Exodus

The mountains slowly opened up as the forest became more sparse, so much so that she could see a long road that stretched across the distance beyond the discernible length of the horizon. She whistled after seeing how long it was, and that there was no evidence of civilization as far as she could see other than this road. “That’s…that’s a big ass road. Smells weird too.”e had been traveling down this path for sometime. Feeling the presence of what she believed to be a grand magic zone grew by the day.

“Day three, and so far and no word from the others so far. I think I really am on my own here, wherever this place is. I’ve made some really great progress today. I can’t even see these landmarks from my campsite anymore. I think lunch should be ready.” she had been using her portals to travel back to her original campsite, which she had further developed over the last day.

After traveling back, she had her fill of fish and vegetables. “It’s strange, I feel like I’ve gotten stronger over these few days.” she said while flexing her fists in front of her. “These exotic meals I’ve been having have been great for my body and mana.” She pulled out her grimoire and flipped through the pages, thinking about the life she lived before she was rescued.

She was a captive in the spade kingdom after having been kidnapped and experimented on from a young age. Those who were running the underground experiments were looking to develop versatile elite mages that would each have offensive, defensive, and recovery magic that would surpass a magic knight captain and the eight shining generals. They had targeted those with rare magic to this end.

“Indigo…Cahya, I’m sorry they could only save me. You two would have loved meeting the others.” She looked at the dark and light grimoires that had been combined with her own. “Yami may have taught me more than you Indigo but without your dark magic… And Cahya, you only wanted to use recovery magic. They were needlessly cruel to you, you never wanted to fight." She stood up. “ I’ll become stronger than the wizard king, and nobody else will go through what we did.”

Steeling her resolve, she set forth through her portal and back to the furthest point she had traveled. “I wish I had my broom! Damn, I really should work on mana zone or something. All this running is just annoying.” she said to herself with a frown.

The mountains slowly opened up as the forest became more sparse, so much so that she could see a long road that stretched across the distance beyond the discernible length of the horizon. She whistled after seeing how long it was, and that there was no evidence of civilization as far as she could see other than this road. “That’s…that’s a big ass road. Smells weird too.”

She decided to follow the road in the direction of the magic she was detecting, "I wonder who would build so close to a place like this." It didn't make sense to her that someone would build such a long road in a grand magic zone, let alone live there. But there had to be someone at the end of the road.

As she walked along the road she heard a rumbling coming closer, “what is that sound, a stampede?” The sound grew louder as it grew closer prompting her to draw her weapon. “Maybe I should…” she said as she opened a portal to a nearby outcrop. She waited there as the sound got closer, and what she saw confused her. “A metal carriage? I’m not detecting any magic from it, how’s it moving?” 

The metal carriage had glass windows and two people inside, one of them had their hands on what she thought was a ship wheel and the other was just sitting back and relaxing. She thought maybe she heard music playing inside. “They didn’t seem to notice me.” she said as they rolled past on black wheels. “Ugh, it smells too…why is this place so smelly anyway?” she felt like she was gonna choke on the fumes.

She continued along the path, sometimes there would be a metal carriage and she would avoid being seen. None of the people ever noticed her, as they traveled on both sides of the road which had solid and dashed lines. She found the lines to be odd but noticed that the carriages were staying in a single lane for each direction of travel.

Zahna spent another day between travel and rest before a grand desert emerged into her view, “you gotta be kidding me… I HATE SAND!!!” but the road continued into it, and the feeling of strong magic grew as well.

Elsewhere, an old woman was peering through a crystal ball. “Hmm… is that girl her?” She stroked her chin, “Well looks like I’ll have to make sure you come here, hehe” she cackled to herself and turned towards three figures that were standing nearby. “Remember you numbskulls, it’s just a test! So, don’t go easy on her but don’t hurt her too much while you push her this way.” 

The trio nodded in unison, and vanished at the wave of the old woman's hand who turned back to face her crystal ball. “Let’s see if you’re worthy of my help, little girl!”

The young magic knight was now at a crossroads, she saw that the road turned away from the feeling of strong mana and she wasn’t sure if she should just keep following it since she had only seen the carriages traveling it infrequently. Or if she should just keep following the mana. ‘I’ve been traveling on the road for a day and a half, maybe I should try to stop the next carriage I see.’ she pondered to herself but her thoughts were interrupted as she felt someone's ki nearby.

She pulled out her weapon and readied herself for whoever it might be. “I know you’re there, so stop hiding!” she shouted, and to her surprise the sand burst open. And a figure dressed from head to toe in a dark purple outfit stood before her after gracefully landing back on the ground. He pointed his palm at her, and fired a yellow energy blast at her. 

“What the hell?!” she yelled as she used her dark magic to shield herself from impact. ‘That didn’t feel like magic! What is with this guy?’ She readied herself for a counter attack but her opponent seemed to have other plans, as they turned away from her and started sprinting deeper into the desert. “You coward!” She yelled at him but didn’t chase him yet, as she had some feeling that it could be a trap. ‘I could just use my spatial magic to get away… His attack didn’t do much to my barrier.’ she scratched the back of her head and said “ah, what the hell. I might at least beat some answers out of that guy.”

She chased him into the desert and away from the road, she knew she could get back to the road with her magic so she wasn’t worried about getting lost. The strangely dressed man sped up after he looked over his shoulder and saw that she was catching up to him. 

He laughed to himself, and started firing more blasts behind him, Zahna sensed his attacks incoming and began deflecting them with her dark magic reinforced blade. She saw the attacks causing small explosions as they crashed into the surroundings, flinging sand and debris into the air. “Stop running and fight me!!!” her command was not heeded and the man responded by laughing and throwing out a few more attacks.