The Unsurpassed Maiden

After everything around her stopped turning, Mi Young came to realize she was in another room. Gone was the room where she found the purple book, replaced with a room with iron bars, the black haired girl noticed.

Mi Young also realized she was lying on the cold hard floor. When she roams her eyes, she sees Kwang Soo sitting on the corner of the cell and he looks like he was playing with something.

The black haired girl groans as she slowly gets up from where she was laying down. She sees Kwang Soo out of the corner of her eyes looking up at her with a look of relief.

The senior lets out a sigh before he sits down on the floor, shoulders finally slumped. "Oh good, you're awake. I thought you're dead, you weren't breathing already."

"Where are we?" Mi Young asks, disoriented as she tries to adjust her eyesight.

"Some sort of a cell where they keep all their prisoners I think." Kwang Soo answers while his eyes were focused on something ahead of them.

When Mi Young followed his gaze she saw a man sitting inside another cell just right next to theirs. That's when Mi Young realized they were surrounded by hundreds of empty cells.

"The hell is this place?"

"I told you, this is where they keep their prisoners." Kwang Soo says as he settles down next to Mi Young. "What happened to you?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" Mi Young says while giving her senior a look. "I mean, how did you get caught?"

"I'll tell you after you answer my questions as well." Kwang Soo says.

Seeing as there was already no room for argument with Kwang Soo's voice, the black haired girl sighs as she tells the other party to go on.

Kwang Soo nodded at her. "Where did that come from?"

"The what?"

"That." Kwang Soo says while pointing at something on the black haired girl's body. Mi Young followed his hands and that's when she realized that there was a miniature copy of her purple book hanging on her neck like a pendant.

"What the…'' Mi Young stammers while looking at the ornament hanging on her neck. "I don't…"

"So you don't know as well, huh?" Kwang Soo sighs. "When you were lying on the floor earlier you kept on groaning. Then when I came to your side I realized you were talking to yourself. Then, you started glowing."

"Glowing?"

The senior nodded his head. "Like literally glowing. But then I realized it wasn't you who was glowing but something on your chest. And that necklace suddenly appeared, so I assumed it had something to do with your book. That was the book you were holding earlier, right?"

"Uhn. I got this from a merchant earlier." Mi Young whispers while she holds the pendant in her hands. "I dreamt about it. I woke up in a room filled with water then I saw two different rooms; one with blinding light that was so inviting and the other with a door and a dripping sound was coming from it. I wanted to go the light at first but I got curious with the sound so I entered the room with the door."

"I'm guessing that's where you found the purple book?" Kwang Soo asks.

The black haired student nodded her head. "And then when I touched it everything around me spun. And then I woke up here."

Kwang Soo remained silent after that. When Mi Young looked up at him she realized the other party was looking at her as if he was studying her. The black haired girl suddenly felt conscious with her body as she shifted her legs together to hide her exposed skin.

The senior rolled his eyes at her, "I wasn't looking at your body. Anyway, I think I knew what happened to you."

"What?" The black haired girl asks, suddenly curious.

"I think it has something to do with your tattoo."

"Tattoo?" And that's when Mi Young remembered the mark she shared with Se Heon. When she looked at her mark she realized that it was reddish, as if it was burning.

"I think that tattoo of yours was what helped your consciousness come back. Since our powers are suppressed because of these iron bars, it found another way to utilize your mana. Your shared soul with your caranam also leads you to discover your hidden abilities as well."

"Hidden abilities?" Mi Young asks. Could it be true? Does she really have hidden abilities that she doesn't know of?

"That purple book you bought earlier isn't just a normal book. I think it's a magic item. A rare type as well." Kwang Soo ways with pure conviction.

"How can you be so sure? And why do you know about me having a caranam? I'm sure as hell didn't mention anything about it to you." The young girl says while she looks at Kwang Soo with suspicious eyes. "Are you secretly stalking me?"

Kwang Soo rolled his eyes at the girl once more. "It doesn't matter how I knew. The important thing is at least we now have something that can help us escape these cells."

Mi Young threw an accusing finger at the other party. "So you admit you were really stalking me before!"

"Seriously? Are we going to talk about that now?" Kwang Soo asks with disbelief.

"Of course! I just realized that a senior was stalking me without my knowledge—"

"Oh my god." Kwang Soo said while he covered his face with both his hands. And then he adds, "This isn't going anywhere."

When she sees the senior standing up, as if he had somewhere else to go beside the opposite site of their shared cell, Mi Young finally stopped tormenting her senior. "I was just kidding. Come back here, idiot!"

"Call me idiot once more and I'll beat you to death."

"Oooh the stalker is threatening me. So scary." The black haired girl teases. This made the other party roll his eyes at her once more.

"You're never going to let that die are you?" Kwang Soo asks with a blank look.

Mi Young smiled innocently at him. "Nope. Never."

Kwang Soo looked like he was ready to explode any second now. So in order to stop that from happening, Mi Young questions, "Anyway, what were you trying to say earlier? About my hidden abilities and how it can help us escape?"

The senior gave her a once over before he sighs and says, "If that purple book is really what I believe it is then it's one of those magic items that aren't affected easily by magical barriers."

"Magical barriers?"

Kwang Soo points at the iron bars around them. "These bars are magical barriers, which means that mana power and mana energy cannot flow inside them. They are used by Mages who want to suppress some other Mages' power. Just like those handcuffs they put on us earlier. Magical barriers can only be made by high ranked Mages, so I'm guessing that maybe the High Lords were the ones who casted this spell on these items."

"But why is my book not affected by it?" Mi Young questions, looking at the small book on her neck. She wondered if it was the real deal or if it really just a miniature of her purple book.

"As I have said earlier, your purple book is a magical item that is not affected by these barriers. Which only means one thing." Kwang Soo says while looking at Mi Young with serious eyes.

"What?" The black haired girl asks in a tiny voice.

"You're lucky to be able to find that book." Kwang Soo says. "That book may be the thing we are waiting for for us to be able to escape this prison."

"Okay we could do that, except I don't know how to use this. I mean, we're not even sure if this is really my purple book. If it is, then why did it become so small? I can't even read the pages anymore." Mi Young says with a pout.

"I mean, you could tell it to grow bigger?" Kwang Soo asks.

"How?" Mi Young asks. She looks at the pendant and says, "Get bigger."

Nothing happened.

"You're not genuine enough. Say it with more feelings." Kwang Soo instructs.

"Get bigger please." Mi Young pleads while still looking at the pendant in her neck.

Still, nothing happened.

"How did you even manage to make it smaller then?"

"I don't know. It was just there when I woke up." Mi Young says while letting out a huge disappointed sigh. "Maybe it's not really helpful?"

Kwang Soo was about to say something to tell the girl to not lose hope when another voice suddenly interrupts them.

"You're doing it wrong."

The two students look frantically everywhere to see whose voice it was. They thought it was a soldier but no one else was inside the cell except for them and the other man on the cell beside them.

"Did he just…" Mi Young questions but she is cut off when the man talks again.

"It's not that she wasn't being sincere. That necklace doesn't need some crazy ass words for it to magically obey you, what it needs is blood." The man says while eyeing the necklace hanging around the black haired girl's neck.

When the man stands up, that's when Mi Young realized that his other foot was missing and it's replaced with a shadow like black mist that serves as his foot.