The current mood of the children made it difficult to enjoy the flight back to the Five Hills. Alaric and his friends had asked a lot of questions but many more still remained.

Alas, it wasn’t easy to ask questions of things you’d never seen. Alaric had heard many things about Alchemy, Pills and Body Tempering but the fact still remained that he didn’t know what all these terms meant.

What really was a Pill? Some coalesced orb of power… or was it like medicine… or both? For any of it to make sense, Alaric was going to have to let the information sit in his mind for a while so he could figure it out.

A sigh escaped his lips as he lifted his chin off the hand that had been supporting it. To pass the time, he reached for SwiftWind’s azure skin.

Moments later, he regretted ever making that decision.

Like a flash of lightning, Alaric’s mind buzzed and his eardrums popped. His hand shot off the stingray’s cool skin in recoil… Alas, it was now too late.

The boy gritted his teeth and quietly struggled to maintain a passive facade, “You okay, Alaric?” Darla asked the boy.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Alaric nodded as calmly as he could but didn’t let her eyes meet his.

His head pounded like a hammer against an anvil while the cells of his body sizzled with new data. It took everything to keep himself from jumping off the stingray’s body and letting his cells do what they wanted.

Out of habit, he’d subconsciously activated his Inborn Ability when touching Garin’s guardian… and now, he was paying the price.

His head spun with a deep spell of vertigo as he struggled to appear normal in front of anyone staring at him. He didn’t know who was staring nor did he have the strength to pay them any attention.

Was this a weakness of his? Alaric was incapacitated after using his Ability on a guardian. Faking a calm facade alone was proving harder than breathing.

Still, if he didn’t want to relive the moments he’d had with LionHeart, it was in his best interest to act extremely normal.

[ Understand SwiftWind’s power. It will ease the pain ] Alia’s soft voice broke through the cacophony of Alaric’s screaming mind.

‘Right… Learn,’ he managed to think.

The biggest cause of the vertigo he was going through was the large influx of information floating through his head.

In the moment that he’d touched the flying stingray, his mind had been zapped with so much information that he was left disoriented. If this had been his first time experiencing this, he would have passed out.

Since he was still conscious, he set his mind to reduce the effect of using his power to the best of his ability.

First, an image flashed through his head when he touched the stingray’s skin. Just like Thomper, this giant marvel perceived the world differently from humans.

Only now did it occur to Alaric that SwiftWind had no neck to move his eyes around and yet he never seemed to struggle to look over his back.

The answer lay in the wind and how it reacted to the beast of the sky. Just the day before, Alaric had started to notice how gracefully the guardian moved through the air regardless of which way the wind blew.

Now, he knew it was far more than that. The Stingray Guardian was a lot more than meets the eye. First of all, the wind surrounding the guardian was an extension of it, bending to its will and providing the current required to keep it afloat.

The thing that astounded Alaric the most, however, was just how powerful the stingray’s control was over this bubble of wind.

SwiftWind’s control over the wind was so sophisticated and powerful that it catered for why the guardian never touched the ground.

Wind aside, the guardian possessed one more mortifying ability: a very loud sonic attack that had decimated an entire horde of demons. This much came from the very nature of the guardian’s body.

As Alaric dove deeper into the nuances of the guardian’s control over the air around it, he came to learn a few things, like how Garin could never fall off the guardian for as long as a part of him touched it.

He learned that the small air domain around the guardian was impervious to even the mightiest of storms, which meant SwiftWind was able to navigate comfortably in the midst of a terrifying storm.

Alaric’s headache gradually went down as he tucked the information away, one piece after the other.

By the time the headache had subsided, the great stingray was descending upon the Five Hills.

Casting a great shadow on an old building that stood next to a large tree, SwiftWind swooped down in a gentle nosedive and setting the trio of children down by the stone-paved road.

At the same time, a group of children poured out of the small doors of the orphanage, storming around the stingray, too excited to contain themselves.

A ghost of a smile graced Alaric’s face at the sight of his family rushing to greet him. Part of him wished he could get started on absorbing his Awakening Orb but at the sight of a fiery-haired boy, his heart melted.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The boy quickly wrapped his arms around him in a bear hug, “Welcome back, Alaric.”

The older boy sighed and patted the fiery-haired boy’s head, ‘Maybe the ritual can wait just a little bit longer.’

[ How about I handle the preparations? ] Alia tried.

[ Oh! Thank you ] the boy responded.

Sister Marla came out to greet them, following behind the children who ran out to greet their returning comrades. The caretaker’s expression was a mix of many emotions through which only one shone: Concern.

Alaric greeted the children, answering their neverending avalanche of questions with promises of the tales of his adventures over dinner, “What was Jack’s Fall like? Aunt Marla said there was a festival. Did you eat a lot of food? What was the food like? What about the Tower of Seekers?”

Before Alaric knew it, he, Finn and Darla were dragged away into the orphanage, which did not allow them time to reconnect with Sister Marla. As they left, a black knight rose from Alaric’s shadow and stayed behind.

It was only after the children were out of earshot that the adults started talking. Sister Marla was the first to speak, “Something’s wrong with them. What happened to my children?”

Her anger was directed at Garin at first, then it spread to the two guards who’d come with them. Garin raised his hands defensively, “We did nothing. It all happened in Jack’s Fall. One moment they were kids, and the next, they were asking about Body Tempering. I don’t know what that old man told them but I’ve never seen normal kids act like this.”

Marla’s face went pale, “It’s happened before… and back then, it took them months to finally start acting normal again, especially Alaric,” Sister Marla worried.

A tall black knight walked up to the woman and put down one knee, coming down to her height, “It’s because of what happened four years ago that they’ve returned to this state. They don’t want it to ever happen again.”

“But if they had just listened to me, they wouldn’t have had to go through all that,” Marla argued.

“If they hadn’t gone through that, they wouldn’t have made it back from the Tower,” Alia said indifferently.

Marla turned pale as a ghost, “What?”

Garin took it from here, “On our way, we were attacked. Mercenaries from the South. The leader was at the Stone Temper Rank. If it wasn’t for Alaric, I’m afraid we would have lost someone.”

Marla wanted to argue but found herself tongue-tied. It’s not like Garin was a weak slayer. In fact, he was Wood Rank himself… but he was only one man and from what she could tell, they were attacked by a group of trained mercenaries.

The Flame Vipers were infamous for their ruthless methods and for those that knew more than most, for their involvement with Dark Magic.

“Mercenaries? Don’t you mean bandits?”

Garin shook his head… “These were after blood.”

“How did they survive?” she asked.

“Alaric used the power he borrowed from Thomper,” Alia summarised before Garin could struggle with explaining the boy’s weird abilities. Sister Marla turned even paler but the guardian continued without skipping a beat, “He wants to combine the Body Tempering Ritual with the Awakening Ritual.”

“No way I’m letting him do that. He’s still only a boy!” the woman responded fiercely.

“That ‘boy’ nearly got himself killed. If you want him to be safe, then help him grow stronger before it’s too late,” the guardian countered calmly.

“What about you? You can protect him,” the woman tried.

“Marla, Alaric can’t cast an S-class Concealment Barrier nearly as strong or stable as yours. Every time he spends outside of one, he’s vulnerable,” the guardian argued, “…you can’t protect him forever… and I want to be able to do something, so help me, please.”

Sister Marla’s shoulders slumped after a long moment of silence. It was clear she wasn’t happy with any of this. But what choice did she have? If she refused to go along with this and he died because he was too weak, there was no doubt Sister Marla would blame herself.

The world they lived in was not a merciful one. Going against her motherly instincts was one thing she’d failed to get used to ever since she opened the orphanage. Even as their discussions commenced, she felt a heavy weight on her shoulders… ‘Why does it have to be like this?’

For the next two hours, Alia went over the details with Sister Marla and the three slayers. Their discussion dived into the nitty gritty details of Alaric’s requests, spelling out what they could and could not do within the allotted time.

Before they could abandon anything, however, Alia specified a daunting sum of gold Alaric had suddenly come to possess, bringing it forward to fund any purchases they’d need to make to pull this off.

Meanwhile, Alaric spent time with the children. Having been overpowered by their demands, he started telling them of the different things they experienced at the festival. He told them of the spirits that visit their loved ones every full moon. He spoke of the Coming of Age Ceremony and the dances that were performed.

Just when everyone was about to get bored, Finn mentioned Darla had awakened her guardian… and the attention shifted away from Alaric in a heartbeat.

The orphans became even more of a lost cause when Apollo was summoned, especially the girls.

Later that afternoon, Alaric was washing the utensils used to pack the extravagant lunch he’d produced from his bracelet, humming to himself gently. His mind was peaceful for once, having let go of the matters concerning the rituals he wanted to take part in.

The calm atmosphere soothed him as though nothing was about to break it. Helping him rinse the bowls, plates, dishes and cutlery was a fiery-haired orphan who enthusiastically dealt with the utensils sent his way. Despite his smaller hands, he worked fast enough to turn to Alaric’s slower hands, eagerly waiting for more.

“You’re slow, Alaric,” Cody said.

“But effective,” Alaric responded with a satisfied hum.

“You can be fast and effective, you know,” the boy complained.

“Yes… but then I would have to worry about breaking the dishes. I’d miss a few spots in the name of being fast… and when one of us gets sick, I would feel bad. We’d have to spend money on medicine and… Sister Marla would worry,” Alaric explained in a sombre tone.

Somehow this conversation had started with washing utensils and then found its way to buying medicine.

“Alaric… Cody. I’ll finish the dishes. I’d like you to take Old Thomper to the Farming Hill. Mrs Perkinson’s beans have started wilting again,” Marla suddenly interrupted the peaceful washing session.

“Yes, Sister Marla,” they responded.

……………………

Later that evening, Alaric lay on the thick branch of the old tree guardian, breathing evenly. His mind flashed with memories of the tree guardian spreading vines through the ground and restoring its fertility by cutting them off from himself.

Of course, it wasn’t enough that they were vines. These vines were filled with nutrients enough to make the beans grow to thrice their normal size. It was because of this that the Five Hills had abnormally large produce in the markets.

If there was one thing the remote village didn’t lack, it was food.

“Thomper, thank you for your power,” Alaric mumbled, remembering the fight in the woods. Had it not been for the Guardian’s power, Alaric was not sure what he would have done in that situation. He had many spells at his disposal but the battle was far too fast for him to follow and he rarely got the time to come up with countermeasures to what the insidious mercenary did.

In the end, Thomper’s ability was the best thing he could have asked for at a time like that.

The tree groaned in response…

The peace that permeated the air was surreal and calm. In the distance, Alaric watched the three Knights of the Tower of Seekers emerge from the Forest Hill, walking down the dirt path with tired expressions.

[ How long? ]

[ Soon. ]