*****
There was no sense of day and night inside the tower. Everything depended on the desires of the Cylix and Novius. Whenever they wished, it was day. Whenever they wanted, it was night.
As the Tower also ran in a different space, they could even manipulate the flow of time inside the tower, completely detaching it from the outside World. Despite all that, they just preferred to stick as close to the real timeline as possible since there was no benefit in doing anything extra.
It was just with the training of Gabriel that they manipulated the flow of time, albeit only to a small extent. Since they believed Gabriel was going to train here for a long time, they didn't want to keep him away from the real world for too long as things could change really fast in the real world.
They only tweaked the time inside the tower only a tiny bit to make sure that two days inside the tower were equal to one day outside the Tower.
Since they could control so much inside the tower, it was only a minor thing for them to control the length of a day.
Gabriel was sleeping in open grass fields. It had been close to twelve hours, but it was still dark out as if the Stars didn't wish to leave Gabriel's company.
After disappearing for a moment, Cylix and Novius were once again back, right beside Gabriel. It was unclear where they had gone; however, as they returned, Cylix had a small cut on his hand. As for Novius, he seemed somewhat fine.
Both, Cylix and Novius gazed at Gabriel as if they were looking at their younger brother. It had been a long time since they had met a person who didn't hate being here. Gabriel was immersed in training whenever he was up. In fact, he even enjoyed his training, which in turn made it fun for Novius and Cylix to train the young man.
"All these years, I wanted to just disappear... I wanted to be free of this place, having no purpose anymore," Cylix also lay on the grass nearby, looking at the stars. "But the last few days have certainly been something else... I enjoyed being alive if we could even call ourselves that."
"He's reaching near the end of his training. We've already taught him almost all of our skills except one... In a few days, he should master them as well. That might be the time when all this finally ends... Maybe for good."
Novius also laid on the soft grass, pointing his finger at one of the stars. He moved his finger as if it was a brush with which he was writing in the air. However, it wasn't the air he was writing on. He was writing in the starry sky.
The star that he had pointed at moved with each stroke of his finger, leaving a beautiful blue shine behind, seemingly forming a constellation.
"Even though he'll know everything we know, it still won't be easy for him to defeat us," Cylix reminded Novius.
"I know," Novius agreed. "But if anyone can do this, it is him..."
He further stated. "If he can't kill us with our own elements, we can allow him to use his original element as well. That should help him stand up to us, thanks to the Ancestral Staff. In any case, our purpose would be completed after we finish teaching him."
Cylix smiled. Even though he often smiled, his current smile seemed purer, coming straight from his heart. "Maybe that was the meaning of our existence in the tower all along... The reason no one had been able to defeat us? Because we were supposed to meet and train him..."
"Since when did you start believing in destiny, old friend?" Novius seemed quite amused. He knew Cylix for a long time. He knew that Cylix was a person who never believed in destiny. However, he was believing now?
"I didn't believe in destiny. At the same time, I didn't believe that there could be a person who could use three Elements at once. If one is possible, the second can be too... It's just too much of a coincidence that we had a person challenge us who shared both of our elements... Who could be better to give us the freedom we craved than him?"
"We taught him everything we knew. Even though our knowledge is nothing when compared to our older selves, but that still makes us his teachers. Isn't that what we wanted to be when we came up with the idea to start an academy for young mages?" he asked Novius. "What could be more pleasing for us as teachers than to see our students surpass us with our teachings?"
Novius didn't answer, but even he was happy that things were going this way. It was much better than any other outcome he could've thought of. Even though they were probably going to be destroyed forever soon, they were still going to live through the knowledge that they'd imparted to Gabriel...
Initially, they expected their Academy to be the legacy that they left behind, but after finding out what the Academy had become, they even hated calling it their academy! Their legacy, according to them, wasn't the Academy anymore! Instead, it was Gabriel! Gabriel was going to be their legacy!
Since Novius could control the night here, he made sure that it was night until Gabriel woke up on his own. He wanted Gabriel to be properly rested and not have his sleep be disturbed by the morning since they were going to be teaching him their prized spell tomorrow.
Amongst the spells that they taught Gabriel, only a few of them were rare spells that weren't mentioned in the books at the Academy of Elements, but their strongest spells were something that even the Academy didn't have.
It was said to be their prized spell that each of them came up with on their own in their time.
It was said that the spells that Cylix and Novius created were so precious that even the Church of Light and the Church of Darkness of their time wanted to possess those spells.
In fact, the Churches were even willing to trade for those spells, but the two founders refused both the Churches, saying they only intended to teach their core spell to their personal disciples.
Cylix and Novius didn't know if their real selves found any disciples after leaving the tower to teach these two spells, but for them, Gabriel was their first disciple... The first and the worthy disciple…
