Chapter 10: Giant Wolf, World Serpent and the Goddess of Death

It took a while for that woman to come back to her senses and she blushed slightly before saying: “Please forgive my embarrassing display earlier. I’ve never seen someone with perfect aptitude for all elements like this.”

Edward nodded while strengthening his back and said: “No problem. No problem.”. His face the definition of humility but on the inside he was feeling quite smug.

The woman smiled at his attempt to hide his joy and said: “How much do you know about magicians?”

“Erm..” Edward scratched his head in embarrassment and said: “Not that much?”

The woman chuckled while covering her mouth gracefully with one hand.

“Doesn’t matter, you’ll have time to learn. Let me first show you what that tablet will show for me so you can understand my reaction from earlier.”

She then proceeded to place her other hand on the tablet.

<Name: Circe Winterhope>
<Race: Human>
<Age: 36>
<Level 42>
<Mana aptitude: 8>
<Mana type: Ice>
<Basic magic aptitude: 8>
<Air aptitude: 5>
<Water aptitude: 9>
<Earth aptitude: 5>
<Fire aptitude: 1>
<Chaos aptitude: ->
<Mixed magic, Ice, aptitude: 10>
<Intermediate magic aptitude: 6>
<Advanced magic aptitude: 4>
<Potential: A+>

Edward took a look at it and understood that there was indeed a huge difference, but the main point troubling him was how she looked like she was not a day older than 20 while actually being older than 40. Of course he knew better than to ask a woman about her age so he kept mum about it.

Circe, seeing that he was not saying anything, started explaining each line with patience.

“Mana aptitude means the speed at which your total amount of mana increases. The basic, intermediate and advanced magic aptitude represents how easy or difficult it would be for you to learn magic of those ranks, with ten being the easiest while 1 the hardest.”

Edward nodded as he listened up to here and Circe continued.

“The other aptitudes, air, water, fire, earth and chaos represents the amount of mana you have to use to cast spells of that element. Let’s say you want to use a fire spell that costs a certain amount of mana. If your aptitude is 5 the costs stays the same. If your aptitude is 10 your mana cost will be halved and if it’s 1, your mana cost will double. You might notice that my chaos aptitude is 0. That means I am unable to use any kind of magic from that element. You also have your potential, which is exactly what it sounds like.”

“I understand. Thank you.” Replied Edward, really grateful that she took the time to explain everything.

“My pleasure.” Replied Circe with a nod, “Your potential is definitely amazing, but you are still weak so I suggest you don’t brag about it to anyone. Usually, magicians tend to keep their stats a secret from everyone else besides their mentors or disciples.” She then gave Edward a frosty smile before saying: “Now that you’ve seen my status, you have two options. You either join the guild as my apprentice or things will turn awkward really fast.”

‘Oh shit, it was a trap all along.’ Said Edward in his head as he felt the atmosphere around the room turning colder by the second. ‘Weren’t you the one who showed it to me? It’s not like I peeked or something….’

“What do you say Edward, do you accept becoming my apprentice?” asked Circle with the same cold smile on her face, akin to that of hunter that just cornered his prey.

Edward nodded with a smile but he kept cursing Circle for catching him into a trap and himself for trusting her pretty face so easily.

The cold atmosphere dissipated with Edward’s nod and Circle stood up and walked to the desk once more. Picking up a small knife and another tablet, he brought them to the table, placed them in front of Edward and said: “This is a ritual tablet. It’s used in settling soul contracts between magicians.”

As her words ended, she made a small cut on her finger before allowing a drop of blood to fall on the tablet and saying in a serious tone: “I, Circle Winterhope, swear on the mother tree Yggdrasil to take Edward Black as my disciple and teach him according to the old traditions. His secrets are my secrets, a bond of trust akin to that of the tree and it’s roots.”

Half of the tablet glowed bright red and Circle extended the knife to Edward.

“Say: ‘I, Edward Black, swear on the mother tree Yggdrasil to take Circle Winterhope as my master and learn from her teachings according to the old traditions. Her secrets are my secrets, a bond of trust akin to that of the tree and it’s roots’. That is the standard oath when setting a disciple, master soul contract. ”

Edward nodded and made a small cut on his finger as well before dropping a drop of blood on the other side of the tablet and repeated the words Circe asked him to.

As his words ended, the tablet turned bright red before dissipating into pure red light and entering both of their bodies. A mark in the shape of a book appeared on the back of one of their hands.

‘Great, another fucking mark.’ Thought Edward as he looked at the book sign on his hand and sighed in defeat.

Circe chuckled at his miserable expression and said: “Don’t worry. I didn’t really take advantage of you. To join the magician guild you would have had to fall into a master disciple pact anyway. I just didn’t want to let another one of my fellow magicians to steal a disciple with such a high potential from me.”

Edward nodded, not really knowing if he could trust her or not, but what was done was done. Circe stood back up and went to the desk to pick up a small token and a book. Handing that token and book to Edward, she said: “This book contains all the basic classes you can pick as a member of the magician guild. With your potential, you can pick any class, but since you are my apprentice, I would suggest picking the Water Mage class. Once you decide on your class, take this token and go with it to the Registration Hall to officially register you class.”

Edward nodded and took the token and the book.

“Will I be able to learn other kinds of magic other than water spells if I choose the Water Mage class?”

Circe pondered for a moment before saying: “You can, but I would recommend you focus on one element at a time. Even if your aptitude is 10 in all ranks, learning magic is not easy and quite time consuming. If you really want, I can try teaching you air magic in parallel since it’s one of my subclasses and it goes well with water magic. After you register officially, come back here and we’ll do the contract ceremony.”

“Contract ceremony?” asked Edward, not really understanding what other contract they had to make.

“Oh, I forgot you didn’t really know anything about magic before today. To use magic, you will need to form a contract with a spirit. The spirit will be the one to change the affinity of your mana which in turn will allow you to cast spells of that element. Don’t worry, the process is quite straightforward. Now go and don’t forget to take care of everything I mentioned before coming back here tomorrow at first light. Don’t be late.”

Edward nodded and stood up. Circe then escorted him out of the tower and Edward walked out the guild’s gate. Seeing that the guards were still not back, he opened the gate by himself and proceeded towards the main gate of the city. It was already late and he wanted to go to sleep so that he could get back control of his body early in the morning of the next day and not be late to the magician guild.

Once he exited the city gates, he headed into the forest and sat down with his back resting against a tree as he patted Minx, who was laying next to him, on her head.

“I didn’t even have the chance to visit the pleasure district.. Fenrir, what do you think of my new ‘master’?”

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[Hehe.. You must admit that she’s quite smart and quite good looking, but the contract ceremony might prove to be a problem.]

“Huh? Why?”

[Well, to make a contract with a spirit means summoning that spirit from it’s world and housing it inside your soul. Now you understand how that might prove a problem?]

“You mean that spirit will have to share my soul with you?”

[Mhmm. Any normal spirit will run with it’s tail between it’s legs as soon as he felt me residing inside your soul.]

“Doesn’t that mean I won’t be able to learn magic at all?” said Edward with a depressed look.”

[No. There’s still a chance, a higher spirit. Let’s just hope they are still alive.. Sigh]

“Them? You know any higher spirit?”

[I did, but after Odin’s death, Vidar went mad and brought his wrath down on each of the nine words and every single being that took part in Ragnarök. The four elementals or higher spirits were on our side but now I don’t know if they even survived Vidar’s wrath...]

“I guess we can only try and see.” Said Edward as he picked up the book he received from Circe <Magician Classes> and started reading through it.

As the night started to settle over the land and he couldn’t see the text anymore, Edward got completely naked, hid his belongings behind the tree and laid down with his head resting on Minx’s soft fur.

Waking up inside his mind, he was surprised to discover there was now a small root growing in there.

“Fenrir, what the hell is that thing and what’s it doing here? Are you planting trees in my soul without telling me about it?”

Fenrir gave him a weird look and said matter-of-factly: “It’s a small root from the mother tree, Yggdrasil. When you made your oath with that girl, the root appeared inside your soul as a sign of your contract, so that’s why you can see it here. Pay it no mind, I can devour it and break the contract anytime I want.”

“Couldn’t you tell me that before?”

“I didn’t think it was important. Now listen, it’s time I tell you a few things about the four elementals before the tomorrow ceremony.”

Edward nodded and started listened carefully. The amount of knowledge he had was nothing compared to that of Fenrir.

“At the start of time, there was only the tree Yggdrasil, slowly growing into empty space. As time passed, worlds started appearing on it’s branches and in the ancient time, a lot of time before Ragnarök, there were a total of nine words: Asgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Nidavellir, Midgard (Earth), Jotunheim, Svartalfheim, Niffleheim and Muspelheim. The world tree, Yggdrasil, also manifested four higher spirits of nature, which in turn created other lower spirits and send them to each of the nine words. After Ragnarok, the last four of the worlds were completely destroyed, Midgard or Earth, however you want to call it, lost it’s connection to Yggdrasil and thus it’s mana and the first four also suffered a lot as well, but that’s a story for another time.”

“The four higher spirits were known as the four elementals by the residents of Asgard, as each one of them was the representation of one of the base elements and they were: Salamander: the high spirit representing fire, Undines: representing water, Sylphs: representing air and Gnomes: representing earth.”

“After Ragnarök ended with Odin’s death, I was the first one to fall victim to Vidar’s curse, thus I have no idea what happened with the others. We can only hope they are still alive.”

Edward listened carefully to her words, but suddenly remembered something and he asked: “If there are only four spirits, what about the chaos element?”

Fenrir stayed quiet for a moment before saying: “Do you know of my origin?”

Edward shook his head. “I know a few things but not that much.”

“Well, the legends are not that accurate anyway. My father knew that killing Odin was impossible using magic born from inside the world tree, so he ventured outside the realm of Yggdrasil in search of a way to kill the God of all the other Gods. After traveling through the unending chaos and not finding a way to do it, he got the crazy idea of gathering the chaos itself inside his body and use it to attack Odin.”

“His idea was not a wise one since the chaos was not something even a God like him could control. The chaos poisoned his divine body and soul and he barely managed to make it back to the realm of Yggdrasil. He arrived into the land of the frost giants Jotunheim, but couldn’t use most of his powers anymore, being no different than a normal human, so he couldn’t return to Asgard. There, he fell in love with Angerbrode, my mother. The two of them lived a normal life up until they had their first child, me.”

“It was completely unexpected for the union of a God and a giantess to result in the birth of a wolf, but seeing that some of his powers returned, Loki finally understood what happened. I was born out of the chaos energy he absorbed inside his body. They had two more children: Jormungand, the giant serpent and Hel, the closest of their children that resembled a human, the problem being that she was half dead half alive. After Hel was born, the poison was finally gone from his body and he could use his powers once more and prepared for the war at the end, also known by you as Ragnarök.”

There was a trace of sadness as Fenrir spoke about her father, brother and sister.

“Your aptitude towards chaos magic comes from the fact that I, a being born out of chaos, reside inside your soul.”

Edward nodded in understanding and asked: “And how does chaos magic work?”

“It’s difficult to explain, but you can think of chaos magic as everything magic. Chaos was the beginning of everything, and it’s the primal energy that lead to the formation of the realm. Sadly, it comes as second nature to me and I don’t know how to teach you to use it..”

“It’s all right. I’m happy just being able to use any magic, no matter the element. I really hope I can form a contract with one of the higher spirits. By the way, what’s the wolf doing?”

“The usual. Hunting in the mountain behind the city.”

The two of them spend the entire night chatting about Fenrir’s past and it was soon time for Edward to return to the real world.

 

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