Tigris finished with his newest essay on terraforming magically insufficient regions with a sigh of relief. This one might actually change things for our world, Tigris thought to himself. Feeling satisfied with his day’s work he gathered his things. Walking out of his room, of which there was still no attached door, he strode to the lower offices with purpose. He passed the meditation hall and a couple of grand chambers that usually remained empty. Moving down serval floors of staircases at his own pace, he arrived. He passed several scholars working on various tasks utilizing magical displays made of paper, he arrived at his assistant, Susan.
“My dear, I’ve done it again. Please make several dozen copies of this and send them out to primary cities.” Tigris said while beaming.
“Continental and friendly cities?” Susan asked without showing much care.
“No. This one will be worldwide and to our enemies as well. Send it to everyone but the Chang Do cities.” Tigris said with confidence.
Her eyes widened a little, Susan turned to Tigris, “This is a big one then.”
“Indeed. Apprise me of any responses this afternoon.” He said while turning, “I’ve got an appointment with a lot of unknowns up in the sky cells.”
“Absolutely, Sir,” Susan said while turning to do her work. She took the document, and used an ability to duplicate the stack of papers, several times over, then moved over to her secondary desk with a large complex ritual circle carved onto the top. She added a few spirit coins, quintessences, and a single stack of the essay, then began a ritual, “Warp to the second home of yours” she said in a low voice. With a building light, the stack of papers vanished. “One down, fifty-nine to go.”
_______
Jean sat with his legs crossed while trying to feel his aura. He had trouble differentiating what was his aura and what was the specific elements in his aura. In his meditating, he started to feel the difference between things with mana in them, and regular physical objects. Strangely, the cloud structures felt like neither. It seemed as if the cloud material was hidden from his senses. He couldn’t sense the guards either. The guards would occasionally pass in front of the door, or open the door for someone coming in or out, but Jean had not been able to get a good look at them. All he could see were glimpses of their white armor.
He thought that he felt someone coming toward him from 80 feet away, but then they vanished from Jean’s magical probing. Moments later, the door swung open, surprising Jean.
Tigris walked in at a brisk pace, “I see you’ve been testing your new sense. This is good.” He sat in front of Jean.
“Thanks. I’ve been trying to feel the aura itself, but it’s been rough. I think I noticed you walking up for a second, but then you vanished.”Jean asked, “Is that the sort of thing you can teach me… master?”
“Yes, Master is the correct designation. And eventually, yes. What you need first is to learn to retract your aura abilities in layers. You might not be able to differentiate now, but soon you’ll be able to separate the layers of your cleansing aura, discord aura, and natural aura to sense. Normally the senses would come from your natural aura. You are an odd one though. Your aura abilities are passive. It will take some time, but you will be able to separate your aura into types.”
Jean took a second to take mental notes. “So how? Where do I get started?”
Tigris took a long look at him. “First, answer a few questions for me.”
“Sure,” Jean said with hesitation, knowing that he was supposed to keep a lot of things secret, according to Gabe at least.
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"First, do you have a storage space?” Tigris asked.
Jean put a hand on his face. Why did Gabe ask me to keep secrets? “I can’t tell you,” Jean said with his face buried in his hands. Peaking a look upwards he saw Tigris start to rub his temples.
“Why does he always do this to me?” Tigris said with pain in his voice. “And why can’t you tell me?”
Jean answered slowly, knowing that he would be upsetting everyone at this moment. “Because Gabe said to keep it secret.” He said with a sheepish smile. “Here, make me a deal. I’ll tell you whatever if you promise that Gabe and I won’t get in trouble, and you’ll let me leave here, regardless of what you hear. Deal?”
Tigris looked at him, examining his aura. He seems innocent enough. “Deal.”
“And you have to tell me what you can do.” Jean rushed in the condition.
After a pause, he said, “Deal. My essences are Light, Sword, Potent, and the Master confluence. Now, I’m assuming you have storage space. Is that where you were holding an Essence? I can tell you’ve filled your slots and ranked up. What Essence did you use?”
Jean saw how quickly he was letting go of information, so he tried to hold some details to himself. “Yeah, I had a Cloud Essence and I used it yesterday after resting.”
Tigris shot up, breaking any amount of decorum that he possessed. Walking around the room, rubbing his temples, he turned to Jean and yelled, “How did you get your hands on one? They only form in the clouds! Dear Gods, you have no idea what you’ve done.”
Jean started with a panic, “What did I do?” Wondering how he made a mistake and realized that he should have kept that a secret.
Tigris started to pace back and forth, mumbling under his breath. All of a sudden, his face sharply pointed at Jean, then he blasted out of the room at an incredible speed. Jean even felt the air push him back. Only ten seconds later, Tigris slammed back into the room. Jean felt Tigris’s aura burning, while his own got pushed back. Jean felt terribly vulnerable, scared even. The pressure from Tigris was like gravity.
“Why did he give you that essence, and why did you absorb it?” Tigris said with barely restrained wrath behind his voice.
Jean stammered, trying to get some words out, but his body was just frozen. Then, the weight lifted some. He tried to say that he just asked for it because it seemed like a kind and gentle power, but the only thing that leaked out was, “I…I asked for it.”
Tigris stared at him for several moments before he backed off and retracted his aura.
Jean breathed in like he was being suffocated. He panted his hands on the floor.
Tigris was still pacing, though slower now and feeling remorse for unleashing his aura on the kid. “Sorry. I understand that you don’t know what you’ve done. That idiot, Gabe, just caused me and you more problems.”
“Will…” Jean started while catching his breath, still intimidated. “What will happen then? You made a deal that he and I wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Tigris paused. He saw the innocence and the honesty inside Jean’s face and aura. This isn’t manipulation. This kid is genuine. That makes things even more difficult. He stopped his pacing to look Jean square in the eyes.
“Fine.” Tigris said, “I’ll keep my side of the deal. I won’t pour out my fury on either of you. I know that you are well-meaning, but Gabe causes issues frequently. Be careful of him.”
Jean felt shame for causing issues but he still didn’t understand the problem. “I’m sorry, but can you explain what’s so bad?”
Tigris considered, then sat before explaining. “There are two main issues. First, Gabe stole that Essence from the city, and it was supposed to be a part of a tribute to our city’s founder. He will likely come around in the next few years, and he likes to take all of the Cloud Essences to give to his direct disciples. The second issue is that using the Cloud Essence when you are not one of the founder’s disciples is wrong-ish. It’s an unspoken rule because everyone around would want to be in the founder’s graces. There is just the chance that he would be upset. I’m guessing you know nothing about any of this?”
“I had no clue,” Jean expressed, “I just wanted to have some powers that set me apart from the murderer type, and when I saw the beauty of the city and even this cell, I just thought that creating clouds would be great, you know.”
“Gabe is a kind man, just a fool.” Tigris said, “I know what I said earlier, but I suggest that once you get your aura under control, you ask him to take you to the northern trek. It wouldn’t be wise to be around here with your Bone Essence and a Cloud Essence.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s already the plan,” Jean said, “Gabe said that he would be back in three days, and then we would leave.”
Tigris squeezed the bridge of his nose. “That… he…” with a sign Tigris took several breaths. “Let’s focus on your training. I need to set you on the right path and explain the next steps of your training because you won’t have nearly enough time to finish it here.”
Jean nodded. And the instruction began.