"How is this bed so soft?"
Ray finally woke up from his coma. His wounds were so bad that they had to use three healing souls on him; he was walking on the verge of death.
"You are finally awake."
Ray turned to the owner of the voice. Bella sat on a wooden chair by his bed with a book in her hand; the title was too hard for Ray to read.
She wore a long green dress the same color as her eyes, and with her hair in a braid, she was as beautiful as Ray remembered.
Ray glanced at the room. It's too luxurious to be an infantry room."Where am I?" He thought to himself, and after he finished checking the whole room, he returned his focus to Bella: "First, I know you were in my mind, and I don't want to talk about it ever. Second, where am I? Third, how much time I have left?" The room didn't have any windows or clocks.
Bella put away her book and crossed her legs and observed Ray with a curious light in her eyes:"You are in the guest room of one of the Lighthouse family mansions near the academia; only me and my sister Sofia live here." She checked the hour with her phone:"And now it's 12:35 , which means you have twenty four hours left before the call."
Ray didn't expect her to respect his demand regarding unforgiven. He sat on the bed:"How is the situation with that girl named Morgan?"
Bella started to browse through her phone while talking to Ray:"Bad, they put a price on my head." She smiled."I like that a lot. Any Void family member you find in the future will try to kill you."
"Why you?" Ray was puzzled,she had nothing to do with him.
"If they go after my mother its like they declare war on us,but a conflict between me and Morgan will have much smaller scale and I'm confident she had a long way infront of her to be able stood against me!"
Bella enjoyed the attention that she got; in a day, she had gone from an investigator to a human resource manager of the family. Unlike the Void family, her family cared a lot about someone's parents. There were around twenty bloodlines in the Lighthouse family, and each had its share of work and ranking. Bella's family was among the top lines, being third in the family. With her new job, she had as much power as a bloodline from the first draft. Who doesn't enjoy more strength?
Ray didn't care that much about the consequences; like he had predicted, all the benefits had gone to someone else, so it's normal for all the trouble to go after her too. "So why are you here?"
"It's simple. I'm going to teach you anything I can in the remaining time; my sister will join us as well. She will come in an hour, so go take a shower and eat something. A servant is behind the door; he will guide you through the mansion and give you anything you need." She ended the speech and returned to the article she was reading.
Ray left the bed and analyzed his body; his body didn't feel any pain at all. It looks like they used some rare healing soul this time. He moved his toes and hands."All set and done." Before he left, Bella told him, Oh, also tell him to find you a shirt or something." Ray nodded and left.
He had a lot of free time in prison, so he did a lot of physical training; only muscles were visible on his body. The lack of food and equipment to train professionally, although, made him reach his limits very soon.
Ray left the room; a servant wearing a green suit waited for him. The first thought in Ray's mind was,"Who chose this color?" The man didn't seem that old, but he had a few white hairs and a small face. The servant bowed to Ray and said, "I'm at your service, sir. What do you need?"
Ray looked at him with pity. A servant had a much better life than him, and their income compared to normal jobs was higher; however, they had to leave their own pride, being puppets in the hands of their masters bt their own choice, For Ray, the concept of falling so low was absurd; he would rather die.
"Keep your fancy words for your masters. My name is Ray. Please first show me the place of the shower; then I will be thankful if you provide something for me to eat. Oh, and some clothes I would rather them to be black." Ray said with an indifferent tone, he was not responsible for other people's choices in their lives.
The servant looked at him with a strange look:"Follow me... Ray, I will make preparations for you after you finish cleaning yourself."
Ray followed him in silence; the mood was awkward between them. Halls of the mansion were designed to show as much green as they could; every wall, couch, and anything else had a shade of green on it.
Without anything to attract his attention, Ray drowned in his thoughts: "How did that girl have so much strength?" Even the underground fighters were no match for her." A sense of excitement went through his body:"She will come for revenge."
"This is the bath; take your time. I will ready your demands in minutes." The servant told him and left the way they had come.
Ray entered the bath; it was as large as five cells in prison. He relaxed his mind, thinking about nothing, enjoying the hot water and shower. Due to his injuries, healing souls had to increase his body's regeneration; as a side effect, his hair now had grown to his shoulders.
"Maybe I will let them stay long for now." Ray whispered while washing them.
After ten minutes he walked out of the bath. The servant held a robe in his hands and gave it to Ray: "This is the only black cloth we had in the mansion. It belongs to Lady Sofia; she wears it in special ceremonies. I asked her, and she approved that you can wear it. Unless if you have no problem using women's clothes."
Ray took the robe and wore it without any care; it was made of fabric and covered his whole body except his chest. Ray found a mirror and analyzed himself:"I look like that man from Legends of Cicada." Even though he didn't care that much about his appearance; however, looking good had its own benefits.
After that, the servant took him to the kitchen. The food was nothing special, although Ray could sense many more tastes from it than all the food he has eaten by now.
"Lady Bella awaits you in this room. I shall take my leave." The servant bowed again and waited for Ray to enter the room.
"Thank you." Ray thanked the man and entered the room.
The room was filled with bookshelves all around it. There were at least two thousand books there, and in the middle of the room, three sofas were placed facing each other.
Bella compared her sister, who was by her side, to Ray; Sofia had worn jeans and a long shirt, and with her blonde hair, the two seemed like two sides of the same coin.
She didn't explain what had happened last night to Sofia, despite that she wanted to be present when she taught Ray, even though she was aware of anything she wanted to say.
Bella crossed her legs as a habit and watched as Ray sat on the empty sofa."So before we begin, do you have any questions?"
He had too many questions, but he asked the first question on his mind:"That girl Morgan, how did she obtain that much strength?"
Bella started to explain, "I don't know if you are aware of this, but any human's body has a limit for both its physical and mental growth. After someone reaches that point, he can't pass it, so they start to develop new skills. This was our belief before the mark. After the mark appeared, each person who enters the call, his limits will be broken, and his body will grow in all the fields." She took a breath, drank some tea, and resumed her explanation: "With each call that you pass, your limits will grow significantly. Now, if two people who both have passed their calls have a child, the child will also have higher limits than normal humans."
Ray took his hands under his chin and asked again,"When we reach the realms, will all people grow the same amount?"
"No. When you get there, your spirit will grow as well. The amount of growth is close for everyone; however, it will be divided between your physical body, your mind, and your spirit. It mostly depends on your domain." Bella watched Ray's expressions while she talked; he didn't change at all; he was just listening to her.
"How can I understand my domain?"
"It depends; most domains give you an exousia according to their owners nature. For example, I'm in the mind domain, so my powers let me enter other people's minds. However, there are six domains whose exousias are weird and out of their nature." Sofia's attention turned to her sister; even in their family, they barely talked about special domains.
Ray poured some tea for himself and started to drink it. "You call the power that you get an exousia, right? What are those domains?"
"Yes, but not just powers; you will get weakness with the powers you will get. It doesn't have a specific rule; however, it mostly works like this: if someone is stronger, they will get a strong exousia and a very minor weakness, and if someone is weak, you can guess." She expected that Ray would be shocked after hearing this; however, he just listened as before.
Bella resumed her speech, answering the second question: "And for the latter, those domains are time, life, death, darkness, blood, and finally, the beast domain. There is no right answer to how the mark chooses one's domain, but in the case of these six domains, there is something in common with all of them: they are all lunatics." She sighed,"And that's why I think you will be in one of these domains."
Sofia froze for a moment. Rare domains didn't have a good reputation; most of them would die in their second realm, but two of them had carved their names into the history of matal age: one being the dark emperor in Darkness Domain and the other being Executioner from Blood Domain, dying continents with red.
Ray also had heard about both of them; he thought about his future powers—they could be extraordinary. He looked at Bella and asked with a strange excitement,"If I get one of those domains, will my chances of survival increase?"
Bella stared at him without blinking: "No. You will die. All those domains take someone on the verge of madness, but since you are already walking at its door; you will drown in your madness."
"What if I get into a flower domain and wait for someone to conquer the realm?" Ray always knew his life was on the line; there was nothing for him to lose his composure.
Bella thought for a second and then replied, "It might work; it depends on your luck as to which realm you will end up in. You are in a tight situation."
Before Ray could talk, Sofia cleared her throat and started to talk for the first time: "Actually, we have a plan for this year. Three hundred students agreed to it; it's really simple but effective. Whoever finds a safe place will start a fire, and with its smoke will signal all the other students in that realm to join them and work tougher and help more people stay alive."
Ray took a side eye to Bella to check her reaction,he was shocked.
"Is she really stupid, or does she really believe in her plan?"