----- Eva PoV ---
Again, another innocent being summoned without their consent, this is one of the many reasons why I despise the King. He uses everyone like pawns, not caring what happens to them. But the people who want to fight back can’t. He has influence and a decent amount of power from magic and swordsmanship. But the main reason he’s the ruler is that of the ability to control the ancient technology left by our ancestors. Not much is known about why the technology only works for those of royal blood, most is that it lights up when integrated with. This is how the King was chosen, half a millennium ago as his father got too old to rule, he took to the throne.
“Have the preparations been finalized for their arrival?” the King asks out. “Yes your majesty, everything is ready for the summons” I call out to him. “Good. We shall begin at once” the King states. The only reason why I serve him is to pay off my parent's debt and so-called crimes.
It was 20 years ago that my parents borrowed from one of the lords to keep their business afloat. I was at school at the time and as their child, they didn’t want me to worry about them, so they didn’t tell me. As time went on, they were doing fine with the payments back to the lord. But then a few years ago, they hit another rough patch and couldn’t make some of the payments. Seeing this, the lord rose the interest rates and made it impossible to pay. The lord made a deal with the King, the King pays the fine and the Lord gives my parents to him.
This is how he takes ownership of a lot of people, making them contracted through large sums of money they ‘owe’. They contracted me into the court as a mage after seeing my affinity for the elements, in hopes to pay off the amount faster. I’ve been working here for a year now.
After the young man appears the King orders me to come. He has some good looks, not too handsome but not bad. Still has a lingering boyish charm to his face, not yet having reached full adulthood. The most noticeable thing is his shirt cloak, then his black pants that are of a weird material. He has an angled jaw, curious looking eyes the hue of silver, and brown hair that could cover his eyes.
When I got up to him, he touched the tip of my ear, but I guess it’s different compared to his round ears. First I put the ring on him, so he could understand what was going on. The material to make the ring was left by the ancestors but we learned how to inscribe them for certain things, like language. It connects to your nerves and sends the corrected translated words to your brain, it works okay for reading but it’s mostly for word of mouth.
What dumbfounded me the most was when the affinity orb didn’t react act all to his touch. The only thing that I could do was follow him as he got kicked out of the inner walls for doing nothing wrong. I couldn’t help but feel pity for him, brought here against his will then thrown away like he was trash. I had to help, either by showing he had worth that away he had a reason for being brought here or something. I’m in my own predicament, but something was urging me to stay and help him out. Of course, there was a tinge of guilt because I helped charge the device over the last year.
Just from the couple hours I spent with him, he was different from all those arrogant prideful jerks that tried to woe me. If anyone could change the world, just maybe, he could. I have to find a way for him to have an affinity for any of the elements, even if it's just one of them. But when we got to the tree, there was no hope. The mana wouldn’t channel through him, it was as though it didn’t want to touch him.
I stepped back in despair, what had we done to him, he had nothing. “There’s nothing at all” as I let those words slip out of my mouth I look up at him. But he was gone, the only thing left in his place was some dust floating into a hole in the tree. I stand looking at the same spot as time seemed to slow down, the only thing I could feel was shock. But just as fast as it went, a flurry of white mana came out of the same hole. It began to spin in a circle just above where his head used to be and slowly began to lower.
This was unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my entire life. A young man appeared as the whirlwind lowered, his body floating as if his body was there but transparent. Mostly looking like the man that was there a moment ago, this new body had black hair with streaks of white as to radiate the night and moon. He now faced me, opposite of how he was before, but with his eyes closed and arms down. He seemed to have gained a few years, losing the last of his boyish looks, and his body gave off a presence of powerful mana. Extruding what he felt at the moment, it was peaceful and calm.
“Let’s go free your parents. But first, could you teach me some magic?” he asked as he opened his eyes with a smile, they shone gold like a lion’s eye.
----- Eli’s PoV ----
The world changed around me, where it was just a world around you, now I could see all the mana flowing and harmonizing with the living. I looked down at the graves and I could see pools of green just below the surface of the ground and they made trails to the tree. I looked up at the sky and could see jetstreams of yellow flowing through the air, everything became more vibrant.
I faced forward to see Eva staring at me intently, in her veins flowed a white with a tint of blue. I raised my hand up to my eyes to see my own veins of mana, there was white and black. The colors never melded together, but were their own distinction. They interacted closely together, but never fully merged, they did not fight but worked together. It was beautiful to see the now vibrant life around me, but it was distracting and hard to focus on the things I needed to.
I closed my eyes and focused on the newfound presence that emanated from within. It took me a moment to get a hold of it as it was new to me, but it was just like keeping your emotions in check. I will it down, and closed it within my being. I could feel the change within my body. Each cell fueled not only by oxygen and nutrition but now with mana as well. My tendons and muscles now seem to compress with mana, I felt like I was ready to run a marathon in which I never was before.
Each brain cell now worked together with each grain of mana it was bonded with, my synapse fired even faster than ever before. With a bit of concentration, I could remember things that I thought I had forgotten. I could remember all the studying and tests that I had rushed through during school, all the information I had crammed into my brain getting ready for finals. My brain’s capacity seemed to have grown further than what I thought possible.
I now understood completely that it would be impossible to go back to my old world, my body would die from starvation without mana. My only concern was my parents, the time they would waste trying to find me. They would be fine in the long run, but I pitied them for the grieve they would face. But I now had a purpose, a reason for being. When I could I’ll research how to at least send them a message to let them know I am fine.
I was considered a smart kid in school, always picking things up fairly easily. But now I could see that my brain had sped up, I could see the things around with more clarity and the harder I concentrated the slower time seemed to go.
I look at the pretty young woman standing in front of me, the Will talked about unity but I don’t even know how old she really is, I chuckle at the thought. If I am to bring justice to what the evil has done and bring hope to the people, I’m going to have to become two. One of hope, to be the beacon. And one of dark, to take down the arrogant and self-righteous. I look down at my clothes, I believe they went through the same process as me, but not as much.
“Hey Eva, Is the cloak dyed or is it naturally like this? And if it’s dyed, how did they dye it?” I ask her. She stares blankly at me as in deep thought, “hu… what? Oh, um.. I think it’s natural, but I could be wrong since I’m not a merchant or tailor”.
True, it would be hard to know exactly if you’re not the one that made it. Let’s see, if I focus the mana from within the cloak. There are genetic markers within the chromosomes that control the pigmentation. If I were to will it white, would it understand? I hold one of the flaps in the front up so I could see it. After a moment of imagining a DNA strand and one of the codes changing, imagining the color changing from black to white, the mana did the rest. From where I was holding it, it slowly changed from black into grey then into pure white. Then it began to spread like a gradient to all of it, after a minute the whole thing switched from black to white.
“Seems like it was natural, wonder what material it is?” I question out loud. “W-w-what did you just do?!” Eva screams at me. “Mmm? I just used the bonded mana to switch the genetic trait” I retort.
The question is, how easy can I switch it back? I did the same process but thinking of black. As if understanding what I wanted this time, it took half as long to switch to black. Mmm, does it retain a residual memory? I will it back to white and it almost instantly switches. I guess the more I use it, the easier it’ll become.
“What do you mean gen-etic trait?” she questions loudly. I raise my eyebrow “Do you not know biology? Or even science?”. Rather, the Will did say I was in the future. So why is everything so far behind? And it said of my people, so why are things in the medieval times? And if times are this far behind, how do they have those glowing machines yet no modern looking buildings?
“What’s this science thing? We know the biology of our people, like organs, we need them to live” so she says. “Mmm… Is that so? I’ll explain it better later, but genetics is a smaller base to life. Part of its job is to hold the information of what you and I are to look like” I say, but she still looks puzzled.
As for the surroundings, there wasn’t really anyone around. For the few people that did pass by didn’t pay us any mind, probably too concerned about their own things. Apparently, no one noticed my strange newfound ability or maybe were too scared to even ask, I was emitting quite the amount of mana a little bit ago.
“What happened to you? You weren’t able to use magic when you got here. And what do you know of my parent?” Eva asks me sternly. “All you need to know is that I can now. As for your parents, you’ll have to explain more but let’s just say someone is looking out for you” It didn’t say I couldn’t talk about the conversation but I’d probably look like a crazy person if I were to try and explain it in detail to her.
She closes her eyes to contemplate over what I just said. After a minute I clap my hands in front of my chest, “Now, is there a place I could stay the night? After the ordeal I just went through, it seems my body is quite fatigued”. She tilts her head to think, “The brother of my best friend recently went on a trip somewhere, I’m good friends with their parents so they may let you stay in his room for a couple of nights but I’ll have to ask. As for me, I have a room in the castle. I can’t let a guy stay in the same room as me nor would it be good for you to go back to the inner wall right now”. “Well, let’s see shall we” I walk past her, even if I don’t know where I’m going.
-------------------------------------------------
Eva knocked on the front door of her best friends house. It took us some time to get here, it was one the opposite side of the castle from the tree, and it was in the outer zone. The sun was beginning to set, but luckily we didn’t have too much of an issue with security as she is somewhat well known and the royal crest on her cloak.
There aren’t many people around with black hair so Eva had me put up my hood, which I got curious and disdain looks for being near her. She had told me as we walked that her parents were well-known merchants, they weren’t the richest or noble but they were popular with the poor or ‘peasants’ as the rich called them. Some of the noble boys tried to woe her because of her affinity with elements but gave them a cold shoulder because of their tactics. Plus it probably didn’t help with how pretty she is.
A woman in her late 30s opened the door to see us standing there. “Oh hi Eva, how’d the summoning go today?” she asked with a knowing look. News does travel fast with how things went, I heard a few murmurs on our way here. “You heard huh, hasn’t even been a full day,” Eva said back.
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“With the disturbance it caused in court, of course, news got around. And it was such an important day for you too” the woman answered back, “And who’s this with you? Is that him?” she raised her brow,” He doesn’t look like what people said, or is it that you’ve got yourself a boyfriend finally” she smiles.
“You people! He isn’t my boyfriend” Eva mutters with a blush. I look around to find anybody around our immediate fascinate but there isn’t. I remove my hood and brush my hair behind my ears, my hair is long enough that it usually ends up over my ears. “It is, it’s nice to meet you, my name’s Eli,” I say with golden eyes.
The woman has a faint amount green flowing through her veins, I’d imagine the amount determines how proficient they are at wielding mana. I notice another person walking towards the door with a deeper amount of green, also someone with a faint amount of green and red sitting somewhere within the house. I blink my eyes back to normal and cover back my ears, “What’s all the commotion about out here?” a girl about Eva’s age comes up to the door.
“Oh.. What are you doing here so late Eva?” the girl questions. “I actually came to ask a favor. After some things happened, he needs a place to stay for a few nights” Eva pointed at me and I just smiled.
“Well since it’s you asking, he can use Ethan’s room. But wouldn’t it be better for him to be in the inner wall?” the woman asked. “After what happened, it’s best for him not to go back right now. Maybe never” she muttered the last part.
“Well.. If you say so… Anyway, come in come in. It’s getting dark” the woman commanded. “Thanks.. I’ll be on my way then” Eva went to turn around.
“Nonsense! First, you’ll have dinner, then you can stay the night, too dark to travel by yourself. Plus I haven’t seen you much since you start work” the woman ordered Eva to obey. Eva stood there for a moment before giving up under the woman’s demanding eyes. The outside of the house looked made out of white plaster and support beams, reinforced with wood from the inside, I imagine there are stone bricks within the wall for better structure.
“I almost forgot, my name’s Amber Smawk, this is my daughter Abigail, and the boy you’ll see is Erik. Klein, my husband, should be getting here soon from guard duty. He’s stationed on the outer wall” Amber explained as Eva and I took off our shoes, I did so after seeing Eva doing it.
“So how old are you boy? You look a little older than Eva and Abby, 100?” Amber asked curiously. “What?!” I draw back in surprise and look at Eva.
How old is she?! Back on earth, she’d be maybe 16. Well, she does look half-elf so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Should I wing it and try multiplying my age by 5? I did confirm I’m not from here.
“Um.. Well, I was considered 17. But I guess now I’m like 90” I somewhat muttered the first part. Amber played like she didn’t hear the beginning, “90 huh, not too far from Eva’s 82” she winked at me.
What are you trying to set up woman? We walked into the dining room and that’s where I found their son. The three of them had dirty blonde hair, though Amber’s was a bit lighter. Amber and Abby had on a simple dress, while Erik had on a tunic and trousers on.
“Please sit, I haven’t started cooking yet, so it’ll be a little” Amber offers, “Are potatoes and meat okay?” she asks. I set my cloak on the chair and walk over to her, “Yes, would you like any help? My parents were farmers, so I know a thing or two about cooking”.
“Oh really now. You said you were the one summoned.” she whispers “What dishes do you know?”. I smile at her, “Do you have any milk and butter? Also what spices do you have?” I ask, can’t say until you know what ingredients you have to work with.
“Mmm… You know, the main ones. Salt, Pepper, garlic, sage, rosemary, etc etc. And we have milk and butter in the cooler.” she answers. “Perfect! If you could get me a cup of milk and some butter that would be great” I motion the sizes with my hands. As she walks off I can hear her say, “If Eva doesn’t want him, I’ll have Abby take him” I just shake my head. I hear a murmur and a smack behind me.
While Amber is off fetching things, Eva comes up to me “What was that about?”. “We were just talking about what to make. Do you happen to know any cleansing spells?” I ask her.
“You’re helping? Just use the bowl of water there” she points at the bowl on the counter that’s filled halfway with slight murky water. “Yes. Ha, for all I know that could give me cholera” I poke her forehead “do you or not?”.
“What’s calera? And cleansing spells take a lot. If you really need it, I can make a ball of water?” she confirms. “Sheesh, you guys and your lack of knowledge. And it’s better than that, especially when you’re handling food” I retort.
“Fine then” she raises her hands, I put my hands behind me a bend for a closer look with my golden eyes “You are of life, I call you forth. That of my will, become a sphere to use. Expedio” a wibbly ball of water appears above her raised hands.
During the process, I could see the mana within her body channel out from her hands and spiral into a ball that converted into water. I blink and look up to her, “Do you always have to chant?”.
She scrunches her brows in confusion, “Of course, you wouldn’t be able to form the spell without it. What you did earlier was impossible”. I put my hands into the ball of water floating there, it was lukewarm. “Are you able to raise or lower the temperature?” I ask her.
“What? You would just cast an ice spell if you wanted something cold. As for raising it, it would slowly disappear so why would you want to do that. Plus there’s no way to alter it once the chant has been released” she scrunches her brow more.
Steam? Maybe they’re too reliant on Magic. I feel the mana within the water, I wonder if I can get the molecules to vibrate faster. I try connecting the mana within my body to the water, another person’s spell was different from an inanimate object.
“Are you done yet?” she asks impatiently. “Hold on. I’m trying something” I mutter back. I feel my mana sparking and interacting with the water and its mana. I imagine the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, making them move faster. There’s a slight change in temperature but very faint.
“If you wanted to wash your hands, you could’ve used the bowl next to you” calls out Amber. “That’s what I said, but he complained something about calora” Eva responded.
I imagine them going faster and faster, the temperature begins to rise. “Ouch!” I pull my hands out fast. “What did you do? It’s only water” Eva pulls one of her hands closer to the bubble, her eyes bulge.
“First that! Now this! What did you do?!” she shouts in surprise. I smile at her surprise, “Just a bit of chemistry. I imagine you could do the same thing if you understood its nature” I snicker.
Amber and Abby come closer when seeing Eva’s reaction. As for Erik, he’s just minding his own business, I think he might just be timid. They both reached out at the bubble and jerked back in surprise.
“How?” Amber asked, “Even if I tried to explain you probably wouldn’t understand very easily,” I said. When she canceled the spell, the ball of water disappeared but the water on my hands stayed.
I guess maybe the spell itself is contained as mana but the parts that are interacted with stays. Is it created? Or is it transported? Maybe the amount ‘consumed’ is converted into mana in a different place. Where is the balance with this system?
The girls left so that we could cook, Amber kneaded some dough and threw it into the oven then went to grill the meat. As for me, I peeled the potatoes, chopped them up, boiled them, and mashed them with the salt and pepper and mixed in some milk and butter. I would have done some more, but I was pushed out by Amber saying that I was a guest. Course, before I ran off I threw some spices onto the meat and mixed some flour into the juices to make a quick gravy. I finally went after she insisted I rest.
Abby went in after I left, so I was able to talk to Eva alone, Erik walked off somewhere. “What happened to you? How can you use mana?” she whispered to me, her eyes insisted I answer properly.
“All I know is that the tree just unlocked the innate ability that was within me” she eyed me suspiciously as I answered. “Then how’d you know what happened to my parents?” she questioned. “We are to unite and harmonize the world” I randomly said. “What?” she scrunched her brows, “nothing” I smiled.
“Anyway, I want to test your affinity again,” she said as she pulled out the crystal orb again. “Okay” I placed my hand on it again, but this time a swirl of white and black came into existence just like I saw in my body.
“Could this be? Was that stupid prophecy true?” she said in wonder. “Prophecy? There better not be a world-ending prophecy of my coming” I chuckle.
“What?” she tilts her head, “No.. no. It’s just a silly little thing I did with my friends when we were little. One of those, read the stars to find your true love kind of thing. Hardly anyone actually believes them, but it’s something to do and get a laugh. But from what I remember, they said.The day and night are in harmony, the figure of light and dark arises hope, the white and black are as one, this is your future if you choose to accept it” she finishes.
“That sounds rather ambiguous. But that’s the power of them, leave it open so it’ll have more of a chance to be correct. I never put too much thought into them though” but it does sound a lot like what the Will said to me.
“By the way, did you notice that your hair changed color?” she asks me a random question. “Mmm.. Ya, I saw it a little when it covered my eyes. What does it look like?” I ask for the details.
“It kinda looks cool, it’s black with some streaks of white. Your eyes also change to a gold glow sometimes too” she says as I try to find the white parts, she ends up picking a group up for me.
“Mm. Interesting. Do they glow when I do this?” I activate my sense. “Yeah!” she smiles, “Do they not for others?” I ask. “Only for those with the ability to track, usually those of earth and wind magic. But they only glow, they don’t change colors. I should just not be surprised about you anymore” she gives me a coy look.
“So tell me about this ‘kemistry’ you speak of,” she asks for an explanation. “Chemistry is a subject of study and research on my world” as I begin explaining Amber sits down at the table.
"I can’t be certain until you try it, but I think you’ll be able to manipulate your mana without your chants. They seem to be more like mantras anyway. Like a physical science, which understands how energy and potentials work in the environment. Chemistry is an understanding what makes things what they are. The atoms that form molecules, and molecules that form certain compositions. Take this table and these chairs for example, at their very foundation, or base, they’re made from many singular atoms connected to each other. And these molecules vibrate in place at a certain speed. If they were stopped, it would freeze, though if there weren’t any water around I doubt it would look frozen, it could also possibly collapse in on itself. Now as I did with the water, I made the molecules vibrate faster. If I were to do it to this table, added with the oxygen and nitrogen in the air, it would combust or set on fire” I look at their stupid faces.
“I told you, you wouldn’t understand that easily” I sigh.
“I think I understand that last part a little” I hear a young boy’s voice behind me, the one with a faint amount of red mana within. “Oh, you do?” I look behind me to the boy.
“Let’s try something then” I get up and walk over to him. “I won’t end up burning down the house will I?” I look over to Amber. She eyes me, “You shouldn’t if you keep it a distance from the ceiling”. “How good is your control over fire?” I ask Erik.
“It’s decent. But how did you know I could use fire?” he asks in wonder. “‘Cause I can see!” I flare my eyes up with a laugh.
“Now hold your hands up like your going to use a spell.” he does so “I haven’t done this myself yet but I’d think you’d want to accumulate some of your mana above your hands like the spells do”.
I watch with my golden eyes, seems to take a bit of effort without the mantras, but he manages to get some. “Alright, now I want you to imagine a brown ball, this is the carbon atom, they are very very small. Now imagine a blue ball, this is oxygen. The carbon atom makes up a decent size of your body, but wood like the table is mostly made up of carbon. Oxygen is one of the components in which you breathe, it’s in the air around you. Now connect those two balls together with some lightning, now it’s not actually lightning but electrostatic which can look similar to lightning. Now make all that as one object, this is a molecule called carbon monoxide and is a gas. It’s helpful but deadly if breathed in too much. What I want you to do now is vibrate it in place very fast, make it look almost like a blur” I finish my lecture.
After a few moment, a small red flame combusts above his hands. “And we have lift off!” I laugh. It dies out within a minute of not being fed enough mana. “Let me try,” Eva says behind me. I look around to see her gathering mana the same way, not very proficient but a lot more than Erik did. After a few minutes, and eyebrow scrunching, a little larger flame combusts above her hands.
Now to test something else, I walk up to face her and hold the bottom of her hands. She looks at me with a question, I stare at her mindlessly as I imagine bonding and adding more oxygen. After a few attempt I start feeling more heat emitting from the flame, I look down to see it turn from red to orange. I would try to take it further, but it was hot and burned out as it used up the mana.
Eva just stares at me, her eyes look to be misting over. I just give her a gentle smile, I go to let go of her hand and the next thing I know she’s wrapping her arms around me in a hug. “Thank you… Thank you so much for coming.. For being here” she says in a small soft voice next to my ear. The feeling was quite unexpected but nice and warm, an appreciation I would like to know more of.
“I don’t get it, she denies it, yet this” Abby states while walking over. “Leave it alone, they’re having a moment” Amber scolds her with a laugh. Eva lets go of me and turns away.
“Erik, What have we told you about playing with fire in the house?” a man says from the walkway we entered from.
“I was just… Sorry, it won’t happen again” he lowers his head. “Don’t make a fuss. I allowed it this time” Amber spoke up. “And why would you do that?” the man asks from the door, then noticing us “What’re you doing here Eva? Haven’t seen you here for a while. Who’s our unknown guest?”.
Abby chimes in before anyone says anything “Her new found boyfriend”. He raises a brow, “Oh, here I thought her standards were the sky. Didn’t think she’d find anyone good enough. In that case, welcome to the family. Name’s Klein and I’m sure you’ve met everyone else” he offers his hand.
I take a hold as I hear grumbling behind me, “Eli, and we’re not together. Got into town today with no money to spare, we happened to meet and hit it off. She’s been showing me around since”. “Really now? Apparently not through the main road or else I would’ve seen you” he states. “Yep, but not the way you’d think” I smirk.