“Does anyone know of that place? Did you come across it by any chance?” Theodore asked as he rested his arms on his glass table.
“…”
For a few seconds, nobody spoke as they stared at one another. The only one who remained motionless was Arthur. He was contemplating whether he should reveal that he knew the name or remain silent instead.
‘No, I shouldn’t do anything stupid. I will just keep it a secret to myself.’ Arthur thought to himself as he looked up. Immediately, he noticed Isla’s eyes on him. The girl had a contemplative look but he could see that she was reading him with ease.
‘I know, I know, I won’t say anything.’ He shook him faintly, which made Isla finally turn around. ‘Am I that easy to read? She didn’t even need a second to know.’
“It seems no one knows what Arcania Desert is. Well, in that case, we shall start from the very beginning.” He said as he tapped the holographic image in front of him. Immediately, the title shifted to an image of a large map on the screen.
The map showed what seemed to be a giant desert, stretching far and wide. Its color was dark greyish like the color of ashes rather than sand.
“Arcania Desert or the ‘Desert Of Ashes’ as many call it is a region in the northwest of the Divine Realm. It spans 5 million kilometers. The Arcania desert was a completely empty, savage place filled with monsters. The temperature there is extremely high during the day and below zero during the night. As you can see, it isn’t a good environment for a population of people to live and thrive in and that remained the case for thousands of years. Until…”
Saying that, the map on their screen suddenly updated and a big red dot appeared in the center of the map.
“When the Gods died and the shards spread across the divine realm. One of the shards ended up in the heart of the Arcania Desert. That led different races to quickly try and travel there to acquire the shard before their enemies. This naturally split the desert into several regions, each controlled by a different race. The conflict this led to was so brutal that this desert which was an empty stretch of golden sand turned into a burnt world with nothing but the corpses of the warriors that died there. It is said that the number of casualties was so high that the entire desert was covered in the ashes of the dead and turned into this grey color you see.”
“…”
Gasps of shock echoed across the entire room as the students looked at the map again. Those last words truly gave them a slap in the face.
‘The ashes of the dead turned the entire desert grey?… How many died?’ They asked themselves. With how big this region was, the fact that it changed color from such an event told them that a horrific number of beings died in these wars.’
Meanwhile, Arthur was completely lost in his own thoughts, remembering the events he went through in the Battle Of The Ethereals.
‘If I remember correctly, the desert was still yellow when I was sent there. It was covered in a lot of blood, but no ashes.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Those corpses must’ve turned into ashes in the future. I can definitely see that… There were simply an incomprehensible number of dead bodies there.’
The scene of the battlefield was something that was etched into Arthur’s memory forever. That was his very first look at what the shard wars truly leave behind. An imaginable amount of blood and pain all for the greed of those above.
‘Greed truly does wonders in causing chaos.’ He laughed inwardly.
“However, our matter isn’t with those wars but with what happened to the desert itself.”
As he said those words, the map zoomed in. “Precisely, in this place.” And a new red spot appeared on the map.
“After the end of the war, the desert remained under the occupation of several different nations. However, the biggest chunk of it was under human territory for a long time…”
***
Theodore then dived deeper into the human territory of the Arcania Desert. From the conditions people who lived there had to adapt to, to the effects of this desert on them and everything in between. They learned about the economic state of that place, and the various riches found under the dunes of sand which benefitted the Empire very much.
Slowly, he built up a perfect image of that region in the students’ heads. With his precise words, they could easily imagine that place, how it was a long time ago, and what made it such an interesting place.
However, by far, the most intriguing detail was the weird phenomenon that kept happening in that desert. Aside from the harsh environment, the humans suffered from weird occurrences like sudden disappearances, instances where people drowned in the sand itself, and weird creatures that attacked the areas under human control at night and disappeared quickly.
Those events were not only unexplainable, but even Theodore didn’t seem to know the cause of such things. The only two who instantly got an idea were Arthur and Isla.
After all, they themselves had experienced something similar in the misty forest. The cause of all of that was the broken divine shard they found in the heart of the forest. But, that still didn’t explain to them why these shards have such an effect on their environment.
‘Their powers could certainly be the cause. But… Why would the shard want to kill whatever is around it? It tried to kill me using memories and illusions in that forest… Is it simply to keep itself from being captured?’ Arthur thought to himself. ‘Could be… But, I don’t know why it feels like that’s not the full truth. Something is amiss.’
Arthur was certain these shards carried far more mystery than what he knew.
‘I have a broken part of one of the shards in my hand, I need to learn more about it. It will definitely be useful for me in the future.’ He nodded.
With that, the lesson eventually came to an end. When the bell rang, they all snapped out of the imaginary world they created in their heads and some even sighed because they enjoyed the lesson a lot. The Divine Realm was truly a world of wonders and mystery.
But, when they remembered what they were about to do next, everyone immediately rejoiced. After all, the next lesson wasn’t merely theoretical but instead practical.
After all, the next lesson was ‘Weapon Practice.’
This particular lesson had been in Arthur’s mind ever since he received his Bluelink. After all, this was one of the few things he was lacking. Even till this point, Arthur was not good at using his sword and that truly affected his power. Just swinging the sword made his extremely high stats a little less impressive.
What he lacked in technique, he compensated for in raw power. But, he knew that when he acquired technique too… He will become a different beast.
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3
