Ren lay on a bed, the first in a row of at least twenty, with numerous tubes running out of his arm and into strange, beeping machines. The entire room was very reminiscent of the hospitals of Earth; the ambiance was stiflingly sterile and tidy, with gleaming white dominating every surface in the room. The place was sparsely populated, both in decorations and people.

Aside from Ren, there was only one other person – who I assumed was the equivalent of a nurse – who sat all the way on the other end of the room. She was engrossed in some papers, not even bothering to glance up at me as I entered.

I made my way over to Ren, whose closed eyes fluttered open the second I reached the edge of his bed.

“Hey boss,” Ren said in cheerful greeting, his lips curling into a crooked smile as the glossy black pools of his eyes looked in my direction. It was unsettling, the way he could immediately find where I was but still stared right through me as if I was a ghost. Like his pupils couldn’t anchor themselves on anything.

“Hi, Ren,” I responded, returning his smile. “How’re you doing?”

“Oh, I’m doing fantastic. Did you know that it was possible for your entire body to hurt every time you move?” His voice was light and happy, but his words betrayed his obvious sarcasm. “You really don’t realize how much you move until every single one makes you feel like you're getting stabbed.”

I chuckled. “Well, it’s good to see it hasn’t dampened your sense of humour at all,” I said, smiling. “But speaking of which, what exactly is it?”

Ren shrugged, a motion that was followed by a grimace that told me he instantly regretted it. “I dunno. Just some random-”

“Ren,” I cut him off, fixing him with a look. “We both know I’m not stupid enough to believe a lie here. If you don’t want to tell me, just say that.”

Ren went quiet, smiling a small smile at my words. His eyes shut themselves softly as he thought.

“You’re right,” he said finally, heaving a sigh. “I suppose there’s no reason to hide the truth, really. It’s just…I guess I just have a hard time being honest about myself.”

I laughed softly at that. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Ren chuckled with me, never one to be insulted easily.

“The condition is nothing serious, really. I just kind’ve overdid my body,” Ren said after another breath. “Remember when I said I just vanished after being sent on my first solo mission?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

Ren gave me a cheeky smile. “Well, that wasn’t entirely true. They did find me a few times, and the Assassin King was furious. He may have taught me everything he could have, but he still had countless years of experience over me, not to mention the widest and most skilled information network on the planet. Thankfully, I always managed to get away in the end, but one time, they managed to…well, I won’t bore you with the details, but they basically blocked my Flux veins. So I couldn’t use Flux to supplement myself anymore, but thankfully, the pure toughness of my body was enough to carry me through escaping – and every other fight I’ve been in since.”

“Wow,” I said, my mind reeling as it processed the information. “I always did wonder why I never saw smoke coming out of you when you fought.”

Ren laughed teasingly. “Honestly, I have no idea how you managed to miss all the signs for so long. I’d like to credit my skills, but you really-”

“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled, cutting him off. “For your information, I actually did notice something was off, but because I’m such a respectful person, I decided to respect your secrets.”

Ren nodded sagely at my words. “You are a very respectful person, I must agree,” he said in a comically severe voice, before falling into a fit of laughter at his own joke.

I shook my head with a smile as he laughed. “Ok, but your story still doesn’t explain how you ended up stuck on this bed.”

“Oh yeah, that. Basically, I wanted to fight those gray-robed guys too, so I asked that old lady to fix me. She said she could for a bit, but the Flux I used would hurt my body after. I took the deal, and now I’m here.”

“So is there a way to permanently fix the issue?” I asked. Although Ren had a good base level of strength right now – and was far stronger than I was at the moment – not being able to use Flux would mean that he would remain forever stuck at his level. Which meant that I would soon surpass him, since I had no plans to ever stop getting stronger.

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

“Yeah. Anabella passed me a message when I woke up that I’m going to need an hour of some sort of treatment every day for a few weeks. After that, I should be perfectly fine.”

“Well, that’s a relief. ‘Cause I don’t know what kind of place this new universe is going to be like, but there is one thing I do know: that I will become someone legendary no matter where I go, no matter what. And I can’t do that without a First Lieutenant that can keep up with me.”

Ren grinned in response, one that held within the same rising emotions I could feel in myself. Passion, excitement, nervousness.

“Well if that’s your plan, you need to start training as soon as you can, young lady,” a voice came from behind me.

I turned around to find Anabella and the leader of the Grand Order mages standing at the infirmary's door. The leader sported a wide smile, quickly closing the gap between us and putting his hand out.

I clasped his hand with a firm grip, having to tilt my head upward a little to meet his eyes. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’m sure you’ve felt it yourself,” the man responded, “but you’ve awakened your affinity. And I felt that the very least we could do for you is teach you a little about controlling it by the time we land at Adonis. So that you start at least somewhere near everyone else.”

My face twisted with confusion. “You mean that fire? I don’t understand.”

“Are you sure this is the place we want to be talking about this?” Anabella spoke up from the back. “There is a patient here after all.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Please, continue. I’m quite interested myself,” Ren piped up.

The leader laughed. “Such a healer, Anabella. He’s a tough one, I'm sure he’ll be fine.” Then, turning back to me, he motioned for me to sit down on the bed behind me. “Now, pay attention, and I’ll explain an exciting new world of strength to you.”

With rapt attention, I stepped backward and sat on the bed, not taking my eyes off the leader as I moved.

“Essentially,” the man began, “awakening an affinity is the first step of becoming a true mage. Or at least, the most common kind of mage. It normally awakens around the ages of ten to fifteen for most mages, and is usually triggered by heightened emotion. Affinities are very abstract things, so it's hard to really explain. But the most simple of them are elemental affinities, such as yours. Yours seems to be a fire affinity, meaning that’ll be your base power. It’ll be the element with which you are most comfortable with, and the one with which you’ll progress the fastest with, regardless of which one you wish for. But fortunately, affinities are usually aligned with the mage’s personality, so it's fine most of the time.”

“Wait, I still don’t get what an affinity is,” I cut in. “What does it help me do?”

“Ah, sorry, I forgot to explain that bit. Basically, Flux can be transmuted into any physical material or substance that exists in the universe. Some mages are just innately good at converting it into a certain type of material. That's called their elemental affinity. But because of the complexity of most substances, almost all mages have very simple elemental affinities. Things like water, fire, wind and earth are the most common. There are some rarer ones, like light, darkness, lightning, and diamond.”

"Some have simple metals as their affinities as well, but the list goes on and on," Anabella added from the side. "The point is that there are many different affinities, but very, very rarely is it something complex."

“Does the kind of affinity affect how strong you can get?” I asked.

The man shook his head. “No, not at all. Some of the most powerful mages in history have had the most simple affinities. All that dictates the outcome of a fight is the mastery each mage has over their affinity, and their battle skill.”

I sighed with relief. “Well, that’s nice.”

The man nodded. “You’ll come to find, as you learn more and more about Flux, that it is a very fair system. It gives as much as it takes, and gives very, very few individuals a headstart or any sort of advantage.”

The information lit up a smile on my face. As long as I had even the slightest chance, I would make sure that I rose to the very top.

“So," I said excitedly, "you mentioned something about training?”

The man smiled at my barely hidden enthusiasm. “Well, we won’t be getting very far on the ship. There’s a limit to how much I can teach you, as a light mage myself. We only have a few weeks on the ship anyway, so the most I’ll be able to teach you is the basics that any mage growing up on Adonis would know. The rest you'll have to learn at the Grand Order University.”

I nodded in understanding. “It’s fine. I wanna learn as much as I possibly can, so I’d appreciate anything you can teach me.”

“We have plenty of time, so there’s no need to get started today,” Anabella said. “Why don’t the both of you take today to rest and get accustomed to the ship, and we can start the teaching tomorrow.” Turning to Ren, she added, “And you should be good enough to walk by tomorrow, too.”

The man clapped his hands together as he heard Anabella's suggestion. “That sounds like a great plan. We only swung by because we heard you were up and wanted to say hi, so we’ll be on our way now. Meet us tomorrow at the dining hall for breakfast, and we’ll take it from there. See you guys later!”

“Alright, bye!" I responded, choosing to ignore the slightly abrupt, almost robotic way the pair turned and left the room.

The metal doors automatically whirred shut behind them, leaving Ren and I to ourselves once again.

“Well, that’s exciting, isn’t it,” Ren said in the silence that followed.

I nodded slowly, my wandering mind returning to the room. “It’s beyond exciting,” I said, a smile forming on my lips. “I can feel it. This is it, this is just what I needed. And this time,” I added with a glint in my eye, “this time, I won’t ruin it. This time, I will become everything I promised them all I would become.”