“Vallie, are you feeling sick?”
A faint voice slipped past the closed door to Val’s room. With her thoughts muddled to the point beyond exhaustion, it took her a few seconds to decrypt the words struggling to reach the processing parts of her brain.
Goo clamped her lashes shut and she almost gave up opening her eyes after the third attempt. Up she went—with a dozen silent groans at her stiff muscles—rolling off her bed to a sitting position at its edge.
“No Andy,” she made sure to add an extra ounce of energy, hoping to drown the scratchy undertone tracing her words after days of visiting the bathroom. Kids, no matter how young, were sharp. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Okay! Breakfast’s ready!” he announced with his characteristic chipper, faint scampering footfalls fading away as he ran away.
Val slid off the safety of her comforts, taking refuge in the chilled wooden flooring. Arriving at the pre-furnished apartment, she had no say in the makings of her room. A duo of twin-sized handbuilt beds bordered her sides, opposite the door. A window hovered above, offering a display of the neighbouring building’s brick wall.
She lifted a hand to shield her burning eyes from the rays slipping through the chinks of the open blinds. The gleam of her artifact caught her gaze and she tapped its crown.
Swiping past the Wielder Info page, a search fueled by desperation ensued, hoping whatever she found could cure her incapability to cast in the past couple of days. Only two pages caught her eyes, both a harbinger of the problems to come.
Spell Mastery
[Registered Spells]
Metal Spike - 0%
* [Initial Control: Requires physical and vocal signal]
Metal Orb - 0%
* [Initial Control: Requires physical and vocal signal]
Spell Cache
Inapplicable—no spells cast.
Thanks for the reminder. Val sighed through her nose.
With the stress of the training class, taking care of her brothers and researching Life’s Hymn, the idea of learning more about her artifact was pushed to the far ends of her mind. While there was no hope to be gained in its restricted abilities, she spotted the silver lining in the darkening clouds handing over her head.
Artifact Codename: Aster
It had a name.
Well Aster. She looked up at the ink ring. I hope I don’t prove myself unworthy.
It was barely perceivable and for all Val knew it could’ve been her mind on the verge of shattering at the constant stress of casting. But, if her sleep-deprived eyes saw correctly, the foreign characters engraved on the artifact raced with the fastest of glimmers, as if an assurance.
----------------------------------------
Jitters harrowed Val’s fingers, unable to sit still on her lap sheathed in specialized combat bottoms. Caro’s hand rested on her shoulder, gaze speaking more than words ever could. You’ve got this.
I really don’t. She managed to keep her true thoughts to herself. Offering a smile—which Caro saw through, frowning—she wheeled her head, stiffly, to face happenings on the other side of the viewing panel.
A student, clad in the same grey combat suit as Val, poignantly raised her arms. “A Rose’s Revenge!”
At her words, she invoked the nearby plants into motion. A flower, bearing petals fervidly red, zipped through the air to strike a film of paper, its stem shining at the sharpness inherently woven inside the Tier 1 spell.
Crrrk!
Cracks spiderwebbed the target, and the plant mage smiled at her work.
“Excellent job, Novice Greene.” Instructor Hawke jotted something down on her pad, shooing the trainee away at her next words. “Last test, Novice Efron.”
“You got this, ‘Lore.”
Nodding at Caro, Val inhaled a calming breath and exited the little box of a room. She had to admit, the absence of colour in the EC-room had a calming effect. As the instructor speedily set up the next target with the help of countless cloud phalanges, she retraced the frames to her spell. She stretched a connection to the Metal Gate, tiny-looking as far as it was within her mind's eye.
“Novice Efron,” Instructor Hawke thumbed the objective. “You may begin.”
Val bobbed her head, prepped for and ready to cast. She extended her palms outwards.
“Metal Spike!”
Holding in a breath, she waited for the desired cutting sound of a spike, the boom of destruction—anything. Her reward was silence and a throbbing headache. No way I’m stopping here.
“Metal Spike!”
Bile raced up her throat and she urged her body to retain the breakfast her siblings made with care, doubling over on her knees. A spell costs more than aether, Miss Peppers had mentioned on the last day of school. It squeezed her mind's capacity dry, to the point Val felt as if her thoughts struggled to flow.
“That is enough, Novice.” Instructor Hawke paced over with hastened steps. “The rest of you—dismissed. I’ll post your results on the trainee board.”
Recruits filed out of the waiting room and through the opening door of the EC-room, not forgetting to glance her way in pity.
“What a loser.”
“Better luck next time.”
“Fighting!”
“Gotta wonder what she’s going to do down the line.”
It was a mixed bag of cookies, but either way, Val waved her thanks, standing on two unsteady feet.
“Woah, easy.” Caro braced her shoulders. “You don’t look too good there, Val.”
“I’m okay,” she countered, aiming her burning gaze at the film. “That shouldn’t be.”
“I want progress, Efron, and I want results.” Instructor Hawke joined the pair. “I’m giving you the room. Understood?”
Pinned by the anticipative gaze penetrating the dark cover of the instructor's sunglasses, Val nodded her understanding. She wasn’t leaving until she cast something.
“Good,” she called over her shoulder as she followed the last of her students. Instructor Hawke actually waved and the door rolled back down.
Val refocused on the target. It was a mental block, the catalyst for all her problems. If she couldn’t cast, then her high PAST would become useless and her search for Life’s Hymn futile when she couldn’t obtain it herself. That meant one thing.
The target had to go.
“You’re in that mood, again.” Caro seemed to notice the distinct change in her friend. “Want me to stay?”
“I wouldn’t ask that of you, I—.”
“It’s not a bother,” Caro cut her off, surveying her from above. “You’re not a bother. Do you want or need me to stay?”
Val ruminated on it, weighing the pros and cons. “I think I’ve reached one of those cultivation bottlenecks and with that realization… I want to try it by myself.”
“Okay!” Caro slapped her back. “I’ll see you at home!”
Val massaged her bruised tendons with a faint upwards curl at her lips. “Why so cheery?”
“Because you finally got that look in your eyes,” Caro grinned. “And when you have it, I know you’ll succeed.”
~
It turned out that it was, indeed, not a cultivation bottleneck.
Val casted spells until she could no longer remember where she was. Dangerous and stupid—she knew—but frustration proved to be a fatal motivator and success an effective enough bait she’d swim through muddy waters and back.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
After hours of cyclical attempts of casting, rebounds and pain, she’d finally figured out a piece of the puzzle. While no, like a sprawled fish laying on dry sand gazing up at the ivory ceilings, she had not yet cast either spell, she noticed that something wasn’t aligning.
Those connected to a primary element visibly witnessed the form of an Elemental Gate, and no matter how low you were in affinity—translated into the distance between gate and mage—you’d see it.
On the other hand, mages bound to a sub-element didn’t discern the linked gate alone. They also spotted the rune-form of their bound element orbiting around as an indication of being derived from the gate.
Metal elementalists were known sub-element-users, as said in the many texts she cared to dive through. At the end of the day, all metals were under the Elemental Gate of Metal’s realm. Yet, as Val focused within, she hadn't perceived any elemental ensign—not even a scratch.
Something was not aligning.
The whoosh of one of the room’s panels rolling up to the ceiling cracked her eyes open and, if she remembered right, Magus Kane stood at the door.
Val wobbled to her feet. “Is it time for me to go?”
“No, no. Sit.” Magus Kane glided across the floor, steps so precise it seemed as if he actively trained the action for years. “I’ve heard about your little hiccup and reckon I can be of help.”
“That’s… nice,” she settled to say in the limbo of shock. “Can I ask why?”
“You’re a recruit of this guild,” he answered. “And any recruit is, in some form, my student. Particularly when they wield the same element as mine.”
“You’re a metal mage?” Val's eyebrows raised to the roof of her forehead and she gave the Magus a subtle look over.
He wore short dreadlocks swished to the side, golden metal cuffs woven on each strand. His midnight cloak swept the floor, hiding the sleek adventurer-wear beneath. A shine of steel would catch her eye each time it flapped open, knee guards and arm protectors at the ready.
“I believe I said so, didn’t I?” He took a graceful seat on the EC-room’s floor, patting the space beside him. “How well of a grasp do you have on the elements, gates and realms?”
“Not well enough with all the restrictions out,” Val muttered.
“We’ll go back and forth, then, and see how that goes,” he suggested. “You start.”
“Alright.” Val sat cross-legged in front, arms hugging herself. “An element, though no one is quite sure, is an aspect within the world that can be used in a spell. Each one of them is procured, in some way, from an Elemental Gate.”
Magus Kane nodded his agreement, continuing the chain. “Elemental Gates are the doors through which mages access and call upon their elements. The actual substance of a gate is a mystery—no one knows exactly what it is and few care”
Surprisingly enough, Val was able to… follow his line of thought. She went next in earnest, glad for a conversation in spellcraft she could engage in.
“Elemental Realms are domains correlating to the specific gate. Sub-elements exist in this space,” she said. “Like, if we use the Elemental Gate of Fire, for example, its realm carries the sub-elements of ash and smoke.
“And when they overlap, the gates create compound elements. If we continue with fire as our topic, the overlapping of the Geo Realm and Fire Realm results in the element of magma.”
“Right,” Magus Kane agreed. “This system, however, is created only for our understanding as a sapient. Nothing says it has to work this way—and because it doesn’t—there’s holes.”
“How can they even exist?” Val asked. “Wouldn’t it be plugged by the World Magocracy?”
“If we did so,” he said, “our theories would fall apart. For this reason, until proven otherwise, we have what we call Pseudo-Elemental Gates. As you said, realms correlate to a gate and for the most part, it makes sense. Smoke and ash are derived from fire and thus belong to that gate. Sand and minerals are of earthen material and thus are in the hands of the geo gate. However, therein lies a problem—a profound one.
“What if we hadn’t known of the existence of fire? What if we knew of just the sub-elements smoke and ash, while being able to determine they originate from the same source,” he said, “how would you assign it to a gate then? What in the world would be the gate you perceive in your mind’s eye?”
“That’s…” The more she ruminated on the inquiry, the more she found herself bewildered, a finger on her chin. “That wouldn’t happen.”
“It already has,” he informed her. “These Pseudo-Elemental Gates exist for the sole purpose of justifying our theory of sub and compound elements. We witness mages controlling vines, flowers, and wood—oh, there must be a Gate of Plants connecting all of these elemental ensigns! Yet, what would that gate be?
“If one is bound to the Elemental Gate of Fire, they quite simply wield the element of fire. If a mage is bound to the Elemental Gate of Plants itself, it doesn’t translate as properly because by definition…”
“You’d wield all the aspects categorized as plants,” she finished. “That’s insane!”
“And impossible,” he countered. “Mostly, that is. Anomalies exist in every rule and will continue to do so as we fumble into understanding. From what we’ve discovered, the Elemental Gates of Metal, Plants, Poison, Forces and Astrum are all Pseudo-Elemental Gates.”
“Forces?”
“There have been enough gravity mages exclaiming for the change and it should happen in the next year,” he supplied. “And to answer your unasked question, yes you can be bound to these gates directly and not one of its commonplace secondary elements. I, myself, am bound to the Elemental Gate of Metal, not any sub-element under its realm. I estimate that you, Miss Efron, are too.”
Val leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “I’m bound… to a Pseudo-Elemental Gate.”
“I believe so,” he agreed. “So few of us exist, we're as rare as golds and it’s not to our complete advantage. It’s the reason you’re having trouble casting. You’re suffering from the misalignment of your will. It makes for nasty rebounds, as you’ve evidently been having.”
“I didn’t throw up this time round, though,” Val gestured around the room with a small smile. “Squeaky clean.”
“You grew resistant, yes,” he said, skimming right over the joke. “It does not change the fact that you’re not calling to anything in particular, so all your rewards that should have been gained in the mastery of a spell are lost due to it. Let’s absolve that, shall we?”
Out of his storage ring, he summoned an array of metals. A few were easy to understand with her past part-time job in a mine. The unmistakable sheen of rich yellow belonged to gold and the common colour equipped in most utensils pointed out silver.
Most were unknown to her, like the molten slab to the far end of the line, radiating heat off its surface. That's metal? Another moved while stationary, a paradox to her eyes so dumbfounding she had to look away to save her common sense.
“Lined here are a vast variety of metals, from magical to typical for you.” He rolled a hand towards them. “You’ve been calling out to them for a while. Now, focus on the metal that calls out to you the most.”
Val exhaled, falling into a state of tranquility and listening for indications. The metals didn’t speak, they resonated with her personality, her being, with her.
All of them.
The thought was freaky, like a crowd of a hundred people all gesturing to her without notice of one another. Weird.
It wasn’t hard to pick out the alto to her tenor, a contrapuntal harmony so meant to be they became one. Her eyes flitted around, looking for the second half of her will. Val was surprised at what she found.
A piece of what could only be called pure ice rested on the floor, glazing the ground in a veneer of white glass. She pointed in its direction. “I think that’s the one.”
Magus Kane’s eyebrows arched.
“That was rather quick,” he muttered and the entire string of metals vanished at his snap. His gaze found Val’s. “So you chose coldsteel—or Glaze, depending on who you ask. A metal of magical origins.”
Resummoning it in his palm, he wrapped the material in a cover of aether and handed it to her. “From what I saw... you’re more of a Striker…” he said more to himself than her, whisking out a spellsheet from his pockets. “Now, let’s try again.”
“Okay.” Val glanced at the paper in her hand.
{Invocation} [Metal] Tier 1: Metal Orb
Type: Utility
→ moulding the prevalent metal into a fist-sized orb. Note: due to its discipline, it's capable of being made into a subsequent spell.
Core Hex Criterion
Offence:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Defence:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Agility:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Malleability:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Health:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Special Effects:
❙❙❙❙❙❙
Minor Hex Criterion
Radius: N/A
Incantation Tempo: Untroubled
Energy Required: 2 AS
It’s invocation now, Val noticed. “I hope I gain some ice traits or something.”
“You will not,” Magus Kane shut down her idea immediately. “In your hand lies a slab of metal, nothing more, nothing less. It does happen to have incredibly high thermal conductivity, paired with an uncanny ability to remain solid. Science can’t begin to explain its properties. However, for now—” he stared pointedly at the spellsheet in her palms “—cast.”
“Right.” Val chuckled dryly, whispering, “Absorb.”
Information flowed through her mind and a flash of pink cleared the words from the page. The frame of the spell originally when conjured was form, used to call it into existence at your words. In an invocation spell, it turned into configure, wielding what was in your grasp and shaping it at your will.
Adjusting, she reached into her inner self. There, orbiting around the Elemental Gate of Metal, was the powder-blue ensign of coldsteel. It grew incandescent at her call and Val’s confidence swelled in tandem as she muttered her incantation. “Metal Orb!”
Her breath hitched in anticipation.
Magus Kane’s protective barrier of protective aether fizzled away and frost bit into her fingers, the brick of coldsteel slimming into a perfect sphere.
“Yes!” Val pumped a fist into the air. “Yes, yes, yes, finally.”
She cracked a wide smile, letting go of the orb as the low temperature nicked the heat out of her.
“You’ll get used to its characteristics soon enough,” he said, his eyes smiling. “It did choose you for a reason, and you did the same.”
“I don’t know…” Val was a summer girl through and through. Winter, in her utter and honest opinion, sucked. Delayed buses, being wrapped in layers, the raise in rent—the list went on. But who cared?
The muddy waters were clearing up.