After the mishap that took place two days prior, Kaiser realised that she couldn’t waste anymore time looking for old wizards who were two feet in their graves already to improve control of her own magic. She was filled with awe after seeing what the wizards of Fiore could do. Even though she had the same potential, Kaiser was still unable to make proper use of her magic. Apparently there was a plethora of ways in which one could utilize their magic and Kaiser’s mind was opened to this knowledge after seeing another wizard use their magic. It was the first time she had seen something like that up close and personal in her life. Of course at this point Kaiser could perform small tricks with her magic like lighting up dark places and things like that, but nothing big like what she witnessed the other day.

She took a long, energizing power nap to make sure her energy level was at maximum, and set out to a secluded part of town. Astera was a huge cluster of white blocks for houses and it was annoying because everything was so close together. Kaiser didn’t like that because she felt like it was hard to get some privacy with no blind spot even in your own house. You could literally see what was going on in the house next to yours if you just looked over. Of course her current choice of accommodation was no proper place to practice her magic, so she packed some things she thought she might need in a little drawstring bag and started her early morning rituals. After a refreshing bath, the mercenary set out for the cliffs, with her little bag.

Upon reaching the cliffs after a fifteen minute walk, Kaiser chose a nice little spot and dropped her drawstring bag, taking a long, deep breath. The view was extraordinary from up here, and she couldn’t help but stand there gawking at the rising sun. It was amazing. Nothing could contest the beauty of nature. Then, she began to do some warm up exercises, glad to see that no one was there to disturb her training. At this point she was quite far from where the excavation was happening and so was completely oblivious of anything happening there.

So the first thing she found out about her magic was that it was associated with the element of light. That was a long time ago, when she was in Joya with her grandmother and a whole bunch of relatives. No one experienced the things she did while she was there, and so did not acknowledge the fact that she was born with a gift. Until she got to Fiore, the nation of magic, she never spoke openly about it because she felt like it was weird to be able to use magic. But now that she could, she wanted to do more with it, rather than neglecting it and dying some day without knowing what she could have done with it.

Doing something small like lighting up a room that was pitch-black came almost easily to her as breathing now. But, she saw some other light magic user wield the power in a more...destructive manner? She was more interested in that. So she had formed a plan in her head on her way to the cliffs. The first thing she was going to do was try to make a beam of light come out of...her hand? Or any part of her body really because she could release her magic from any part of her body. Most importantly, a beam of light. That was the first step to her great training plan today. So she finished her warm up exercises and felt less stiff from sleeping like a log the night before. The sun wasn’t out yet completely, so the weather was very nice. She wore her gym clothes for today, knowing that she would be most comfortable in them while training.

Kaiser started to release light particles from her body, as if she was trying to light up a dark room, and then focused on gathering them closer together and at the same time to increase their intensity. It took a whole lot of energy and concentration to just form a beam, and she didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she stopped for a moment and gasped for air. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead and temples, which she didn’t notice either.

“Damn,” she said, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her palm, realizing how focused she was that she forgot to breathe. She was getting there though. She could form a beam now, meaning she had completed the first step of her training. She had to do it again though, so she would get the hang of it. While preparing to start again, she felt the earth below her feet shake a bit, like a mini earthquake just happened. “What the heck,” she said, turning in the direction from which she thought she heard it.

Kaiser only paid a few seconds’ worth of attention to whatever was happening in the distance. Since it was quite far from where she was, she felt that there was no need for her to worry about it, because however she calculated the situation, she was safe. But she calculated wrong. There was still a time gap between now and the mishap that would befall upon the light witch and the others in the area. During this time gap, she was able to practise creating a beam.

She started the process from the beginning, creating light particles and gathering them together into a concentrated beam. At one point, she lost control and shot out a beam towards the ground a few meters in front of her, accidentally knocking herself back about five meters. “Yikes,” she said, standing up and clapping away any debris clinging to her body. She was definitely going to be more careful now. She didn’t want to accidentally blast herself off the cliffs or something. She remembered Kon telling her what he saw with his magic eyeball. Apparently she had the potential to be quite dangerous, and hearing that only motivated her to test her limits to see how far she can go; how ‘dangerous’ she can be.

The remaining of the time gap was spent refining her new skill that was creating a beam of light. She wanted it to be perfect, before she moved onto the next step. She already knew it wasn’t impossible to achieve what she had planned for the day, after the accidental mini blast that blew her a few feet away. What she wanted was to be able to do every step as fast as she could, so that when she actually had to do the procedure in a spontaneous situation, she wouldn’t be in trouble. The shorter the time between each step, the better, in any case.

Being faster than the enemy meant having the upper hand and she wanted to have the upper hand to assure her victory in battle. She felt quite satisfied with her speed for creating a beam at this point, though she would practice more in her free time. Now she wanted to start doing some damage. She imagined that would not be so hard. All she had to do was concentrate the beam enough and release it at a high speed in a certain direction to cause damage to the target. For that, she would have to practice to be in control of the path of the beam. Otherwise it would be going in every which way.

This was about the moment the gap closed and another mini-earthquake would take place. This time, Kaiser realized that she could no longer neglect the...whatever it was that was happening about a mile from her. Unfortunately for her, even though the source was quite a distance from her current position, the ground beneath her broke up, eating her up. Thanks to many years of physical training, she was quite nimble on her feet, like a cat, and landed on all fours, though she would have broken all four limbs if her fall wasn’t cushioned by sand. If it had been solid ground, even with how nimble she was, she was so screwed.

Kaiser stood back up immediately, quickly assessing her surroundings. It was as if she was just picked out of a certain environment and placed in a completely new one. There was a pillar in the middle of the ‘room’ she was in. The floor was made of sand and since it wasn’t solid, she realized it was going to be a bit hard to move on, like walking or running along a sandy beach. Towards the east side, she spotted a door. Was that her way out of whatever this was? She couldn’t see what was behind it, and she didn’t want to find out. Not alone.

It was a pretty shitty situation. Kaiser was looking around for a way out, but the only door she could see at the moment was strangely moving, as if someone was banging on it from the other side of it, which was exactly why she decided against running towards it and getting the hell out of whatever this was. She stood in one extra sandy spot, her legs buried in the sand to her ankles. The longer she stood there, the more she came to think about what exactly this shithole was. A hidden fortress, beneath the Astera cliffs? She staggered in the sand, trying not to fall face first and eat dirt as she felt the ground under her feet shift slightly.

All of a sudden, the sand began moving towards the center of the room, dragging Kaiser along, until she managed to backflip the fuck out of the sand, and onto solid ground that appeared as the sand rapidly disappeared into the sand. She moved around, shaking her pants a bit to get sand out of it. This definitely was not how she planned her training session to go this morning. How could this disaster happen to her when she was so determined to improve her control and use of Sternenlicht? It was as if the universe did not want her to. The worst part of it was that she did not know how the hell she was going to get out of this hidden underground...thing. And there seemed to be no one in here except herself.

Until...a dark haired figure popped out of seemingly nowhere, on the other side of the hall. She only saw him for half a second, because all her attention was absorbed by the blue things that lit up, all along the walls and the floor. They were the only source of light in the whole room and went down into the hole in the center of the room. It was all very dreamy, this whole situation, and she could not help but pinch her arm to see if she had fallen asleep in the middle of training or something. It was not impossible. Anyway, so many things were happening at the same time that she forgot about the silhouette she caught sight of a few moments ago. She did not know whether or not this creature had ill intentions towards her, but to be on the safe side, she decided to get the hell out of here. It was hard to look for a way to get out of here, but she eventually found it and was back on the cliff. Holy shit, that was crazy, she thought to herself, jogging back to her hotel while replaying the madness that just happened back there.