I’ve been trying to call him for several times already and he has still not picked up his phone. I even sent a text message just in case. But that has been five days already. He hasn’t even read the text message. I was getting worried until my phone suddenly rang. It says that White was calling. Of course, I would immediately take the call but it wasn’t White who was on the other side.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“A friend of White.” Her voice was monotonous, “You probably remember by the name, Zenith.”

“Oh. You. Where is White?”

“He…has not waked yet…”

“I see…”

“…for five days already…” she finishes her word.

I stammered, “What? What happened?!”

Zenith explained to me what happened five days ago. Apparently, White used up a lot of Infinitum when he was fighting against a Champions of Chaos’s henchman. I’m not sure if it counts as a victory if the hero eventually fades out before even the real fight begins. Having said all that, I can finally calm myself down and not get worried over it. I actually wanted to go and see him but Zenith ended up soothing me up of all the worries that I had for the past few days.

She even went on and told me about who was this henchman that White fought. But the important part was when she told me about what did this Yumiko told White. Apparently, the dragon inside of White was The King of Dragons. That’s a heck of a title to be honest. Meanwhile, the dragon inside of me, Leviathan is probably just a fishmonger or something during the dragon age. That’s a very huge difference. Yumiko also told them about White’s other ability called Space-Time or Time-Space Manipulation. Whatever you want to call it.

“This information is all…fascinating. And it all came from the teachings of not one but two Chaos Champion?”

“Correct.”

“Wow. This is something, alright.” I was a bit perplexed by the revelation.

“I got to go now. I hope I delivered the message as my master would have wanted.”

“He’ll appreciate it.”

Zenith puts down the phone and ended the call.

“Still…having a girl calling you ‘master’ is quite a feat. And she’s probably cute as well. Darn it, White. Always stealing the spotlight.”

Putting that aside, I went on and told the news to the other members of Stardust. We made a group video call or as they sometimes say, conference calls. Lore and Haz logged in earlier than me while Rider, Kaym, and Airi logged in the same time as I am. The late one was Blax and Kirin. I bet they were busy.

“Alright now that everyone is here…How about we start up by talking about how have you guys been doing?” I begin the conference.

Blax started first, “That’s not really how a conference starts but in any case, it’s not like we have to do this every time. We literally live few minutes away from each other besides Kirin, Haz and Lore.”

“Alright guys, I have an announcement.” Haz interrupted Blax. “From this day forward, I don’t want to be called Haz anymore. That name was actually a pen name I used back in my younger days.”

“Now I see why you always write down your name as Haz_Kazama. So, what now? Is it Kazama?” I wondered.

“Nope. Just call me, Kaz.”

Silence between the video call ensues…

“What? Why is there no response?” Haz or…Kaz was confused.

We all laughed frantically.

“You should just forget about that and use what you already used to. Besides, Haz Kazama is a good name. You shouldn’t be changing names when your parents already named you that.” Blax lectured Haz.

“But it’s just a pen name.”

“Lies. Zone and Rulend would already notice this from the start. But I know you too well and that was a lie. Just grow up and be proud of your name, Haz.”

“Fine, fine. Can we get on with the status update?”

Haz was right, we really need to make this quick. It was midnight.

“I’ll talk then…” Kaym begins, “School is fine as always and I’m planning to enter The Magic Duel. And guess what, I’m the leader of my own group for this Magic Duel. It’s going pretty well to say the least. What about you guys? How’s life after high school?”

Lore presented next, “I’m continuing my study just like White at a different academy way down south. I’m studying Magic Archaeology. It’s a really fun subject. I get to learn about most of the famous magic item. Sometimes I get to learn an ancient one. But so far, all of the ancient item has been worn out and can’t be used.”

“That’s interesting.” Airi nodded, “I tell you what I’ve been doing. I’ve been taking multiple part time jobs for the past few months. I get to meet a lot of people along the way. Hence the reason, I ended up having a lot of connections. I think that’s enough from me don’t you think?”

“That was rather quick of you, Airi” commented Rider. “While you keep changing jobs, I stand still on one full time job at a fast food restaurant at town. It has been a drag but the salary is reasonable enough for me. What about you, Haz?”

“Me?” Haz takes a moment and then talked, “Like, White and Lore. I also continued my study at some other place. I went on and studied Mechanical. I have always dreamed of having a large scale invention and this would be my first step to obtain the credibility to loan a bunch of money and do big projects that I have been researching for the past few years.”

“Ambitious as always, Haz.” Kirin clapped for him and then told us his update, “I’m almost at my final stretch before the end of my school term. You know how different it is in my school. It’s not a school or an academy. It’s a pre-academy of sorts.”

“What did you learn again?” I asked Kirin.

“Metaphysics.”

“What is that?” Kaym asked.

“It’s a branch of philosophy. It explore the fundamental questions, including the nature of concepts like being, existence, and reality. It has two smaller branches – cosmology and ontology.”

“What do you learn over there?” Kaym was still confused.

He explains to Kaym, “Topics such as investigation on existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility. Do you get that?”

“I’m not quite sure but it sounds very…heavy.”

Everyone shakes their head to Kaym's understanding of the subject.

Blax then said, “Alright, before anyone else going to start spinning their heads. I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing. Hosuke and I have been doing contract works for the past few months. Along the way, we also did some side research whenever White needs something to be looked up on. So far, most of what White asked was interesting.”

“I see.” Lore nodded, “Now that this is out of the way…why are we doing this conference again?”

“I’ll tell you guys…” and so, I began telling them what happened on White’s campus.

-

I finished telling the story half an hour later. I did this conference call so that hopefully some of us could provide some kind of idea on what we can do to help White. We kind of started this thing ever since we marched into Escher’s tower back then. At that point, our enemy is Nova and his Champions.

“So there’s more Chaos Champions…” said Kirin. He then takes a sip of hot drink. Then he continued, “And not just that, we already have two new names on that list.”

“I’m still looking up some information for the Champions.” Lore was furiously typing down something on his keyboard. “I found something related to Vatherion but I found no results on Kitsuneki at all.”

“Then I guess we’re going to hit the books for that guy then” suggested Blax. “What do you got on Vatherion, anyway?”

“No result on him becoming a Chaos Champion but there is some history about him.”

“Maybe it was before he was a Chaos Champion?” said Airi.

“Airi might be on to something.” Rider agreed to Airi and told us, “But still…Time-Space Manipulation, huh…Don’t you know something about this, Kirin?”

“I should know something. Now that I know White has this kind of ability…I can’t wait until I get to see him again. I’m going study the heck out of him.”

“Can you not do that, Kirin?” Kaym was worried, “You sounded a lot like Haz back when White was his lab assistance.”

“He was the best lab assistance!” Haz got all tear up suddenly.

“In any case…what is it about Vatherion. What did he do?” I continued the conference by asking the real question.

Lore explained to us, “I’m not sure this is the right Vatherion…”

“What do you mean?”

“The one that I found is well…it’s a person from hundreds of years ago…”

“Say what?” Kaym scratches his head.

“Are you telling us that this might be the same person or what?” Blax asks.

“It could be. It could also not be it. You know how resurrection magic works, right? It’s not a perfect spell.”

There must be something behind all of this. But as soon as we about to continue on our discussion, thunder reigned down and all the lines have been cut.

“Curses! A black out? Seriously?” I was a bit pissed by that. I decided to look outside and see what was going on because the thunder was out of this world. It was then I saw something at one of the empty field. Standing tall in the middle was a tall metal structure. It had the engravings of an ancient languages. It even has some hieroglyphics symbol on it. I packed up and went to the location to find out what was going on…

TO BE CONTINUED