CHAPTER 113: THE THREE OPTIONS

Noah chuckled to himself as he pushed the book aside, reaching for another one.

This one’s cover was faded, and the words written on it were barely legible, but it was exactly what he needed.

His pulse quickened as he skimmed. Several accounts from students on assignments, or hunters patrolling the perimeter, spoke of sudden attacks at night, when the darkness itself seemed to twist and dive.

The descriptions were vague, half of them chalked up to hallucinations, but a few were more specific.

Dark Bats, the locals called them. Bats large as hounds, their wings dripping with condensed shadow. They manipulated the darkness around them, using it to cloak their movement and silence sound until it was too late.

Noah paused, his quill hovering.

This was better. Darkness was his core affinity, the first and deepest pool he had drawn from.

Spells from these creatures might give him more than fire ever could. He’d have tools of subterfuge, assassination, and control at his fingertips.

Which was exactly what he needed for the war he was waging in his mind.

He scribbled it down.

"Dark Bats. They manipulate shadows, and silence sound. Affinities, Darkness and Sound. Rare but plausible. Likely nest in caves.

The thought alone made his shadows quiver around him, hissing with anticipation. He could almost see them latching onto the power of such a creature, and growing hungrier. He smiled faintly, yet the expression carried no trace of humor.

The third discovery came from the more yellowed pages. The book was little more than a collection of hunter tales and campfire stories, the sort of thing professors dismissed as unreliable. Yet the name it held caught his eye.

The Void Tortoise.

Noah flipped the brittle pages carefully. Accounts were scattered, inconsistent, and often contradictory.

Some claimed the tortoise could phase through stone and reappear miles away. Others swore it carried an entire pocket dimension within its shell, swallowing prey whole.

One particularly strange account described it as leaving behind ripples in space itself, like cracks of nothingness trailing after it.

But there was one unifying fact. No one had ever proven its existence. The stories stretched back decades, but there was not a single carcass, and not a single verifiable sighting had ever been recorded by the academy. Just rumors.

Noah sat back, tapping the end of his quill against the parchment.

There was just something about this creature.

He still scribbled it down.

"Void Tortoise, unverified. Affinity, Void. Powers unknown. Likely a myth."

The word "myth" gnawed at him. Even so, the possibility tempted him.

Void was an affinity unlike any other. It was rare, feared, and unpredictable.

While affinities usually bleed into each other, a fire spell will take less mana to burn something than a darkness spell. A C-rank fire spell can create the same burn damage as an A-rank fire spell.

The same was true with the Void affinity. While fire can be used in teleportation, it is usually a high level spell. But with the Void affinity, it is incredibly low level.

If he could find something real that embodied Void, and then consume it, he would gain more than just power.

He would gain unpredictability. He would gain a weapon very few would be able to counter without great power or resources.

He closed the book slowly, eyes resting on the three entries scrawled across his page. Fire Birds. Dark Bats. Void Tortoise.

The first two were real. Huntable. Obtainable. If they were still on academy grounds.

The third... the third was something to chase when the time was right, a dream to keep burning at the edge of his thoughts.

Noah leaned back in the chair, stretching his fingers, his shadows swirling restlessly around the edges of the table.

With the right spell, hidden, unknown to anyone else, he could attack without warning.

He could destroy those he wanted quietly, each monster devoured making him stronger, until the day came when Osiris, Camelot, and every last noble choking this kingdom finally saw what they had created.

He folded the parchment neatly, tucking it into his satchel.

Time to head back to his dorm.

He stood, slinging his satchel over his shoulders. He packed the books and returned them to their places on the shelves, before making his way out of the library.

The sun had dipped lower in the sky, halfway down the horizon, and painted it a beautiful orange.

Noah took a long look at it, exhaling slowly. Then his stomach growled.

He chuckled to himself at the noise. He’d spent so much time in the library that he’d forgotten dinner.

He changed directions, heading to the cafeteria.

The moment he entered, he was assaulted by a very loud noise.

"Fuck off!"

His brows rose and he looked up.

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the insult hadn’t been targeted at him.

Even more surprisingly, no one had noticed him walk in. They were all looking towards the source of the commotion, muttering among themselves.

"It’s Arlo again."

"When will he stop with this?"

"Ever since that Noah came back, he’s been like this."

Noah narrowed his eyes as he realized that Arlo was indeed at the center of the commotion.

He seemed to be cornered by a cluster of Gold-tier students, their voices raised as they threw accusations Noah could practically recite word for word.

Words like traitor, conspirator, murderer’s companion, were being thrown around.

Noah stared at them, his expression blank.

He could see the way Arlo seemed to be defending him, despite the jeers.

He could hear the hiss of anger as one boy slammed a fist against the table, demanding to know why Arlo defended "the monster."

And then Noah turned away.

He walked to the counter, and picked out his food as if the shouting was no more than background noise. As if it was no more important than the scrape of a chair.

He piled the best portions of food onto his tray. The attendant shifted nervously as she handed him the last plate, glancing towards the argument at the corner, but Noah didn’t so much as blink.

He carried his tray across the room.

Conversations dipped into silence as eyes followed him, some wide with fear, others narrowed with suspicion.

Noah lowered his tray onto a table by the window, the sunlight spilling across his plate. He sat, back straight. He broke his bread, chewed, swallowed.

Around him, the tension grew, with the clash of words at Arlo’s corner now becoming a storm.

One voice shouted his name, venom dripping from the syllables. Another defended, the words filled with defiance. Arlo.

Noah kept eating.

His shadows whispered at the edges of his mind, some hissing for blood, others laughing at the spectacle. But he ignored them too.

He would not be pulled into their noise. He had no need to raise his voice in the cafeteria.

His vengeance would come later, elsewhere, and it would not be measured in arguments.

The shouting rose, chairs scraping, someone slamming a hand down on the table hard enough to rattle dishes.

Still, Noah did not look. He reached for his cup, drank, and exhaled softly through his nose.

His thoughts were on the Fire Birds in the woods, on the bats, on the elusive Void Tortoise. On power. Not on children snapping teeth at one another.

When at last he set his cup down, silence fell behind him. Maybe Arlo had cowed them. Maybe a cafeteria official had stepped in. Maybe fists had flown. It didn’t matter.

And at the end of the day, he didn’t care.