an instant.

We left Alexander with her and we started looking at other rooms, all of them had a ton of books, tables, even a fireplace that was turned off, it was a house rather at this point.

“This looks like a king’s mansion, or at least what I imagine it could be”

“You are right, Liz… huh?”

I saw a plate with food and a glass of wine on the table. When I was about to touch it, a voice made me draw my sword up and Elizabeth her spear.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! What in the lord’s name are you two doing on my property?! Put your weapons down in this instant!”

An elf, a dark elf, long white hair, dark skin, and an outfit with a tight white shirt and gray pants, he was very tall and he was pointing at us with a butter knife.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Elizabeth asked and the elf sighed with his palm in the face.

“Are you even listening?! This is my property, miss. You better put those weapons down or I’ll use force”

I looked at Elizabeth and I put my sword down and she did the same.

“Who are you, sir? What are you doing here?”

“Again, with the same question! For the lords! I told you this is my property! And I want you all out of here!”

“Ryu, Elizabeth, are you two, okay?!”

Alexander and Beatrice got into the room and they saw the dark elf.

“A dark elf, what do you want?! What are you doing here?!”

“OH, FOR THE LORD'S NAME!”

The elf was very irritated and I dropped my sword and started to apologize.

“I’m sorry sir, we would go as soon as we get what we need, l-look, this is what we are looking for, do you know anything about this?”

The left looked at the piece of paper and approached me in a flash, it was like he teleported it, that made the rest put their guard up but I moved my head, saying no.

“Interesting, yeah, I know what you are looking for, what do you want it for?”

“We just want to see it, after that I promise we’ll go”

“If it means that you’ll do, I don’t mind”

The elf disappeared and appeared again.

“I don’t know what is your issue with this, but you can’t have it, it is a familiar relic, you can watch it from here”

We saw the text written on and it said.

“Here lies all of us, and the proof of our amazing journey together, for the greatest secret adventure that we had”

“That’s quite short…”

I saw the plaque and saw nine fingerprints saved on it, five of them look normal but the other look unhuman.

“Do you know anything about this?”

“Well, it was made by my grandfather, he always told me about the expeditions but with a great mystery on it, I couldn’t stand it, but even if I was never one that search for adventures, I enjoy his stories”

The elf touched the stone with a smile on his face and we saved our weapons.

“Sorry to bother you sir, we just had these locations and we were searching for the pieces to reunite the chapters together” —I said.

Alexander showed the other two pieces we already found

“You know if we could talk with your grandfather”

“That would be difficult, my grandfather died a long time ago, and even with that, I doubt he would tell you anything”

“I understand, sorry to interrupt your meal and sorry for the misunderstanding”

We all apologize and the elf sigh and he nodded

“I accept your apologizes, and you must have someone that is really talented with magic, my father builds this place to be untraceable, after the incident with my grandfather”

We looked at Beatrice and she hid herself with the book, the elf approached her and looked at her for a few seconds, then he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

“You miss, have a great path as a sorcerer, keep it that way”

“Eh?!”

Beatrice jumped and her whole face turned red.

“Y-You have such a wonderful library! C-Can I take some books?!”

“Sure, I already read them all, so go ahead”

“Thank you!”

“You are way more polite than I imagine” —Alexander said.

“If a bunch of strangers get into your house and point you with weapons you must be in the same” —the elf said.

“Even with that you remain calmed”

“That’s because you don’t stand a chance against me”

The elf smiled and we smiled back at him, we both had that glance of challenge but with competitiveness, we left after Beatrice picked up her books and went to the town where we left the horses.

“You think we could take him down?” —Alexander asked.

“I don’t know, but it made me curious, he was too, but we better leave it like that” —I said.

Elizabeth laughed and looked at how Beatrice looked at her books.

“What type of books did you grab, more magic? A secret spell?”

Beatrice moved her head left to right and looked at the book.

“Fantasy novels”