The Fear Of Death Confounds Me: A Wizard101 Novel

Chapter 5: Strength

After a restless night I decided to sneak out of the house, making my way to Golem court, it must have been 6 or 7 AM, so there wasn't a being in sight. People in Wizard City don't wake up before at least 10. Even the school Registrar: Mr. Lincoln – who was an early bird (Literally...he was a humanoid version of a pelican) – wasn't standing in his usual spot in front of the wind tunnel. Good...If I'm going to get stronger I need zero distractions. I pulled out my spell book, which was pristine, inwardly cursing the fact that it had barely been touched. I should have done more...I should have been actively teaching myself. I'm older than all the others, yet I'm at their level...that's going to change today.

I opened the book to higher rank spells, and attempted to find a simple one to start with. I flipped through the pages, idly skimming through before finding a suitable spell. The banshee spell...either summons a banshee or its wail. Warning! Should be attempted by level 8 wizards minimum. I'm level six...what's the worst that could happen?

Apparently the spell backfiring, and knocking me into a tree. I felt warm seeping pain coming from the back of my head, and when I reached up to touch it, my hand came back stained with blood.

"Great..."

I wiped my hand on my Wizarding robe and begrudgingly marched back to the spell-book, trying to find out why I couldn't do the spell, when I was about to give up, a large gust of wind – almost intentionally – pushed the book pages aside to reveal a particularly useful page. A certain sentence catching my eye.

Magical strength stems from three aspects: physical strength, emotional strength, and strength of will.

So...I should train my body before my magic. With that in mind I opened to the physical training segment of the spellbook – a segment which before this moment I hadn't known existed – it said that hand to hand combat and sword training were the best possible ways to train my body. Luckily, Golem tower had a couple sword racks inside. I grabbed one of the swords before rushing back to the courtyard, and started going through a series of basic moves – very sloppily might I add. I ended up dropping the sword a few times, and looked more like I was flailing around than handling myself with finesse. I even sliced my arm by accident through said flailing, but thankfully it was just a surface wound.

I kept at it for an hour, but was getting absolutely nowhere. I sighed heavily, inwardly cursing my lack of skill. Any normal person would have given up by now. Getting frustrated I started slashing the air with the sword very quickly, going through the sequence again. I nearly toppled over when a deep baritone emotionlessly spoke from behind me.

"Sloppy." I quickly turned around, sword pointed at the voice's owner, out of startled instinct. I relaxed a little when I realized it was Malorn, who continued speaking, paying no mind to the fact that he scared me to the point where I could have accidently slashed him. He casually lowered the tip of my sword with his index finger, not scared or bothered in the slightest. "At least your reflexes aren't a total nuisance."

I scoffed, moderately offended even though I knew he was right, I'm terrible. But was more interested in why he was skulking around Wizard city this early.

"What are you even doing here at this hour?"

"I could ask you the same thing, although it's obvious." He paused, before continuing. "You're trying to get yourself killed."

He was joking but I could sense the underlying worry in his tone, buried under layers of self-control.

"Careful, if I didn't know any better I'd think you were worried."

"Only for the future of your kingdom in the case of a sword fight."

I stubbornly set my jaw, narrowing my eyes at him.