Chapter 59. Purple Dawn Academy
They flew toward the side of a mountain. A dark stone castle stood atop the peak, piercing up into the sky. The roof was made of a strange purple metal that reflected the sunlight, giving the impression of the sun constantly rising against a purple backdrop. That roof clad steepled temples, tall towers, and outbuildings alike. A crenelated stone wall ringed the outside of the castle, more a marker than a barrier, since mages flew over the wall left, right, and center. The castle was so large that it sprawled over the entire top half of the mountain, and as a result, the wall ringed the mountain just below the castle. A purple banner with a gold sun blazing in its center snapped atop the tallest tower in the center of the castle, which perched atop the very top of the peak.
A castle large enough to surmount a mountain. A castle that took up the entire upper half of a mountain. It was immense. Larger than any building Rhys had ever seen, in this world or his own. The castle was the size of a large city, and equally vertical to match. Squinting, Rhys made out markets, shops, sports fields and even farming fields mingling in with the stone buildings of the castle. It was a castle and a city; a bastion, and a mountain. Mana emanated from the castle in waves, and Rhys sensed layers of barriers and dozens of hostile intents locking onto the skiff as they approached. Sensing two low-tier mages and their driver, the intents moved away, allowing the skiff to approach.
In Rhys’s lap, Az yawned. Rhys glanced at him. Either the mages scanning them hadn’t noticed Az, or they’d let him by. Based on how easily Az had evaded Aquari, Rhys couldn’t be sure at all that they’d sensed him. True, Purple Dawn Academy was huge. Its physical size was several dozens of times larger than Infinite Constellation… maybe even hundreds of times. He could only see the front of the mountain, so he couldn’t be sure.
Commensurate with its size, it was surely also home to more powerful mages than Aquari, or at least housed more powerful mages than a single Tier 4 mage (also known as Aquari), in terms of both having multiple Tier 4 and up mages, and also in terms of having mages above Tier 4. But the ease with which Az evaded Aquari meant he simply couldn’t be sure that Az couldn’t also evade them. For all he knew, Az was an evasion specialist who could hide from mages on his own tier. Hell, for all he knew, Az was some insanely high tier, and even evading Tier 5, or, dare he guess, Tier 6 mages, was as easy as batting a paw. He knew very little about the cat, except that he wanted him on his side.
Rhys turned back to the window, gazing at his enemy. No wonder Ernesto had thought he could bully Infinite Constellation School. Compared to Purple Dawn Academy, their school was tiny. It was barely as large as one of the massive buildings in the sprawling castle before him.
He chuckled to himself. Ev glanced his way. “What?”
“You know what a big city means?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“Big trash pit.”
She shook her head at him. “Is trash all you think about?”
“No. Sometimes I think about costumes,” Rhys informed her.
Gesturing at the massive castle outside, she said, “You see all that stone, all those rooms, the hundreds, no, thousands of mages, and you think, ‘lots of trash,’ and not ‘bet there’s a good fight to be had?’”