Heaven's Greatest Professor

"Warden, what have you done?" Jason said through gritted teeth.

"Now is not the time to answer," Warden said, his voice infused with aura. "Get out now..."

They heard the terrible screams of Drakes from all around and finally understood the gravity of the situation. Exchanging glances, they began to withdraw towards the dungeon gate.

Jason stopped after a few steps. He turned to find Warden rooted to the spot. "You're not leaving?"

Warden shook his head. "This is a mess of my own making. I'll join you shortly after I take care of it."

Jason paused.

"Go on," Warden urged, seeing his hesitation. "You won't be able to harvest any essence here, nor will this fight hone your skills...though I admit it would be a bloody experience if you stayed."

Warden could see the temptation warring on Jason's face. He couldn't help but smile.

"You're not prepared for this fight. It is not your path," Warden said. "Go on, I'll return swiftly."

Jason gritted his teeth, watching Warden dash towards the chaos. Jason yearned to follow, having always longed for dependable comrades to fight alongside, comrades he could trust completely. But as the chaos grew, he realized how ill-equipped he was for this kind of battle.

He wasn't green by any margin, but this was something else altogether. There were hundreds of iron-grade drakes quaking all over the place for whatever reason.

With a deep sigh, he turned and darted toward the exit, hoping Warden knew what he was doing.

***

Torin Walt woke up with righteous vindication that morning. Today was the day he would wipe off the stains of humiliation from his skin. Today was the day he would make that bastard pay for the humiliation he caused him. Today was the day he would prove to that elf how alone she was.

Because Torin had advanced to silver.

Nobody could utter a single word of disrespect to him anymore. They couldn't blame him behind his back for gaining the position of a junior professor through his family background. Perhaps that had been the case in the beginning, but family is a strength of its own. Not to mention, he had made the position his through his power.

"You're up early today," said the lowborn cur as he came into the garden of his housing. This lowborn cur had been following him for the last few days after the knowledge of his humiliation finally got to the ears of his Father, the Clan head. He specially provided this fellow to follow him around all the time to make sure of his safety.

His safety... Torin gritted his teeth at the reminder. He could take care of himself. He'd make sure of that today...

"Young Lord?" said again the lowborn ranker, finding him not answering. "Oh is it the day, huh? Were you looking forward to this?"

Torin spared him a glance. There seemed to be much amusement in this lowborn nameless ghost's eyes, amusement at his own expense, which always caused Torin to regard him darkly.

The ghost was barely five feet and a few inches tall, his figure thin and brittle, and cut quite a creepy vibe with how he eyed everything. Still, the ghost possesses some uncanny abilities and was quite useful for the clan for all the years he had served. That seemed to have given him all this gall that he could talk to him, Torin Walt, the true heir of the great House Walt, as if they were equal.

"I don't like that smile on your face," he said, glaring.

The lips on the Ghost's lips grew wider. "Perhaps, you'd like to wipe it off me?" he sounded more hopeful than amused.

Sadist bastard! Walt cursed inwardly. "I think I will," he said and drew his sword.

The main event was late afternoon, at the fourth bell, Torin had to spend all the energy he had on something in the meantime. So why not deal with this creepy bastard?

The Ghost had sworn his life to his clan, but it seemed that hadn't instilled the respect in him. Torin Walt would get the respect where it's due.

Thus he slashed first.

***

Thirty minutes had passed since Jason escaped the dungeon. That meant Warden had been inside for about two hours now.

The dungeon gate still pulsated with dark energy as Jason's eyes were continually drawn back to it, hoping to see Warden emerge. Truthfully, Jason wasn't worried. In the four days since they'd met, he'd seen Warden's monstrous strength. The man had yet to suffer a single injury. Though partly due to his unique force-field ability, it spoke to Warden's overall power.

Jason thought, If he can maintain that force field in battle, I'm sure he has nothing to worry about.

"What's that?" Zim said, pointing upward. "A bird?"

"It's coming right for us," Nina said, drawing back her bow.

"Wait!" Jason shouted, springing to his feet. His eyes found the bird - no, calling it a bird was an understatement. It was a magnificent, huge white crane...and from its aura, it seemed to be Silver-rank. "It looks familiar..."

The crane descended toward them, chilling their blood. Thankfully, it did not attack. Towering over them, it let out a croak at Jason.

His power surged instinctively as realization dawned on him. Peering up at the mighty beast, Jason was awed despite himself. Though most beasts posed little threat to humans, this crane was of a higher pedigree.

Quelling his nerves, Jason asked, "Are you Professor June's contracted beast?"

Jason was almost certain he had seen a similar pristine, noble crane with Professor June back at the academy. Of course, then it had been just a couple of metres tall, not like now...

The crane screeched softly, which Jason digested as affirmation. The crane looked around them as if looking for something, and then its eyes moved to the dungeon gate. It screeched again, but it wasn't something as simple as affirmation for him to understand. Only the bonder would be able to understand that.

Jason found his two helpers had withdrawn half a dozen steps as he tried to understand the crane. Even with no sign of violence from the great beast, they stood cautious, ready to attack... or most probably flee.

As if they could flee an aerial beast such as this, Jason mused. The only possible way would be the dungeon as the silver-ranked creature would be unable to enter it. But that thought didn't occur to their head when they withdrew.

The bird continued to screech, and Jason could only shake his head in disgruntlement.

"I'm sorry, I cannot understand you," he said. "I got that you look for Warden, probably? but he's insi--"

Just then the pulsating lights in the dungeon gate flickered and came out a figure, seeping with thick blood and a dark aura, chilling all their forms once again.

"Sorry about that," the guy said, and did something as all the blood on his person disintegrated to nothing to make a face. "Neat trick, right?"

Warden had a weary expression on his face, but his eyes beamed when he found the white crane.

"Sylvie?" He called coming close to the bird. "What are you doing here?"

The crane, Sylvie, croaked softly as Warden came to caress its neck.

"June's calling me?" he muttered with a raised eyebrow.

The crane croaked again, gesturing with its neck to its back.

"You want me to ride you?" Warden said. "And talk to June? How?"

Warden looked puzzled as everyone else felt, but then he found a crystal device strapped on the back of Sylvie. He unstrapped it, examining it.

"That's a portable Communication crystal," Jason said sharply. "We don't see those these days."

Warden knew what that was. Something different than your regular Longread. The communications crystals were something more ancient, and they could transfer both the image and sound through the connection in between.

Knowing all this, Warden didn't waste any moment to infuse energy to connect to the other side of the crystal.

Soon an image surfaced in his mind's eye, twisting and coalescing together to form a 3rd figure of June, sitting in her usual office, a frown creased on her brows.

"You need to return to the academy right at this moment," June said.

"What happened?" Warden asked immediately, finding the seriousness and finality in her tone.

"It's Torin Walt," she said. "It will be too late to explain all things, come back to the academy as soon as possible. Sylvie will be able to help cut time."

With that, she cut the connection as Warden's mind returned to reality.

"Looks like I have to leave urgently," Warden said to Jason. He had been planning on going to DragonForge to finalize his deal, but that would have to wait. "I'll contact you as soon as I can, but till then the loot will be with me." He paused for a second to add, "Oh, you might want to hire some labourers to clean out the rest of the loot I didn't bother to take. I think they will be worth it."

Leaving those words, He descended onto Sylvie's back. The white Starfire Crane screeched and spread her wings and flew up. Within mere seconds their figure vanished into the open sky, untethered towards the Warpgate.

"He can talk to spirit beast as well?" Nina muttered in incredulity.

Jason had no answer for that. He was about to prepare for departure when Nina asked again.

"Hey, wanna see what he fought after sending us out?"

Jason blinked. That might not be a bad choice either.