Part one:

“I transferred your shift to the Lieutenant as you asked. I hope to see you soon in good health! 25:12”

The same scene repeatedly played in Zafer’s mind over and over again.

He witnessed in first person what is said to be the biggest fear of today's society.

Going inverse.

There was little Zafer could do, and the mere thought of killing Neimell continued to hunt him even days after the incident.

How could he even think of something like that? Was he that scared?

He recalled the scenario countless times in his head and tried to convince himself to never think of something like that again. Even reflexively.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t neglect the fact that he was lucky enough for everyone to react as fast as they did.

The S-mail Zafer wrote was directed to Knuckles, who then told Zafer to evacuate which was what he did.

Shortly after that Neimell’s brother Jean opened a portal to the grinder and helped Neimell to suppress the mutation once again.

There was no notification sound or alert when someone received an S-mail so it was very lucky that both Knuckles and Jean checked their S-mail scripts around that time.

Zafer never saw her after the incident.

Every day after training in Arena and venting his emotions on other freelancers like Yana he would return to the grinder during his shift in hopes to see her.

Sadly, that didn’t happen, and Knuckles provided no further information.

Eventually one day Simra wrote an S-mail to Zafer, saying he would come to pick him up at Razihelnor due to some faction duty.

That’s right. Zafer was currently in Razihelnor.

Due to its altitude, the capital of Temper was still covered in snow despite spring slowly settling in.

Nonetheless, that didn’t change the motion of the regular citizens.

Something else did, and it was an announced attack issued by the Nubis faction.

Normally, an announcement wouldn’t be made but this time the Nubis faction had no choice.

Since Temper had no box, all the faction’s belongings and wealth were located in Razihelnor, which was the 4th most populated city in Pashtrik.

According to the law issued by the National Security, any official and organized attacks are to be announced for the safety of the regular citizens.

The NS always stood to promote peace, but if Nubis weren’t to play by their laws, there was a threat of them becoming the enemies of the country.

This meant not only that Temper and Numen could unite with NS and annihilate all Nubian paladins, but also that the NS could sanction Nubis which would also result in their demise.

One might wonder why didn’t National Security make any effort to prevent the attack completely, but the reason would be clear after one reviewed how the government worked.

The National Security wasn’t in complete control over the laws but also had to cooperate with a senate.

The senate consisted of a handful of people, some of who are retired paladins.

Those people also had control over some key resources like the Miyalin mine or other dangerous and prohibited scripts.

This meant that even if the NS wanted to act on their own, they would face major difficulties.

There would probably be a division in members who would act under the NS commander and those who would decide to obey the senate, resulting in a war.

What’s more, even the commander of the NS didn’t have full authority over his members.

As mentioned many times before, there were only 3 people in the NS designated above Threat Level 5. Who could control them?

Those 3 were doing NS a favor, not the other way around.

Perhaps it was because they shared the same pacifist ideology the NS promoted, but there was no mean that any of them would risk their lives for the sake of the “country”.

To put it in a nutshell, the strong individuals had free will but chose to comply and assist NS in certain jobs for their reasons.

As for that, none of them cared about the conflicts between factions.

Yes, Mio and Laura belonged to the anti-paladin unit, but they acted only if civilians were assaulted.

Since all magic plants and valuables of Temper were stored within Razihelnor, and not some lonely box in the wilderness, any organized attack had to be announced in advance.

Civilians had time to prepare and evacuate during this time, and as for the paladins, as said earlier, nobody cared.

Nevertheless, the decision to construct the Gardens of the Elite within Razihelnor was intentional.

Banana did this to avoid surprise attacks, and although this decision was seen as unethical it served its purpose pretty well.

Almost every Temperan was in Razihelnor in just a few days, waiting for the attack.

In comparison, the Nubian box wasn’t located in their capital but was still waiting to be found in the vast wilderness of Pashtrik.

Once discovered, it was only a question of time when it would get raided. Just like it happened to the former Temperan box, during the reign of their previous leader.

During this time when they were awaiting the inevitable attack, any Temper paladin was allowed to enter the surface area of Gardens of the Elite.

There were dozens of market stalls outside and inside the office buildings where one could buy weapons, runes, artifacts, scripts, potions, and so on.

This increased the traffic by a lot, especially since a lot of the paladins never visited the Gardens of the Elite before.

Most of such individuals were members of the Temper province even before people started to count years on the calendar. Significantly prior Banana became the leader.

On this day specifically, there was a big crowd of paladins in the Gardens due to a meeting.

Zafer was also there.

“Hey!”, he waved at Simra.

The officer wasn’t dressed in his Miyalin armor but the aura he gave off proved that he was prepared for a battle.

Simra quickly waved back and turned for a leave.

Many considered Zafer to be Simra’s favorite, but he didn’t see it that way. The two rarely spoke even when Zafer initiated a conversation just like he did now.

This made him feel somewhat awkward and contemplate the next time if he wanted to obstruct the busy officer

The last time the two of them spoke was when Simra came to open a portal to Razihelnor for Zafer. He was, after all, one of the three Divine weapon owners in the entire Temper.

Simra asked him if he interacted with any paladin since the incident with Zlatko and Oma, to which Zafer only mentioned Lieutenant Hammerman.

He didn’t want to talk about Hok and Mint. That might question his loyalty although Zafer would never betray Temper.

Someone hit Zafer on the back.

It was Skil.

“Looking for something to buy?”

Zafer smiled forgetting what he was thinking about, “Not really”.

“Why not? Aren’t you rich now?”, Skil asked playfully.

“Honestly I didn’t even know there was all of this here. I just arrived”.

Skil frowned, “Didn’t I tell you 2 days ago there would be shops in the Gardens?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know anyone can visit”.

Skil put a hand over his own face.

“It’s alright. We still have some time before the meeting starts”

As mentioned the whole Garden was full of market stalls. As they were walking through Zafer noticed there were 2 types of stalls.

The private ones and the ones from Temper.

Private stalls were owned by some paladins where they sold their own belongings, while Temper stalls contained valuables the faction was selling.

The first stall was also the biggest one and sold Ar-3 or Artifacts derived from the 3rd Anomaly, the Alchemy.

The artifacts took various forms but most of them were spray bottles of a very low quality.

There were hundreds of them.

“What’s up with so many low-quality artifacts?”, Zafer asked.

“Those are low quality on purpose! They are used to repair walls should they be breached!”, Skil explained.

Razihelnor had only 3 walls with little to no space in between them. There were a couple of different types of walls but Zafer didn’t know any of this yet.

Nevertheless, the right assumption was that some paladins of the Temper were not going to directly engage in combat but would be constantly repairing walls.

This seemed like a disadvantage in number on the battlefield, but it was not. There are also going to be Nubians who will only be in charge of the cannons.

Those two units will cancel each other out.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Where would they get so many artifacts from though?”

As far as Zafer knew, the only way to obtain an artifact was to slaughter someone using a special rune.

This logic didn’t add up to this scenario since there were hundreds of them!

Skil’s smile got a little rigid, “Well, many people died”.

Zafer chuckled.

“Though there is also a way to have your anomaly permanently extracted without harming you”.

“Really?”

Skil nodded grabbing one artifact and examining it, “It can’t be too strong though. If the anomaly is too strong then it can’t be extracted unless you have a very strong extraction artifact”.

So, they use artifacts to make artifacts…

“Have you heard of the anomaly class? That’s like a university but they only help you improve your anomaly to a certain degree. Most of the people who go there are regular citizens who would then sell their anomaly for a good amount of money”.

Zafer never heard of it since he could not remember the time from when he used to be a regular.

His A-11 anomaly at the time was so difficult to control that each activation would result in amnesia. Skil knew this so he always explained things to Zafer.

In reality, this Anomaly Class was so popular that every child was expected to attend it.

This was another reason why there were only a handful of paladins since most children were pressured to sell their anomalies.

“I see…” Zafer lowered his head a little. He was embarrassed of not knowing this.

“Yes”, Skil continued, “Banana actually also attended that class and sold his anomaly. I think it was his primary anomaly”.

Zafer’s eyes widened, “What!? No way!”

Having no secondary anomaly was a big blow since that was a whole set of powers less, but having no primary anomaly was a disability for any paladin.

It wasn’t strange that Banana was no fighter at all. Even if it wasn’t a euclid, the secondary anomaly was twice as hard to improve.

Many people who trained every day didn’t manage to develop their primary anomaly to even 19 Verms, let alone the secondary anomaly.

Zafer couldn’t comprehend how Banana became the leader of the Temper province.

Apparently, connections and knowledge played a big role in the way of paladins.

The only impressive thing about Banana that Zafer knew about was that he graduated from the Architecture University in the Pashtrik capital.

He heard that the guy invented some type of roof for boxes.

“Stop!”, a sudden roar pierced the air.

Everyone present turned to observe.

There were two paladins, one lean and tall while the other was slightly shorter and as muscular as the Priest.

“Why are you so evil to me!?”, the tall one cried out.

“Shut up! You aren’t getting anything anymore!”

Zafer leaned to Skil, “Who is that?”

“I don’t have a clue, but that big man is an exterminator for the National Security and also a paladin of the Temper. He is a veteran. I’ve heard that he has the biggest collections of weapons and armor sets, most of which are half Divine or stronger”.

Zafer listened carefully. The two paladins were still arguing loudly and none of the two showed any sign of fear.

“Alright!”, Banana showed up behind them. He was a whole head smaller than the two paladins. He was the same height as Zafer.

Naturally, nobody paid attention to him.

“Hey!”, someone else shouted. It was the Priest.

Everyone went silent.

“The meeting will commence now”.

Zafer looked at Skil remembering what they were talking about but Skil just shrugged his shoulders. They both followed the crowd of paladins behind the office building.

Out of the blue, every thought Zafer had at that moment perished when something flashy entered his vision.

Everything else became blurry and was put out of focus. It was Ika!

“Hold on”, Zafer told Skil while dashing to Ika.

She was the one responsible for his income and he couldn’t wait to tell her how helpful her knowledge was.

Despite everyone at Knuckles grinder having an equal amount of time to cultivate the flame flowers, Zafer always had the biggest profit!

He stopped right in front of her, melting the snow he stood on.

Despite the cold weather, she wore her official Temper officer uniform.

“Ika! You look very nice in that uniform”, he greeted him, but she maintained a poker face.

“What do you want?”, she frowned.

Zafer was taken aback but held his composure, “Nothing, I just saw you and wanted to tha-“

“No!”, she closed her eyes lifting her hand in front of Zafer’s face, “I don’t want to hear anything! After everything I taught you, the way I supported you… You are a disappointment”.

Zafer closed his mouth, thinking of why Ika was so upset. What did he do?

He swiftly flipped through his memory recalling his every interaction with her.

The two of them didn’t share an S-mail so this was the first time he talks to her in several months!

He suddenly realized. How could he forget!?

Ika lowered her hand, “Don’t ever talk to me!”

Some of the bystanders heard their conversation and threw a few glances. Ika really didn’t care!

Zafer backed off a bit, “Don’t be like that! I got you a present!”

Ika’s heart twitched, “What?”

A Miyalin axe and a bar of chocolate appeared in front of her chest. The Miyalin axe was the one Zafer used and a bar of chocolate wasn’t meant for her but he was lucky to have bought it earlier.

Having money motivated Zafer to try things he never did before, and chocolates were one of the expensive luxuries not everyone could afford.

As the Miyalin axe goes, he saw a couple of affordable Miyalin axes that were quite good.

Ika was dumbstruck. Why would someone as poor as Zafer ever worry about buying her something? Was this a try of flirting?

Zafer’s smile widened as he lowered his scarf, “I could never forget your birthday!”

Ika’s facial expression froze. Her eyes went empty staring into oblivion.

She was never angry at Zafer but was only making fun, and now this?! It made her feel really bad since even she forgot about her birthday!

Since calendars only counted years and not days or months, people celebrated birthdays and other events based on the season.

Ika was born in spring but since she never left Razihelnor, she never realized that spring had already arrived in the non-mountain cities!

“Oh shit! That’s what you get for playing too much”, Ika forced a smile.

“Wow…hahaha…”, she stretched her hands to take the gift, “you are nice after all”.

As she grabbed the chocolate bar she glanced at the axe. Just by looking at it, she could tell there was no way she could even swing it.

Wasn’t Zafer aware of this? Wasn’t the same axe he had the last time they saw each other?!

“Uh… you can keep the axe though, hahaha”

Several meters behind them Zer Ox summoned his axe and jumped at the tall paladin but Nicpa tried to separate them.

Zafer didn’t even hear how it escalated to that.

He boiled from the inside. It actually worked.

He hoped Ika would reject it but offered his axe to show how much she meant to him.

The meeting was held outside under a huge gazebo that kept the floor and benches dry from the melting snow

On one side, across the entrance, was Banana, while everyone else was lined up from the entrance both left and right from him.

Those sitting closest to him were all the officers.

Zafer even spotted Wizaruth and they both waved at each other. It’s been a while since he last spoke to him.

The meeting started.

Banana first explained how the attack would probably play out and which side of the wall was most likely to be targeted.

The city of Razihelnor was sitting at the very edge of the mountain and there were only 2 sides where the attack could occur.

One of them was on the east, where a road led to the mountain foot, however, this road was too narrow to support a battle or cannons, so that only left the west side, where there was a meadow on almost the same altitude as the city itself.

Furthermore, the capital was embraced by 3 one-kilometer-high walls sitting directly one behind another in a concentric shape.

If the capital hadn’t been on the mountain, Banana probably would have built even more walls.

“In the end, I also want to talk about the evacuation protocol of regulars…”, he paused making sure that everyone heard him.

“There will be none”.

The entire gazebo went into an uproar of revolt, everyone throwing their opinions and words at him at the same time.

“Please just hear me out”, he tried to calm them down, but to no avail.

It was only when Simra stood up that everyone slowly went silent.

He was maybe pretty forgiving and nice to Zafer, but not necessarily to the others, and that was indeed justified.

As far as Zafer knew, Simra was by far the strongest and one of the oldest members of the Temper.

“Wow. Simra stood up for Banana. What are these moments?”, the tall paladin commented under his breath.

Banana took a deep breath while maintaining his nervous smiley expression.

“As I was saying, it will be extremely difficult for them to penetrate the Gardens of Elite without causing collateral damage. That is exactly what we can use to sue and get rid of them!”

As expected, Banan always preferred to use his brain more than his muscles to solve the conflict between Nubis and Temper.

Zer Ox cleared his throat, “So you are proposing to use regulars as human meat shields?”.

Banana looked away, “Well when you put it that way…”

At that very moment, all the paladins slowly stood up one after the other and left the gazebo, leaving Banana and his nervous smile all alone.

Even Ika walked away right behind the Priest!

Zafer still remained there, unable to grasp the absence of agreement and respect within his faction.

His gaze bid everyone goodbye and then slowly fell on Banana once again.

“Bleh”, Banan stuck his tongue out. A complex tattoo appeared on the right side of his face.

A Transport Point! He disappeared.

The meeting ended just like that.

The Simple physiology of anomalies: Table of Contents:

А1 – Synthesis

А2 – [EXPUNGED]

А3 –

А4 – Alchemy

А5 –

А6 – Iron Fist

А7 – Repeater

А8 – Adjustment

А9 – The Force

А10 – Soot

А11 – Almighty Eye

Part two:

“POTIONS”, said one sign under which was an arrow pointing to the 2nd floor.

Zafer was still in the Gardens of the Elite, but inside an office building that was currently transformed into a shop.

The upper floor consisted of a single huge room in which the middle was a hole surrounded by fence.

Zafer didn’t plan on purchasing armor so he just skipped to buying potions.

Mio also talked about how Iron Fist owners should use their hands as both a weapon and armor and Zafer wanted to live by that.

He did have a weapon, but his excuse was that his anomaly was still too weak.

He promised himself that he would use a weapon only until his grip strength could bend and break Miyalin.

As for the defense he planned on keeping his scarf with the Patronage rune.

Nevertheless, he still wanted to take a look at the potion stall.

They offered 5 types of potions.

The red, blue, purple, pink, and a white one.

At that moment Skil walked up to him.

“What does the white potion do exactly?”, Zafer asked gazing at the liquid.

“It takes away the fall damage”.

Zafer frowned, “How though”.

Skil pondered a little, “Well I don’t know in detail, but it just nullifies the damage you take when your moving body hits something immobile. Getting hit by Crushing V will still instantly kill you”.

He meant the axe that possessed said rune.

Zafer nodded, recalling the first time he was forced to use it.

That time when Zer Ox threw him off the cliff.

“What about this pink one? I never saw that one before”.

All 5 types of potions were in big glass containers with a faucet, so that one could freely pure the liquid into his flasks.

There were also flasks for sale in the very same room.

“That one makes you invisible. You didn’t know?”

“Why would I?”

“Don’t worry about it Zafer. You shouldn’t”, Ika walked up to them, “if I saw that potion in my house while you were staying at my place I would have you castrated immediately”.

Both Skil and Zafer swallowed their saliva consciously.

At that moment another male approached them, wearing a black-pink uniform that had a different design to that of Temper’s.

It was a Dominion sub-faction uniform and the one wearing it was Nemo, Ika’s supposed brother.

Not by blood though.

He took the hat off of Ika’s head, “Stop wearing hats indoors”.

Ika snatched the hat back and placed it on her head, “no”.

Ika was a whole year older.

“It’s weird!”, Nemo was getting irritated by her attitude.

“Not this hat though. It represents my title and makes me look cute”.

“Oh yes, I forgot to mention how ugly it looks like”.

Ika maintained calm with a smiley expression.

“No need to. It’s only to be expected. A peasant boy like you could never understand my eternal drip”.

None of them knew what drip meant, but to Zafer, it sounded like a word Key Em would use.

Nemo raised his hand in a fist getting into her face, “What did you just call me?”

Ika was maybe way richer, but it all meant nothing in this world if she was weak.

Nevertheless, the officer didn’t flinch nor blink but gazed at Nemo with confusion.

To others, this might seem like she just tried hard to suppress her reluctant reaction, but Zafer knew this wasn’t the case.

Her behavior could only be explained by one thing.

She had never been hit before and, hence she had no reflex.

That was a pretty unique and wholesome trait to have, especially for a girl.

“What? Didn’t you ask me earlier to lend you some money”.

By this point, both Skil and Zafer were slowly retreating their attention from the siblings, focusing on the potion stall once again.

“Ten thousand units!”, Zafer exclaimed in a low voice.

Both white and pink potions cost 10 000 units per flask.

Naturally, the quantity of liquid one needed to consume for it to take effect differed from potion to potion

For example, although 1 flask of a pink and white potion costs 10 000 units, that price is meant for a special flask designated only for those potions.

It was as half as small as a regular one since that was the quantity one had to drink to feel the effect.

Yes, the quantity was also dependent on the weight of the person consuming it, but it was negligible.

The effect would only vary a couple of seconds up or down. In reality, nobody paid attention to that.

“You won’t find a cheaper offer anywhere else”, the 1st officer of the Temper province approached them with a solemn stance.

He was also wearing a Dominion sub-faction uniform.

The duration of both white and pink potions was more than one would need, but the price still made Zafer heavily contemplate if he needed them or not.

The pink potion rendered someone invisible, as well as the clothes they were wearing and sometimes even the items they were holding.

However, this didn’t apply to Miyalin, so the question was, how was a pink potion useful on a battlefield?

Another interesting thing about this potion was that its effect withdrew for half a second every time the person who drank it touched something.

This withdrawal also applies to the ground, but if someone walks they would stay invisible since one of the feet would always maintain the connection with the soil.

Unless they jumped.

In any case, the pink potion was useless in Zafer’s eyes.

Now a white one was something he wanted to buy. It was a perfect counter to the A-9, the Force.

Ika sneaked over, whispering to Zafer playfully.

“Don’t worry. I will lend you some of my money because that’s how generous I am! You just need to pay me back with your everlasting loyalty!”, she smirked.

“No need. I have my money grinder now”, Zafer rejected her respectfully, “I also wanted to thank you for teaching me everything you know. I can’t say how much advantage it gave me over the others”.

Ika nodded in satisfaction, “That’s good to hear! So you are making fat sacks, huh?”

She already knew from when they lived together that Zafer should receive a grinder. She was indeed happy that her teachings helped someone.

Skil suddenly stepped in between them, facing Ika.

“Hey, I could use some money!”, he whispered with a smile.

Ika looked at him with a confused expression.

“Umm… Who are you?”

In a nutshell, he didn’t receive anything.