Mage Of Shadows - Chapter 1 Arrival

Pain. That was all that Favian could feel after waking up. His head was spinning at what seemed like a thousand miles an hour, and it felt like his brain would explode in any moment.

After several minutes the nauseating feeling subsided, and his bearings came back to him. At this point he realised that he was laying down flat on his face in a stack of hay. The floorboards creaked and it seemed that he was on some sort of moving vehicle.

‘Wasn’t I just at the medical school treating some patients?’ Favian inwardly thought.

Nothing seemed to make sense to him right now. He had just been doing some routine work at his medical school, when he suddenly felt a wave of lethargy, and everything faded to black.

Opening his eyes, he looked around to see that he indeed was lying in a pile of hay, which thankfully made the irregular and abrupt movements of this vehicle less painful on his head. He was in what seemed to be a wooden carriage, lit only by some candles hung towards both sides of the it, with some moonlight shining into it from between little cracks in the wood.

Realising how cold it was inside, Favian struggled to stand up in a hurry. The cold was sapping away at his strength by the second and he wanted to find something to warm him up.

Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced through his head and he fell back down into the hay.

A cascade of memories came along with the pain and left as quickly as it came. The memories seemed too real to be a dream, and Favian swallowed hard as he realised that he had been transmigrated.

The memories of the body he inhabited showed him that he was currently living on the continent of Ortu Solis. This world was similar to that of medieval Earth, however, other sentient races such as elves and dwarves all lived together on this continent.

These facts weren’t too hard to believe for Favian, as he was a highly educated individual in his fourth year of medical school. He had always believed that somewhere in the universe there were other sentient races, as he thought it to be highly naive to think there was only one sentient race living out of the billions of planets in the universe. Yet, what was still hard to believe despite the first-hand recollection of this body, was the existence of magic.

Magic was real. It lived within every object and could be found in the air, water, fire and even in objects. The owner of his body, who to his surprise was also named Favian, was an orphan who had been found to have the innate talent to become a mage. It seemed that only 1 in 1 thousand individuals was found to have a body capable to practice magic.

Having come from nothing, he obviously chose to accept the scholarship to study magic at an academy he was currently travelling towards, based on his potential. His orphanage had been a rundown institution in the slums of his hometown, and the most frequent professions that children who grew up there would take on were that of a thief or a mercenary. Many also turned into drunkards and wastes of society.

‘If I can learn magic and become proficient in it, I’ll at least be able to fulfil the desires of the now dead person whose body I’ve taken’ Favian thought to himself.

It left a bad taste in his mouth that in order for him to be reincarnated, he had to take away the life of another person, however this was just the luck of the draw. Having worked in a medical setting, Favian was very quick to adapt to any situation presented to him, thus he was able to push down the overwhelming emotions within him for now, in order to survive this harsh cold.

Just as he was in a deep train of thought trying to organise all of his memories, the carriage he was on abruptly halted to a stop and a loud voice could be heard.

“Gerald, go check inside. I bet that a filthy beggar is in the back right now.” Shouted an immature male voice.

The sound of heavy footsteps trudging in snow became clearer as it moved towards the back of the carriage. After a few seconds of silence, the doors in front of Favian were flung open. Cold air rushed in and Favian could not help but instinctively shudder due to freezing temperature outside. Despite him wearing a heavy fur coat, the cold still affected his hands, and blood rushed towards his face, giving his brown skin a reddish hue.

Standing at the doorway was a burly boy, with dark black hair that curled around tightly on his head. His arms looked very muscular, and he looked at Favian with a sly look in his eyes.

“Didn’t you hear what the boss said? Get out now!” shouted Gerald, who seemed no older than 16, still had yet to get rid of the baby fat in his face.

Favian looked at the situation and disgust could be seen on his face, as he realised that these people were unnecessarily trying to make life difficult for him. Especially the fact that they would try to bully an orphan who possessed nothing left him furious. Yet, for now he had to comply with them, as he didn’t know what sort of power these people had, or how many of them there were. He also had nowhere to run, as the carriage only had one entrance and that was blocked by the burly boy in front of him.

Having decided to do as asked for now, he still thought to himself ‘If push comes to shove, and they want to harm me, I’ll try to run and find some help. It would be too much of a shame if I die again after being reincarnated for not even 5 minutes.’

This was how this world worked, Favian knew that here power meant everything, and that many rich people would step on those lower in the social standing just to display their power or vent their anger.

As he stepped outside, he could feel the cold snow and a crunching sound could be heard underneath him. It was dark outside, and the moon shone down onto the trail which the carriage was taking. Multiple carriages surrounded his, and it seemed there were about 20 of them currently moving towards their destination. Some were like his own, run down and completely wooden whilst others were shining in gold and embroidery. He guessed that the wealthy individuals would be situated in such in those luxury vehicles.

The first thing his eyes met after stepping outside was a rather short boy, who looked to be no more than 14 or 15 years old. His blonde hair fell down onto his shoulders, and his blue eyes pierced through Favian, with a rather insidious glare.

As he looked Favian up and down, the rather scrawny boy stated, “Me and my friends here, Gerald and John are going around collecting payment for travel protection. You have yet to pay the 1 gold fee for our protection services, so cough up that money right now. We wouldn’t want anything to happen, now would we?”

“What? 1 gold fee? I didn’t hear anything about such a cost when I was asked to join one of the academies.” Muttered Favian. He knew that these individuals saw that his carriage was rather run down, so they must have guessed him to be poor, and just wanted to beat the crap out of somebody with the excuse of protection payment.

Anger flared up in the eyes of the youth, and he proceeded to motion towards his two rather burly friends Gerald and John, “Hold him back, let me teach this disrespectful beggar a lesson here. How dare a beggar tarnish the profession of a mage.”

Before Favian could realise what was going on, he was flanked by Gerald behind him, who held his arms up in the air whilst constraining his neck. It was then that the leader of the group threw a punch at his stomach.

The instinct to cover up his stomach was completely stopped by Gerald behind him, who kept picking him back up off the ground and placing him in a position to get hit by the group’s leader.

After the sixth punch to his stomach, Favian couldn’t help it anymore and screamed at the top of his lungs, “Help me somebody, I’m being murdered.”

Right after this cry for help, a mysterious pressure could be felt within the area. It was almost as if the amount of gravity on his body was increasing. His body felt a lot heavier and he couldn’t help but get down on one knee, whilst trying his hardest to resist against the pressure from above.

From above Favian could feel a new presence, a terrifying power emanated from this figure as it swooped down to the path between Favian and his three assailants, who were now lying on the floor with their faces pressed against the snow. Fear could be seen painted against the canvas of their faces.

“Now what do we have here? Attempting to fight against another candidate before trials have even begun?” a powerful voice reached his ears, whilst a sweet fragrance of perfume lifted his nose up towards this individual.

Standing 6 feet tall was a dark-haired woman, with brown eyes and a snowy complexion, almost identical to the snow in the vicinity. Her eyes twinkled with a playful light as she looked onto Favian, who was trying his best not to fall onto his face like the three others had.

[Accomplishment achieved. Damsel in distress: Get saved by a beautiful heroine in a time of need. 50 experience received].