It had only been four minutes for something to go wrong. Rather, it was surprising that nothing else had gone wrong before then.
Ghoul was one of three horses, but they traveled as a group. The caravan leader, Pallius, had said something about them being grown together, but Ivis didn’t pay much attention to the crazy guy.
As he tried to lead Ghoul through the small pasture the other two horses followed close by.
After four minutes Ghoul kicked him off and trotted back to the other two. He just had to try again.
His second and third tries were similarly unsuccessful. But on his fourth try, he had a bit of luck getting her to not kick him off. Instead, she just sat on the ground.
“Oh come on now, we will have to travel together from now on. Unless you would rather swap with one of those giant crabs and pull the wagon. That would be pretty cool.”
But no persuading could make her get up. Finally, he gave up and sat down right next to her. If he couldn’t ride a horse then at least he could make sure he was ready to go.
“Ahh, good morning. Do you know where I can find the caravan master?” A new voice echoed through the caravan yard gate. It was five-thirty. Had the others started to show up?
“He’s straight through that door, inside the first wagon. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Just checking in, first day as a guard.”
“No shit, really? Me too. What's your name?”
"Most people just call me Shig. Shipton Grace is what my parents decided to name me."
The two greeted each other and walked over to the wagon together.
"Pallius, there is another new guard here," Ivis yelled through the door, knocking as well to make sure he was heard.
They heard a couple of crashes and things being dropped. Soon enough the door opened and they could see their leader, well, he stuck his head out the door.
"Morning boys, I'll summarize it for you. We leave in 45 minutes, the last new guard should be here in about 15 minutes. Ivis, show him the horses and have him pick one."
The caravan leader quickly shut the door. A couple of bangs and crashes later the wagon fell silent again.
"Ok... that was super weird. Anyways, right back where I was sitting in defeat is the horse stable. Pallius told me to get used to riding a horse, I was trying to convince Ghoul, the pale horse, to let me practice riding but she kept on kicking me off. "
"Haha, what affinity does your horse have?"
Ivis didn't know. He could easily find out but he didn't have the tools or the wonder to figure it out. Then again, it would be useful to know what information. Ivis was currently without a mana or an affinity. If he could obtain one from connecting with this horse or something similar then that would be amazing.
More on mana, it was more accurate to call it another source of energy rather than the thing that drives life and everything. Things could exist without mana, such as certain animals and stones.
Things like plants and more chaotic forms have easier access to mana, however, that doesn't mean that everything chaotic has a mana affinity.
The most important part about gaining an affinity is controlling that affinity. The more control the more absolute one can be with that power. His father and mother for example. His father's fire focuses on amplifying the damage it's dealing already.
Thoughts like sharpness, heat, control, and that burning feeling inside the back of his mind mix into his skills with spears. It creates mana unique to his father that only he can use to the maximum efficiency.
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His mother on the other hand had parts of sturdiness, metallic, hardness, and efficiency mixed into her mana. It makes her a great defender and an even better builder.
Everyone has a space to control and use mana, usually stored in a space called a spiritual body, representing the total amount of mana they have available. They also have mana veins to help control the mana inside their bodies.
Everyone also has their mediums for power which is their body, their spiritual body, and their mind space. Ivis couldn't understand his mothers teaching about the mind space, it just seemed so strange to think about without being able to feel it for himself.
"So Ivis, do you want to find out what affinity your horse has?"
"Sure, it's the pale one eating grass over there. Don't be fooled, all three of those horses are menaces in their own right."
"Yeah yeah. I'll make sure to be careful."
However, as soon as he stepped five feet from the three horses he slipped and fell to the ground.
"Ah, damn. One of those horses must have an affinity to mud or water or something. Damn it that hurts." Shig stood up and brushed the mud off of himself.
The horses stood up and trotted around the boy, the pale horse walked up to Ivis and sat down beside him.
"Here Ivis, catch. Just hold it up to them and it should glow and tell you the mana affinity."
Ivis held the strange scanner and lightly touched it against his horse's fur coat. It glowed a white glow but said nothing about the specific mana affinity. He thought it was broken and tried it again, but again, nothing.
"It's not saying anything. It's just glowing white-ish gray."
"That's weird. Did you try it a second time?"
"Yeah, still nothing,"
Was his horse defective?
"Did you try sensing the mana inside the device? Sometimes you have to restart the thing."
"I can't sense mana."
...
The two looked at each other dumbfounded.
"What do you mean you can't sense mana, you mean you don't have an affinity yet?"
"Nope, why can't I read it?"
"Well you need mana in order to be able to read mana, without it, it's like a blind guy trying to read a sign without his glasses. It's blurry but you can't see it any better."
The two stared at each other again. Still perplexed by the whole situation.
"Well then get over here and read the damn rock already smartass."
"Are you kidding me? I'm going to fall on my ass again. How did you even get them to like you in the first place?"
Eventually, by guiding him through how he did it, Ivis had shown the boy how to get the horses to like him... or at least to not trip him with magic.
He took the mana-sensing rock and held it up to the first horse. The fully black horse had a small affinity to curses, the brown and white horse had a mixed affinity to both water and earth, and finally, the pale horse had a decent affinity to spirits and ice. It was strange, usually many people had to die around you to get a spirit affinity, either many weak people or a couple of strong people.
After that, Shig had decided to try and befriend the horse with the watery/earthen affinity. He had an affinity with the earth and water so it was a perfect match.
If two beings with similar affinities fought together or used magic together, then that effect would be strengthened. Such as the builders in the city, they used their magic together to construct strong walls capable of defending the town from beasts from the wilderness.
Ivis had tried riding on Ghoul and was slightly successful, Shig on the other hand had no luck whatsoever. The brown and white horse was too playful, constantly running around and tripping him.
They were so busy that they didn't notice that people started arriving to set up the caravan. Some loaded up last-minute supplies, others connected the reigns of the wagons to the beasts that were going to pull them. Others who were less busy stood and watched the young boys struggle to ride the horses, getting a couple of chuckles from the crowd.
There was someone else though who looked like he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He was asking around and finally gathered the courage to ask the two young men what they were doing.
"Um, excuse me. What are you guys-"
But before he could finish his sentence the other young boy on the brown horse was flung off and landed in some mud that wasn't there a second ago.
He landed face-first into the mud, swearing and cursing at his horse.
The other boy laughed at his failure. It wasn't that funny.
"Oh sorry, how can I help?"
The boy on the pale horse finally realized that someone had approached them.
"I need to find the caravan leader. I'm starting as a new guard and I need to be assigned to my new post."
"Ah, same as us. If you would like to head over to the large wagon, you can find the caravan leader. He will just tell you to try to befriend the horses with us. My name is Ivis, nice to meet you Mr. ?"
"Haleth Santyr, at your service. The black horse is the last one left then?"
The young boy walked confidently to the dark horse. It stared at him and he stared back, unflinching. He reached out his hand and pet it's fur.
The boy lifted himself onto the horse and began riding the horse like he had done it 1,000 times before.
"Are you kidding me, how did you do that? How did he do that?"
Shig was flabbergasted by what he just watched. How did he manage that? His horse kicked him off every couple of minutes.
Pallius walked out of his wagon soon after the boy arrived.
"Alright, everyone gather around! Let's start dividing up jobs and tasks."
The three boys walked over to the caravan master, there were close to 50 people in the group. Many of them operated the caravan when they were stopped, but 20 members of that group were guards including the three boys.
"Alright, this is going to be just like it usually is. Every non-fighter will be inside the five wagons, each wagon will have a magician-focused fighter driving, the guards will ride three per wagon. Since we have three new boys here each one will be assigned to a wagon so that they can learn, and boys, if we get into a fight I want you to stay near the back and only help when the raiders or beasts are weak."
"Ok! Let's move out."
Finally, it was time to go out on the road.