“The world is made of three things,” the professor at the front of the class said. “Solids, liquids, and gas. And these states build the world around us, from the land and rivers to the air we breathe.”
Tristan sat in the middle of the class next to Aeon, among around 40 other students, all dressed in trainee attire: the tunic, pants, boots and leather chestplate.
“But in the middle of all of this, there is also something known as Shiji. It’s difficult to say what Shiji is exactly, but what we do know about it is that it seems to read our thoughts and make the world behave in the way that we desire. We simply refer to it as an ‘energy’, though that word doesn’t mean anything.”
Similarly to someone who studied their subjects in school, worked on developing a talent, or worked out to enhance their physique, you could make Shiji energy listen to your thoughts and reshape the world around you through repeatedly commanding it to do so. The practice of bending the world around oneself via Shiji is known by one word.
Encastry, derived from the phrase “energy casting”. And of Encastry, there were three types: Solid, Liquid and Gaseous Encastry.
The first was Solid Encastry. The trainees would each be given a brick. Their goal was to slice the brick into two halves along a diagonal line. And though everyone couldn’t even crack the brick on the first day, this was said to be the easiest level of Encastry.
The difficulty of an Encastry can be best explained as: how easy it is to hold a state of matter in your hand.
A solid was the easiest state of matter to hold in your hand, as it would just sit there, unchanged. You couldn’t hold a liquid in your hand at all, as it would just fall through the gaps in your fingers. But a liquid would at least retain in your hand. Gases didn’t even do that, choosing to freely float around in the atmosphere, which made Gaseous Encastry virtually impossible to master.
Tristan had done the brick exercise back home, so he completed it on the first day itself. But the activities that followed would gradually grow harder and harder.
They’d punch through walls, which left a lot of knuckles broken, and they were soon made to cut down and uproot trees found in the forest that ringed the Barracks. With each day growing more intense, Tristan found himself often out of breath and throwing up from exhaustion. The most gruelling test of all was one that forced them to run up a mountain dragging a 2-ton tree behind them, having to use Solid Encastry to turn the ground underneath the tree into a movable platform. And even then, the force needed to raise something as heavy as a tree off the ground left a lot of trainees with migraines that lasted days, with some even experiencing seizures and having to drop out of the Camp.
Tristan hated the Encastry training. But what he did enjoy was the combat training. They were trained in an ancient martial art called the Eight-Limbs that mixed punches, kicks, but also a large amount of elbow and knee strikes. Rather than Encast the world around them, they were made to Encast their own bodies, allowing their attacks to land with incredible speed and force. Of course this did often leave them bruised and with the occasional broken bone. But this was the same way the Royal Guard from a month ago had fought Leon, and Tristan knew he’d need it in order to win a fight against him.
The Royal Guard’s name, he had come to learn, was Emile. He was the leader of the Inner Guard that overlooked the safety of the Royal Family, and was a greatly-respected officer among his peers and subordinates.
It made Tristan sick.
Due to the difficulty of Liquid and Gaseous Encastry, the Camp didn’t give it plenty of attention, but simply provided optional courses trainees could follow to study the arts after they graduated.
What little practice they did do involved swimming while simultaneously holding the water still and pulling a bubble of air underwater. As the swimming was performed in a pool where the water had nowhere else to go, it greatly eased the difficulty of the task.
The Gaseous Encastry Training involved dragging a bubble of air into the pool. However, Tristan found this confusing as once the bubble was in the pool, trainees could simply use Liquid Encastry to hold the bubble underwater. There was no need for Gaseous Encastry at all after that point.
The end of the three months of training drew near, passing over Tristan’s birthday. Towards the latter weeks, all trainees were graded on all three Encastries.
Solid Encastry Grading involved building a brick and mortar house from scratch using only Encastry before demolishing it with their bare fists. Liquid Encastry Grading required them to perform the Dead Swim (as it was called) in a river instead of a pool. There were several incidents of drowning here, though no-one died. And Gaseous Grading required all trainees to push a pyramid of wood with a gust of wind.
The combat grading involved a spar where all trainees were allowed use of Encastry as well. But Tristan, kitted in padded boxing gear, didn’t want to use Encastry. He envisioned himself approaching Emile in the dusty ring and focused on the Shiji around his arms and legs. The blue aura flared around them.
“Fight!” the referee called.
There was instantly a burst of columns of earth that exploded out of the ground towards Tristan from all directions. But two spinning kicks later, they’d turned to dust. Letting his older, taller opponent no rest, he ran forwards.
The latter sent wall after wall of earth flying at him, but Tristan broke through all of them, not even fazed by the collisions. He couldn’t see the skinny blonde young adult standing in front of him. He could only see a lean and tall man in red robes holding the limp body of his father by his hair.
Tristan was within striking range of his opponent. He threw a punch that got deflected and the opponent swung his elbow inwards at Tristan’s skull. Adjusting his footing, Tristan slid back and the elbow missed him by inches. He rushed in again with a front kick that the opponent leaned back to avoid. Tristan put the raised foot down and transitioned into another spinning kick aimed at the other man’s side. The opponent blocked it with his arm, but the kick, charged by Shiji, knocked him off his feet anyway.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Quick to recover, the opponent attempted to pull the earth from under Tristan’s feet like a rug but Tristan slammed his foot down, shattering the panel of earth that was about to slide out of place underneath him, transitioning immediately into a spinning back kick that caught the other square in the gut, throwing him onto his back.
He lay curled up on the ground as the referee counted down to 0. Tristan, completely out of breath from the pure rush of attacks he’d thrown at his opponent, also dropped to his knees, heaving.
***
The day of the graduation ceremony was cheerful for most. But Tristan sat, his face dark, in the crowd, as the ranks of the class were announced. He had placed second, right under Aeon, most likely since he hadn’t used any Encastry while sparring. The first time an Affinity-bearer hadn’t been the top of the class, which the announcer had to mention, much to Tristan’s annoyance.
As the trainees, now officers, chattered happily with their parents in the grassy courtyard following the end of the ceremony, Tristan found himself making his way to the exit.
“Going somewhere?” said Aeon’s voice. She sat on a bench nearby, a glass of some drink in her hand, dressed in the green robes handed to new officers.
“Home,” he said. “Back to Eausuterrain.” He looked around. “Aren’t your parents here?”
She chuckled. “I have no family, Tristan.” The pain behind the smile was all too obvious. Tristan could see that she was holding back the urge to cry. He knew the feeling all too well.
“Well,” Tristan said. “You wanna . . . come with me?”
She leaned forward, jacking her head up off her knee with her free arm. “Really?” There wasn’t excitement in her voice. It sounded more like curiosity, as she was more interested in learning Tristan’s history than anything else.
“Sure,” Tristan said, shaking off the sudden unease her question had thrown at him. “I can’t give you your family. But I don’t want you being all alone.”
She smirked.
“What?” Tristan frowned.
“You’re blushing.”
“No I’m not!” Tristan snapped, though he did feel his face warming up.
Laughing again, she got to her feet and dropped the glass on a nearby table. In the three months since they’d met, Tristan had grown to almost her height.
Together, they left for the exit, and for Eausuterrain beyond.
***
In the heart of the Aladeriv palace, the doors of the large throne room swung open. At the opposite end of the room, King Treville and Queen Lucille sat on ornate thrones.
Unknown to anyone, the oldest daughter, 13-year-old Liara, was watching the meeting from behind a suit of armour.
A tall man in red robes approached the thrones and bowed before them.
“Your Majesties,” Emile said, “requested my presence?”
“Yes,” Treville replied. “We wanted to talk to you about the new Affinity-bearer you found five months ago.”
“Three months ago, Your Majesty,” Emile interjected.
“Three months ago,” Treville corrected himself. “Why was I not informed of his presence?”
“Your Majesty?” Emile frowned.
“You’re the one who keeps telling us that Affinity-bearers are either tools or threats. If such is the case, then we expect you to let us know when you find one.”
“But Your M—”
“Shut up, Emile!” Treville snapped. “Your job is to ensure our safety. Whenever you find a new Affinity-bearer, you let us know first. Do I make myself clear?”
Emile said nothing for a moment. And then he spoke. “No.”
Treville frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“My job is no longer to ensure your safety,” Emile looked up at the king. “I finally found what I’ve been looking for all this time. And there’s no need for me to keep up this charade anymore.”
“What charade?” Treville snapped. “What are you talking about?”
“Encastry,” Emile continued. “Grows strongest when there is a fear of loss. Nobody knows why this is. But out of all the Affinity-bearers I found, none were quite as easy to cause loss for than that boy from the east.”
Treville’s frustration suddenly died. “What do you mean?”
The devilish grin broke Emile’s face and Treville found his hand slowly travelling to the hilt of his sword. “I killed them,” he said gleefully. “Everyone in his village. So many easy victims. And to a someone at such a young age. It was so easy!”
“You must be sick, Emile,” Treville said, suddenly wanting to end this conversation. “Go rest in your quarters. We can continue this later.”
“Oh no,” Emile continued. “I don’t need to rest anymore. Because I have found the perfect vessel to unearth that weapon you’re hiding under your castle!”
“What weapon?” Treville said.
Emile laughed. “Don’t pull that shit with me, Treville! I trust my intelligence teams far more than your snobbish ass!”
“Such disrespect,” Treville spat. “Guards, arrest this man.” From the corners of the room, four soldiers approached Emile.
“Nah,” Emile chuckled. “I’m not going to lose. Once I have this weapon, I alone will be able to rule this land.”
He looked Treville dead in the eye and his voice lowered. “And if you get in my way,” he muttered. “I will kill you. I will kill your wife. And I will kill your daughters.”
“Treason!” Treville roared. “Execute this man right now!”
But Emile was a lot faster than he’d imagined. Within the next five seconds, the guards were thrown back, blood spraying off their bodies, and Emile had crossed the distance up the stairs to the throne, driving his his sword deep into Treville’s chest.
The startled king couldn’t even react, didn’t hear his wife screaming, didn’t feel Emile pull the sword out of him and thrust it into her as she tried to escape, and didn’t feel any pain as he tumbled down the stairs that lead up to his throne.
All he saw was his daughter, watching in terror from behind a suit of armour. But he couldn’t even say her name as his vision blurred and blackened.