Skyward Over God

Yan Mei was sweating and looked a little pale as she sat down and started using her family's Mantra, however, after a few seconds of her repeating the Mantra her color returned and so did her spirit, although not completely.

She stood up still feeling a little fatigued from her mana loss, and she shouted, "Is this normal for testing dummies?"

"No, this one is special, it was a gift from a Dwarven friend of mine, and we built it together to help Tetra find a suitable training partner," Weissman said looking on fondly of at the helmet that he teleported over. "After all most people would try to kill a person that could transform into a magical beast. Of course, he broke it several times, you have no idea how many times we had to repair Dolly."

Fei Lei smiled as he listened to Weissman speak fondly of his teacher, "Okay, C rank privileges for you too, work hard in trying to rank up," Weissman said as tossed the helmet to Fei Lei and continued, "Take it with you, it can help out in the long run." As he teleported away with a sour and depressed look on his face.

Fei Lei scratched his head and wondered what the story was between his master and Weissman, placing the magic dummy Dolly in his ring he thought, "I'll just ask when I see him again,"

Fei Lei then turned to Yan Mei and shouted, "Good job, babe! As he picked her up and spun her around, Yan Mei kissed him, Fei Lei slowly let her down and said, "Not only are you smart and beautiful, but you strong too, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world right now."

Yan Mei smiled and walked up next to the old man who was still standing there in shock and said, "Our IDs please."

The old man pulled out a silver card and placed sent some Mana into it as he handed it over to them. His hands shook as he excitedly looked at the two future legends that they could become, and said, "Just insert you Mana into the card, and everything will be finalized."

As Fei Lei and Yan Mei touched their cards all of their information and a picture of their faces appeared on it. The two looked at each other and smiled, Yan Mei jumped into his arms and shouted, Fei Lei and Yan Mei, laughed as she said, "We did it. We're adventurers now!"

Fei Lei put her down and the two went back downstairs to see that their ally was in the middle of a drinking contest. She was surrounded by dozens of Guild Members shouting and waving around their betting money.

"Come on Gorge! I got 50 thousand on you!"

"Kick his ass girly! Make me some money!"

"Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!"

The crowd roared with excitement as her opponent fell over with a pale face, Hina laughed and finished off her mug and whipped off her lips while she shouted, "Next!"

A skinny man came up and handed over a large stack of Gold Bills, another man sat down and started to fill his mug, "You can't keep this up forever!"

"Okay, she has to be hitting her limit! So I bet 10 thousand on Yin Bu."

"I think she's just getting started, this girl can really handle her liquor! 30 thousand on the new girl!"

Yan Mei seeing that Hina was busy began to plot, "Quickly, while she busy let's name our group!" Yan Mei whispered, "How about, Team, Mages of Fantasia, it means a thing that is composed of a mixture of different forms or styles, and our team certainly has that."

Yan Mei nodded her head as she said the word, "I like it."

Fei Lei turned to the receptionist and said, "We'll be registering our team now, under the team name Mages of Fantasia."

The receptionist smiled and filled out some forms before asking for their cards, Yan Mei called over Hina who was quickly won her match, when she came over Hina was surprised that they left her out.

She then pouted as she handed over the card, "No fair, I wanted to be called Mage Slayer 2.0!"

The receptionist used a small circular stamp that was enchanted with some kind of magic and hit their cards with them. Suddenly, a new section appeared on their cards showing their team name, and by pressing on it, a screen flew up that showed the members activity in abbreviated forms, such as; AoQ: Away on Quest, and Available: Ava.

They were also informed that they could add contacts to them and send them written messages through the cards magic functions. Another ingenious function allowed one to show up on a small circular radar that covered a 3-mile radius, allies were in green dots, everything else was red, it didn't show structures or any kind of map though.

Fei Lei smiled said, "Neat! It's kind of like a cell phone and GPS Locator!" Before placing the card in his ring, he turned to his new party members and said, "Let's go find an inn and get some rest, tomorrow we conquer our first dungeon!"

The three then left to go searching for an Inn, after a while they found a top-tier hotel and decided to stay there for the night, renting the rooms they were offered a meal to eat.

They went all out, there were several kinds of magical beast flesh, and even more, tasty treats for them to eat, such as cakes, and jam-filled bread rolls.

As they ate, Fei Lei asked, "So has Teacher ever conquered a dungeon?"

Hina laughed, "No, in the beginning, he was too weak to enter one, even when he discovered how to use his Sigil, he was afraid that he would be mistaken as a real magic beast and that he would be targeted by the other mages."

"But what about after he took on the Elder Dragon's form?" Yan Mei asked as she ate her food.

"Once he killed the elder dragon, Dungeon Diving became pointless to him, so he just wrote it off, and any time he needed a weapon or magic item, he could just pay for one with the money he earned from completing a high ranking quest." Hina took a large swig of wine and continued on, "Master loves auctions, he can just throw away money there, so he often ended up buying us stuff, but will only give it to us if we need it."

"How does that work?" Yan Mei asked again.

Hina laughed as she said, "One time your elder student was fighting for his life, and master didn't intervene until his opponent brought out a higher tiered magic item. Only when he was about to die did Teacher toss him a sword that was equally ranked, next, he sat back to enjoy the show. Big bro was really on the verge of dying after that hard-earned victory, he ended up staying in bed for a few months to recover after that beating."

Yan Mei was shocked by their teacher's behavior, when Fei Lei said, "Yeah that sounds like Teacher, listen to this! While I slept, Teacher carried me out of the house and without waking me, put me in a bears den. He started banging on some pans and shouted, 'Do your best, I believe in you!' and ran off leaving me to fight off the whole pack by myself."

Hina laughed, and said, "One time he dropped me off a waterfall and said, "I'm doing this because I care for you, my student."

Fei Lei and Hina laughed, Fei Lei then countered with, "Oh yeah, did you know he used a gravity manipulation magic to hold me down while I climbed a mountainside with my bare hands, every time I started to make progress he would throw stones at me from on high! I fell a couple of times sustaining serious injuries."

"The training is easy, wait till you have to deal with his drunken gambling, did you know he even tried to trade in his pants for chips at the casino!" Hina returned fire.

"He didn't!" Yan Mei shouted.

"Well it was made from dragon scales, and when he learned the casino was cheating him out of his money, he destroyed the whole place!"

Fei Lei laughed, "That does sound like something teacher would do, one time I found him sleeping on the roof of the dojo, he said he was drinking with some friends and had no idea how he got up there!"

Hina looked to Yan Mei and asked, "So what about you, did your father train you?"

Yan Mei nodded her head, "Yes, he did! I was also trained by my Grandpa. However they kept me on the family's estate, I know it was for my own good, but sometimes I felt like a prisoner rather than a family member. Being born with Fire God roots put me a position of constant danger, after the first kidnapping attempt, everyone started to treat me like a fragile flower."

"Kidnapping attempt!?" Fei Lei frowned and felt a surge of fury.

Yan Mei smiled and said, "I was only a kid then, I was shopping with my brother and we were both attacked by the dark guild, daddy managed to save us and when we returned both of us were given guards to constantly protect us."

"You have a brother?" Fei Lei asked.

Yan Mei smiled proudly as she said, "Mn! Big brother is from my father's 2nd wife, he's a few years older than me, and was lucky enough to be born with Wind God Roots. His name is Yan Shi, and he's attending one of the best Mage schools in the world right now, the Grand Arcana School at the Central Kingdom's domain."

"Oh, then you must be very pleased to have such a brother!" Hina said chowing down on the sweets in front of her.

"Yep, big brother is one of the strongest Mages in the world, even the Mana King is trying to recruit him to the Royal Magic-Knights," Yan Mei said puffing her chest out.

As they chatted, a man came over and placed his hand on Hina's shoulder, "Hey babe, why don't you ditch these guys and come to my table for some fun?" He suddenly tried to reach for her breast.

"Please, don't, I was having such a good time," Hina said as she sighed.

The man suddenly felt that his hand had become light, he stared down in horror to see that it was gone and that a small bubble of water was keeping his blood from flowing.

Hina stood up and slapped him in the face with his own hand, "Get lost scum! Only people I trust can touch me."

Hina threw the hand into the man's lap, he grabbed it and ran off screaming.

Everyone in the room was shocked, but such a thing happing was a common occurrence here, so it didn't take them long to forget about it.

"Sorry for spoiling the mood guys, but I'm tired and will be calling it a night," Hina said as she walked away.

Fei Lei looked to her and asked, "Can you go see if she's okay?"

Yan Mei saw the pain in Hina's eyes and followed after as she said, "I would have, even if you didn't ask."

Fei Lei then went upstairs to his room and sat on his bed, pulled out the cog he found at the market.

He studied it until the night overtook the city, the words written on the top of the cracked surface was, LS-SC010/100-PSD-1. Fei Lei felt like pulling his hair out, "This could mean anything! Why are you so familiar, what are you!"

Fei Lei suddenly yawned and closed his eyes, he started to get tired and decided to get some rest. As he dozed off, he left the cog on his stomach and placed his hand over it, as it touched the bottom side of his wrist, it suddenly started to glow and sink into his skin.