Elijah grimaced as he took in his older brother. Thor was the spitting image of Fjord, broad shoulders, same black hair, for sheep shits sake he even had the same bloody haircut, it frustrated Elijah to no end that Thor just had to emulate their father to such a degree. "Thor," he said with a nod, Thor nodded back with a frown and answered "Eli". Elijah then went on to greet his mother who was leaning against the rightmost wall "Hello mother, I hope you have been we..". He was forced to stop mid-sentence as he saw his mother for the first time in a long time, once she'd had beautiful black hair that flowed so naturally that it might as well have been made of shadows, now it was dull and dirty, her once gorgeous blue eyes were covered by a pair of sunglasses, she was still in her military uniform which meant that she had come straight from the battlefield. That was a warning sign for Elijah, it meant that there was an important topic to be discussed over dinner, in fact, it was so important that his mother had to leave the battlefield for the first time in 4 years. His mother Maria gave him a kind smile "hello Eli, I have not exactly been well as you can see but I survive, how about you dear?". Elijah's heart was hammering in his chest, "i-im fine mother, what happened to you? why are you wearing glasses?". Maria sighed and proceeded to take off her glasses, a gruesome scar stretched from her left ear to her right going over both of her eyes. Elijah felt his heart stop, then rage like he had never felt before consumed him. Luckily he was stopped before he could anything by his mother's smooth voice, in a surprisingly amused voice she told him "With your father gone from the team, the other outer shell practitioners made a mistake on the battlefield, they got lured out of formation by what corresponds to 4 of our inner shell silver stages, I paid for that with an axe inlaid with Raxian space circuits to the face" she then let out a boisterous laugh and continued "it is actually a very fascinating piece of magic technology! You see the edge of the axe is made so that it distorts the space of whatever it touches! you can see for yourself what effect it has on flesh!". Elijah was speechless even with both her eyes missing she was acting like it did not bother her at all! meanwhile Elijah was so furious at her teammates that he wanted to rip them to pieces! "Mother! such a mistake is unforgiving!". Maria laughed even harder at that "Eli in return for an axe to the face I wiped their whole squadron! I even got my hands on that axe! now imagine if I can configure it to work in concert with our family secret! every single drop of water will be distorting the bodies of our enemies! maybe it would allow us to jump not 1 but 2 ranks! oh, by the way, Eli have you figured it out yet?". As he heard his mother ramblings about magic tech the anger slowly evaporated, he took a deep breath and answered his mother "No mother I am afraid the answer still eludes me". This made his mother bend her back in laughter.

Thor stood to the side looking irritated, while Fjord had a smile on his face as he listened to his wife's ramblings. Fjord missed both her and the battlefield, he felt guilty because he had not been on the battlefield to close the hole in their team formation. But that guilt slowly evaporated as he listened to her, Maria had always had a habit of rambling about magic technology, to be fair she was genius both as an inner shell practitioner and in her magic technology field.

the family's chef interrupted them with a bow, "gentlemen, mam. dinner is ready if you would please move to the dining table" he waved his hand so as to indicate the long table carved out of bone. Fjord nodded "Thank you, Henrik, that will be all". The family then moved in a practiced manner towards the table, Elijah reached out to help his mother but was waved off, "do not worry Eli, I feel the mana entering my shroud so I can still navigate. But never mind that you will learn about that when you enter one of the academies, have you and father figured out which one you will attend?"

Elijah sighed "father is dead set on me going to the first branch of the twelve serpents high military institution, whereas I want to attend either the first or fourth tail of the Kitsunes seven tails academy. We just cannot seem to agree on anything these days..", Maria clapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "please do not worry yourself over such matters, I will talk your stubborn old man about the academy, I swear on every piece of magic tech that I will get you into the nine tails kitsune academy" she then gave him a wink and went to her chair. Elijah smiled as he sat down. By all the bloody ancients he had missed his mother, she had always managed to light his mood like no one else.

As they were eating Thor and his father were talking about how amazingly well Thor was doing at his academy, Thor was attending the first serpent military institution leviathan. Elijah thought it was stupid that just because his beast gear was a leviathan like their fathers he should attend a school named after that same beast, it was not like they were specializing solely in leviathan users. Thor who was apparently done with his monologue interrupted Elijah's train of thought "Little Eli tell me do you still want to become a mage or have you seen the reality yet?" Elijah sighed, ever since he was little he had wanted to become a mage or inner shell practitioner as the old folks called it, but his father was dead set on him becoming an outer shell practitioner or body enhancer which it was called nowadays. Fjord though did not budge on the subject when Maria tried to help. "yeah the reality is that the family rules don't make a lot of sense to me, why should I not be able to choose my own path? why is it that I need to walk something downtrodden instead of paving a new way for our family? excuse me but I simply don't see the reason". Elijah's sudden outburst surprised everyone, Thor looked at him like he was an idiot while Maria smiled at her son, Fjord looked mad and the Butler tripped and dropped the glasses he was carrying. Silence ensued, it was only broken by Thor's rather angry voice "Son I do not care what your opinion on the matter is, I and your mother decided that if we were to get sons they would practice the body arts while our daughters would study and become mages and that is the end of it, I do not want to repeat myself anymore, copy that Elijah?". Maria opened her voice but shut it again by a stern look from Fjord. Elijah looked down and spat out "copy that father"

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Fjord sighed "On that note, I have some great news for you, Eli. My contact on the black market has come to possess a hydra heart at the starting wood rank as I have told you before the foundation for outer shell practitioners is the heart of a beast. a person's cells will be taken over every time they exhaust their body, of course, the process is guided by the inscription ensuring a smooth transition when you get to the higher ranks." Fjord laughed then and looked at Maria with loving eyes "would you look at me I am starting to sound like you dear!". Maria smiled at her husband while Fjord continued "well enough about that, the point is that the heart is in a stasis and ready to be inscribed, so Eli in another week we will go and get your heart inscribed with a glorious sea-creature!".

Elijah panicked, he had figured that he had at least a few more months until his father would propose that he get the heart inscription, then an idea suddenly appeared in his mind, a way that he might just be able to wiggle his way out of practicing in the body arts but instead becoming an excellent mage! Elijah took a deep breath and spoke "Father what about my beast gear? we only have access to the tower of the Leviathan?" Fjord frowned as he heard this, he knew that a beast gear had to match the elemental affinity in both mages and body practitioners, his son might not have understood it as well as he thinks he does so fjord decided to explain it once again. "Son, a hydras elemental affinity is water just as a leviathans affinity is water, and our family does have access to an extra diseased Leviathan beast-gear who has yet to bond", as Fjord took in a breath to continue Elija interrupted him "I know all of that father, listen to me for once I overheard that officer I think he is called Callum or something talking to a member of the blade family at a ball. He said that for a user to get a maximum effect of a beast gear they would need an inscription coming from the same magic beast. The user of the beast gear would then be able to communicate with the beast inhabiting their gear from an early rank instead of when they reach the emperor ranks! just like you could communicate with your Cythe Silur!". Thor's eyes narrowed as he heard this, if this was true it gave such practitioners a huge advantage over him as he could not communicate with his gear! Fjord nodded sagely as he heard this "I know of this but it is simply so rare for such a case to happen I was lucky to come across both a leviathan heart and having access to our family's tower, it might take years for you to come across such an opportunity." Elijah's heart sank, he had not known of this 'i have to approach this from another angle' Elijah thought. His mind whirled then it hit him, then what about mages! "But father what if the same is true for mages bonded to gear with elemental inhabiting them! if a mage has a water affinity and bonds to a water elemental should they not be able to communicate with them?", as Maria heard this her eyes lit up "You know Eli that is an excellent hypothesis that will need further testing to be proved!". Fjord creased his eyebrows "Son I see what you are trying to do here, I thought that I made myself clear you will not become a mage but a body practitioner, in fact, due to your little theory I will call ahead so that we can head for the lab tomorrow. That way you can get your inscription before you get any other brilliant ideas!". Elijah felt like the whole world was coming down on his shoulders "b-bu-but father!" Fjord looked sternly at him "No buts you knew very well what the consequences were and you still tried to fool me, we will go tomorrow and that's final."

Dinner ended shortly after that, Maria argued with Fjord but to no avail, meanwhile, Thor had a smug look on his face. Before Elijah got to his room Thor caught up to him and gave him a wink "too bad that didn't work out for you Eli, good luck tomorrow!", if a guest had heard Thors well wishes they might have been fooled into thinking that he actually felt bad for his brother, but Elijah knew better "Thank you, dear brother, it is really too bad that you did not know about the affinity... such a shame that the mighty Thor got stuck with a stick with a pointy end". Thor swiveled his head, and spat out in disgust "Says the guy who cannot even master an elementary level of or family's martial art" Before Elijah could snap back Thor left the corridor that they were standing in, leaving Elijah alone.

"Sigh" 'it really looks like I will have to practice the body arts..'. when Elijah finally went to his sleeping quarters a long restless night awaited him.