Monday October 9th, 2018.

  Waking up early the next morning, Helo starts to get ready for his third field trip. They still don’t know which clan they are going to, only that it is a new one. While packing he remembers the day before and thinks that everything went pretty well.

  The final challenges were fun to watch for the first-year students. Seeing older students that are a way into tier 2, was a fun and eye-opening experience. It also showed them just how far they must go. Those are other students that are in their early twenties. In two years, they should be in a similar place.

  With his bag of holding packed to look like it is his main storage. Helo is set and ready to go. He has a change of clothes inside, a few throwing knives and some food stuff. Otherwise, everything else is in his necklace. The truth is, he has barely even unpacked in his room. He will be staying here for the next three years, but he feels much more comfortable having everything in his dimensional storage.

  The rest of the morning goes by fairly quickly for Helo and his party. Before long they are all ready to head out. Unfortunately, due to the expectations of others they must leave earlier to make it on time. Being in the furthest house from the school really is a bummer sometimes. Especially since they are expected to walk.

  As a large group they pass other mansions and make their way to the college town. “Mhmm. I don’t mind the walk.” Hinata hums. Looking out over the beautiful, if simple mansions. Plus, the cliff overlooking the ocean, on their left side. Then on the right they get a great view of the farmland surrounding Hornheim and the city itself.

  “You have a good point.” Alli says from beside Hinata. “So, I hope everyone is ready. This could be as easy as going home for a week, or as difficult as entering enemy territory.”

  The party looks serious as Alli finishes speaking. Everyone but Gabi, the girl is looking off into the distance, surprisingly quiet. “Yah know… I am surprised that nothing happened while we were in New York. I expected Dorimer to at least try something.”

  “Kuh. Yeah. Ain’t that the truth girly.” Rurgrim agrees.

  In a quiet voice that can barely be heard, Bibbin speaks up. “Well. Helo did win that bet. Plus, Dorimer might lack intelligence. But his father doesn’t.”

  Everyone is surprised that it was Bibbin to speak up. Alli was so surprised that she stopped walking and bumped into Carl behind her. “Good point.” She says while trying to hide her grin. It is obvious that she is happy that Bibbin spoke up, even if she wants to be discreet.

  By the time the party has made their way to the clearing that they left at first, they are all talking animatedly. They also have a large group of people walking with them. In that group there is Maria and her party. The rest are made up of their field trip group.

  Now that means that they have about sixty-eight people all together. That means a little less than twelve parties all together. They are all waiting for the Spacecallers and their teacher Ria.

  It only took a few minutes of waiting for their teacher to arrive. In those minutes’ students like Gale, Bill, and Conner were doing their best to work up the courage to talk to their stronger peers. Unfortunately for them, before they got the chance Ria suddenly appeared in the middle of the clearing.

  Her appearance made no wind, no sound, and no images. She wasn’t there at one moment, and then she was the next. Out of everyone it was only Helo that noticed her arrival. With his own aura perception he could feel as a miniscule amount of life force appeared a few feet away.

  Looking over he catches Ria’s eyes. The teacher gives Helo a wink and lifts one finger up to her lips in a shushing motion. With a shrug Helo turns back to watching as Gabi forced Carl to play rock-paper-scissors to combat her boredom.

  What Helo doesn’t know is that Ria had already been there for a few seconds before he noticed her presence. She slowly released the strength of her aura masking to find out the limits of Helo’s awareness and perception.

  In the end she was incredibly impressed by the teenager. She would never admit it, but she is almost ninety years old. She didn’t have the level of control and awareness that Helo has until she was in her fifties.

  That level of skill is something equally alluring for her and terrifying. By the time he is making his way through tier 2, he is going to be a complete monster.

  After almost thirty seconds with none of her other students noticing her, Ria lets out a loud sigh. That action causes multiple teenagers to turn toward her, they all freeze as they realize that their teacher has been in their midst for who knows how long.

  Alli and Hinata are two of those students that noticed Ria as soon as she sighed. Turning they both have a moment where they are stunned by the tier 3 presence, but they quickly calm down. Living with their parents gave them a higher resistance to things like this.

  At the same time both heiresses turn to Helo. They see his uninterested gaze and make the correct assumption that he was already aware of their teacher being there. For not telling them Alli glares at him and Hinata pouts. Looking at the adorable expression of the two girls, Helo maintains his neutral expression and shrugs.

  This causes both girls to pout and glare harder. Wanting to continue his cool and collected expression, Helo looks away before he breaks.

  Alli takes it as a victory and she grins wide. “Ha! We won!” She raises a hand to her friend. Hinata rolls her eyes at Alli’s childish antics, but she knows her friend enough to be aware that she won’t stop until she gets what she wants.

  With a heavy heart and a long sigh, Hinata gives Alli a high five.

  “Well, at least some of you have decent levels of awareness.” Ria’s voice echoes out. Her voice resonates in the air and is carried by her aura. It has a similar effect that Ryan had while he was using the enchantments within the stadium to give extremely boring commentary.

  Startling all the students that didn’t notice her presence, Ria smiles and drops her voice down to a normal, if loud speaking range. “Get ready to head out. We are off to the land of Gods and aggressive expansion.”

  Mummering breaks out as everyone looks around. Some whisper to one another. “Land of Gods?”

  “Ahhh. Kids these days.” Ria sighs loudly. “Italy, were going to Italy.” Waving her hand, she starts walking out of the group of students. “Whatever. Just get ready to travel.”

  As she says that four Spacecallers appear around them in a diamond shape. The next second they are gone.

  The group lands on top of a large hill in a dry arid climate. Looking around Helo can see an open landscape with minimal coverage. But also, rocky hills and cliffs all around. Off in the distance, Helo can see what appears to be the ocean. But after taking a second look, with his enhanced perception he can see through the fog and clouds that are out at sea. Through the clouds Helo spots land on the other side.

  Now looking at the building instead of the landscape, Helo is surprised by what he sees. Eight Greek style temples are all around them. Each one is in different levels of repair. But the one that they are standing next to is also the most well-kept.

  Beside him Helo can hear someone whisper. “The Valley of Temples.” In an awe filled voice. He doesn’t say anything but other people around him start to talk about what that means.

  Helo is too focused on the temple itself. It is within his aura range, and he can feel the magic that is permeating the limestone building. It isn’t a classic runic enchantment, but a powerful imbuement that covers the entire building.

  Ria opens her arms wide with a smile. “Some of you might recognize this place. It is called The Valley of Temples.” As she gestures with her arms everyone looks around, some of the students start whispering about how there isn’t anyone else around. After a second Ria also starts to look around as well.

  Where is everyone? Wasn’t someone supposed to come and meet us. Ria thinks. But she keeps a smile on her face as she talks to her students. “Italy is the home of the Carbani Family. They are a well-known clan of humans. Many of the stories you hear about Roman and Greek gods were from individuals of this family.”

  “The ruin behind me is called the Temple of Concordia, it was made to worship the Goddess Concordia, she is the goddess of harmony and unity.” Ria starts to give more detailed explanations of where they are, in truth she is buying time for a representative to show up.

  “My bad! My bad!” Is shouted from a distance. At the bottom of the hill a man with prominent Italian features is jogging up. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to be late!” He says with an Italian accent.

  The entire time he jogs up the hill Ria is staring at him with her head tilted. This is not who she expected. When she made her plans, she was told that Enzo Carbani, brother of the clan leader, was going to be meeting them. This man isn’t Enzo, she would know.

  She scans the man with her aura and finds absolutely nothing wrong about him; this causes her to relax, but at the same time his aura almost feels to perfect. This causes her to think that this situation is odd. “Did Mr. Carbani send you?”

  “Mr. Carbani?” The man asks. “Oh. Yeah! Antonio reached out to me.” The man says just as he reaches the group. At the same time Ria lunges forward.

  The man was doing a great job at hiding. The only issue is that Antonio works for the clan leader, not his brother. Moments after she moves, Helo also moves. He can feel that change in the atmosphere. The compressed air of Ria’s passing and a sinister intent, mixed with glee coming from the man.

  Diving forward Helo grabs Alli and Hinata by the waists and tackles them to the ground. At the same time that he does. There is an explosion of air from beside them, then a loud noise. “BOOM!” The entire hill shakes as the Italian man’s body is launched at high speeds down the hill and into the stone ground.

  Seconds after Maria’s own party covers their Heiress, and the Twin Heiress party form a circle around Alli and Hinata. At the same time Rocco and Arisah are focusing on protecting Helo also.

  “Hahahah! You’re to late!” The man laughs as his entire body starts to glow. Everyone that can see stares in fear. But it is Gabi that puts their fear into words.

  “Holy shit. He is going to blow.” She says just loud enough that all 60ish students can hear. It is Rurgrim and Cody that react the fastest.

  With a stomp and a shout, the ground around them starts to tremble. But before a wall can be formed Rurgrim mutters under his strained breath. “The ground is enchanted. I can’t move it…RRRHHHH.” He growls as he tries to heave up the earth.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Cody on the other hand has much more success. The air around him starts to vibrate, then freeze still as ice mana bursts from his body. The mana is far different from the normal swirls and eddies of icy energy that flow around him. This time is an eruption of cold energy as he uses ‘Iceberg’.

  There is no time for any of the other students to react. Maria and her party are trained, but they don’t have the same trust that the Twin Heiresses have in one another. Even Arisah attempts to help. Tossing out some of the best seeds that she has cultured she tries to add her own plants to the mix, but she is moments too slow.

  The world turns white, a great force and heat starts to sweep the land. The nearby temples are destroyed. The powerful imbuements aren’t as strong in their weakened and destroyed structures.

  The ice that separated them from the man is quickly shattered offering very little protection. Three of the closest students are burned beyond recognition. Bringing their groups numbers down to sixty-five people.

  Everyone else is thrown to the ground by the force of the blast. The only person still standing is Rurgrim. His magic is keeping him connected to the ground. As the wave of heat comes for them, they are all surprised to notice that they fell much further than expected.

  The earth below them shifted down almost ten feet. Alli and Hinata’s party stare in shock and horror as Rurgrim saves them, but sacrifices himself. As he gets swallowed by the flames. Ria appears.

  Her normally flirty expression is shifted into a deathly serious calm. Ria drags the dwarf down faster than everyone else can track, fast enough that the flames that were wrapping the dwarf don’t have time to burn through him.

  Ria lands in front of Aiko and drops Rurgrim. “Heal him.” She speaks at a speed that the much weaker tier 1 students can understand. Everyone can see the damage that has been done to her body by the explosion.

  Her arm is broken and dangling at an awkward angle. At the same time, her normally tan golden flesh is burned beyond recognition on half of her body. The only thing saving her modesty is a single vine that is wrapping her with leaves covering her body.

  Turning faster than they can react, Ria’s aura surges out to try and contain the flames. The ten foot hole that Rurgrim creates is quickly heated to an uncomfortable degree and all the air is burned away.

  It isn’t a problem for the students. Even the weakest of them can hold their breath for a few minutes. But at the same time, it shows just how hot the explosion was.

  Ria’s aura contains the fire, but at the same time the flames are capable of eating through her aura. In a similar way that Dorimer’s light-based attacks were able to weaken Helo’s own dark ones.

  Injured and experiencing agonizing pain, Ria struggles to wield her nature-based aura as the fire literally burns away the edges of her spirit. Before the wave of heat and flame can seep through and further injure anyone, Helo steps up beside her.

  He was tossed away just like anyone else, but while keeping Alli and Hinata safe from the force, he hit his own head on the ground. His high vitality quickly brought him back to his senses.

  Wielding his own aura like a ram Helo lets it surge out. Due to his unskilled attempt to support Ria, his own aura is about to contest hers for space. But Ria isn’t a teacher at the School of Awakening for nothing.

  Quickly shifting her own aura, she makes metaphysical space for both to overlap and fill the same space. This is called Aura Layering and is a skill that any tier 3 learns when they partner up with another.

  Helo can feel what she is doing, making space for his own aura to overlap hers. Using the skill that he has trained since he was a child, he shifts his own aura in a similar way. It isn’t perfect, and his aura is weaker than it should be, but it does take most of the strain away from Ria.

  With Helo’s dark affinity aura supporting her own nature one, the flames are just the slightest bit weakened. The blast was a tier 3 explosion; Helo’s tier 1 aura can’t compare. But it does slightly ease the burden. The fire mana is slightly weakened when it comes into contact with Helo’s own. But it is enough that the few gaps that the flames were making in Ria’s defense are closed.

  It is only a few seconds later, a few seconds that feel like an eternity to Helo before the flames wash away. Helo drops to his knees gasping for breath and reels in his aura with a pained grunt. He has never experienced something attacking his aura like that before.

  He has trained with Micah and Akira in aura combat. But they never intentionally tried to damage his before. He didn’t have the same weakness that Ria did, but at the same time he is far weaker, which is a weakness in itself.

  As the blinding light clears from everyone’s eyes, they slowly stagger to their feet. Two different parties mourn the three that were killed. “H… H… He just wanted to study the ruin.” One girl openly cries as she mourns one of the fallen. He died because he stepped further away from the group.

  Almost everyone is in a state of shock. Even the noble parties. They have experienced combat before, but something attacking so fast, and being so overwhelming. That is new.

  One of the students starts to mutter to himself what everyone else is thinking. “Ho, how are we still alive.” Bill Curtis says to himself. His two friends Conner and Gale are just standing beside him in shock.

  Then everyone turns to look at Ria. She has already covered her bare skin with another set of clothes; at the same time, she also downed an expensive potion. She considered waiting to get to one of the school’s healers. That way it would be free. But she doesn’t know if there will be another attack or when help is coming.

  “Don’t look at me.” She says while her flesh flakes away and wriggles around. She is tempted to scratch herself, but doesn’t want to in front of her students. The wound is bad. The firebomb not only has fire mana, which is a counter to her own mana, but it was filled with a fire type aura as well. That means cleansing the wound would take days if not weeks for her to do alone. So, she was forced to use an expensive potion. “Thank him.”

  Everyone turns to look at where she is pointing and some gasp. On the ground with his hair burned away, beard gone, and armor ruined is Rurgrim. He spent only a moment at the edge of the flame, but for a tier 1, that was more than enough time to do massive amounts of damage. The only reason he is still alive is his high endurance and earth mana.

  Rurgrim’s flesh is burned away and he is bleeding profusely. Aiko is kneeling over his prone form, and her hands are glowing with healing light. At the same time Hinata is kneeling beside him and mixing potions.

  She already fed him a healing potion. But there is a limit to how many alchemical concoctions someone can take at a time. So, instead of feeding him another healing potion, she is trying to mix a healing potion with something to help cleanse the wound of hostile energy.

  She even considered asking Helo to use his own dark energy to neutralize the fire mana. But she also knows just how strange it is that Helo hasn’t already been torn apart by the energy within his body. He has a very advanced energy and concept within his bloodline. It has been a year, and he is just starting to be able to use his energy freely without hurting himself.

  As everyone is staring at Rurgrim in horror and appreciation. Both Ria and Helo quickly jerk up and look away. As others follow their gaze they flinch as they see a bright light. Instead of there being another explosion, this is the light of a teleport.

  Out from the light two men step onto the superheated ground. All around them the ancient temples and sacred grounds are destroyed. The man in front, Enzo stares in horror. His countries, his clans, his family’s sacred grounds are in utter ruin. Looking up from the destruction, his face is a stern mask, but both Ria and Helo can feel the fury burning within. “What have you done.” His voice comes out as a low growl that is amplified by his aura, turning it into a booming shout.

  “What have I done! ME! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” Ria shouts, she has no compunction about revealing her anger.

  Both Ria and Enzo are stepping forward. Ria to protect her class, Enzo due to his fury. “What do you mean? Look.” He has better control of his aura, and his voice is no longer laced with power, at the same time Helo can no longer feel his emotions.

  “Yes.” Ria says. She looks around but she is lost on what to do, part of her wants to blame Enzo for the attack. But his anger is too real to have orchestrated it. “Did you send the man?”

  “The man?” Enzo stops and stares at her in confusion. His overwhelming anger starts to falter; it is replaced by complete sadness and a desire to understand.

  “A man ran up pretending to be sent by your brother and yourself.” Ria starts to explain the situation to Enzo. Enzo’s mask slips and his face goes between a series of emotions. He gets close enough to finally take in the damage that was done to Ria, and the dwarf that is being healed. “Plus, you know my skill set. Do I have the skills to do this level of damage.”

  Enzo looks around again. The hilltop that they are on is slick due to the melted stone. What is left is a glassed layer over the top. All the shrubbery and standing pillars are just gone. Enzo looks at the students, and he can see that they would all be dead if it wasn’t for what he assumed was the dwarf’s work. Plus, the fact that the fire was coming from below and they sunk into the hill.

  “No… I guess not…” Enzo takes a few seconds to look around and lets out a sigh. “Hahhh.” He has always been the more stable of the brothers. That instability that his brother deals with is the reason that he is the clan leader and not himself.

  He couldn’t spend hours on end killing, over and over again, just to gain a portion of level. Then repeat the process day after day. By the time they graduated and entered into the family business, his brother was already twenty levels above him.

  But at the same time. His brother is a kill first, in an extremely brutal way, and ask questions later kind of guy. “You all need to leave. Contact the school, request a contingent of Spacecallers.” Enzo has worked for and with his brother for years. He knows when to get serious, and right now he needs to work damage control. Then he needs to find out who did this.

  While Ria pulls out a phone to contact the school she starts to talk to Enzo. “I thought you either came here to finish us off, or because of the explosion.”

  “Mhmh. I was running a few minutes late, but I was here to lead you all to Mount Olympus.” Enzo looks around sadly. “This was one of the best kept sites for our heritage. Now it is gone.”

  Enzo looks at Ria. A lot of the students are just watching the two adults talk. But a few of the more politically savvy, or emotional intelligent students notice how close they are standing. “Do you think they used to date?” One student asks. By the time Ria turns to glare at them, because obviously she can hear them, almost everyone is wondering the same thing.

  It takes a few seconds, but Ria’s worried voice says. “I can’t reach the school. Something is blocking my call.”

  As she says this, the rest of the students pull out their own devices. They all have their phones that connect to the Mana-Web. In a wave of mummering everyone says that their devices aren’t working as well.

  At this point everyone is starting to get worried, even Enzo. Before anyone comes up with a plan to reach out, there is another flash of light. Portals don’t always have obvious tells. Like the maid Kristen. She can ‘Blink’ around without anyone being about to feel her.

  The Spacecallers, with their high levels and four-person technique can swap large areas of space without anyone feeling a thing. Instead, they let some inefficacies intentionally slip so that others can feel the movement.

  When the light fades Enzo mutters under his breath. “Shit.”

  Mr. Carbani, one of the strongest people on earth, and the leader of one of the world’s largest crime syndicates, snaps his head toward his brother. The only crime family rivaling his own is the Lopez family from Guatamala. But he considers those Werewolves simple animals that need to be put down, his own bloodline is that of a High Human.

  Mr. Carbani takes everything in with a glance. His presence weighs down over the area like a thick heavy blanket. Even Ria and Enzo must struggle to not react. The rest of the students drop to the ground like the gravity on earth just magnified one-hundred-fold.

  “Brother!” Enzo steps forward with a fake smile. “I’m glad you’re here. There was an attack on these students.”

  Mr. Carbani doesn’t react to the term of endearment. Instead, his glare increases. “I mean… Archon.” Enzo stands up straight. “There was an attack on the visiting students.”

  “From my perspective it seems like the students set off a bomb at one of our sacred sites.” Mr. Carbani says in a smooth tone. His voice is laced with power, but his words sound like a lawyer twisting the situation to fit what he wants.

  “Leo… Come on brother.” Enzo says in a slightly pleading tone.

  “Caring for these weaklings is unbecoming brother.” Leo replies to his brother. “It seems like we were attacked by two of those beast brats.” Leo’s gaze lands on Alli and Hinata. The pressure on them increases. Helo that is on the ground beside them, tries to protect them with his own aura, but it can’t even exit his body under Leo Carbani’s own strength.

  Leo smirks and is about to speak, but then there are two more flashes of light in rapid succession.

  Out of the teleportation light, Akira, Micah and Graham step onto the glassed ground of the destroyed Valley of Temples.

  “What are you doing here?!?” Leo shouts. His killing intent exploding out like a monster that wants nothing more than to savage everything it can see.

  The three tier 3 men flex their own auras and easily contain Leo’s killing intent so that the students are safe. “Leo. Lovely to see you. Or is it Archon now?” Micah says with a casual wave.

  Leo snarls at Micah. The two of them grew up in similar years. They were always competing to take the seat as the strongest at the school. “No worries, man.” Micah says as Leo doesn’t respond. Out of the three men, Micah is the only one that can stand up to Leo in a one on one. Akira and Graham would be able to survive a fight, but they are not as focused on pure combat like Micah.

  Akira and Graham head directly for their children. After quickly checking on their kids, they help the rest of the students get up. “Well.” Graham says in a gruff tone. He looks toward the furious Leo. “Things seem to be heating up fast than we expected.”

  “Yes. We knew things like this would happen though. Just not so soon.” Akira looks around the area. “Whatever happened here is a shame, this was a beautiful location filled with history.”

  “Alright kiddos.” Akira steps in front of everyone, “We are taking a detour to Japan.” He looks back at Leo. “It seems like Italy isn’t accepting any visitors.”

  As all the kids get together for another teleport, they start to wonder how the clan leaders of Japan and Western USA knew to save them. What they don’t see is that Alli didn’t grab her phone, but her tablet.

  Back in The Valley of Temples, Micah is left facing off against Leo. Enzo looks conflicted. He is expected to support his brother, but at the same time, he has no animosity with Micah.

  Beside Leo the two men that came with him step up to either side to support Leo, but he quickly waves them away. “Stay out of this. You would just be a hinderance.”