Chapter 2: The adventure begin

<Continue>

Chapter 2: The adventure begin

Three months passed like a blink of an eye, Lenny has became a decent magic user with the help of Dararia. She, the grandma and her dog are like his new family. They take care of him, taught him how to live in this forest, protected him from monsters that he sometime he accidentally provoked while studying the art of magic. It made him feel like he himself is belong to this place, even though many parts of his memories have came back and they make him wants to go back to the Light Half to find the truth. The memories came back in many occasion: in dreams, during his studying time or even when he talked about things that are similar to what he used to talk in the past. Now he knows that he used to be a soldier from a special force called "GOM". GOM is consisted of elite soldiers who has unique skills in combat to do specially dangerous missions. Joe was his best friend, and also the leader of his squad. He knows nothing about the motivation of the Great Invasion, or his men preferred to call it "Operation Thunderstorm". Most of the other soldiers also did not have any idea about this operation until a month before it. No one knew why the King want to declare war to the Dark Half, they just followed the order, which sent them to their end..

Lenny still remember the face of his King, who has a long scar from his left eye down to his chin. People said that he used to be a great warrior who can easily defeat hundreds of men and united the Light Half into one Empire inside his palm. Being of the few people trained by GOM, Lenny had the privilege to meet the king once. He even had the chance to a sword duel with His Majesty so the King can test how well his special force is trained. Of course Lenny lost because that was just a performance for the media to show how strong his King was. However, to be honest, even in a fair fight, the king could still be a fearsome opponent. 

The memories also brought back Lenny a lot of his skills as a special force soldier. His favorite weapon was a sword, but there is not any sword here around this house. The grandma said that he can find one in the graveyard of the soldiers where she and Old Fart found him. So he decided to do that on today, when Dararia finally gave him a break. 

The sun is high above his head, its light sometime goes through the heavy fog and point directly onto the surface, gives the trees some life. Lenny and his little dragon companion pack up some food, some water and a blanket to prepare for his first night outside the house alone. The graveyard is one day walking away from grandma's house, so if there is nothing unexpectedly happens, he should be spending a night in the graveyard. It is certainly not a good idea since that place is crawled by hell spawns. Dararia was actively against this idea until Lenny persuaded her that this trip would be a good test for his magic, and since Old Fart must stay here to protect the grandma, she will go with him to prevent him from doing anything stupid. The grandma was also worried, but she said Lenny will be okay as long as he still listens to Dararia. 

Lenny take a deep breath, then walks into the fog west of the house. Unlike the first time inside this fog with Old Fart, he now can see pretty well through the thick fog with the combination of magically enhanced vision and fairy light from Dararia's tail. He walks down the hill, which he called the Lone Hill because it is the only high ground in this area. Sometime a couple of mutated rats glared at them but then quickly ran away after Lenny used his Igniscorpus spell to scare them off. It is the spell that Old Fart used to scare off that giant Sketagon during their first walk from the magical spring back to grandma's house. Basically, the spell turns its caster's body into flame, enhances physical strength and emit fire magical aura that burn everything around. It is an exhaustive spell that drains a lot of magic aura when activated so Lenny does not use it too much until very necessary. 

After six hours of walking toward the graveyard direction on a map provided by the grandma. They found the ruin of what used to be a city. There are many tail buildings that are not damaged standing next to the wrecks of others. The fog is still everywhere, while moss and vines are covering almost every corner of the concrete infrastructure. With his enhanced senses, Lenny can feel the presence of countless Hell Spawns inside those building. They are all glaring out through the windows, doors and cracks to him. He can feel their thirst for his blood and their hungry for his flesh from them. However, none of them actually have the gut to come out or attack Lenny. His magical aura. even when not activated by any spell, still can emit a dominant will over their heads. That is actually a trick Dararia taught him to scare off the lesser evils without wasting his energy on them, and it seems to work very well, until..

Up until now, Lenny can not stop his feeling of a very familiar presence that started to follow them since they entered this city. It is certainly a Hell Spawn, a very powerful one, but he can not recall its name. It has not appeared again since the first time he arrived to grandma's house. An "old friend" of Old Fart, that was what he remembers how the grandma calls it. Dararia can feel it too, and she starts to panic. 

"Heey heey, can you feel that. That creep has just followed us for half an hour now. I am scared." She whispers.

"Yes, I can feel it too. Don't worry, we will be fine", replies Lenny with sweat all over his face. He wants to assure his companion that he is not scared but who can still stay calm when such a huge threat is coming near?

The duo continues to walk to the center of the city where they are found a fountain that is still spilling out water in the middle of a big area. This area is called the Clock Square, as there is twelve main roads lead to this circular area with the fountain at its center. Each road has a number written on its intersection with the Square: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII.

 Lenny and Dararia came from road VI. According to the map, now they have to go through road I to get to the Swan Swamp, and then the graveyard. Lenny is about to head that way, but Dararia flies to his front and stops him. 

"Wait, we shouldn't move forward, not yet." 

"Why? I don't have time to waste."

"There is a water fountain here, with it you can enhance your ability without using too much energy for fire spells. This is a perfect place to kick that creep's ass. I don't think you will have any other better place than this to fight him."

"Sounds good to me. So we need a plan!" Lenny agrees with her.

They quickly prepare themselves for the fight ahead. Lenny makes some kind of spells to the fountain while Dararia flies around to watch for the monster. 

About ten minute later, he hears a loud scream of her. Lenny quickly turn around to road VI, where the scream came from. The ground was shaken violently, and Dararia is rushing toward him...with a fierce giant monstrous demon chasing after her. Its body somewhat resembles a snake, long and covered in scales with spikes run down its length, but instead of having snake head, it has the upper torso of a man. The head is completely demonic, with a couple of curvy horns on top and two green eyes glow sinister light in the middle of a shadow face. The buildings are collapsing around it not just because of the giant snake body is slamming into them, but also because of the poisonous un-breathable gas that keeps coming out of its scales, melting even concrete. 

Road VI is completely destroyed by this demonic creature when it is chasing Dararia, and it doesn't seem to stop advancing to the square with a destructive force. Dararia does not stop screaming though.

"IT'S AAPEP. IT'S HIM. I KNEW IT.", she confirm the thought of Lenny. 

So now, it is really that monster that was about to kill him three months ago if Old Fart did not interfere. Lenny still remember that pair of glowing green eyes staring into his soul. He knows that if he want to get out of here alive, this beast must be taken down. However, even Old Fart only managed to rip out one of its scales, then how can Lenny beat it?

He is just standing there, facing the monstrous being that is advancing to his position. It almost catch up with Dararia, and they are just about thirty feet from where Lenny is standing and if they don't do anything now, Lenny will be crushed by it. Suddenly, Dararia shouts out to him.

"NOW, MASTER, NOW", then she disappeared into thin air, right in front of AAPEP surprising face. Before it can stop to see what is going on, Lenny pulls back his right fist mumbling something then throw a devastating giant water shaped punch directly on the monster's stomach, sending it flying back several blocks. The punch made a sonic boom that shaken and broke walls of several buildings around Lenny. 

"You will not go any further, APIP!", says Lenny. Apparently, he still can not spell its name after all these times.

The monster's giant body was sent flying along the road, hitting a nearby stone tower and broke its feet. The tower collapsed with many stones fell down, buried AAPEP under, only part of its long tail revealed out of the wreckage. 

Dararia appears on Lenny's shoulder, looking at that scene while making her comment.

"That will teach him a lesson, huh?"

"I don't know, maybe I killed it", says Lenny.

"Don't worry, he is not dead. I meant, he was dead a long long time ago. You can't kill the dead."

"What do you mean by that?" Lenny asks her, confused.

"Well, he is not just any normal Hell Spawn you know. He is a demon. A demon is created from the tortured soul of an angelic creature in the ancient time. They were killed during the  War of the Creators millenniums ago. Stata's dad collected their wandering souls on earth and forged them into high ranked demons for his own army. When the Hell Gate was opened, AAPEP escaped his boss, disguised as a regular hell spawn and entered our world.", she explains to him.

That makes Lenny excited, "So did I just defeated a general of the Underworld army? Yay!"

"Not a general, AAPEP is just a high ranked demon. If he was a general, both of us would be so dead by now. But hey, you did well, master!"

"Oh, really? not even a general? Oh well I don't know what I expected."

"shhhhh....there ...are many...things... that you did not.... expect...shhhhhh", a creepy voice echos in the air, right after Lenny finished his speech. 

The duo immediately look back that the wreckage with AAPEP under it. Now, it is shaking heavily and everything blow up. The giant monster emerges from the wreckage, grabs a large concrete wall and throws it at Lenny at unimaginable speed. 

"Watch out!", he shouts then shoot a fireball into the flying wall, blow it into dust, leaving a fierce explosion mid-air. Months of training with Dararia has just saved his life in an instance.

When the dust fades away, Lenny sees the mountainous AAPEP standing still just a building away from him, looking straight into his eyes. Several minutes of silence between them passed, then it begins to speak.

"Shh...Very impressive, son of Stata and Leviathan...shhh... Even if you don't tell me, I can still smell their blood ...shhh...in your veins.... the smell of water...and...fire...elements....shhhhh... Delicioussss...."

That shocking statement leaves Lenny speechless. It just can not be true, but somehow it makes so much sense to him. Stata - the lord of fire and Leviathan - the lord of the ocean, if they are his parents, then it would explains his ability to control fire and water. However, the grandma said that their son was lost fifty years ago, and Lenny is just twenty four years old. 

"That is not true, AAPEP! Lady Stata only has one child, and the baby was lost long before master Leonard was even born." Dararia speaks out before Lenny could say anything.

The creature looks at Dararia as she speak, "...shhh...good old Dararia...shhhh...you are still so ...beautiful....and...deliciousssss... are you trying to...protect this boy....from me...shhhh.... he is a ....descendant of the ....godsssss...... I will ...eat him....and gain.....more power....shhhh...you can't...protect him...from...the poison of hell...."  

Poisonous saliva drops fall down from its chin, melt the ground. It raises up one arm, reveal the long and venomous claws, then stab down to Lenny's chest. Lenny is still standing still on his feet, with AAPEP's claws piercing through his chest to the ground behind him, much to the shock of Dararia. 

"MASTER!!!" she screams with horror on her dragon face. 

But she is not the only one who is in shock. The monster start grunting, "shhhh...it...can't...be...shhh...this is impossible..."

There is no blood comes out of Lenny's chest. He then promptly turns his head to his little dragon companion, smiling. 

"Don't worry old bookie. It might be wrong about my parents, but it wasn't wrong about my elements", said Lenny before his body turned into water. 

His water body falls down to the earth, split into several streams of water running down the road. They head toward AAPEP, surrounds it as it desperately is trying to stab into them. Of course, its efforts are useless against the water streams. Shortly after surrounding the monster, the water started to boil and turns into mist. 

"That's right Master Leonard. Show him who's boss!" Dararia cheers on her master.

"Find a place to cover, Dararia." Lenny's voice echos out of the mist around AAPEP. The little dragon listens to her master, quickly hide behind a wall, while the monster is still furiously slashing its claws into the air, hoping to get rid of the mist. 

"You chose the wrong pray, APIT", his voice is heard again, just before the mist around AAPEP suddenly vacuumed into a single point above its head.

While the monster is still wondering where the mist went, a flame covered Lenny quickly appear above it, pulling back both of his fist.

"I AM HERE, MONSTER!", he yells at top of his lung, then release two giant water punches at the same time, letting them landing on the top of the monster's head. 

The punches generate two sonic booms beside of the force of the punches themselves, multiply the devastating effect. The attack knocks the demon's head down to the ground, making an enormous shock wave that demolish all the remaining buildings nearby. When the dust fade away, Dararia come out of her hiding place to see Lenny in his fire form standing on the back of a now unconscious AAPEP. Its head is facing down to the ground at the center of a giant meteor-crate on the ground. The surrounding area is flattened to the point that it looks like the Clock Square had an extension, make it twenty times bigger. 

Lenny bends down, and subsequently rips ten scales out of the demon's body, making a L shaped scar on its back.  

"This mark will remind you of me when you wake up.", says the young man.

"Hey, do you know that you almost killed me?" Dararia flies to him, scowling. 

Lenny turns back to his normal form, and smiles to the little dragon. "Oh come on, I know you would be okay, we have practiced this move many time before, right?"

"But not when I had nowhere to hide beside of those thin walls!! And you turned them into dust anyway." she becomes angry.

"Alright, alright. My fault. Next time I will wait for you to hide somewhere safer. You are such a grumpy old bookie."

"Enough of calling me that name. I am a beautiful fairy dragon now!!!", she is getting grumpy as usual. "Also, I think you can forge those scales into something useful. They are Adamantum, the hardest substance known to men."

<To be continued>

The Fairy Little Dragon

<continue>

The Fairy Little Dragon

Lenny is so shocked his jaw was almost dropped. The small figure turns out to be Old Fart in its Fire form when it was jumping in front of the fireball. Old Fart quickly caught the ball and swallowed it. A moment later, its flaming fur suddenly bursts violently in a second, burns all the ground surround it, then comes back to normal as fast as when it bursts out. The dog seems fine, as fire never bothers him anyway.

Lenny's heart almost fell out when he saw Old Fart swallow that fireball. He thought the spell would blow the dog into bits, but now he feels a little relief. It now is running toward Lenny as excited as normal, sniffing his shoes.

"What are you doing here boy. You almost killed me, you know?" Lenny says to the dog, while stroking its fur.

"No, not you, but me. You almost killed me, young magician." A familiar voice raised from where Old Fart appeared.

The grandma slowly walks out of the fog, smiling. That instantly made Lenny feel bad about himself. He was not prepared for such a situation, when one of his fireball almost hurt someone.

Seeing the freaked out face of his, the grandma laugh out loud. "Ha ha, Don't worry young man, Old Fart would take out any danger before it can reach me, and he did."

Before Lenny can respond to her, his book jumps ahead him and raises its voice.

"WOHOOHOO, LONG TIME NO SEE, LADY S.."

"Mely. I am Mely now. Please address me by that name, dearest Dary." The grandma does not let it finish the sentence.

"okay, Lady Mely. It has been 561 years, isn't it? I missed you sooo muchhh". The book fly around the old woman like it is dancing on air, with rainbow colored light streaks left behind it paths and a fun song is played out of nowhere. It makes everyone wants to dance along with the book.

"Yes, it was truly a long time, friend. You also changed your appearance to the point I could not recognize you in the first place." The grandma slightly shake her body follow the beats.

"Oh yeah, you know about that old rule, lady Mely. And not just me, look at you, you changed so much. Where the most beautiful face humanity ever had gone now?"

"Ha ha, you never failed to make me laugh, Dary. You know, time is harder on some people than others. I am old now."

While the book is about to say more, Lenny, who is currently confused, decides to interrupt them.

"Hey wait, you knew each other before?"

"Yes, we totally did. Lady Mely has been my most talented student for a long time until you. Right?" It turns to the grandma.

"Well, I can't say anything about being the most talented student, but Dararia is truly a great teacher and a great friend. I am glad that she is giving you your lessons of magic now." says the grandma to Lenny.

"I can agree with the great teacher part.", he smirks.

"Oh, how dare you, Master Lennard. I am a very cool friend. You can ask Lady Mely, we threw hella lot of parties together not so long ago..." The book acts high and mighty.

"Even me can tell 500 years is a very long time, old bookie." Lenny starts to give the book a name.

"UGRRRR, I want to beat you so bad. Show some respects to you teacher, you ungrateful young people." Dararia actually hisses out loud.

"Alright alright", Grandma Mely decides to stop both of them before it gets worse, "Lets go inside the house, we will have a lot of things to tell each other tonight."

"But it is not even dark yet" Lenny argues.

"It will be soon, young man. You also burned down half of the forest today already. I think the other half can wait until tomorrow."

Lenny has no reason to oppose to that, rethinking of all the things he has done today. Also, the warm smile of an old grandma can be very persuasive.

They came back inside the house, where Grandma Mely prepares for them a hot meal. The dog doesn't seem to care much about anything except the food as usual. Dararia puts herself on the table and talks a lot about her glory past with "Lady Mely". From their stories together, Lenny now knows that the grandma used to be a well known party doers before she decided to have a career in politic. She also had another name but whenever he tried to ask what it is, both the grandma and the book tried to avoided the question. The book once mentioned that they had 50 years together, to which he was impressed. For a normal person, 50 years is pretty much the entire life of that person, but for people in this realm, it seems like just the blink of an eye. Then they started to talk about the rules.

"So, you said that there is a rule that change you appearance since the last time you met grandma. What is it?"

"Oh, now you mentioned it. I forgot to tell you about a set of rule for magic companions like me and masters like you or Lady Mely." It stops a second like it is trying to recall something then continues.

"These rules are: 1. You can only be my master of a magic companion once in your life. It is like a contract, if for any reason, the contract is broken, you can never be my master again."

"2. The magic companions have to change their appearance after the last master, for the new master. That means I will never look the same twice for eternity. This is for letting go of the past and starting a new future. However, I still can change my appearance to anything with the approval of my current master, except the old appearances."

"3. The magic companions have to be loyal to their masters, and always prepare to protect them at any cost. That is all three of them." says the book.

"Okay, so now, if I command you to turn yourself into a smaller notebook, can you do that?"

"Why? If I don't want to, I don't do that. I hate being a notebook. Notebooks suck!"

"She used to take the form of a fairy when she was with me", the grandma tells Lenny.

"A fairy? I thought she is a book!"

"Not really, the books are the basic form of magic companions. That is why they are called magic book, however, most of the masters choose to have them transform into a thing they like. I love fairies, so Dararia changed into a fairy. She was pretty too."

"Thank you, lady Mely. If I have a face now, my cheeks would probably brush to that complement."

"Alright, I don't like an old book lecturing me either, so why don't we change you into something else?" Lenny says.

"Whatever you say, but remember, I can never be a pretty fairy again."

"Then what do you want to be?"

"I don't know. Recently, I found out that I would want to be something small, agile and powerful if I can't be pretty, so every time a kid laugh at me, I will scare him until he shits his pant."

"eww, that's a bit too extreme, don't you think? But I like chameleon, saw one in my dreams. They can change color and is very cool."

"WHAT? me? being your pet chameleon? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? No way I would turn myself into such a deformed thing"

"Calm down. Okay, I don't have much memory of my world, so I don't think i can suggest you anything better. Maybe you should stay being an old bookie as you are" He smirks, again.

"Alright alright. Cool, then I will be a small dragon, that can change color. See? it is still a reptile, still can change color, but can fly, can breath fire and is way more awesome."

Grandma Mely listens to that and immediately approve "I think that is a good idea. Dragon is this year theme too. There will be a dragon hordes flying from the north to the south in 110 days. They change their locations between the north and the south every 100 years to mate. Also, they will fly through this land we are living on too."

"Okay, if grandma said so then you can be a dragon. I give you my approval, old bookie."

"Don't call me old bookie anymore!! That name sucks!", Dararia says, and starts to shuttle her pages on the talbe.

The gem on her cover begins to glow yellow, and every pages also begins to glow yellow too. It gets brighter and brighter every moments until it becomes too bright for any one to look directly at it. Lenny has to cover his eyes with one hand because of the light.

Then the yellow light goes out, give back the normal level of brightness to the room.

"Done! Look at me young Master and old Master! I am a fearsome dragon now, roarrr", Dararia tells them to open their eyes.

What is above the dinner table now is not an old dusty book anymore. Instead, there is a small green dragon sitting on a flower that came out from nowhere. Its wings looks like the wings of a butterfly but more transparent and is a bit purple. There is a glowing ambient light bulb hanging on its tail, emitting fairies light. It looks cute and is staring at Lenny.

"How do you think, Master Lennard?"

"Uhm, I don't know. I...expected you to be a little bit more ..um..fearsome?"

"Awww, you looks still like a fairy. So you are a fairy dragon now?" The grandma gives her compliment.

"Yeah, I kind of like this appearance. And I won't change into anything else anymore. I am fearsome enough, yeah yeah." The fairy-dragon is now praising herself.

"Alright then, it is still better than that bookie looks." Lenny sighs. He does not want to bother about this childish stuff anymore.

But Old Fart doesn't think so. It seems to be excited to see another guest in the house, as it stops pushing its head into the food bowl and start to jump around, chasing the little fairy dragon.

"Wait, bad dog. bad dog." The little dragon fly around avoiding the dog mouth. "not my tail, bad dog, bad dog." The duo together running/flying around in a comical situation that makes Lenny and the grandma burst out of laughter. Lenny has never felt so happy like this before since he woke up and realized that he forgot everything about his past.

The night ends soon. Lenny help the grandma to clean the dishes before going to sleep. After spending a lot of magic aura today, he feel a little bit sleepy.

<To be continued>

Still thinking of a title...

Inspired by Predestination, a retarded writer, who is me, came up with a story of love and paradox and retardation. I recommend you read this story for your kids before sleeping. It will blow their minds. The story begins after the *beep*

*beep*

Long long time ago, before the first human appeared on Earth, the jungles of the world are a perfect environment for apes and monkeys, even there is no human to classify which one is ape and which one is monkey yet. The apes and the monkeys live together in harmony, love and wealth of the peaceful green world. However, the love is not for everyone, as proven by the lonely life of an ugly female monkey-ape, who represents no resemble to any of the apes or monkeys. The ape society abandoned her, while the monkey community did not want her either. She lived inside a lonely cave, in a lonely big rock, all by herself, hoping for one day, a regular male monkey or ape would place his eyes on her, and give her a family she had always wanted, and the monkey kids that she always wished for. Sadly, even for the standard of the ape, or the monkey, she is still too ugly for her dream to come true. Day by day, she looked out side of the cave, waiting for the moment of her life, but still, she never expected such moment would come....

Until that fateful day. She heard a loud weird sound just outside of her rock, which woke up her curiosity. The instinct told her to stay in the cave and be safe, but there is something else in her heart whisper to the ears, pushed her shy feet out to where the sound came from. That was the moment she met him, another weird looking monkey-ape. The man ape is hairless, walks only on his two legs and wears weird looking things on his body. To be honest, he is also too ugly even for the standard of a society-abandoned female monkey-ape, but there must be a special reason for him to be here, with her.

Unlike the other apes and monkeys, he did not leave her. He adopted the cave as his home, and share his food with her. He taught her how to make fire from a stick and a log, how to catch fish on the river with traps, and most importantly, how to speak his tongue. He talked about the future, the stars and the universe, or the adventures she has never heard of before. His eyes were sometime filled with tears of an emotion she could not understand, but it melted her heart in a way that she never felt before. She fell in love with him, and they had a total of three children. The ones that were born first are a twin, whose names are Adam and Eva, looks like no ape or monkey their mother has seen in her entire life. They do not have hair on their body, and are as ugly as a pair of naked mole-rats. The third kid came several years later, when Adam and Eva started to walk on their feet, just like their father. He resembles much of his father's look, and his mother's eyes, which means that he is also very ugly in the standard of the apes and monkeys. His name is Paul. Despite of the ugly kids, their mother was still the happiest monkey-ape in the world, for now her dream had came true.

But there was still something wrong about that. The kids couldn't pull her off from the thought that their father did not want them. She always remembers the moment he looked at his kids for the first times, with disgust in his eyes. She feared that one day, he will leave her alone again, just like the others.

Her fear came true on a rainy day. She was going out to collect some coconuts for her kids, and when she came back, her beloved man had gone with the newborn Paul. She cried like a mad ape, looked for every corner, bushes around her home, but found nothing. They had gone forever, leaving the poor female monkey-ape in the loneliest place on earth. Her only light was Adam and Eva, as they grew up fast to be her joy once again, helped her to forget about the unfaithful man of her life.

Adam and Eva grew up, and had their children (Incest was not a moral matter during the early days of humanity, so don't judge). The children then had their own children again. Humanity grew up and populated the green world against all odd, eventually forgot about the lonely unknown grave of their great great great grandmother who was still waiting for her love to come back...

Many millenniums passed by, no one know a about the female monkey-ape that was the first transition between the ape and human. People only believe in Darwin's theory of evolution or some Creationist's beliefs of Adam and Eva - the firsts of human. Science tried hard to prove them right, or wrong, but without the actual observation, even the best known artifacts of the old world can only make the beliefs slightly more convincing to people. Theories are always theories without an actual proof. Evolution, the origin of mankind became the biggest question for scientists all over the world. People continues to try various ways to observe the past, but none of those has actually giving a reliable proof of human origin, until the birth of an unbeatable feat of science during the 21st century: the Time Machine.

The Time Machine was invented by Paul Tontar, an 21 years old MIT physic student came from Idaho, under the direct fund from U.S government. The skeptical scientific community criticized it as the most laughable joke ever, while the first black president of the U.S stated it as the first enormous achievement of humanity since Neil Armstrong stepped the first step on the moon surface. However, the complement of the president did not enough to fill a gap in Paul's heart. He always wants the approval of the science community, and their recognition...

His ambition grew up fast, and came up with a plan to, once for all, finally answer the biggest question of mankind using his Time Machine. He would travel to the past, meet Adam and Eva, record their daily life and come back with all the proof. The plan sounded so perfect that poor Paul got too excited and started it as soon as the time machine was ready, not knowing that it was still under testing.

Paul started the machine, and flied back to the time which most scientists believe is the first human appeared, base on archaeological facts. However, his time machine got a problem, and instead, it flied back to several years before that. When it landed on a big rock, the engine blew up badly, making a loud weird sound. There was no other choice, Paul had to stay here until he can finally fix the machine to go back to his time.

Fate is like a mysterious teenage girl, she likes to have some unexpected wisdom of her own, that nobody would understand fully. On the first day fixing his vessel, Paul met a shy ape that came to offer her help. The ape looked really weird, unlike any modern ape or monkey he has seen before in any zoo. Somehow she also remind him of someone he can not recall. She was living in a cave under the rock his machine landed on, and that seems to be a safe place to live. In this era, there are many unexpected things that lurk in the dark, or in the jungles, therefore, Paul decided to live inside the cave.

The ape seemed to be very smart, and she somehow was attached to him. Paul took his free time to teach her how to make fire from a stick and a log, how to catch fish on the river with traps, and to his surprise, she also learned how to speak English, but not much. They slept together under the cover of the big rock, beside a campfire. At first, it was all innocent, but then it did not last long enough. The ugly nerd boy who has never had a girlfriend in college somehow feel affection from this female ape. There was no one there to judge him, and his biology teacher in high school taught him that two different species can not produce offspring, so there was nothing to actually hold him back from what he did...

Nine months later, the female ape gave birth to a twin boy and girl, and they look just like him, much to Paul's depression. Apparently, that biology teacher was a jerk, and now Paul is suffering from his own karma. But the kids cannot just be born with no name, so Paul decided to name them after his mission, to find Adam an Eva. Feeling guilty for what he had done, Paul had more motivation to fix the time machine, so he can bring his kids back to the future to avoid a massive impact on the history of mankind. It took him nearly two years later to fix it, and during that period, another boy was born. Frustrated by the kids, Paul could not think straight for another name anymore, so he named the boy after himself and gave the boy his dog tag...

When the vessel is finished, the poor Paul suddenly realized that there is not enough space for all three of his children. He can only bring one with him back, and that kid should be the small Paul since Adam and Eva are big enough to survive this world on their own for sometime until Paul can come back to get them. He told the female ape to go out to the nearest beach and get some coconuts for their children, so he had time to prepare for the launch. Sitting safe and sound inside his machine with the child on his arm, Paul inputted the parameter of time to go back to the 21st century - his righteous time, leaving all of these past behind.

Then again, fate - the mysterious teenage girl - decided to give his life another challenge for unknown reason. The time machine was too badly damaged during the first crash to work as Paul wanted. Instead of travelling back to the year Paul had left, it flied to 21 years before that event and landed on the land of Idaho. Paul quickly realized that this was the place where he was born. Suddenly, he felt curious about how he looked like when he was a newborn. Paul decided to walk to the local hospital to take a peep at himself.

On his way to the hospital, a gang noticed him, who is now looked like a dirty hobo after all those years living in the prehistoric era. They decided to bully Paul for entertainment. Paul quickly realize the danger from them from afar, knowing that he has no chance to fight against those muscled people and it is hard to protect his kid from them. Out of panic, he decided to hide his newborn Paul in a nearby bush and run as fast as possible. The gang chased him, and eventually caught the now thin-and-weak Paul. They beat him up badly for running from them, and striped all of his tattered clothes, cut off his testicle before throwing him into a river.

Poor Paul was badly injured and unconscious, floated to an US military base two days later. He was beaten up to the point that nobody can recognize him as a human anymore. The soldiers brought him up from the river and transport him to a secret government research facility called Area 51, thinking that he is an injured ape that can be used in various military experiments. The scientists there had developed many most advanced breakthrough technologies and now they are working on a race/sex changing project that could eventually give them an insight of how evolution worked. Paul, who was believed to be a badly deformed ape that has no testicle, is the perfect guinea pig for such a project. The scientist decided to wipe his memory, then experiment a novel biological sex changing technique on him, to transform him into an ape while he was still unconscious. The experimentation was half successful. It changed Paul in to a female creature, but not entirely ape because of his human DNA resisted. He now had hair all over his body like an ape, but had the look of a deformed human.

The female ape Paul woke up, terrified by his new appearance. From now on, he can not stand proudly during a peeing section anymore. However, he/she still had most of his/her memory since the mind-washing serum must takes 24 hours to fully impact the brain. The scientists were also terrified after realizing their mistake, but as everything else in Area 51, they could not let Paul go and tell their secret. Paul had to made his/her own plan to escape, and find out that somehow the people in this facility also discovered his time machine and transported it here, believing that it is a future technology that need to be studied.

Paul took that chance to sneak in the vessel, just to realized that it had been fixed to a perfect condition by the current era scientists. He/she configured the parameter, decided his next destination while the pain in his/her heart was still overwhelming him/her. Paul knew that he/she cannot go back to the civilized world anymore, in this horrible appearance. People might think that he/she is a Big Foot, and his/her head might as well be hanged on the wall of of redneck hunter soon. So he/she decided to go back to the past, to live with the apes and monkeys, because Paul is one of them now.

Paul pressed the start button, the machine floated up and disappear into thin air in front of a frustrated scientist, who has never believe in time traveling before. His/her machine reappeared in a jungle long before the dawn of humankind. Paul jumped out of it after setting the self-destruct unit. She never wanted to go back anymore, all the past must be placed behind...

The machine exploded, erased itself from existence, so is Paul's memory. Twenty four hours had passed, the serum took over her mind, she is now a weird looking ape in the middle of the jungle, being judged by the other apes. They had never seen any ape that is so ugly according to their ape standard before. The ape threw the poor Paul out of their territory, believing she is a monkey, and deserve to live with the monkeys.

However, when Paul went to the monkeys place, they were freaked out of her appearance and ran away from her. Having no choice, the ugly female monkey-ape Paul now has to stay far away from the "others". She always wanted to join them, to be one of them, and her XX-ape DNA part in her always wanted to be a mother, to be loved by another male monkey or ape. Every time she saw a little monkey raised up in the arm of its mom, her heart died a a little bit. After months of suffering from the alienation of the monkey society and the ape community, she decided to move out to a place far away, just to forget about everything... She packed up some bananas, some coconuts and a stick then went on a long journey to the unknown land ahead. After countless days of walking, when the bananas and coconuts ran out, the ugly female monkey-ape finally found a big rock, with a cozy and safe cave under it. She decided to stay there for the rest of her life, to avoid the scene of happy monkey and ape families that ripped her heart off everyday. However, she had never gave up hope on the moment a male ape or monkey would come and accept her.

Until a fateful day, when she heard a weird loud sound on top of the big rock...

---------------------

Lets go back to the early years of 21st century, where a shocked scientist just observed a time machine controlled by an ape-woman disappeared in thin air right in front of him. His name is Mercury Tontar. That was also the very day that the head of the facility fired him for his fantasy report of a monkey controlled time machine. Doctor Tontar drove back to his house, depressed. He knows that the time machine exist, but nobody would believe him, and he just lost his job because of that. The only person that could cheer him up now is his wife and his newly adopted son. Some days ago, Doctor Tontar and his wife were driving back home from the local hospital, with an infertility result on the test for each of them. His wife cried a lot a long the way home, but then they suddenly heard a cry, a baby cry to be specific. They stopped the car, walked out and found a newborn baby in a nearby bush. The boy had a dog tag on his neck, saying "Paul". While feeling angry for such scumbag parents who left their child in a place like this to die, they also think that this could be a miracle for them. Fate - the mysterious teenage girl - brought them together on a fateful day for an unknown reason again...

Doctor Tontar kept his adopted son name and add "Tontar" after "Paul". Paul Tontar was never told that he was, in fact, adopted. His parents do not want the past to bother him. Doctor Tontar taught his son everything he knows about physic, and always told him that time travelling is real. Paul grew up with the believe that one day, humanity will make a time machine that can travel back to the past, and maybe even him can make such machine become an actual thing. At the age of 18, Paul finished high school with highest scores, and much to his family joy, he got an admission letter from MIT. Paul has never had a girl friend because he is quite ugly, but his grades were always top of the classes.

One day, the young scientists at Area 51 decided to review of the past files about the accident with the ape-woman and the time machine. During their assertion with the collected data, some amazing results came in to the surface. They immediately contact Doctor Tontar about his report, since he is the only person who directly observed that event. The government want to invite him into the project of developing time travelling vessel, so they can come back to the past to study the history. However, Doctor Tontar is now having a brain tumor, and he is done for good. There is nothing current technologies can do to help him anymore. His last words to the young scientists were "I told my son, Paul, everything. Find him, and ask him for help."

Several years later, the 21 years old Paul Tontar finished the time machine in honor of his father wish, much to the shock of the scientists community outside of Area 51.

-The END-

Reflection Entry

It is the end of the semester and a lot of courses are require me to do a final exam. This Blogging course is not an exception, apparently. However, unlike the other courses, I actually like this exam very much, as it is the last chance for Ms. Katia to check my superficial writing for errors and mistakes. Let start!

First thing first, I think this blog assignment was a good idea for me, personally. I could not keep myself from admiring me for making such a brilliant decision, which was to join this assignment. It really helped me to improve my writing, which was once my favorite thing to do in Vietnam. It brought back memories, tears and emotions. During the semester, I even tried to write a fiction to read it for my little brother at home every week. If you read through the post, you would see how my writing was improved over time. The newest parts are more thoughtfully designed and written than the older parts. Many new expressions, new strategies to tell the story were adopted because I thought about them all the time, and tried to find as much material as possible to improve my fiction. All of that could never be possible if my older self did not register for the assignment. By the way, I lied about the tears.

The assignment was awesome, but what made it really worth the effort was the teacher, Ms. Katia. She provided me many helpful information, from writing resource to some fiction writers community. They really helped me to make a start. More than just that, she actually tell me about my mistakes in my sentences, which is clearly a significant help. Over the time, I became more aware about the potential mistake I could have made. Raising awareness in writing is really important for new writers, but doing that alone without helps from reviewers would be a tedious and difficult job. Sometime, I even got her comments about the actual content of my post rather than just error feedback. Those comments made me feel more connected to my audience than anything else. If I ever meet a prospective international teaching assistant in the future, the first thing I will tell them is to join this assignment as soon as they can. They will never know what they will miss otherwise.

Done talking about me, let talk about others, who also made their own blogs for this assignment. Oh wait, I have nothing to talk about them because I did not know any of their blogs! I wish I could be able to access their blogs and read them. Some of them may have new phrases or expressions I need. Maybe I could meet another writer who is also into fiction. More than that, if they knew my blog, I may get some reviews or comments from them for each of my post, which is really a great thing. They may give me some feedback for the fiction when they read it, thus make the comment section a new source of ideas. Oh I wish!

About the last question, to be honest, I was not the brightest kid in the school, so when someone asks me "what modification to the blog assignment would you propose if I were to use the blog assignment with future ITAs?", I would blush out and say nothing. Because I really have nothing to say.

Neo-Gods

<Continue>

The book might be right, or might trying to make up a story to deceive him. However, he does not have any clue what is the truth anyway, so a fake story and a true story is just the same for now. More than that, the grandma told him to read this book, and he trusts her.

Lenny decides to open it again and continue reading, but the pages are all blank now. He picks up the quill and asks it,

"Hey, where are all the pages with explanation about magic?"

The book shuttles, faster than usual.

"I have a feeling that you don't believe my knowledge, it hurts me so I erased all of them."

"Come on. You know that those things are too much for my brain to absorb in such a short period, right?"

"Kidding. Muah hahahah (Does it sound evil yet?). I figured it out so I think I will just give you the magic instruction and explain more on the way. We still have plenty of time before the Dark Age."

"Ok, give me the instruction, also give me a short explanation of the Dark Age."

"The Dark Age is a two thousands years old prophecy of the great god of Knowledge, Dararie - who also happens to be the famous No-Bell winning Magi Theorist I told you earlier. Basically, it foresee that 1 year after a great invasion from the other world, the sky will turn dark and Chaos will destroy everything. Everyone will die, not including me, I am not a living thing. Muah hahahah. I will watch you all die ........................................................................................................................................... ................................................ Just kidding, I also don't want it to happen."

To be honest, Lenny feels nothing from that piece of information. The world is going to end? That does not matter to him, since he does not feel like he belongs to it any more.

"So what? I don't care.", he writes.

"You will care, because in the prophecy, several neo-gods will appear and kill Chaos, bring balance back to the worlds, the chance is 50/50. When I looks around, there are not that many neo-gods available to my knowledge, and one of them is you, young master."

"What the hell is a neo-god? I am just a regular soldier from the Light Half. I didn't even know there is magic in my past life."

"Neo is new, neo-gods are new gods, after the old ones left this world ages ago. You are a neo-god, it is in your vein. Remember I told you that you have the ability to absorb magic that is equal to a god?"

"In my vein? I don't understand."

"Oh I forgot to tell you that you are a descendant of the old ones. I found blood of Dea - God of Hell, Vulcan - God of Fire, Repun Kamui - God of the vast Ocean in your vein, a long with your human part. There must be some relations between your family members with them, and it could be thousands of years ago."

"Then how did I land on the Light Half?"

"Who knows? My information about that was erased. But there are many occasions that people from the two halves travel back and fort."

"You told me there are more than just me. I think if I can ask the others about their origin, I may find my own answer."

"That's a good idea, you are smart, my young master. I am afraid that I only know Miss Selene of Skythea as another neo-god. Some one has erased most of my knowledge about the neo-gods. May be it was for their safety. Our only clue is Miss Selene. As I told you, she is pretty, I think you two could make a good couple."

"Don't try to mess with me, Dararia. I don't care about her, my only question is the origin of my existence."

"Alright, then as you wish, master. I will teach you your first spell: globusignis - fireball"

The book then floats in front of Lenny while he is reading the word "globusignis" in his mind. Two streams of red light come out of the word and gently land on his forehead, entering it. He can feel a chill down his spine, but it is not fear. It feels like a river of energy flow through every cells inside him, warmly and strangely.

The book shuttles itself again as soon as the red lights faded off, a new instruction appeared,

"Lets go outside and burn some stuff, master."

Even with many doubts are still residing in his mind, Lenny picks up the magic book and goes out. There is nothing in sign, except some trees tip out of the ground fog. Then the book floats again on its own, giving new instruction,

"Now, master, please point your fingers toward anywhere you want to test the spell, concentrate and think of fire or something burning, then shout globusignis out loud. Don't point at the house though, I hate rain and still need something to cover my papers from being wet."

Lenny does as the book said, doubtfully. He points his fingers toward a random direction in the fog, and start to think. The first burning object that comes to his mind is Old Fart, of course. At the top of his lung, Lenny shouts the magic word, expecting to get a comment from the book of how stupid he looks like and why does he believe in such an idiotic thing.

Then, the tip of his fingers start to glow red like a hot steel under high temperature, right in front of his panicking eyes. From each finger, a stream of fire rapidly flows toward a ball shaped fireball that is just two inches away from them. The fireball at first was as small as a bean, but then it grows up into the side of an egg in just a mere second and does not stop. He feels like the little fireball is draining his energy out of him, rapidly and if he does not do something fast, all of his life will be dried out. Freaking out, he immediately clenches his hands to stop the fire from coming out. It really stopped the fire like he wanted, but also somehow it also pushed the fireball flying extremely fast toward the direction he pointed to. Flying at the speed of a bullet, the fireball needs less than a blink of an eye to get itself lost inside the thick fog, leaving a trail of black smoke behind. Shortly after, in the place where it landed, a fierce explosion emerges, along with a eardrum-rupturing sound effect. The whole area around it is blasted with an explosive power that is comparable with a small volcano eruption, burn everything down to black ashes. Its also created a wind gust that quickly blow all the fog around it away, revealing a big area of the forest with a newly created meteor crate at its center.

The pressure of the blast made the house behind him shaken violently and freaked Lenny out. However, the shocking stage disappear quickly, leaving the awe left alone. He could not believe in his own eyes anymore. Just a moment ago, he blew away a huge part of the forest with his bare hands and it is so awesome!

Lenny immediately turns around to find the book, which was also blew away in the explosion.

"Where are you Dararia? did you see what I just did? wow, where are you?" He talks to himself out of excitement.

"I am here, Master, hiding behind the door." A woman's voice raises up, stroking the silence.

"Who is that?", Lenny is surprised by the appearance of a new voice.

The book flies out of the door, at the same time, he hears that voice again.

"It is me, Dararia. Apparently, now we can talk."

"Wow, I thought I must use that quill to communicate with you.", says Lenny.

"Yes, that was the past. Now you have just acquired a new power, a power that allows us to communicate via telepathy.", it replies.

"Telepathy? That is so ...wow. By the way, did you see that explosion?". He does not even try to hide his excitement.

"Yes, I saw it. You are really have potential, master. Not many fire mages can utilize globusignis that well in the first time. You are natural. But do you feel exhausted now?"

"Yeah, I feel a little bit dizzy right now. It was like I used up all of my energy to create that fireball."

"Almost correct, master. You actually used more than half of your Magic Aura in that blast. But don't worry, you will get all of them back in a few minutes. Meanwhile, let us work on your controlling skill.", the book explains.

It then tells Lenny that he can control the amount of magic aura spending in his spell with more practice, so he does not have to use so much energy for each cast next time. Also, it will lower down the damage of the blast. "More control over the spell, more efficient it becomes", said the book.

About half an hour later, Lenny get used to firing balls from just one finger, with minimal damage and smaller explosions. To that progress, the book stated that it was deeply impressed. Other fire mages need at least one month of practice in able to do that feat while Lenny has mastered it in less than thirty minutes and in less than twenty tries.

While being overly hyped with his newly found power, Lenny does not notice some one is running toward the house from the wood. He point his finger toward that direction and prepare to shoot a fireball for the twentieth time. When he releases the fireball flying, a small and quick figure jumps out of the fog, right in the collision course.

<To be continued>

Thanksgiving: 0 - Black Friday: 1

As we have already known, Thanksgiving is a traditional holiday in United State and Canada. People here celebrate this day to give thanks for the blessing of harvest and of the preceding years. Even though, our modern technologies today play a central role in securing our food sources, the "blessing" and most other natural phenomenons do not contribute as much as before, people still keep this traditional holiday as a mean for family members to gather and have precious times together. There is always not enough 'family time' for anyone, so this tradition is kind of useful.

Then there is the Black Friday, appeared out of nowhere and conquered the world. People in the United State have been celebrating Thanksgiving for 402 years and eventually, the entrepreneurs discovered that they can make more money from this holiday by giving discounts on overpriced goodies. It is natural for people to go shopping when they have spare time, it is close to Christmas and the kids come back from schools. The holiday boost sales in all store, and the discounts boost them even to a higher level. Rich people are smart people, when the neighbor supermarket gives discount on Black Friday, they immediately copy that to their stores and eventually, the whole country is on discount. Consumers start to develop a habit of camping outside of Walmart or BestBuy or other retailers to wait until they have a chance to get a discounted item they wish for. Meanwhile, the retailers start to raise price on some particular items in order to discount them without losing profit on Black Friday. Also, if something was not sold well during the last year, it will also get a discount. The business people know too well that those baiting items will attract a lot of customer to their stores and usually, they will also buy things that are not discounted, or even things that are getting a raise in price. Smart move.

Soon enough, Black Friday has became one of the most noticeable culture presses of the United State in the eyes of people around the world. Human is a weird species. If we like something very much, and we can not have it, we will try to copy it at any cost. America has long been a dream land, a great figure for people around the world to look up to (except North Koreans, their country is already the best of the bests, with their great leader Kim Jong Un who has conquered all poverty with his mighty godly power. For them, the United State is the evilest place on earth and its citizens are living in hell on earth... so yeah.). However, many people will never ever have a chance to move to this country and experience its culture, so copying the cultures from it is their only option. Those cultures are not necessary compatible with their owns, but they can still be adopted. Halloween could be considered as an example, even if it is not originated from the United State, but Hollywood has made it an 'American thingy' and now young people all over the world are going crazy with it. Basically, no one knows anything about the All-Hallows-Eve of the Christians, they just know that "Monsters and ghosts festival" is cool, at least on the widescreen. Black Friday was also in their wishlist for a long time now. Recently, Spain, Vietnam and many other countries have officially made Black Friday as their thing while there is no holiday associated with it. Cool huh? People still flood the supermarkets and retailer's stores no matter what. Entrepreneurs get their big profits from that.

Sadly, Thanksgiving is also an American thing, but nobody cares because it does not provide profit nor be a cool monster-ghost festival. 

The power of the Sea vs the power of Hell

Magic particles

<continue>
The next day, he wakes up just to find out that it is mid day already and the grandma and Old Fart are not in the house. Having nothing else to do, he decided to open the book again by moving the petal mark near it. The book opened, but this time it shuttle the pages by itself and move to a page that says:

"Good day my Master. Can you please not throwing me like that again? I am old and my spine are are killing me, especially after that throw."

Lenny picks the quill up and start to write.

"Sorry, book. I thought you were just a book."

"Can any regular book also talk to you like me? I am not just a book, I am Dararia - the book of Knowledge. My beautiful body is the result of thousands years of artistic doing."

Reading the text, Lenny sighs sarcastically. He does not know which one bothers him the most now, the problem with his memory, who are his parents, or this egotistical book.

"Okay, I am really sorry for the pain you had to bear, Daria. Honestly I don't know what to do now."

"It is DARARIA, sir. There is a 'RA' between 'DA' and 'RIA'. About your situation, I would highly recommend learning some magic now. Magic is very useful, it may also help you to regain your control over your mind."

"Magic? What did you mean by controlling my mind?"

"Not controlling your mind, sir... You younger generation never bother to read carefully. Back in my days, people actually love to read. Come back to the main idea: There are some spell that can help people regain their lost memories. That is why I think it would be a good thing for you."

"I have no idea about what is magic and spells. But I do want to get my memories back. Who can teach me magic?"

"Of course you don't. There is no magic in the land where you came from. Also, you are a very lucky person to have me as your servant, for I am having the knowledge of all magic in this world and the underworld, except some forbidden spells because my previous master has erased them from me."

"That is nice. Who was your previous master?"

"I don't know. That person erased those kinds of information from me already. I hate it when people do that to me. If I had some hands, I would beat him/her up. Too bad I don't have hands."

"Sorry for that. Also I would like to assure you that I would never do such a thing. Now, can you teach me the spells that can help me to regain memories?"

"I know you won't, young Master. Your personality is too kind to do that. Also I can not teach you those spells yet, because you do not have enough magic aura to perform such spells."

"What is magic aura? How can I obtain enough magic aura to cast those spells?"

The book takes a while to shuttle pages, and when it is done, there are more than one page that has text for Lenny to read.

"Let me explain further to you: Two thousands years ago, a magi theorist had proposed a theory of magic to explain many thing about the magic usage in this world. His name is Dararie - the greatest Bookworm (I can assure you that he is a human, not a worm). He found out that the magic power that some people are using in this world are actually very small particles that also forming everything else, and they are everywhere in this world. To prove his point, he built a 27 kilometers tunnel in the earth and called it: The Magical Particles Accelerator. In that sophisticated artifact, he experimented with many extraordinary magicians and normal people. The result was also very surprising at that time as it also got him a No-Bell award. That was most honorable award for any magi theorist at that time...

Well, about the result: it shows that for people who can utilize magic, those particles are their source of magic and is extremely unstable, while for normal people, those particles are very stable. He concluded that the more unstable particles a person has, the more powerful that person is. So he derived a measurement term for magic level, which he calls it 'Magic Aura'. A person would get more Magic Aura by continuously spending his/her current amount of Magic Aura on spells. When that person does so, his/her body will absorb more unstable particles inside and increase the Magic Aura. More Magic Aura means more powerful spells can be made, because spells consume them. The ability to gain more Magic Aura is varies between people and many other creatures. For example, some can gain extremely amount of Magic Aura and became the Gods, the Lords while some others can feel free to practice their tiny spells for a life time and still can't do anything cool. Also, there are many type of Magic Aura and for a specific race, only one or two type can be absorbed. For example, the races of the underworld can only absorb Fire Aura, while the Sky World races can only absorb Ice and Air Auras. Each type of auras can do some pretty neat big spells of that type. However, there are some other uses of them, like using them to enchant physical power (some human can lift up a mountain or run faster than the speed of sound), or general purpose spells like memory regaining spells. Initially, a magical creature is born with a little Magic Aura, and if it does not use them in its entire life, then the Aura will stay the same forever.

You, my Master, is someone like that. Your Magic Aura is not enough for big spells now. However, you have a special ability to gain Magic Aura. As you see in your palm, there is a petal of the Heaven Flower, or some people prefer to call it the Glowing Blossom. It is purely magical, that has a high density of unstable particles. When you were holding it, you were unknowingly absorbing its Magic Aura, a very large amount of them, compare to normal human. From my observation and calculation, your ability to gain Magic Aura is even comparable to that of a god! Spoiling: you are going to have a very bright future, my Master.

While you are asking yourself: why the hell I were absorbing Magic Aura if I did not use any magic? I did a little research about your type of aura and the way you absorbed that petal. The result is quite mysterious: you are able to absorb both Sea Aura and Fire Aura. There is absolutely no record of anyone that has two kind of opposite Auras inside them like you, except for the case of Selene Aglarus - a 19 years old lady who happens to have both Earth Aura and Air Aura. No one knows that except for her father, who is the Lord of Skythea. He tried to erase my knowledge about his daughter once but some how I still have her name and her address. You should totally meet her, she is cute and single.

Damn, I forgot to write the main point again. Alright, the main reason why you were able to absorb the petal is that you naturally used your Magic Aura to survive diving underwater and survive the hell fire of your Ceberus (Yes, your big husky dog is from a species called Ceberus), not to mention that you absorbed the entire fire blast from a Drakul six months ago and hibernated until three days ago to recover from the impact. Because your Magic Aura were still weak, you couldn't block that fire and lost your memories. At least you didn't die, or else I may have to wait for another 100 years for someone who is worthy to read me. "

Lenny stops reading and thinks in silence as he is still trying to comprehend the information he has just received from the book. Suddenly, from the least expected source, he learned many thing about himself for the past six months. That is not something that is easy to believe, especially when the person, or the thing that provided those information is always speaking in a joking sarcastic tone.

<to be continued>

The princess of Skythea - Selene Aglarus

Three months in an English speaking environment

It has been a quarter of a year since I arrived to the mighty USA. I am pretty sure of that because the insurance company has deduced 54.78 dollars from my bank account for being well-protected for a Quarter. 

What have I learned from the last three months? English or confidence? Did I change anything about myself? My appearance or my inner value? It is hard to say because I tend to use overly sophisticated words to describe simple things. 

However, there is a fact that my English skills have been improved, a long with my confidence. By confidence, I mean the tendency to speak more in English without caring much about my terrible grammar reflex. Now, my reflex is becoming so fast no grammar can go over my head. Responding faster, with so-so accuracy is my new way of life. Of course, that is an improvement. I evolved from shy boy, who was so afraid to say something wrong, or pronounce something wrong that could lead to awkward situations, into a manly man who does not fear awkward situations anymore. Just speak out loud, what could go wrong?

This is the moment I finally realize what is my inner value, and bring it into light, make it shine like the sword of Frodo Baggins - the Sting. That value is the thickness of my face's skin. It is not only preventing my beard from coming out, it is also prevent the sharp spikes of awkward conversations from penetrating into the emotion inside. Thanks to it, I felt more obligated to speak, and to learn new words, new expressions, new concepts. Sometime, we are too afraid to open our heart and let something new inside, because we do not want to get hurt. However, if you are brave enough to do so, everything will get better day by day. Of course you still get hurt though, but the point is, you will get used to it. I made new friends, lost some potential ones, made some people upset, made other laugh. To think about it, speaking to people is not so scary at all. Some good people even told me what I said wrongly, or bothered to explain some new things to me. 

Those are the things I had learned from this environment, but I did not mention the things I may never have a chance to learn, did I? Well, I want to learn the British accent. That is certainly not feasible in this country though. Hope that one day, a true British person will teach me that. 

For now, or to be specific, for the next three months, before getting another insurance bill, I will work on the grammar accuracy of my speaking skill. Maybe one day I will be able to instantly compose new random songs in English when sitting in front of the piano making random tunes. 

Questioning

<Continues>

Old Fart turns back into its husky form before running through the door. It sits just next to its bowl and wait for its food from the grandma. Lenny comes in to help her prepare the table.The food is good but they make him feel like he has tasted this flavor before.

"Wow,  this soup is very delicious. Grandma Mely. I think I have eaten this kind of food in the past, just can't remember where and when right now. " Says Lenny.

"That is not possible young boy." She smiles to him.

"Why not? What's wrong with it?"

"Because your army has never been able to advance this far into the mainland. While the flowers I used to make this soup only grow in this area."

"Must be my imagination then."

They continue eating and talk. Lenny tell her about the glowing blossom underwater and asks her about the meaning of his new mark, to which she says she does not know, and he must find out the answer by himself. They then talk about Old Fart and its incredible feats today. They share compliments to the dog but it seems like it care more about the food in its bowl than the human's story. Every ten minutes, it brings the bowl back and push it into the grandma legs to ask for more. Lenny does not fall too far behind the dog's demand though as he constantly empty his dishes. He feels like he has not eaten anything for ages. Soon enough, the two finished eating everything grandma Mely has to offer them.

Dararia - God of Knowledge

After the dinner, the grandma tells him to go sleep since he is still weak after a "long slumber". Although he does not understand what she means by "long slumber", he agrees that his muscles are still tired and a rest is necessary. Old Fart seems to be tired too, as it fell sleep on the floor peacefully before anyone can notice. Lenny goes back to his room after saying good night to the grandma.

As he closes the door, Lenny notices the magic book is already there on the table. "Must be grandma Mely. She must brought it here.". he thinks. Deciding look at it later, Lenny blows out the candle and jumps on the bed. However, he can not sleep that easily.

In the dark, the petal mark on his palm started to glow, so is the book on the table. Both of them glow purple light and immediately catch his attention. Lenny walks out of his bed, and move closer to the book. As he get closer, the book glows stronger like it is reacting to the petal mark. Lenny takes it to the bed to investigate further. Turn out, not the entire book is glowing, it is just the stone in front of it that emits light. He touch the stone with his marked hand, and a stream of purple light slowly move from the mark to it. Now, in front of Lenny, the book opens itself.

He turns the pages repeatedly, but there is nothing to read. The entire book is blank. However, there is a quill at the last page. It is a red feather quill that looks like it is burning at the tip. Lenny picks it up to get a closer look of the tip. What he did not expect is that when the quill was taken out, from its tip, a red line is produced in the air. The red line glows in darkness for a second then disappears. Fascinated by a pen that can write on air, Lenny hovers it aimlessly to create multiple shapes and size around him. They all are dissolved after a second.

An idea comes to his mind, as Lenny writes "hi" on the air. Suddenly, the book moves by itself. It starts to shuttle the pages and then stop at one random page. On that page, there is a line, saying: "Hello my new master, how can this servant serve you?"

This surprises Lenny, because he was very sure that he checked every pages and there was not any thing written in them. He then goes into a conclusion that this quill can help him to communicate with the book.

"What are you?" he writes.

The book shuttles itself again, and opens another pages.

"I am Dararia - the Book of Knowledge. I can answer any of your question if it is related to the knowledge of this world."

"Okay then, who am I?"

"Your name is Leonard Alexander - 24 years old. You are not supposed to be existed in this world."

That answer greatly disturbs Lenny, why did it say he is not supposed to be existed?

"What do you mean by that?", he writes his thought out.

"You did not come into this world by a normal way. I cannot obtain the knowledge of your father and mother. You are not a result of sexual reproduction."

"Where did I come from?"

This time, the book shuttle for a longer time than usual, and when it stops, it says:
"Sorry master, the answer you are seeking is outside of my knowledge. Please ask me another question."

Irritated, Lenny throws the book to the corner. Now, not even a magic book of knowledge knows who he is. He is in no mood for any other question, so he decides to sleep.

<To be continues>

Commercial culture

Recently, I bought a lot of stuff, both in-store and online stuff, including snow boots, a piano, headphones, jeans, etc. Therefore, I think I am quite used to the commercial environment in the United State, which is quite different from what we have in Vietnam.

On the surface of the iceberg, I can look for best prices and best customer satisfied stores on the internet. It is all transparent with reviews and rating systems everywhere. We have Google Certificated Stores, Ebay Top Rated Plus sellers, Amazon Prime, and many other super-branch retailers that is trusted by reviewers. After finding the right stores, I can go to theirs physical locations or their websites to find the items I need. Usually, the online stores are cheaper while the physical stores are more convenient, and it is a known fact so I will not brag about it. However, if you want to buy from an online store, you can just ignore the listed prices and make a call to their customer service for a discount. Most of the items listed are available for a discount, so there is no need to immediately purchase for the higher price. I saved 200 dollars for my piano and accessories that way. More over, since the market is so transparent, you can also tell a store about a better deal from another store to see if they can beat that. They want to sell their stuff, so if they can lower the price to beat a competitor, they will. Most of the time, I walked away from a shop with satisfaction all over my face.

That is totally different from how we shop in Vietnam, or in many other Asian countries. Most of the time, you cannot find the item you need online, because the options are not that many. People are too lazy to post their stuff online and maintain a payment system with it. Usually, if you need something, there will be a specific market/street that sells those stuff in your city, and you will have to go there yourself to see and to try. You never know who is honest and who will try to cheat, so you will have to be careful all the time. The good side is, after a while of training your bargaining skill and hardening your classification skills (for fake products), you will be someone called the Bargaining Warrior! Your friends, your cousins, your family members and girls you know will worship you and always want to go with you when they shop. I have yet to achieve that title but I know some people who are already at that rank. For example, my dad can talk to a seller and make him discount 80% off a wooden table that originally costs 800 dollars. The best I have ever done in my life was 20% off a $700 violin in Vietnam.

The hidden part of the iceberg is how people manage business here in the US and how we do business in Vietnam. In Vietnam, China, Phillipines, etc everyone can do their small business without having any legal issue. They do not have to be a company entity to do that, and government collect tax from them in a specific way. Everyone with a small building, house that faces the road can sell their things. Therefore, most of the small businesses do not have to invest much money and the consequence is, they do not have online stores. The online stores are for big and serious businesses that can make sure to customers that they will not send them a red brick instead of their iPhone 6 Plus. Meanwhile, in the US, the law requires you to be a business entity in order to open a shop, and selling your stuff over Ebay, Amazon is relatively cheap. That is the reason why you can find most of things you want on the Internet without leaving your house. However, the things you see on the Internet is just pictures with descriptions, and you have no way to know if your iPhone 6 Plus that is on the way to your home is actually an iPhone-shaped rock or not.  So the reviewing websites/ rating systems were born for that sole purpose. All the stores are now considering their online rating is a crucial factor of their business, so they try their best to satisfy customer, naturally. These systems build a hidden bond between consumers and suppliers in a straight forward way. That is the difference.

Not only retailers, this culture of rating is applied for many other aspects of an US citizen. You have history on your driver license for insurance companies to check, you also have credit history for bankers, auto-sellers, T-mobile, Verizon, etc to check. If you did anything wrong, like forgot to pay your monthly credit statement, or hit someone's dog with your car, then you will have a serious mark in your history for at least 7 years.  Third world countries do not have those systems, so no one care about driving carefully, or be on time with your payment. Of course, we have solution for that. If you hit my dog, my men will beat you up or you will have to pay. Or if you 'forgot' to pay the bank, some random guys 'might' show up from somewhere and beat you up for 'some random reasons', until you finally pay in full. Life finds its own way.

Fur of flame

Sketagon

<Continue>

Old Fart is not staying in his vision range again. It is not normal for such a massive dog stops making waves on this small stream. "He must ran of somewhere into the wood again", thinks Lenny.

He then swim back to the bank to get his clothes and wash them. Not until now he can feel the unbearable smell stuck on his clothes. It is a combination of both sweat and a stinky unknown substance, which he presumes to be rotten flesh of animal or, maybe, human. It is funny how he was used to this kind of smell just fifteen minutes earlier and now he can barely breath in it.

Right after he dips his clothes into the stream, those smells suddenly vanishes. They were not just faded away slowly, they vanished, literally. Not only the smell, all the dried dirt were washed away faster than he can blink. There is something in the water that cleaned his clothing in a surprising way. Now when he takes them out of the water, they looks like brand new shirt, jacket and trouser, except for the tattered areas. Maybe even a magical spring can not fix what is already broken.

While locking himself in various thoughts of this spring, a bark behind pulls him out of his own fantasy. Old Fart is back. It was sneaking behind him with the intention of licking his face one more time. However, Lenny pushes it back again, just to realize that Old Fart is not a giant monster anymore. It has shrank back into the normal sized husky he knows. Lenny does not know why, but maybe after all of these events, he does not surprise anymore.

An awesome confrontation.

The sun soon helps him to dry his clothes on a large rock before slowly ducking down the horizon. Lenny wears his clothes on, while telling the dog that they need to stop playing fetch and go back to grandma's house. Old Fart seems to understand what he said, but reluctantly disagree by trying to push the stick he found into Lenny's hands. However, he determines to leave now, because it would be very dark in the fog when the sun goes completely down, so the two heads back to the trail and walk up.

The light is fading out at an incredible rate. In just a few minutes after walking into the fog again, Lenny can not see any thing at all. He can still hear Old Fart barks,  but complete darkness blocks his view of the trail to the point of no direction sense could be defined in his head anymore.

"Old Fart, where are you? I can't see anything at all", he calls his companion.

Old Fart does not bark back, this time it starts to growl. There is something lurking in the dark, around them. Lenny can feel it too.

"What is that? Who's that?" says, Lenny, to the darkness.

No respond. Old Fart is still growling, indicates that this 'something' might not be a friendly being. Lenny hears some foot steps and the crunching sounds of wood around him. Evil escapes from the sounds it makes, sending chill up Lenny's spine. He has no weapon or whatsoever in his hands right now, as his only hope is Old Fart. However, despite of hearing it growling all the time, he still can not locate it in this darkness.

Then, he feels foul breaths behind his nape. The breaths have a smell of a thousand rotten bodies, clearly is not a product of Old Fart. The 'thing' is just behind him, it emanate evil in every single sound it makes. The evil that could normally strike down any average person just by fear is surrounding Lenny as if it will consume him all at once.

"OLD FART!" He yells loudly to tell the dog his position, in the hope that he would respond in time.

*WOOF*, Lenny feels a small fireball jumps right between him and the 'thing', light everything up. The first thing he can see in the light is a dragon-like head that requires him to look up 70 degrees just to see its green demonic eyes. The eyes have no pupil inside, just plain glowing green color. Even the longest fang Old Fart has in its Hell Spawn form is just about a half compare to this monster's fangs, which are pouring drops of poison to the ground, burning it. Beside of its long, bloody tongues, which always sticks out of its creepy mouth, there is no any other sign of flesh, no skin, no meat, as if the entire monster is a demonic skeleton that can move on its own.

Lenny is shocked by its appearance, but what is more shocking than that is the monster seems to be scared of the small fire ball in front of it. Moreover, the fireball is... growling and threatening the giant monster away. Turn out, it is Old Fart. Now it is not a white husky dog that jumps around when excited, nor a giant Hell Spawn that can freeze anyone heart if they don't know how sweet it is.  Instead, it chose the form of something in the middle: a fire hound. It is still as small as the husky form is, but has the look of a fearsome Hell Spawn form, in which the flame pours out of its body as fur. While still not be able to feel any heat from Old Fart's fur, Lenny notices that every trees around it in the range of 200 foots starts to catch fire and lighten up a huge area around it. The small dog is emitting a flame aura that can break spirit of any opponents upon contact. The dragon-like monster is being intimidated completely to the point of not even dare to look straight to Old Fart eyes. Its submission to the dog is like the most mean abject servant to a an almighty god. Soon after the appearance of Old Fart, the monster lurked back into the darkness like a lamp running from the wolves as if it has made a terrible mistake.

The chill in Lenny is long gone, only the awe stays. He has heard the granny said that Old Fart can protect him from any Hell Spawn in this fog, but what he has just witnessed is incredible. Now he absolutely admires his small but fiery companion in every single aspect.

The dog lows down its flame, while not forget to proudly bark one or two times toward the dark to celebrate its victory, then runs back to Lenny. It leans against his legs, expecting a treat.

"Good boy, you are an amazing dog, Old Fart." Says Lenny, while patting its head and scratch its neck. He knows that its flaming fur will not burn him or hurt him, because the dog can control it.

They promptly continues going up the trail as Old Fart is lightening the way for Lenny now. Soon after, they reach the house, in which a delicious smell of good food is coming out of the kitchen, excites them.

<To be continued>

Intimidation

Fur of flame

Heart of the State

What is so special about the United State? I say it is the States. Utah State is one of them.

Yesterday and today, I had a chance to visit Salt Lake City, for my housemates has a new car and he wanted to test drive it. We also had a workshop in the University of Utah though, there is no reason to not drive to Salt Lake City and see what's up! So we said bye to the beloved Cache Valley and drove all the way to the magical capital of the Mormons.

My first impression is: It is truly the Heart of this State! We went through farms, a small valley, a lake, and farms again, and factories, and farms again... A lot of farms. At first, I felt like this country is so big people here can be billionaires by just farming on the vast lands. But then a huge white structure showed up behind the hill, follow up by several tall buildings behind it: The capital city of Utah appeared before my tiny Asian eyes, beautiful and majestic. If the farms in the wild places of Utah can out reach your vision range, the industrial city of Salt Lake can make your eyes blinded by its spectacular beauty.

The big white structure I mentioned earlier is the Capital of Utah State, where the governor works. It gave me the impression of a wealthy and powerful being by just staying there in its Greek-like look. Of course my Asian instinct told me to take some pictures in various weird poses in front of it, for the sake of showing my achievement of putting my feet on its property. There was a moment when my actions of showing the Asian dominance was noticed by some police officers who was patrolling around the building in their nicely polished sedan car. They stood there, in front of the building, with cold faces and skeptical eyes. They were scared of me, of course. They were afraid that I would do something harmful to their sacred place and their boss would fire them. I am a tolerant person. So I decided to not make them feel more nervous with the present of my dominant spirit there anymore and left the place in a glorious retreat. It is not like I was afraid of their cold faces and unfriendly attitude or anything, totally not. I just want to say it again: no, it is not. I just did not want to make them feel uneasy, that is it.

Then we drove into the city. It was very tidy and large. I felt like I was in Hanoi once again, with all the buildings and shopping centers, minus the tidy part. I was living in Logan for several months, and I thought my memories of big cities would fade into my past without any trace soon, until this city opened its hands and held me inside its heart. It has everything I could remember of Hanoi: noises of cars and people, bricks and mortar (not wood like the houses in Logan) buildings, windows and glasses, hobos and dogs, etc. Even the smell, it was so...big city-ic. Everything intrigued me and my sense of time and space was overwhelmed by the happy feeling of escaping out of a boring small town to a real city. Then I heard a voice.

The voice said to me: "Hey Phong, look!". I turned to my back, just to found an artistic sculpture of an old man blessing two younger men. (By touching their forehead, of course. How else can people bless others?) That moment, I realized that somehow my legs brought me to a holy place, where the history of the Mormons started in this land: The LDS Temple. It was a nicely structured building with artistic details. A whole bunch of other buildings are positioned purposely around it to support its shininess. Some of them are twice as big as the Zion Bank building nearby. "This must be the capitol of the Mormons", said me, to myself. "Wait, could that voice belongs to ... OH MY..."

"It belongs to me, dude" my housemate said.

That was how it ended. The Mormons are rich, Utah State has a huge capitol, and my friend has the voice of a holy spirit.

Someday I will visit you again, my love. (Next time I will eat less sugar and be cool)