The Hidden Academy Read online

  Dragon Seeker 1

  The Hidden Academy

  DB King

  Copyright © 2022 by DB King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

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  Contents

  Series by DB King

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Elemental Mastery 1: Prologue

  Elemental Mastery 1: Chapter 1

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  Free progression Fantasy Novel!

  About the Author

  Series by DB King

  Apocalypse Knights

  Dragon Magus

  Dragon Seeker

  Dungeon of Evolution

  Kensei

  The Last Magus

  Mage’s Path

  Shinobi Rising

  The Last Magus

  War Wizard

  Chapter 1

  It was dark and smelled of sulfur, corpses and metal.

  Jaden lay on the hard ground, feeling its warmth through his thin, threadbare clothing. He sat up and looked around, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness and trying to understand where he was.

  Last he remembered, he was in the sewers of Lessertown, a town of the Malabar Empire and place of his birth. Sleeping in the same room had been Peter the Pickpocket, the most charming nine-year old in the neighborhood and the most adroit pickpocket that Jaden had ever met. But now, Jaden was alone and not in the place where he’d laid down to sleep.

  Slowly the surroundings resolved themselves for him, and he realized that he was in a cave. There were stalactites and stalagmites and stacks of… bones.

  He jumped to his feet, his heart pounding. He didn’t care what kind of bones they were, anything that ate enough animals to leave large heaps of bones lying around, wasn’t the kind of creature that he wanted to meet. He’d heard of giant sewer rats that ate fully grown men in one gulp, but he was sure that was just a myth amongst the urchins and no one he knew had ever seen one.

  Didn’t matter; all he knew was he needed to leave.

  Moving as quickly as he could, without knocking over one of the bone piles, Jaden made his way through the small cavern until he saw a soft glow up ahead. He headed toward it, feeling relief that the surface was so close and anxious to get out of wherever it was that he’d ended up.

  While the rats were just a story, or so he thought, “urchin predators” were not; men who wandered the sewers of Lessertown looking for homeless orphans to rob. He had more than a few friends who’d been knocked out and dragged out of the town by the predators who forced their victim to show them where they kept their stash of stolen goods, safe from the eyes of town guards.

  Jaden passed through the cave exit, only to find himself in an even larger cavern with a capacious ceiling and columns of stone. It was so large that the other side disappeared into the far-off darkness. That was impressive enough but what really caught Jaden’s eye was the gold. The light that had reflected into the cavern where he’d awoken wasn’t from the sun. It was from a river of lava, the light of its glow reflecting off more gold coins than Jaden knew existed in the whole world. The floor of the cave was completely covered, and as he stepped into the room, mouth hanging open in awe, he sank up to his knees in the jingling, glittering things.

  Picking up one of the coins, he examined it. It was stamped on one side with a torch and on the other with some kind of intricate circular design, like a serpent eating its own tail. It had a square hole punched through the center.

  It was like no coin that Jaden had ever seen.

  He brought the coin up to his mouth and bit it, his teeth leaving deep indents in the soft metal. It was definitely gold. Not that he was an expert but he’d seen a coin or two in the market when he was sweeping up in one of the quality armorers. The merchant had bit into one and told Jaden that was how to tell if it was gold or not and then showed him the teeth marks. At the time, it seemed a little disgusting to Jaden, all the anonymous people putting the coin into their mouths without even washing it first. He didn’t think it was disgusting now.

  I’m rich, he thought. By Kalamin’s whiskers, I’m rich!

  He picked up a handful of the coins and began stuffing them in his pockets, only sorry that his shabby clothes didn’t have more and deeper ones. He planned how he would mark his way back to Lessertown, round up all the urchins, and bring them back. They would all be free of the fetid, moldy, rat-infested sewers. All the nasty people and town guards who threw rocks at them would be sorry. They’d be serving them mint tea and washing their feet before the week was through.

  From somewhere nearby there came a soft jangle of coins.

  Jaden stopped what he was doing and looked up. Was there another person in the caves with him? There was certainly more than enough gold in the cave for him and someone else. There was enough gold for an entire town to live in luxury.

  The jangle grew louder.

  Nearby, a pile of gold avalanched toward the river of lava that ran through the middle of the cavern. Several coins rolled on top of the slow-moving flow and were carried away, bursting into flame from the great heat.

  “Is someone there?” Jaden asked, glancing around.

  The jangling became the sound of a pounding rainfall of metal as the entire middle of the room moved. Coins streamed in every direction as a large mound lifted up, rising higher and higher, coins pouring off it, dozens more landing in the lava.

  As the mound rose and coins fell away, the form of a creature took shape.

  Jaden’s eyes went wide.

  It was massive, the size of the Malabar Palace in the capital. Its head alone was as big as a house with sleek, golden eyes with slits for pupils and a long snout filled with razor-sharp teeth. As it revealed itself, more and more, Jaden could now see that the creature had wings like those of a bat and was covered in golden scales.

  It was a dragon!

  Jaden stood, frozen to the spot, his eyes wide as saucers, trying to decide if he should run or not make a move. He’d heard that some animals were drawn to movement while others were drawn to stillness.

  What attracted the attention of dragons? He had no idea. There hadn’t been dragons in over a thousand years, if ever.

  It didn’t matter, as the dragon had now turned its head toward Jaden and narrowed its eyes, smoke trickling out of its nostrils and open mouth.

  “Those are not for you!” the dragon boomed.

  The dragon inhaled and then blew out a column of flame that was blue and white, with orange on the edges. Jaden felt its heat as it rolled across the cavern toward him. Then, the flame reached him, wrapping around him, consuming him.

  Chapter 2

  Jaden called out and sat up. It was dark and smelled of mold and sweat and human excrement. He was back in Lessertown’s sewers. It had been a dream.

  “Of course, it was a dream,” he said out loud.

  Piles of gold and a massive dragon? What else would it be, he thought in his head.

  “Dreaming that you got nicked by the coppers?” Peter the Pickpocket said from beside Jaden.

  Jaden looked over and saw that little Peter’s eyes were still closed but he was obviously awake.

  “Because that’s what I dreamt,” Peter continued, eyes still closed.

  “That’s because you’re a crook.”

  “Better ‘n working.” Peter shrugged.

  Jaden stood up, careful not to smash his head on the low ceiling. There was a time when he could stand fully upright and run through the tunnels without concern for headroom, but that was years ago. Now he was a young man and these sewers weren’t built for men to live in. They weren’t built for children to live in either, b
ut they certainly fit them better. Nobody wanted to live in this fetid place but while Lessertown looked grand and shiny, it had no shortage of children who lived on the streets, their parents in jail or worse. The sewer was at least a warm place to sleep since it was used to transport hot water to heat buildings in the entire district.

  Jaden snatched his shirt off one of the heating pipes, where he’d left it to dry after washing it in a nearby fountain. He slipped it over his head and began looking for his shoes.

  “Stealing is work, Peter,” he replied to the little crook. “But if I do a bad job, they don’t pay me. If you do a bad job, they’ll cut off your right hand and toss you in the Fortress.”

  “Whatever you say, Jaden,” Peter replied, turning over and going back to sleep.

  It occurred to Jaden that at least the thieves amongst the urchins, which was everyone except for him, got to sleep in for the morning. He had to get up with the sun.

  He found his shoes where they had ended up in a puddle of standing water from a leak in the pipe. Slipping them on, he winced at their wetness against his feet. At least it was warm water, for the moment.

  Jaden made his way through the main sewer pipe, waving greetings to the few others who were awake, either because they’d gotten up early or because they hadn’t yet gone to sleep. They sat around fires, roasting sewer rats and stolen potatoes, the older ones passing around bottles of fermented fruit juice made from a mix of whatever fruit could be had in the garbage bins on the edge of the market. He finally arrived at a ladder that rose up to the surface. Someone had put a sign on the wall, a metal plate with words gouged into the rusty surface.

  “Cloz a door affen ya leef!”

  He shook his head at the terrible spelling and told himself that he would have to teach these children to read and write. Some of them had been in the sewers since they were five or six, while Jaden had at least had the advantage of schooling until the age of twelve, when he was forced to fend for himself.

  After climbing the ladder, Jaden reached the metal cover and carefully lifted it up, checking to make sure no one was nearby to see him exiting the sewers. Then he climbed out and pushed the metal disk back into place with a soft clang. He brushed himself off and walked out of the alleyway and into the streets of Lessertown. While it was still sleep time for his underworld friends, most of the rest of the town was up and preparing for the day, as nighttime was already turning to dawn.

  It was chilly outside, and Jaden could see his breath as he passed by the monumental buildings and noble statues of Immortals that typified the cities within the Empire. The warm water that soaked his shoes was quickly turning cold, and he knew that his feet would soon start to hurt.

  Jaden decided that his first target for the offer of work would be in the blacksmith section of the Market. He could dry his shoes while he helped them to get their fires started. Jaden’s father had been a blacksmith and had shown him how to properly start a fire and stoke it to full heat quickly. But for now, he would just have to suffer.

  He turned the corner and saw the entrance to the Market up ahead. There were lines of vendors, pulling their carts toward their allotted stalls, anxious to get set up. Most of them had hunched backs from dragging their wares back and forth every day. It simply wasn’t safe to leave one’s goods unguarded overnight in the Market, unless you could afford private soldiers to guard it, and most couldn’t. The wealthier merchants paid better, and Jaden would target them for day labor later in the day, when they arrived. But first thing in the morning, his best bet for at least a breakfast, was to help the poorer merchants drag their materials, unload and set-up for the day.

  Up ahead, Jaden saw an elderly woman sitting next to her large, covered cart on the cobblestones. She looked tired. Her eyes were red, perhaps from crying. The reason for her current state was clear enough—the wheel had fallen off her cart, which was tilted at a precarious angle.

  Jaden knew the woman from around the Market but had never worked for her before and, in fact, she had once chased him off with a broom when he offered his services. She wasn’t known as the friendliest woman, and Jaden had heard other vendors call her a witch more than once, making the sign of the evil eye, in case she were spying magically on their gossiping about her.

  Jaden considered ignoring her and finding one of his regular clients, who were always happy for his services in return for a toasted bun with an old tomato pureed on top.

  But she looked so sad that Jaden couldn’t in good conscience ignore her and leave her sitting there. Certainly no one else was stopping to help her and those who passed close by turned their heads to pretend that they hadn’t seen her.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” Jaden said as he approached. “You seem to be having some difficulty. Can I help at all?”

  “I don’t got no money, go away!” she replied and turned her back on him.

  Jaden sighed. Some people just didn’t know how to accept a helping hand.

  “No charge, ma’am. Your cart just looks…”

  “Busted. It’s busted. Stupid, piece of junk. My husband used to fix it, but he went and died in the Fortress and now it’s just me,” she said and held up her gnarled and knobby hands. “Got the ‘thritis and can’t fix nothing with them.”

  Jaden smiled. “Why don’t I lift the cart and slip that wheel back on. It’ll be good as new.”

  “Bah, you can’t lift that. You’re a scrawny, little, sewer rat, you are.”

  Jaden ignored her and turned to a nearby merchant whom he recognized. “Mr. Shafteston, could you lend me a mallet for a few moments?”

  Shafteston, a bulky man with a red nose and cheeks, looked miserable that Jaden had pulled him into any affair with that woman. Nonetheless, he dug a large, wooden mallet out of his cart and walked over to Jaden, holding it out.

  “Actually,” Jaden said, “I’m going to lift the cart and put the wheel on then you hammer the pin back in place.”

  Shafteston laughed at the idea. “You can’t lift that heavy…”

  Jaden had already grabbed the axle and lifted it into the air with one hand. With the other, he grabbed the wooden wheel that lay on its side in the gutter and pushed it into place.

  “The pin’s right there,” he said, no strain in his voice, and pointed to a wooden wedge lying in the street.

  Eyes wide, Shafteston picked up the axle pin, put it over the hole in the axle, and hammered it into place.

  “By Malabar’s fame, how did you do that?” the woman asked, now standing on her feet.

  Jaden shrugged. “With my right hand,” he replied. “It was as light as though it were empty.”

  The old woman pulled the cloth off her cart. It wasn’t empty but quite the opposite. It was filled to the brim with stacks of stamped copper plates and bowls.

  “This cart weighs so much I have to pay the brats next door to give it a shove in the morning to get me started,” she said. “And if I’m so unlucky that I have to stop on my journey, I have to pay someone else to get me going again.”

  Jaden shrugged and looked to Shafteston, who was already rushing back to his cart to extricate himself from having to talk to the grumpy, old woman.

  Maybe you’re just old, Jaden thought but kept it to himself.

  “Perhaps the Immortal Council has smiled on me this morning and granted me strength,” he joked.

  The old woman stepped forward and grabbed Jaden by the hair.

  “Hey!”

  She bent him over and searched his scalp, then his neck. Then she looked in his eyes, pulling them up and down to see more of the whites. She twisted his ears and his nose and even looked down the back of his pants. Finally, she grabbed both his hands and pulled his arms out in front of him, examining both sides of them. Jaden let her go about her strange business, thinking that it would make it go quicker if he didn’t protest whatever it was that she was doing.

  “There!” she announced and pointed at Jaden’s wrist. “I knew it.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Jaden looked down to where she pointed. On his wrist where it met his forearm was an area the size of a Malabari silver bar, rectangular in shape. It shimmered slightly in the light so that it might have been paint or perhaps copper dust that had rubbed off on him.