Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Lurking potential

Two years passed and summer arrived. The guild gained quite a bit of popularity through its few years of operation. The afternoon guild hall was full of rowdy adventurers looking for quests, or simply attempting to obtain some cheap food. Suddenly, Zycor flew through the guild hall doors, hitting the ground, and continued to tumble back a bit further. When he finally stopped and staggered to his feet, he was covered in dirt, cuts, bruises, and blood had begun to bleed. Aislin burst through the doors and shouted, “Hey Zy! Who said you could slack off! Get back out here!” 

She noticed the damage her last strike had done to him and, after collecting herself, said, “Actually, I think we should call it here today.” 

“I’m… fine.” Zycor grunted, holding his left arm.

“No, you are not.” Adria said as she came out of her office and began to descend the stairs. 

“Honestly,” she continued, “You really need to learn your limits before you get injured in a more permanent way.”

She grabbed Zycor and dragged him to the back room, but paused and said, “Aislin, will you please accompany us.” 

Aislin, knowing she was about to be chewed out, reluctantly followed. As Adria was patching Zycor up she asked, “So, what happened to cause all of these injuries?” 

“Well,” Aislin began, “He said he wanted me to come at him a bit harder.” 

“And?” Adria said, encouraging Aisling to continue. 

Aislin, a bit quieter, looked away and replied, “And, I may have gone a bit overboard with the amount of force I used.” 

Adria sighed, “I think that may be a bit of an understatement.”

After his wounds were tended to, Adria told Zycor, “Well, it’s time to start your lessons.” 

Confused, Zycor asked, “What lessons?” 

“You are ten now, and as such it’s time to teach you about mana, magic, and spells,” Adria replied. 

Hearing this, Zycor began to, internally, get excited. He had only seen magic used by others before, but now it was his turn to learn to use it. Zycor was especially excited to be able to use his weapons by himself. This would also put him another step closer to exacting his vengeance.  Adria brought Zycor outside, and began her explanation. “Before we start,” Adria started, “I must tell you that if you don’t follow my instructions and listen to me, you could end up dying.” Zycor nodded, and Adria continued.

“Before magic, there is mana. Without mana, there is no way to cast spells or use magic. Inside all living things there exists something called a Soul Shard. There are those that are born without one, but that occurs so rarely, it is irrelevant. It is located next to the heart, and grows along with your other organs, and stops growing around fourteen years old. The Soul Shard is what generates and stores mana in the body. It takes in the ambient natural mana and converts it into mana we can use.” 

Extending her right, upper hand, palm up, she generated a small flame, “This is magic, manipulating the elements. Everyone can use a little bit of the natural elements of fire, water, earth, wind, and electricity. However, depending on the experiences you have between your birth and age ten, an individual's body creates two affinities, never opposite of each other, with them being a major and minor affinity. A person can become proficient in other forms of magic, but the magic they have an affinity with is what they are mentally and physically best with on a biological level. It is during the creation of a person's affinities that new elements outside of the normal natural elements are born.” 

When she noticed Zycor was beginning to lose interest, as a ten year old would, Adria decided to show off a bit. Adria, taking a deep breath, claps all four of her hands together. All of a sudden an immense pressure began emanating around her, and slowly separating her hands. In the space between her upper hands an intense fire was roaring and in her lower hands, there lightning crackling between them, chained to either hand. “Now this,” Adria began, “Is magic. Pure elements derived from one's own mana.”

Zycor was instantly re-invested when he saw her display. “Alright,” She resumed, “Now that you have a basic understanding of mana and magic, it’s time to get you started.” 

Adria headed inside for a brief moment and returned with an item. The item was a small, clear, spherical object. “Put your hand on the sphere please,” Adria asked. 

Zycor complied and when he did, the sphere pierced Zycors fingertips and absorbed the blood that came out. The sphere began pulsing with different colors, then turned gray. Although Adria was a bit puzzled at the color of the sphere, she proceeded by placing the orb on top of some parchment. The sphere’s color began to drain away as text appeared on the parchment. When the sphere returned to being fully clear, Adria removed the sphere from the parchment and began to read what was on the parchment. Zycor, who was a bit curious about why he had to be injured, asked, “Hey, mama Adria, what happened?” 

Adria, looking up from the parchment, replied, “That sphere I had was a magic item that takes in a person's blood and stores their information. This information is stuff like height, weight, magic affinities, and resistances.” 

Adria returned to reading, and arrived at the magic affinity section. She saw his minor affinity was lighting, but his major affinity was blank. Adria found this confusing, the only reason it would be left blank was because his major affinity was an element that the magic item did not have in it, or it was broken. Zycor, noticing the look of confusion on her face, asks, “Is everything ok? You look troubled by something.” 

Adria responded, “Yes, everything is fine sweety. We are just going to go on a little trip to the official Affinity Appraisal Hall.” She stood up and told Zycor to come with her. 

When the pair arrived at the Appraisal Hall, they were greeted with a large building that looked like a medieval cathedral. When they entered the building they were in a small room, the wall painted white with gold trim, and they had all of the attributes in a circle on the wall, opposite to their opposite elements. Fire across from water, lightning across from earth, and the wind element was in the middle. As they were waiting for someone to enter and assist them, Zycor asked Adria, “Mama Adria, why is the wind element in the middle of the circle?” 

As Adria looked at the diagram, she looked back to Zycor, and responded, “That is because the wind attribute is something that allows those with it to use all types of magic to the same level, regardless of affinities. If someone does have a major or minor affinity to the wind attribute, it means that all other magics they can use have their potential amplified. You can think of it as those with wind affinities being more allrounders, not specializing in any one element.” 

After Adria finished her explanation, a lady who wore a robe matching the walls of the building walked in. “Greetings,” She began, “I would assume you are here to have your affinities checked, yes?” 

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Adria, with her public smile and tone, responded, “Not me, just my boy here.” 

The lady nodded and said, “Right this way please.” 

The two followed her through the doors and entered a large room. There was a short hallway before opening up into a large circular room. The room's ceiling was very tall and hovering in the space between the ground and the ceiling was a massive rainbow crystal that changed color constantly. “Welcome!” A man exclaimed as he entered the room, “I hope you are doing well, and I thank you for coming to us for your child's first magic affinity appraisal.” 

The man's robe was an inverse color to everyone else's, A gold robe with white trim and the magic affinity circle on the left chest area of the robe. He was accompanied by five other members, all of whom were wearing the normal white and gold trimmed robe. Adria, wanting to get straight to the point, said, “We are here today because I used my own personal magic affinity appraisal item, but when reviewing the results, his major affinity was left blank. I wanted to know if it was because my item was broken or if he had an affinity for light or dark magic.” 

The man's eyes widened, “My, now that is curious! If he does indeed have an affinity for light or dark magic that would make him one of twenty confirmed individuals to have one of those elements alive today!” The man motioned toward the crystal, “If you would be so kind as to touch the crystal just as you did with the item before young man.” 

Zycor reached out and touched the crystal. With a familiar pricking sensation, Zycor pulled away as the crystal began to rapidly fluctuate between colors before turning gray. The whole room was baffled and began whispering about the color. Adria asked the man, “What is everyone whispering about?” 

In response, the man said, “We have never seen a gray color before. Normally the crystal will change colors rapidly, before becoming stagnant on a single color which is the major affinity the individual has. The color gray would mean that his major affinity,” the man paused briefly, looked at the crystal, then finished, “Is not an element inside the crystal.”

When the color of the crystal drained and the parchment connected to it filled with writing, the man hurried over and picked up the parchment. As he read, his eyes widened yet again, and he slowly lowered the parchment and looked at Adria. With a confused yet fascinated tone, he said, “Well, it seems that the young lad there does, in fact, have a major affinity that we have not seen before.” 

After a moment of silence, the man, whose expression has changed into fascination, continued, “In order for something like this to happen, he would have had to experience something to trigger a feeling that would trump the most common emotions a person has. A person's magic affinity develops between birth and age ten. During that time one's affinity is shaped by what emotion or feeling they have that trumps all others. 

If someone is quick to anger and tends to be more violent than average, we tend to see them develop a fire affinity. For electricity it would be the want to protect what is important to the individual. This emotion tends to trump others when the individual has something happen to them during their development stage and they develop a need to overcome something. One seeking the feeling of calmness and creativity will develop a water affinity. Someone that is persistent and always stands resolute with their decisions and views develop an earth affinity. The wind affinity comes about when a person does not have one emotion or feeling in particular that heavily outweighs all the others. That is why those with a wind affinity tend to be rather indifferent and are able to use all elements at an equal level. 

As for the light and dark affinities, we don’t have a clear understanding of how those come about considering there have been so few wielders of it. But what we have learned from the light and dark affinities and elements is people can develop a wide variety of magic, but for some reason their emotions or feelings don’t meet the criteria to surpass the common ones often.” 

Zycor, confused about what all the commotion is about, asked Adria, “Why is everyone looking at me? Did I do something wrong?” 

Adria, reassuring him, responded, “No, you did not do anything wrong sweety! It’s just that you have a very unique gift is all!” 

Zycor nodded and said, “Ok mama Adria, I trust you.” 

Adria turned back to the man and asked, “So what should we do knowing all of that?” 

The man said, “Well, there is not much we can do honestly. As I said, you could take him to the capital and have them take a look at him, but I don’t think they will be of any more help than we were. I think the best course of action would be to take him home and let the magic develop naturally.” 

Adria thanked the man for the advice, grabbed Zycors hand, and headed back home. When they arrived back at the guild, the afternoon sun had begun to dim and give way to dusk. They were greeted by Aislin when they entered the guild hall, “Welcome back guys, how did it go?” 

“It went well, though we did not get any answers,” Adria replied. 

Zycor tugged on Aislin's sleeve and said, “Big sis Aislin, will you teach me to use my magic?” 

Surprised, she looked at Adria, who was a bit upset that Zycor had asked Aislin to help him instead of her, and said, “Uhhhh, maybe you should ask Adria, kid.” 

Zycor shook his head and said, “I can’t. Mama Adria is busy with guild stuff and I don’t want to bother her.” 

Adria wanted to deny Zycors claims, but as she realized he was right, she became a bit sad. Seeing this, Aislin chimed in, “Well, how's about this. During the weekdays when I am not busy I will help you, and during the weekends when it’s not all that busy, Adria helps you?” 

Zycor nodded his head and said, “I would like that.” 

Both Aislin and Zycor looked at Adria, waiting for her response. Adria  responded, “Of course I agree to that! I look forward to seeing how you grow between our sessions!” 

Using all of her arms, Adria hugged Zycor and Aislin. “Uhh, I do appreciate that you liked my proposal, but could you stop hugg-ugh, hugging me so tight. I can’t… breathe.” 

As Aislin looked at Zycor, he said, “You get used to it.”

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