Chapter 4

My face slammed into the ground, my body felt out of sorts, I looked at my hands and I used them to lever my body up. I almost fell right back onto my face, my fingers were longer, my nails thicker and sharper, it even looked like I had extra muscles running along my arms. I couldn't see the rest of my body but from the way it felt, I think the same thing happened to all my muscles, I could only assume it was from the Beast affinity.

I didn’t end up having to pick myself up off the ground as Mason had reached me while I was studying my hands and running my tongue over my suddenly sharper canines. He grabbed me by my shoulders and strongarmed me to my feet, showing off much more strength than I had ever seen from him before.

“Dude you got Fire, Void and Beast!? That’s awesome.” Mason declared as Essie caught up with him.

“How can you tell?” I asked, my voice also deeper.

Instead of Mason answering the voice of the Archbishop floated from behind me.

“All Elements affect superficial features of the body, some, like you are finding from Beast, are less superficial. You will learn control for that though.”

Essie piled on,

“Your hair has gone spikier and changed colour to the reds and yellows of a fire and the whites of your eyes have bled black, they make your blue eyes amazingly vivid, swimming in a sea of black.” she explained.

“If my eyes went black from Void, what would have happened with Space?” I asked, interrupting Essie.

“Oh I can answer that one! even your iris would disappear and your pupil sit in a sea of stars. I think Void looks way cooler, especially when someone already had bright eyes.” Mason interjected.

“Btw we will get someone to teach you to control the muscle and claw manifestations caused by the Beast affinity but the increased strength, resilience and increased sight and hearing will just take getting used to.” Mason continued.

“Are the physical increases the only positive from Beast? I don’t know if I like the thought of having to fight Manabeasts with my hands.” I asked.

“Ha you will!” Mason laughed.

I just looked at him confused.

“Don’t listen to Mason, he is alluding to the tendency of those with Beast affinity to get caught up in battle lust at times. To answer your question though, you will be able to tame a Manabeast using your affinity, there are different ways to do it though, you can choose to bond to many beasts but find it hard to increase their strength as you develop or you can bond with just a couple and have them grow stronger with you.” Essie explained.

I digested this new information as we bid the Archbishop farewell and Mason slowly helped me get back to the carriage, I needed the help since I still wasn’t walking very well.

I was apparently quiet for too long because Essie spoke up.

“Cain, if you manage to manipulate your mana properly within the next week, we can take you to the Manabeast markets up in Camden on the weekend. On the other hand, if it takes you longer than a week you will have to capture your own while at school. You and Mason are leaving in a fortnight, right after the Bicentennial Celebration for the beginning of the Time of Mana.”

“I will work my hardest and Mason will help me right?” I answered, excited about the thought of getting a familiar.

“I think we will get you a real teacher, instead of my nephew,” Essie answered with a chuckle.

I looked forward to the next day when I would start my mana manipulation learning, after all, a familiar is a hell of an incentive.

*

The next morning I followed Mason into one of the many random rooms spread across the Palace that were multipurpose. This one had been turned into a classroom as some point, with what looked like a whiteboard on the wall and a dozen chairs and table spread across the room.

A figure wearing a suit was standing in front of the boards. I assumed he was a man due to his build but he was also wearing a hood over his head, I tried to look into the hood as I moved over to the front of the room. All I could see was a glowing red eye through the darkness, the darkness was so deep that it couldn’t have been natural.

“Master Gregor, how are you today?” Mason’s voice rang out from the doorway, it seems he didn’t follow me in.

A deep growling voice came from under the hood.

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“If it isn’t my least favourite student. SO could the Royal Guards actually make you stop for more than two seconds at a time or did they throw you out too?” it asked.

“Hey, that’s hardly fair! I listened when you spoke about Dark magic.” Mason cheekily answered.

Master Gregor heavily sighed and shook his head. He definitely had dealt with Mason before, as his friend I loved this side of him, it was always fun but I can imagine it would be hell for someone trying to teach him.

I decided to distract Master Gregor from Mason, since i’m pretty sure he is going to run away as soon as the lessons started. It was lucky he seemed to have such an instinctive grasp of Dark Mana, Mason hadn’t shown me his other affinities, he pretty much only uses his Dark.

“Good Morning Master Gregor, I am your new student, Cain Herondale.” I said with a slight bow I had seen Mason give the Royal Guard Captain.

“Welcome to my classroom Cain, please have a seat. While we are in this room you can call me Derek, I will be teaching you the fundamentals of accessing your Mana Core and controlling your individual affinities.” Derek answered me.

I saw Mason dart away out of the corner of my eye as my new teacher turned to me. I would have to get him back, his aunt told him to stay and practice his other affinities.

“Now that my former student has made a break for it, let’s get down to business. Do you know why I was the teacher that was brought in for you and Mason?” Derek asked.

“I assumed you were just the one that taught the royals.” I answered, slightly confused at the direction of the conversation.

“Nope, try again,” Derek responded with a chuckle.

“I….” I started to answer but a wave from Derek stopped me and made me stop to think for a moment.

Of course having the same teacher for everyone might not make sense. As far as I knew, there was dozens of teachers employed by the royal family and their employees/servants.

Wait..the darkness..Mason...of course.

“Affinity Compatibility. Darkness with Mason, you’re using it to cover your face so that means that you also share of my affinities. Now that I'm thinking about it the Queen only mentioned my Beast affinity so that must be the one you share with me?” I reasoned out as I spoke.

My response received a clap,

“Very well reasoned. I’m very impressed considering I was informed you don’t remember receiving any formal schooling. Amnesia is a nasty thing after all, ROgue teleport spell right?” he asked.

I hadn’t been told the full story that had been spread about my supposed past.

“Something like that.” I awkwardly answered.

“Well, enough chatting, on to the lesson.” Derek declared and I focused on the board.

“Where to start...hmmm, how about this. Cain, do you remember the feeling in your vision? The feeling of power flowing through your body as the elemental avatar you saw pushed their power into you?” Derek asked.

I thought back to what I felt in those moments, the mana surrounded my body, entering through every cell, then swirling through my whole body before meeting in the middle of my chest. In that moment I felt my mind falling towards the core, the swirling of colour called to me. The red of fire, the deep black from void and a dull green for beast, the movement of the colours were mesmerizing. My mind followed the mana as it moved through my body, there appeared to be no clear path for the mana to travel through my body so it just moved everywhere.

A slap of a hand hitting my desk snapped my mind out of my body.

“I see you found the feeling you were looking for. Quite quickly I see.” Derek declared.

“Now what did you feel?” he asked.

“There is no order to the way the mana moves around my body, it’s like it leaves my Core and rampages around my body before eventually deciding on its own to go back in.” I answered, sounding slightly confused to my own ears.

“Pretty accurate description of someone who wasn’t taught a cultivation technique while preparing for the ceremony. I assume that was an oversight by their Majesties, or maybe because you are fundamentally different to their entire family due to your affinities. You have an interesting mix of affinities in my humble opinion.” Derek answered, making me even more confused.

“The problem with cultivation techniques are they are mostly created to either, a. prioritise a single element so people have to cultivate multiple at the same time, causing them to be unbalanced in their strength or take much longer to increase their strength, or b. Those that focus on the mixing of two different elements.” he paused to take a drink of water before continuing.

“Unfortunately, you have a mix of elements that prevents you from following the latter method. There is one way I can help you though, I have a reasonably powerful all-purpose cultivation method, they are very rare because people normally start with a very weak one which causes people to believe all-purpose techniques are less efficient in general. This one was given to my by my master after my first familiar was killed in battle and I didn’t want to take another one for a long time.” Derek finished, leaving me wanting to know even more information.

“What do you mean about needing it after your familiar died?” I asked the question I most wanted information about.

“Certain elements have unique ways to cultivate. Take for example, Poison. The most efficient way to cultivate your strength is to ingest poisons while flooding your mana throughout your entire body, literally feeding on the strength of the poison. Even Space can be cultivated by creating an air pocket around your body, so you can breath, while at low level anyay, in outer space and absorbing the ambient energy all around you.” Derek started explaining.

“Sorry but are you avoiding the question?” I asked.

“I’m getting there. You have two different affinities that have these unique methods. If alone, you would need to increase your strength slowly until you can tear a small hole into the Void and absorb power through the portal. With help, you can have someone else do this for you. Finally, to answer your original question, the best way to cultivate the Beast affinity is to entwine your mana with your familiar as it cultivates, your connection can increase the speed it cultivates, which in turn strengthens your bond and your combat form.” Derek explained.

"So I have the option of the all-purpose to slowly increase all three techniques with the all-purpose technique or get a fire technique and cultivate the other two in their unique ways?" I asked.

"Pretty much." Was the answer I received.

"Oh, I should mention something. If you get a menagerie of familiars, you need to remember to cultivate with them all equally. This is very important because your familiar influences your combat form." Derek explained as he dispelled the Dark Mana Mask he wore.

I was stunned for a moment, Derek looked like a werewolf. It explained why he wore gloves and a hood.

"Your first and only familiar was a wolf then?" I asked, without thinking.

"He was," Derek said with a tense nod.

We stilled for what could have been a couple minutes before Derek broke the silence. He handed me a book and said,

"This is the technique book, read this and come find me if you need any help." With these final words Derek left the room.

Consider I was supposed to be learning to reverse the physical effects of my Beast affinity I read the book as fast as I could.

I found the information was something I already kinda knew. It followed the chakras, each of the elements had a chakra they resonated with. To use this all-purpose technique I would need to control the different elements to run a circuit out of my mana core, which sat between my heart and solar plexus chakras, down and around my root chakra, back up around the crown chakra before merging back into my mana core.

This was the initial stage of the cultivation technique, it would encapsulate all of my chakras in a nourishing net of mana as opposed to the mess that was currently happening.

I let my mind fall back towards my Mana Core. Once I could feel my mana rampaging all around me, the book said to find just a small string of each and bundle them together, clearly it was a book that someone decided to simplify for anyone to use.

I instinctually managed to snag a small amount of each mana, unfortunately I held almost double of the Void mana than the other two. I tried to let go of the excess, balance was important, but as soon as my mind loosened control, the mana tried to make a break for it.

After a frustrating half hour of constantly getting too much, not enough and losing the Mana completely, I finally had an equal amount of each mana type in my control.

Time to finish the loop.

It was like trying to drag a car through mud, none of the Mana wanted to go along with the other two. In my frustrating I spun the three of them together like I was plaiting a French braid. To my absolute shock, this worked completely and brought them all under my control, with that it only took me seconds to finish the loop around my Root chakra and start towards my Crown Chakra.

Once I had finished the first loop, my mind left my core area and I opened my eyes, to find myself sticky and smelling disgusting but with my body changed to look completely human again.

I got up and left the room in search of a bath and food, not necessarily in that order.