"What tattoo?" Evan asked hesitantly, almost fearing the answer. To answer this someone, he hadn’t heard yet spoke up. The second girl in the group who wore heavy plate armor and carried a spear and shield decided to pull out a mirror, where she got it from, he had no clue, and said “here look for yourself.” Evan’s reflection shocked him. Looking back at him through the mirror was someone he could barely recognize as himself. To start with his eyes had changed and not in a small way. They had shifted from a murky brown that had matched his hair to a bright green that seemed to dance around constantly shifting as if his eyes contained Xeros’s green flames and in the center of it all his pupils had become black. Evan couldn’t even think about how to describe them. They were pitch black, blacker than the midnight sky. His pupils were dark they seemed to absorb light. There was also an indescribable depth to them as if they were the abys that he had seen in the underworld, almost bottomless with no end in sight.

As he stared at the complete change in his eyes appearance the girl holding the mirror asked if he had noticed his arms. As if broken from a stupor Evan looked down and was speechless yet again. His hands looked as if he had tattooed bones on them to look skeletal, yet the rest of his arm was filled with runes and diagrams he couldn’t even begin to comprehend yet he could feel power running through them. As he focused on that power, he noticed that same power thrummed within his chest and a thin sheen of it almost like a mist covered everything around him. He realized he recognized this power to be like what he saw the warrior from earlier using on his armor to increase his movements and ignite his sword on fire. He could feel the power within him begging to be released and as he focused on it, willing it to move towards his palm, he felt a slight drain from the center of his chest as a thin flame appeared in the air over his palm flickering slightly in the wind. He noticed that the power he had sensed in the air seemed to shy away from this flame that danced eerily in his palm. The flame itself was a light green almost seeming like a pale imitation of the flames in the underworld, the flames that now danced in his eyes.

Evan lost himself within these flames, barely aware of the shouting surrounding him. “EVAN NO!” The voices shouted around him, but he didn’t care so he focused on the flames and the power within him. He was finally broken from his concentration when he was slammed into the ground. Coming to his senses he realized his body was covered in sweat and it was Jack that had tackled him to the ground. “Evan, stop it stop channeling mana!” Jack shouted this in Evans ear as he noticed his surroundings for the first time since he started focusing on this power, what he now assumed to be mana, and realized everyone in the group had drawn their weapons along with Ana and Charlie having created constructs of fire and wind mana respectively. Once they noticed he had stopped channeling mana Charlie spoke up. “Evan what the hell was that flame I thought you didn’t know anything about magic and that flame seemed to pull at my soul just by being near to it. It was not enough to be painful and I recon even if I had touched it directly it would not have harmed me much but to wield something like that as a level one is terrifying. It also was draining your mana at an insane rate almost depleting your core.” Evan took a second to process everything that just happened before finally responding. “I think that was the effect of my blessing from Xeros in the description it said that any magic I used would have slight soul damaging properties. I did not know what I was doing, but when I saw the tattoos on my arms, I saw this power within them that you claim is mana. Once I knew what to look for, I sensed mana all around us and within myself and just willed it to travel to my hand. I did this purely on instinct and suddenly the flame appeared.” Ana and Charlie both appeared excited by what he had said, especially Ana. The way she looked at him after he explained his sudden use of mana made him feel like a test subject in a lab. “I’m going to need to study your flame later Evan” said Ana quickly after his explanation I feel I can improve my own flame to add aspects of the one you just used. “Before any testing is done, we need to report to the commander. You know the laws, anyone with magical talent must be reported so they can be taken to the academy. At this Ana briefly mumbled under her breath that she just needed a few hours for him to regenerate all his lost mana so she could study his flames.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Jack ignored this, picking Evan and himself off the muddy ground. “Evan we are going to our commander’s tent to report your appearance and to request a brief leave from the army so we can guide you to the capitols academy.” Before Evan could ask any of the millions of questions that came to mind when Jack mentioned the academy Jack started walking towards the main body of the army with a firm hand locked on Evan’s shoulder forcing him to walk with him. The rest of the group followed behind them forming a circle around Evan with him and Jack in the front, The woman with the mirror behind Evan and two other people Evan hadn’t spoken with dressed in armor like the woman’s on either side of him. Finally, Ana and Charlie were standing in the back of this formation.

They quickly made their way to the camp, and it was as they approached the army’s fortifications that the rest of the group decided to introduce themselves. First the woman introduced herself as Sarah Strongheart and the two warriors identified themselves as twins named Jacob and Thomas Thatcher. As the twins finished their introductions the group finally reached the military cap and began moving towards the large tents in the back. They approached the largest one and the guards on either side of its entrance stepped forward asking what their business is with the commander. Jack spoke up saying “Jack Heart reporting. We were sent out to find any survivors and found this guy.” At this proclamation Jack shoved Evan forward and continued speaking “We identified him as Evan Miller, and I can guarantee the commander will want to see him.” The guards looked at each other then stepped back opening the flaps of the tent and ushering them inside. Evan watched all of this transpire nervously not sure what his fate will be or how the commander will react to the information Jack is about to tell him.