It took close to half an hour by my best guess for Tulip to be satisfied with the sling she got on over my arm. It was now firmly tied against my low chest in such a way that even if we had to run it wouldn't budge. And thankfully with it in such a tight sling, I was relieved from some level of pain. But that didn't stop the half dozen other things aching across my body from my head to my knees. But now that the wound was firmly tied shut, and as well set as we could manage with vines and torn clothes, I could survive for now.
"Alright, lets get going now." Tulip spoke as she wiped sweat from her brow. She looked rather annoyed from the shackles on her arms and the thin metallic collar around her neck. I could see the keyholes for all three of them, but the chances of us finding the keys to get her out of the shackles were slim to none at this point. Especially now that the sounds of distant fighting had completely halted.
"Where are we even going?" I found myself asking the most painfully obvious question. I had no idea where we were, left working with painfully little information, and with Tulip incapable of using her magic without killing herself.
"South, we can find our direction well enough by the sun since its starting to set we have a direction to move off of. Elligorse is in the center of the continent, its directly on our northern border inside Berinia, so moving South is our best option." Tulip spoke quickly as she looked up towards the sky. She spent a few moments adjusting herself before beginning in a specific direction.
"So... We're in another country entirely, in another point of the continent? We have no idea how we got here other than an assumption that someone with an absurd ability to transport people instantly was with the slavers, who we still have no idea where they are or if they're dead." I spoke the information I was working with aloud to let Tulip confirm it, and with a dreadful sigh Tulip nodded.
"That pretty much covers it. Although I would add that the countries inhabitants hate us. And that does explain to an extent why we got grabbed by slavers... The Elves, the inhabitants of Elligorse, are rumored to own slaves of other races in their upper classes. But its never been proven since they don't allow any outsiders into their primary cities." Tulip divulged further information while we walked slowly, weaving between the trees.
"Slaves..." I grumbled out, the word was all too familiar, given I was practically one for most of my life. "And to make matters worse I have one working arm... And you don't have any way to use your magic." I continued slowly to register just how utterly hopeless we were in every regard.
"Yea... But you can use magic. I can teach you more once we find somewhere to rest for the night, we won't be able to keep moving at night. We can try and help you practice then... Which just leaves the issue of food." Tulip spoke further before she sighed out. "I don't know the first thing about surviving out here..."
"I know, a little bit about surviving." For once I felt like I could be useful. At least, I could attempt to be I hoped. "I know a few basic things... Not the best but I can at least butcher something well enough for it to be edible." With further thought I paused for a moment. "Wait, there are at least deer and rabbit here?... Right?"
"I have no idea Kirin." Tulip said with a hopeless tone. "I have no idea what we will find out here. All I do know is that we're in an enemy nation." She fell silent, and I did much the same. There wasn't anything else to talk about, and it was better for us to simply focus on the world surrounding us. The oppressive wilderness around us and incredibly dense jungle would prove to be a continued struggle as we continued to walk.
Each step had to be fought for through the muddied ground, mixed with a horrendous humid heat and the aggressive density of the jungle flora. Every tree and plant grew far too close together to move through it quickly, with vines hanging down like webs waiting to simply trip us up and lock us all in place. It made traveling next to impossible for the majority of the day until we happened across a river that appeared to be flowing to the south around when the sun was beginning to settle in the distance.
Now resting with long shadows trailing in each direction around us we found ourselves nestled in a small, well covered clearing. The echoing sounds of animals I couldn't hope to recognized called through the early evening, with their calls having only recently started as if the jungle was asleep during the day.
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"Ugh... Now I'm really hungry..." Tulip complained as she sat down in one of a handful of dry spots. I followed over, doing much the same to let my aching feet rest. But I honestly didn't feel the pangs of hunger in my stomach, I was too used to going hungry to really notice them these days.
"Well... I'm not, and we still have a little bit of daylight left. And while I doubt I'll be able to succeed, if I can learn a bit more about magic maybe I can hunt something for us?" I made the offer to Tulip, though it was honestly for more of a selfish reason than that. I genuinely just wished to learn more about magic.
"Fine..." Tulip grumbled as she shifted her weight forwards to sit up entirely without leaning back and slouching. "We won't go over much tonight, but I can at least finish explaining the basics that you'll need to know if we want to get anywhere anyways." Tulip took in a slow breath before she began talking.
"First of all, are the three categories of Attunement. Your attunement type, element, and innate element." Tulip spoke quickly, pausing on each term to give me time to remember it. "Your attunement type sits in one of five categories; offense, defense, support, buff, and debuff. Offense and defense are easily explained, they focus on attack and defense. Buff and Debuff more focuses on supporting your allies in combat by increasing their capabilities. Some powerful mages with those magics can even give people without mana the ability to use basic spells for a time, or take away enemy mages magic by 'debuffing' them." Tulip paused again to take a breath and let the information sink in while I nodded along gently.
"Support is a little more confusing, it can be a lot of things. The most common one to see in this category is the ability to heal people, while other capabilities with some powerful mages like Levi, he can control the terrain around himself seamlessly with his magic, which is considered a support type. But, that doesn't matter too much right now. Each person is capable of using up to two 'types' of Magic, the most common pairing is a simple offense and defense pair."
"What do you have?... And I guess I have offense magic? How will I find out what else I have, if I have any others?" I couldn't help but ask, cutting Tulip off before she could continue.
"I'll get to that soon. But yes, you have an attunement to the offensive category of magic." Tulip smiled a little, at least seeming at home when she was talking about magic. "Next is the Elements of magic. There are two types of Elements, your Attuned Element, and your Innate Element. Your attuned element is in one of ten categories, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Life, Electric, Ice, Metal, Light, and Dark. These attuned elements are dictated at birth, and, as you probably can assume, you have an Electric attuned type of magic."
"Next is your innate Element, this is where things get weird with magic. Most people keep their innate Elements a secret as just knowing what it actually is called can give quite a big insight into someones capabilities. I'll just use Levi and myself as examples. Levi's attuned element is earth, and his innate element is called 'Quake', it lets him practically control and shift any stone in a massive radius around himself. And even take attributes from it, his is a rather straight forwards example. While mine, isn't. My attuned element is 'Dark', while my innate element is 'Gravity', which is how we were flying around back in Arcadia." Tulip finally paused letting her lungs empty with a heavy breath while I remained silent to take in the information, though my silence was quickly followed by the questions now lingering in my head.
"So we only know the basic things about my magic. How do I find out what my innate element is? That seems, vague compared to the rest... Same with my other type of attunement? is there any real method for it?" My eyes moved up to meet Tulips for a moment while she thought over her answers.
"It isn't ever consistent from person to person. You would have to talk to someone with your same element to really get any hope of figuring out your innate one. A lot of people never even find theirs in their life, I just got lucky finding mine so young. As far as your other attunement type, that's entirely up to you to figure out. It just depends on how you use your magic, and that's been proven more times than I can even comprehend that there's no consistency to it, every single person channels mana in a different way. And I'm not a trained teacher, so I can't help you find your way for it." Tulip fell silent once more, and with a yawn she shifted closer to the tree. "We should get some rest... We need to keep moving tomorrow."
"I..." I cut myself off as I struggled to hold back a yawn of my own. "Fine... I want to learn more still, but we'll have time tomorrow I guess. Are either of us going to try and keep watch?" I offered knowing that I would just use the time to train my magic further.
"Yea... You can go first." Tulip spoke without even giving me a chance to argue for it. Honestly if i hadn't been wanting the first watch I would have argued about it. But instead I stood up and walked into a slightly more covered spot of the clearing I could watch around from. My eyes moved over to Tulip as she curled up against the tree, I felt a grimace of annoyance at how she had been behaving. Like she was trying to get me to understand a danger she herself was barely even registering.
"No point in thinking on it now..." I mumbled to myself as I found a spot to sit. Luckily there was a relatively dry and flat rock I found to rest on with my legs crossed. While my eyes remained open, I turned my focus inwards. If I was to be awake half the night, then I may as well be productive.