Forcing her way through the streets was a pretty effective way for Alix to get to the temple quickly. It only took her around fifteen minutes before she made it to the outside of the massive building. Upon seeing it, the girl came to understand what the man meant when he said 'things would be crowded'!
She looked across the platform, where she saw hundreds of people. Rows and rows of purple robed individuals. All engaging in some sort of group exercise? Then there were the yellow robed people standing in front of them scrutinizing their movements and giving corrections when needed. It was quite the sight to behold!
"Keep calm, my friends. Remember what the master has taught you! Use your own connection with your body to and spread your senses to others." Alix overheard a person dressed in a yellow robes issue instructions to the people donning purple robes.
Alix frowned. "What is this, some sort of school?" Alix looked down at Mo and saw that he was similarly confused.
"I don't know? I've never been to a temple before?" Alix interpreted from his expressions.
'If I had more time, I would stand here watching this for hours...' Alix looked over the groups, her eyes filled with reluctance. 'Sadly, I do not have such luxury at this time.' She sighed and pulled her gaze away from the sight.
She needed to find the Mystic or at least their protégé. Alix noticed a way into the temple past the monks in-training.
'That is where I need to go!' Alix climbed onto the platform and made her way to the entrance. While walking, she noticed torches along the edges of the platform. 'What sort of barbarians haven't switched to Lumi-Crystals yet? Does it have to do with tradition or merely the struggle of making it into the town in the first place? It must be difficult to import goods to a place this cut off from the rest of the world.'
Alix slid past the people on the platform until she made it to the stairs leading to the entrance. Standing at the bottom of the stairs reinforced the fact that this temple was massive! Her gaze climbed the structure but never made it to the top. Why had they made this place so huge?
Alix breathed in deeply, preparing herself for whatever she may face atop these stairs. She started to climb the stairs with determination in her eyes. Nothing would stop her fro-
"What are you doing here?!" Alix heard a familiar voice call out in shock. She casually glanced over her shoulder. Vorza was standing at the base of the stairs pointing at Alix. Alix paused for a second before turning around and continuing up the stairs.
Vorza's face contorted. "Did you just ignore me? After what you did to my face?!"Alix waved dismissively to the boy without looking back. Vorza let out a frustrated growl, which Alix chose to ignore.
She just continued climbing to the top of the stairs. Once she was at the top of the stairs she took a satisfied breath in. She went to continue onward but felt something itching her nose! "Achoo!" She sneezed as pollen flew past her and reformed into Vorza in front of her.
Alix looked indifferently at the boy. "Get out of my way, pollen-freak. I have things to do in the temple."
"First of all, my name is Vorza." Vorza corrected. "And second of all, not just anyone can waltz up and meet my master!" Vorza grinned smugly at Alix.
"Well, it's a good thing that I am not going to meet your master! I am meeting the Amalgamate Mystic and I doubt that he'd let a magic misusing lecher like yourself be one of his pupils!" Alix insulted the boy but Vorza's grin only got more smug.
"Goes to show what you know about me! I happen to be one of the few direct disciples of the Master Mystic!" Vorza proclaimed proudly!
Alix rolled her eyes. "Of course, you are." Alix's words were thick with sarcasm. She shoved past Vorza like he was still pollen in the wind.
"What? Don't believe me?"
Alix turned around to face the boy. "I just find it difficult to believe that someone like you could be a direct disciple. Someone that is so unlikable, that they have to go around using magic to force people to like them! A person that is soo starved for attention, that they make huge shows out of their break ups just to have people actually pay attention to them for once in their insignificant lives! So I feel that my skepticism is valid when a person like you is involved!"
Vorza was frozen, with only his face twitching slightly. "Y-You have no idea who you're talking about!"
Alix looked the boy up and down. His disheveled white robes, his narrow eyes and his white teeth that he was barring at her. "I don't think I want to know what I am talking about? Especially when it comes to anything about you." Alix turned around and started walking toward the large entrance to the temple.
"So you don't want to know about me, huh?" Vorza said with a threatening undertone after Alix. "Okay! Then I'll just have to show you what I can really do!" Vorza spread his arms wide and clapped his hands loudly.
The sound reverberated through the air bouncing off of the walls of the temple. The sound moved through everyone it touched until it no longer sounded like a mere clap but instead an applause!
Alix frowned as she felt like the sound was still growing. It was getting so loud that she couldn't ignore it if she tried! She turned around annoyed. "Would you stop it with tha-GAH!" Alix cried as a wave of sound slammed into her face making her fall back.
Alix held Mo's fishbowl to protect it from any damage while the applause rang even louder through her ears! "Agh, what the hell!" Alix screamed in pain but her voice felt drowned out by the uproarious applause.
She felt something trickle out of her ear that she assumed to be blood. She looked up to Vorza, panting and with her eyes red from pain.
"Shut...it...off!" She forced her words through gritted teeth, barely able string the sentence together due to the pain and noise!
Vorza looked down to Alix and sneered. "Turn what off? No one else can hear anything!" Alix's eyes went wide. She looked down to the platform where the people were training.
None of them seemed to be affected by this ear shattering sound! She looked down at Mo but he was just floating in his bowl staring at her, confused and worried.
"Y-You...b-bastard!"
Vorza held a hand to his chest. "Me? A bastard? No no! I just told you that I am the only true disciple of the Amalgamate Mystic and you mocked me for it! This is just me proving my skills to you so that you believe me! Is it working?"
Alix didn't know what was more annoying? The sound shaking her eardrums or the fact that she could still hear Vorza's jeers! She slowly looked up at him while trying to pick herself up from the ground. "I-it i-is-
Vorza bent down and cupped his ear as though he couldn't hear Alix. "What's that? It isn't? Well that's no good! Maybe you need to see it to believe it!" Vorza reached his hand out, using his Lis to gather mana into his palm. He then faced his palm at Alix and blasted a wave of pollen formed from mana into her eyes!
"Ahhh!' Alix screamed as her eyes burned from the pollen! The world was now blurry and the clapping hadn't stopped! Alix had finally come to realize that she may have let her emotions get the best of her again as she'd actively provoked an opponent that she knew nothing about!
I'll use this time to give a quick explanation on how Mysticism functions as a magic type. You see, unlike other spellcasting types, like magecraft or sorcery, that take mana and form something with it. Mysticism is one that works to transform the mana into something...more vague than usual.
While sorcerers and mages form physical constructs out of the mana, just using different methods to do so, mystics transform the mana into a sense and then use that to attack their opponents! That sense can be a sound, a feeling, a scent, or even a sight.
As you can tell, Mysticism isn't the most combat oriented magic in the world.
In fact, many spellcasters used to mock mystics! Saying that their magic was only good for children's entertainment or satisfying the strange needs of twisted nobles! That was the case, until mystics learned how to manipulate people's minds with their magic.
You see, senses are something most people just naturally have so they take them for granted and never think about defending themselves from things that could affect them!
So if a mystic were to create a sound that only their opponent could hear then use that sound as the basis for a simple mind altering illusion of a dragon, then their opponent would be none the wiser! They would simply be stricken with the fear that a dragon is nearby, becoming disoriented and unfocused making it even easier for the mystic to manipulate them!
Pretty cool, right? Now, where were we...oh! Alix is on the ground being completely dominated by Vorza's Mysticism!
Vorza moved over and crouched in front of Alix. He let out a sigh.
"You know, I didn't want to do any of this to you! In fact, when I saw you again the first thing that I wanted to do was apologize for earlier!" Alix was trying to do her best to look at him but couldn't tell where his voice was coming from and everything was far too blurry for her to see him even though he was directly in front of her!
"W-What a-are you t-talking ab-about!"
Vorza stared down at Alix squirming on the ground. "Look, I'm just saying that I get that I can be a bit of an ass sometimes! I mean, I have the chance to learn the best form of magic in the world and I use it to get an audience for my performances! It's honestly pretty insulting to the name of mystic's everywhere."
"J-just sh-shut up!" Alix yelled at a pillar thinking it was Vorza. "I d-don't care ab-bout your guilt! I j-just c-can't stand you, y-you a-asshole!"
Vorza looked at the girl unimpressed. "You know, that would probably hurt a whole lot more if you were actually staring at me?" Alix's flinched slightly as her rage boiled up for the second time today.
She slowly lifted her hand. Vorza raised an eyebrow. "What do you have a question now?"
"I-I said..." Alix growled at the boy, picked herself up on one knee. She was doing her best to stay steady. "Sh-shut UP!" She slammed her hand onto the space before her. The air cracked as null mana was forcefully awakened by Alix's will! Vorza's eyes went wide as the girl then started to trace runes into the air with a simple drag of her finger across the space.
"I-I've h-had enough of all of your a-annoying yappin!" Alix slammed her other hand against the air and started tracing with that one as well. "Does it look like I care about your life, or something? Because I don't!" Alix slowly stood from the ground.
"I don't give a damn about any of this! Not you, not your master, and not these dumbass spells!!" Both of Alix's hands finished tracing at the same time. She ripped her hands off of the back and the runes were pulled off of the crackling catalyst! The runes circled around her right hand. She pushed her middle finger and thumb together and held them close to her face.
"Your magic means nothing to me! It's shit!" Alix growled. Energy swirled around her hand and body. Vorza watched in awe! He'd never seen casting like this before! The closest thing to this was magecraft but he'd never seen mages trace runes in the air like that?!
The energy in her hand cracked and shook the air around Alix. It was so loud that the people on the platform below looked up, noticing that something was unfolding. Vorza covered his ears to block out the sound!
But when he did, all of the noise suddenly stopped. Not just the cracking. No wind, no birds, no movement. Nothing made a sound for a full second as all eyes sat on Alix and her robe flowing with power!
"This is my magic! Di-Omnias: Dissonance." Alix whispered but her voice reverberated with energy allowing everyone to hear it.
*Snap*
Alix snapped her finger. From her hand, a wave of energy knocked everything away from her, including mana! Nothing was able to stay, not even the spells that Vorza had already activated! The energy wave blew through Vorza knocking him off of his feet!
The students practicing on the platform below suddenly felt their connection to the mana in the air vanish. The torches that had been burning furiously suddenly went out as though they'd never been lit in the first place. Not even leaving smoke.
Vorza stared up at Alix with more fear than he'd ever felt before. "Wh-what the hell did you just do?"
Alix stood completely still. She stared up at the clouds in the sky and listened to the sweet sound of silence.
Everything was calm again.
"Hey! Answer me! What was that?!" Vorza shouted, he was terrified! Alix looked down at him coldly.
"That was my magic."