A small source of light illuminated the dark corridor as Raghav held his phone in front of him. 'The castle is crawling with guards and soldiers. Luckily for me, they are spread out to cover for the guests as well.'
He turned off the flashlight as he heard footsteps; two soldiers holding a torch turned around the corner and began walking in the dark corridor. "Are the rumours true?" "What rumours?"
The guard leaned whispering something to his companion before standing straight. The other guard nodded. "Yes, the rumours are true." "I can't believe it."
Once they walked away, Raghav slid down the pillar, looking at the distant flames. He pulled his phone out and turned the flashlight on.
'King Belreid told me that the prophecy regarding the hero was fake, then why go through the trouble of summoning me? That I will have to ask him myself.'
He reached the gates of the throne room as he opened them and entered looking at the mess before him, tables thrown around glasses and wine on the floor and at the back a giant hole about 8 feet wide going through multiple walls until it reached the open sky. 'A mana blast can be dangerous; King Belreid forgot to explain how to do a mana blast. I'll ask someone else, for now I should focus on the task at hand.'
Raghav walked around the room with narrow eyes and a serious face. 'There should be traces of the assailant being teleported here. They should need some sort of marking or runes to do the teleporting.'
When he found nothing, Raghav unzipped his brown jacket and reached inside; pulling out a small torch, he switched it on as blue light came out. "They probably used a marking or rune drawn by invisible ink. Good thing I had a UV torch." He walked around the throne room once more; as he reached right corner from the main entrance, he found a rune glowing blue. 'It appears to be X with a T in the middle.' Raghav quickly took a picture with his phone.
Raghav heard distant sounds of footsteps as he closed his torch and ran hiding behind the throne. 'Who would come to the throne room at this hour?' He pulled out his phone and started recording the audio. Whoever had entered the room just grunted and scoffed before leaving.
As the doors closed, Raghav stopped the recording and opened the camera and peeked at the room, making sure that the person was gone. 'Whoever that was might be the person behind the attack. I should try to check everyone's hands to see if they have a trace of the Invisible ink. I doubt they would know how to remove it.'
Raghav left the throne room, heading back to his room avoiding the guards. Once inside, he placed the torch back inside his jacket and the phone in the pocket of his pants. He took off the jacket, placing it on the coat hanger, he then dusted the plain black t-shirt he was wearing and grabbed his silver oval shaped locket, tracing his fingers on it before turning to his bike laying on the floor.
He walked over to it, crouching next to the front wheel as he examined the handle. "It must have broken when it fell." He then graced his hand along the letters written on its side, 'Sportster S'. "Guess I will have to fix it on my own."
Raghav stood up, walking to the bed and laying down.
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Aurelia woke up in her silky bed as she looked out her balcony seeing the Sun rise. 'Good morning, Kanah.'
She then got up from her bed and changed into her formal attire, similar to the one she wore last night.
"I should check up on Mr Raghav." She walked out of her room heading towards Raghav's; she stood in front of the door preparing herself to knock. "Come in." Aurelia was stunned as she opened the door seeing Raghav arranging a pile of clothes on the sofa table. "You knew I was standing outside."
Raghav turned around, looking at Aurelia as the seriousness slipped off his face ever so slightly before he regained it. "Good morning Princess, I am sorry; I did not know it was you. I just heard the footsteps and thought it was someone I had called for. Please take a seat." "I see; do you require my aid?"
Raghav looked at her and then at the bike. "Help me lift it. Grab that handle and this frame right here and pull it towards yourself, once it is upright, lean it towards yourself and it should be on its side stand." Aurelia came towards the bike and lifted it. "Thank you, Princess."
Raghav turned to look at her before he started taking the black forest backpack off the bike and placing it beside the sofa table. "Anything I can do for you, Princess?" Aurelia shook her head as she looked at Raghav, looking at his shirt that hugged his muscular frame, but her eyes were stuck on the locket as she pointed towards it.
"What is that?" Raghav looked at her, then to where she was pointing; when he saw the locket, he looked back at her. "It's a locket; these are mementos with a picture of a person or place inside." "What is a picture?" "A picture is a word we use for paintings in my time."
Aurelia nodded, looking at the bike. "So this is the bike you were talking about." Raghav nodded. "That is a bike; you use it to travel. It does not require any animal to pull it." Aurelia admired the bike before turning to Raghav as he pulled out a rectangular metal plate from his bag. "What is that?"
"A laptop." Raghav looked between Aurelia and the laptop a few times. "Can you make small continuous sparks of electricity?" Aurelia stretched her hand out, producing electricity in her hands; Raghav placed the plug in her palm as he opened his laptop. 'It's charging that too at the normal pace. I guess I won't have to worry about running out of battery with this.'
Raghav looked back at the princess with a slight smile. "Thank you, you can stop now." "Does the laptop work with electricity as its source of power?" Raghav smiled. "Yes, it does indeed." As Raghav took the plug back, he looked her in the eye. "How tall are you, Princess?" "You can stop calling me Princess; just Aurelia would be nice. And to answer your question, I am five foot ten inches tall. You seem like you are 6 feet, yes?"
Raghav nodded, then moved to sort out the rest of his clothes, placing them on the table. His face hardened as he looked at the clothes. "Who is Kanah?" Aurelia was taken aback by the sudden mention of Kanah. Raghav turned to face her. "I mean, the moment I stepped in front of you. You called me Kanah and the King himself asked me if I was Kanah. So I am curious who he is."
Aurelia took a deep breath. "He's you of this world, the same face, voice, height, even the hair. The only difference is your personality." Raghav's eyes narrowed until they closed and slowly opened again. "I see. Where might he be? I would love to meet myself."
Aurelia looked at Raghav with a puzzled expression. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door. "They must be the people I called for. Come in."
The door opened and a few men entered the room, one of them dropping the pieces of metal upon seeing Raghav. "The rumours are true." When the men saw Aurelia, they all bowed. "Your, highness." "Carry on with your task."
Aurelia looked at Raghav. "We shall have this conversation some other time." Raghav nodded as Aurelia stepped out of the room. He then turned to look at the men as his expression hardened. "Gentlemen, have you brought the items?"
The men nodded, placing the items on a round table they had brought with them. "Would you require anything else?" Raghav looked at the items before shaking his head. "Let's begin, what year is it?" "It's the year one thousand two hundred thirty-eight of The New World." "The New World?" "Yes, sir, one thousand two hundred thirty-eight years ago, a war was raging in our world known as The Great War. Once the war ended, a new era began called The New World. When the year is written, The New World is written as TNW."
Raghav nodded, taking in the new information as he placed a hand on his chin. 'The Great War, King Istreid, also received a vision at its end that made him change the fake prophecy; I should read about this period, its good I asked for history books in advance.'
Raghav then looked at the men. "What is a year?" The men looked at one another in confusion before one of them spoke. "It is the time taken by Paneria to complete one revolution around the sun."
Raghav narrowed his eyes. "How long is a year?" "Twelve months." "How long is a month?" "Months have different days; January has thirty-one, February has twenty-eight but every four years it has twenty-nine. March has…" "I get it. Do you have weeks? If you do, how many weeks a month, and how many days in a week and how long is a day?"
"There are four weeks in a month, a week is seven days long, and a day is twenty-four hours long. An hour is sixty minutes long, and a minute is sixty seconds long." "How long is a second?" "One…two…three, that was three seconds."
Raghav nodded. 'It would seem that measurement of time is the same as my world, even the names of the months are the same. It is truly peculiar.'
"Who came up with these measurements?" "It was King Istreid. He came up with all these new terms and names."
Raghav stared at the man blankly before looking at the items.
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The men walked out of the room tired; as they walked in the corridor, they passed Aurelia who looked at their tired states. "What happened to you?" The men were shaken as they looked at Aurelia. "We cannot answer any more questions. Forgive us, your highness."
The men then ran away from her as Aurelia's face turned to an angered one as she looked furiously at the door to Raghav's room. 'How dare he do this to the people of this country? He will pay the price for tormenting my people.'
She stormed towards the door, drawing her sword as she opened the door with her sword in hand. The moment the door opened, Raghav looked up from the book he was reading with black rectangular frame glasses on his face. He smiled once he saw her. "Aurelia."
All of her anger died down when she saw that smile. 'Kanah.' She shook her head as she placed her blade back on her hip. "What happened to the scribes?" "I might have asked them too many questions, I apologised already, but I will treat them to some lunch later to make up for overworking them."
Aurelia looked at the books. "Are you interested in our history?" "Just learning about the world I am now a part of." Raghav closed the book, placing it on the table as he took off his glasses as he closed his eyes.
'Everything except for the name, the eras and the map and size of this world is the same as mine. From the weights, lengths, plants, animals except for species like elves, dwarfs, dragons, and beast-men.'
"You asked me about Kanah, that you would like to meet him. I have to tell you he is currently journeying to another country, Solara Kingdom." Raghav opened his eyes. "That's disappointing." Raghav stood up. "Aurelia, your father did not tell me anything about mana blast yesterday. Could you?"
Aurelia nodded. "As you already know, Mana can be infused in the body and items. When the flow of mana into the item exceeds the physical bounds, it swells outside the item, creating an outer layer of physical, tangible mana. This is called a mana construct, you can craft chains, ropes, walls and even shields of this Mana. When this Mana is not used for construct but for attacks, it is called a Mana blast and can be performed in a variety of ways."
Raghav nodded as he took in the words. "Does the amount of Mana differ from person to person and do different spell require different amounts?"
Aurelia nodded. "We all possess Mana inside us, but only a few wield it, even they are divided in ranks. The Acolyte, the Knight, the Master, the Grandmaster. All based on a person's Mana usage, ingenuity, talent and Mana reserves"
Raghav placed his fingers on his lips. "Let me guess how they are divided." Aurelia nodded. "The Acolyte, someone who can use Mana to strengthen himself, nothing more. The Knight, someone who can use Mana to strengthen himself, his body and can use complex attacks like Mana blast and elemental infusion. The Master, someone who can use large-scale mana attacks and can even use spells in combat. A Grandmaster, someone who is both a master warrior and an extremely skilled mage. King Istreid seems like a grandmaster."
Aurelia clapped, "You are indeed smart; your guesses are correct. These are the basis of rank division. I am a Knight class while my father and Reinhardt are Masters. The only Grandmaster alive I know of is King Vardenia."
Raghav looked down. 'King Vardenia.' He then looked at Aurelia. "Do you think I will also be Mana sensitive?" Aurelia shrugged her shoulders. "Who would know? We can visit the sage and check out the possibility for that; he may also tell us about the connection between you and Kanah."
Raghav nodded as he stepped forward. "Can I see your hands?"
Aurelia was a bit surprised as she raised her hands and Raghav used the UV torch on her hands and saw that her hands were completely clean.
"What was that?" "I was checking your hands for invisible ink." "What is that?"
Raghav pulled out his phone and showed it to Aurelia. "This is a picture of a rune drawn from invisible ink that can be seen using this special light; whoever that assailant worked for must have drawn that rune. I am looking for whoever has traces of that ink on them."
Aurelia looked at Raghav in shock. "You think I would kill my own father?" "I don't think that, but I have to think that way to catch the person."
"The council will handle this matter; you don't have to get involved." Raghav looked at her as he smiled. "I am doing this for two reasons. First, I was also a target at the summoning, so it's personal as well. Second, I cannot turn a blind eye to something bad happening no matter what."
Aurelia looked at the determination in Raghav's eyes as she nodded, understanding his reasons.
"Ah, brother, thank you for being here." Raghav and Aurelia poked their head out from the room looking at the King's door seeing the King talking to a bald man who walked away. 'The king has a brother but he said he was an only child.'
Raghav then looked at Aurelia. "Who is that?" "That is my uncle Galreid."
Raghav stepped out, looking at Galreid. "Your father said he was the only son of Delreid." "That is true; Uncle Galreid is not my grandfather's son; he is his younger brother's son."
Raghav narrowed his gaze before entering the room. "I will be going to take a stroll through the castle, so shall we visit the sage?"
Aurelia nodded. "Yes, we shall."