Demonic Skies *On Hold*

Chapter 13: Auction

AN: Change made to Aidan's cultivation level.  He is no longer fourth circle as a mage but third.  The meaning of each circle will be made apparent soon, as well as quantifying that strength in later chapters.

Aidan sat within an empty stone room, his legs folded over the other, in quiet meditation. His body was bathed in a soft green glow originating from an open book floating before him. The covers of the book appeared to be made from two jade tablets with a golden emblem on front. It appeared to be the side profile of a three legged crow its eye possessing multiple irises.

The book was discovered by Aidan in his early childhood shortly after his fifth birthday. Ignored by the majority of his family, with the exception of his mother, he had been extremely rambunctious in his youth. He had found the book when he had snuck into the restricted section of his family's library as he so often did. There is little doubt the stomachs of those old guardians would turn green should they discover how easily he snuck past their notice.

Aidan meditated as the jade book showed him the familiar ancient battlefield it showed him during his childhood all those years ago. The common belief of the world held dark magic and necromancy in little regard. However, the battle showed him such a force overturning the logic of the world he once held as absolute before his very eyes.

He who lacked no backers, no authority nor power within his family, such dark methods presented him the opportunity he so desired. From that point onward, Aidan pursued the pinnacle of dark magic he perceived in that ancient battlefield. The hardships he and his mother endured for all those years, he would pay back several times over. No one would mock them ever again.

Aidan slowly came out from his meditation and slowly released an intake of breath as a stream of impure elemental essence he had not absorbed left with it. His eyes furrowed with a look of displeasure as he finished exhaling. He had spent three years at the peak of the third circle consolidating his foundation. His mana core had become so refined he was without peer amongst those of the same circle. He could even compare with early fourth circle mages.

His excursions into the Eternal Forest, was mainly to break through into higher realms as a mage. Aidan was the youngest of his family and lacked the time and resources his older siblings had constant access to. Every year he remained stuck in the third circle, the further along they got.

The Jade Book, as he learned later, was a legacy of the Demonic Skies Sect his ancestor chanced upon millennia ago. The book was the first of three levels of the core practice methods only passed upon to direct disciples. The ritual for creating Death Knights like Orland and Bea were some of knowledge passed down.

His family like many others had their fair share of dark histories and never thought much of it. However, over the years, he began to wonder if that ancestor was perhaps a core disciple of the Demonic Skies Sect who escaped the calamity that destroyed it.

However, the book was incomplete and only contained methods up until the third circle. If Aidan wished to advance as a mage, he desperately needed the methods contained within the sect itself. Aidan sighed and waved his hand as the wards along the room darkened. Green flames shot out from copper bowls lighting the room as a wall opened up and he exited, the walls closing behind him.

Aidan stepped into the familiar basement and turned to the same iron door leading to his workshop and walked in.

"Master," spoke a soft, feminine voice.

Aidan looked at the apathetic young woman, a slight flicker of interest in his eyes. This was his recently turned Death Knight created from the woman who accompanied the assassins a few nights back.