We left Aquan in a carriage, on our way to the mission. “Wow! Eric, this atmosphere could kill me! Say something, anything!” Donna advised. It’s not like she was alive to feel the awkwardness anyway.
Say something like what? I asked her in my mind, staring at dad. He seemed nervous, like he was guilty about something. In fact, the more I peered at him, the surer I was. The mage trainee, Dawn, looked a little uneasy. She would break eye contact with me the moment our eyes met. Something was afoot here.
“I don’t know. Talk to the girl, make your first friend.”
You really got me down as a social reject, don’t you? I asked, but the conniving little ghost didn’t reply.
“Hey, Dawn,” I called out to her. She looked at me a little jumpy. “You got a boyfriend?”
“Ugh,” my dad grunted in disgust, “you have no tact at all, huh? Are you really my son?”
I played like I was alternating which leg I crossed and accidently mashed my heel into his foot. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were there.”
He smiled despite the pain, “Is that so?” and raised his hand, engulfed in fire.
“R-remember, remember the truce, okay?” Dawn reminded us of that demon in human skin. A very convincing way to end our inevitable scuffle.
We leaned back, calming ourselves. “Well?” I looked to my father, “what’s this mission?”
“To eliminate some wolves. Their numbers have been getting out of hand and the villagers’ livestock are being eaten.”
“I see. Well, wake me up when we get there,” I said and found a comfortable position to sleep in. At around noon I was woken up. We arrived at a village in the east. A quiet peaceful place, unlike the hustle and bustle of Aquan,
Our client, an old man, pointed us towards the woods a little to the north. We entered the forest then eventually came across a small stream of water. “It’ll be faster if we split up. Dawn and I will scour the hills. You can keep searching along the river. If you run into any trouble, just use a flare spell to get my attention. Same for you, Dawn.”
She nodded, and we all split up. After maybe a half hour trek, I came across a lake. I rested on the bank for a while, and unbeknownst to me, there was indeed a creature around these parts.
Something wrapped around my ankle and pulled my ass into the lake before I had a chance to react. I panicked a bit, but made sure to hold my breath. I was being pulled all directions, but ultimately, I was sinking farther and farther down that watery grave. The sunlight no longer touched me at one point and I could see nothing around me. Suffocating in a random lake wasn’t really my cup of tea, so I decided to get out.
It didn’t take long for me to realise that a water elemental had grabbed me and was trying to drown me. To counter this, I summoned an ice elemental. Its speciality was rather effective against my foe. It froze the dense shackles of water the lake monster used and then shattered it, allowing me free movement. I simply swam back up to the surface whilst my ice elemental held back the water elemental. I got out, soaking wet, looked back and sighed. Well, this is new. I wonder how I should defeat it?
“Try something new,” Donna said, wanting to be entertained.
Something new, huh?
Both my hands lit up and I summoned something – or someone rather – I hadn’t seen in a long time. “Eric!” she hugged me, despite not having a single piece of clothing on, and being as soaked as I was.
“Ugh, this thing?” Donna was a bit repelled by her for some reason.
“Hey, Hydra, nice to see you too,” I greeted her.
“You never visit anymore! How busy can you be?” she asked, frowning a little.
“Hahaha, my apologies. But um, I’d like you to take care of that water elemental for me,” I pointed to it as it fumbled with my ice elemental, “Oh and don’t revert to your original form. You’ll redo the whole landscape.”
“You call me all the way here to deal with a lesser spirit after hanging me out to dry for so long? Hmm!” she turned away from me angrily, but still pulled the water elemental’s aquamarine pearl to her hand like a magnet. Just like that, the ordeal was over. I got undressed, down to my undies, hung my clothes on a branch and casually went swimming with Hydra. We chatted and played around in the lake until the fire elemental and wind elemental I left drying my clothes finished their job.
Ah, in case I forgot to mention it, Hydra was an actual hydra, the queen of the spirit world, or at least, the water faction. Thanks to Donna, I was able to travel to the spirit world and made contracts with several elemental lords, and Hydra was one of them. She got a little attached to me because I wasn’t scared off by her real form, a five-headed serpentine water monster. Well, I was scared at first because of her humongous size. Just one of her fangs was probably bigger than me. But when I thought about how rare she was, I actually found it really awesome and couldn’t contain my excitement. She was surprised, to say the least.
After I got dressed, she hugged me one last time, taking a few extra seconds and disappeared into the spirit world. I looked at the water elemental’s core in my hand. Well, that takes care of that. Those three should be back by now.
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“Alright, pops, Dawn. I know you two are here. Oh, and Aldis, you can’t hide from me.”
They all appeared. Dad smiled wryly. Dawn looked guilty taking part in the deception. And Aldis simply coughed, trying to play it off. “So, you knew,” the bearded old man thought out loud.
“Well, yeah, it was pretty obvious. When we were in the carriage, I felt your presence in the quest scroll dad had on him. Also, water elementals won’t just attack people, they’re pretty friendly. Not to mention it’s damn near impossible for them to leave the spirit world without the summons of a mage. And it just so happens that you are good at water magic. Oh, and c’mon dad, splitting up? Pretty sure that was just to use the vantage point of the hills. The Hawk Eye spell would let you see me from pretty far. Ah, right, I almost forgot you told me to search along the river, hmm? Then I encountered a lake, which just so happened to be something consisting of a mass amount of water? The perfect place to summon a water elemental, ain’t that right, Aldis? And last, but not least, there are no wolves in this part of the country. But hey, at least you guys tried, right?” I gave them a thumb’s up and smiled broadly. “Well, do I get that sweet library or what?”
Aldis sighed again, he had a habit of doing that, “Yes, yes. You’re in. However, instead of the agreed upon return of money to the Order, we have another task we would like for you to do.”
“What’s this, old man?” I tilted my head to the side, “I don’t appreciate change of plans. They really rustle my jimmies, man.”
“I’m sorry,” he cleared his throat, “is that English you’re speaking? It’s difficult to tell.”
“Ha, ha, real funny. Now what’s this thing you want me to do? At this point I think being deceived into a wolf-kill mission is enough already.”
“R-right. Um, you just summoned something spectacular. We’d like you to be a spirit tutor, of sorts. As a tutor, you won’t have to give as much hours into teaching as a usual professor, and seeing that what you’re going to teach is very specific, even less hours are expected. We expect you to be more intimate with the students. Don’t just tell them what to do, show them.”
I tilted my head straight upwards, to the sky. I was already getting fed up of his talking. So, he wanted me to teach. So, what? That was even better because it meant I wouldn’t have to leave the Order to quest.
“You’ve got to help them practice the summons,” he lectured, “is that clear?”
I shrugged, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, man. Easy enough.”
“Are you even capable of teaching?” Donna questioned.
Nope!
“Good,” he said. We rode back to Aquan afterward, arriving early evening.
Dawn went home. Aldis and dad reported the mission to the rest of whoever’s in charge of the Order. I went straight to the library.
Finally, finally! What should I look for, I wonder?
“Division,” Donna suggested.
Of course, how could I forget? Every time a spell was used, not only would it drain a person’s mana, it would eat away at them physically also. This meant mages, or anyone wanting to become a mage, had to train their bodies like everyone else. We couldn’t just be lazy and read. But, as one refined his skills, less and less stamina was needed to cast a spell. That was why old mages didn’t have to be physically inclined.
For ages, magic users researched how to achieve true ‘Division’, the concept of spells sapping zero stamina from the user, but none had actually achieved it yet. As for me, because of Donna’s help, I’ve come to the point where a spell would cost me just as much stamina-decrease as a half-assed sit-up.
I lived in that library, only leaving to visit the washroom or freshen up. I ate by conjuring food inside the library. One day, Aldis stormed inside the library, it was more like a labyrinth, and wrapped his arm around my neck, dragging me outside. He was furious.
“Three weeks! Three weeks! How does one stay in a library for three weeks?! Did you forget you have a duty to fulfil?!” he exclaimed but it honestly slipped my mind.
“Well, time flies,” I said, choking a little, “when you’re having fun,” and chuckled, which only made his ire grow.
He walked me into the mercilessly bright sun and we teleported over to a small classroom. When we stood before the professor’s desk was when he finally let me go. He took a seat right next to me, crossed his legs, folded his arms with a stupid pout on his face, “Teach!”
I took a quick glance to the young mages, then back to him, “Sorry, I can’t function when old people’s eyes are on me.”
“I, said, teach!”
Geez, what a pain.
“You, kind of caused this.”
Yeah but, he didn’t need to drag me out. C’mon.
“Yeah, he probably did,” Donna knew me too well. There were only three students present, one of which was Dawn.
“Is this everyone?” I asked her.
“W-well,” she scratched her cheek and looked away, “there were more but they stopped coming because, um–”
“Because the teacher wouldn’t show up for three weeks!” Aldis finished her sentence in a fit.
“Alright, alright, I hear ya. Well, guys, come over here.” They put aside their notebooks and walked up to me.
Two fellas, looked like brothers, somewhere in their twenties probably. And Dawn, the only girl. “Any of you ever summoned before?”
They replied negatively. “Alright,” I dipped in my pocket and gave Dawn the water elemental’s core from that ‘mission’. I carried it around expecting this day to come.
“You remembered what it looked like?” I asked and she nodded.
“Envision it right at the side of you and run your magic through the core.”
She successfully summoned it, but just when we thought it’d be stable, the summoning failed.
“This is, harder than I thought,” she commented, “Eri–I mean, teacher, how did you summon that woman, and who was she?”
“Leader of the water faction amongst the spirits. I went to the spirit world and we just, got along.”
“You, just, ‘got along’, with the strongest water spirit?” one of the guys asked. If it weren’t for their clothing and hair colours, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. They resembled way too much.
“Uh, yeah. So, what element are you three most comfortable with?” I inquired. Dawn said water, one brother said fire and the other said lightning. I summoned lesser elementals for all three and had them memorise the appearance of their respective elemental.
“Alright, hope you got energy. Conjure your element and try to match the shape of the elementals you see.”
Pyro, one of the brothers–at least that’s what I nicknamed him–had short, carmine hair whilst his brother, Volt–a nickname also coined by me–had longer, blonde hair. That was about the only difference I could see right off the bat.
The morning passed by uneventfully and class finally ended. What a hassle. I returned to the library for a few hours and suddenly woke up. I fell asleep?
“No, you damn idiot. You passed out. You need food and sleep like any other person, y’know!” Donna scolded me. She often threw a tantrum when I didn’t take care of myself, but it’s not like she could do anything about it. Besides, I was used to it. Forgoing a little sleep and food to learn new things was totally worth it. But it looked like I hit my limit this time around. I returned home, lured by the mere thought of food. I was starving.
A luscious aroma whetted my appetite. Like a zombie, I crawled to the dining room and saw a very pure and beautiful angel in the company of a hellish demon. Mom and Dawn were just about to have dinner together. Oh, and dad was there too.