“Ah finally, there you are,” the fortune teller shouted as she noticed Elem and Aja approaching her shop, her face folding into a wrinkly smile. “Come on now, quickly! Before you get too wet.”

Entering the fortune teller’s shop was like venturing to another world. The establishment was a single, dimly lit room, obscured by an overwhelming damp of incense. The shop’s floor was covered with intricate carpets and an abundance of brass lamps strung down from its already low ceiling.

“The name is Sylvia Emerititia the Magnificent III, but you two can call me Aunt Sylvia,” the woman said before sitting down on an impromptu dais in the back of the room. “So how can I help you children?”

Elem felt silly for visiting a psychic. Judging by the lady’s ridiculous name and the overly decorated room, they were clearly walking into a scam. He quickly glanced at his friend. How desperate were they for trying something like this?

“I am trying to learn more about my future,” Elem told the woman. “Your sign outside says that your Summon has certain abilities?”

“They always care about the future. Especially when they have so much of it,” the lady mumbled to herself. Her eyes ran over Elem as if she was studying a painting.

“As you desire,” Sylvia said as she lit another stick of incense and inhaled the smoke. “I summon the Djinn! Fire Summon, Steward of the Unseen World!”

Sylvia’s announcement was so dramatic that Elem cringed and he could tell that Aja also struggled with keeping a straight face.

As she conjured up enough Essence to call her Summon, the psychic began chanting something unintelligible, her voice spontaneously dropping a few octaves. Green smoke poured from each of the shop’s oil lamps, surrounding Elem and the fortune teller in a fuming vortex.

“You brought me a Summoner this time,” said a thundering voice. “How amusing…”

Elem couldn’t tell when the Djinn had appeared, he only knew that the Summon was suddenly with him. The Djinn’s appearance was uncanny, looking both human and otherworldly at the same time. Its upper body, although covered in a mysterious green hue, resembled that of a muscular man while its lower body consisted only of a trail of smoke.

“Look at me,” the Djinn rumbled. It reached out to Elem’s face, directing him to its glowing yellow eyes.

Elem shuddered, feeling as if he was under the influence of some strange mind altering substance. The Djinn didn’t open its mouth as it spoke. it was communicating to him on a different level. Elem tried to contain his panic but he could physically feel the Djinn’s presence inside his body and sense how it slithered through his mind.

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“To see your future is to see your past.”

The Djinn hadn’t finished its sentence or the fortune teller’s shop morphed into a black, empty space. Elem’s consciousness floated through an entirely separate dimension. There was no sound, no light and no temperature. Even the intrusive smell of the room’s incense had vanished.

Elem’s vision shifted again, this time he found himself in a bright, sterile room. He noticed a man standing over an occupied hospital bed, his head hanging low. Elem’s body tightened as he took a step closer, recognizing the man as his father. Ardan clutched a bloodied newborn to his chest but his eyes were fixed on the bleak face of his unconscious wife.

Elem had never met his mother, he had only ever seen her in the happy photos his father had shown him. Witnessing her so realistically and in such a dire state, made his body shiver.

When he tried approaching his parents, reality morphed once more. The hospital room made place for a dreary cemetery. Elem saw he no longer was an infant in this vision. The apparition of his younger self was just old enough to stand up and latch on to his father’s hand. The boy peered at his father, watching tears stream down from Ardan’s face.

As time passed, the Djinn conjured up more and more images. It showed a scene of Elem, Aja and Bertrand playing together on Sekuheim’s practice grounds, pretending to call and control Summons. It showed Elem's many training sessions and even how he connected with the Kappa. And finally, it showed Elem how the Seraphim had disintegrated his father.

After that traumatic image, the visions grew less vivid and increasingly dreamlike. The Djinn had finished showing Elem his past and now focused on the times that were still to come.

“Look in the past and you will find depression. Look in the future and you will find anxiety,” the Summon warned.

Images flashed past Elem’s eyes; he saw himself run through a dark forest, unclear whether he was rushing towards or from something. He saw fire and heard screams. He witnessed himself facing an enormous winged Summon in a landscape of jagged rocks, before seeing himself battle other duelists alongside that very same Summon. Elem then saw himself duel in grassy fields, at many Summoning Schools and even in crowded arenas.

“Your future…” said the fortune teller, her voice breaking Elem’s immersion. “It’s a path of extremes.”

The words dragged Elem’s consciousness back to the psychic's shop. He threw up the moment he noticed the room’s smoke entering his nostrils.

“There’s as much glory as there’s danger,” aunt Sylvia continued. She drummed her fingers on the table as she spoke. “But whichever will prevail is up to you and your actions. My Djinn can only show the potential paths in your future but nothing is fully set in stone.”

“That can literally mean anything,” Aja protested. “What good is telling the future, if anything can happen anyways? This is clearly a waste of money.”

“Child,” the fortune teller replied with a deep frown. “You haven’t seen what he has. How can you judge?”

Elem raised his hands in an attempt to stop them from arguing. The visions still lingered in his mind. Maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly. Maybe a part of him was still under the Djinn’s spell. Regardless, if following these visions could bring him closer to his goals, then he had to know more.

“I remember seeing a forest,” he said. “Any idea what that can mean?”

Aunt Sylvia let out a worried sigh.

“Yes child, one place comes to mind. There is a nature reserve south of the city, it’s a location where many famous Summoners have trained in the past. You might be able to learn something in a place like that. But…” her face paled. “I must warn you, that forest, it’s terribly haunted!”