Zhao looked up from his food and saw Gabriel dazed, just looking out into the distance forest. He was just about to disregard it, concluding the letter as the culprit when he noticed the boy’s pupils had turned green in shades highlighting its reptilian shape.

  “Gabriel?” Zhao Bing called out the first time.

  Aether flowing visibly in the eyes was a defining feature of the Scholar tiers. Gabriel had just awakened and that was something to celebrate. The green was a rare and unusual colour for aether to take but that came with the territory. The aether colour signified the aether part the boy belong to, which would reveal itself in time, that was not the problem. There was a look on Gabriel’s face and that look gave him pause.

  “Gabriel?” he called a second time

  Zhao Bing had seen people dazed before, he had bore witness to many students shocked and overwhelmed by the power just made available to them but he had never seen confused.

  “What am I?”

  ‘Gabriel’ looked at his palm, inspecting it like it was familiar but at the same time, not. Like he had had something similar to this before, a long time ago. ‘Gabriel’ a little surer of himself now, reached into himself, like he felt he had done a thousand and one times before and found his core. He frowned, surprised to find only one and his brows furrowed unconsciously but that did not stop him from setting his core into a spin, the spin released his aether stored into his control and with the confidence a thousand years of experience gave, he guided it into his arms and out of his hands. ‘Gabriel’ stared transfixed as the aether left his hand in a beautiful green stream of fire. In the next moment, Gabriel realized, Shi Ming’s letter was serving as fuel for the flames and he recoiled.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Zhao watched as ‘Gabriel’ set the letter in his hand on fire with a really strange green flame, realize he had set it on fire and recoil in pain. He watched the boy hold his head with his arms, fall to his knees and scream into his chest.”

  “Gabriel!” now, he panicked.

  ‘Gabriel’ felt pain flood his mind and Gabriel felt anger flood his veins. ‘Gabriel’ lost control of the aether and it reacted to Gabriel’s anger. It started from his hand but then it spread and soon it was gushing out of every single orifice and it Kick-started a process ‘Gabriel’ knew he had gone through many times before and his already spinning core, spun faster and with each spin the core produced aether, a trickle at a time, then it expanded and as much aether as he was releasing in his pain and anger, he was producing.

  Zhao Bing acted fast to curtail the fire from spreading with a wall of ice but he hadn’t been fast enough. Gabriel, his bag and the tree he had taken shade under went up in flames.