11, The Tower, Affinity and Funeral

After Octatus and I had our little heart to heart, I finally gave the room a good look.

The interior was over twice the size the exterior suggested it would be and the walls inside looked to be lined with a weirdly patterned wallpaper.

** A/N can you guess what it is before our MC? Extra chapter next time if you do.**

Throughout the room were dozens of huge slabs of wood and stone that I guessed were dressers or some other kind of storage, and around each one was an intricate circle.

My thoughts were that it was a way to keep what is inside them safe from the elements or maybe a stasis to prevent them from aging.

I didn't have long to wait to find out as soon as Octatus and I walked over to them.

"Step into the circle Etanali, if you can't enter or it is painful to do so don't force it. If you enter, tell me how it makes you feel."

Wondering what this circle would do to me, I hesitantly entered it and nothing happened.

It was as if the lines on the floor didn't exist, I felt no changes.

"What was supposed to happen? I don't feel any different than I did outside the circle."

Octatus smiled.

"That is good, that means you have more than a medium affinity for water. The circle tests for two things, the first is if you are powerful enough to learn and start experimenting with the spells within. The second is if you have a high enough affinity."

"What do you mean by it checks how high my affinity is? Isn't having the affinity for the element enough to use it?"

I walked out of the circle and grabbed his outstretched hand.

"Well that is not a simple question, are you sure you want to hear the answer?"

I nodded my head in confirmation.

"If you have a lower elemental affinity then it will be more difficult to learn a spell using that element, even if you can still use it. If you have no affinity with an element then you will not be able to use it no matter how much effort you put in. If you have a higher affinity then you can easily learn to use that element faster than others, as well as learn more complicated spells sooner than you normally could. Do you understand what I am talking about?"

I made a face trying to imagine how this would affect my future path.

"A little bit I think. So If I have no affinity for earth, I will never be able to use earth attacks. But if I have a high affinity for water then I can learn hard water spells faster and sooner, right?

"Exactly. Like how at my house earlier you almost cast a good basic spell without having any training. This is a case of you having at minimum a high affinity for the wind element. The reason I worded things like I did back then was to test your reaction."

"I see. So now we are going around looking to see what all my affinities are, and how strong they are?."

"Close, I don't have time to check all of your affinities. Today we will just be testing two affinities. I already knew you had a good air affinity and at least a basic water affinity. The last one I want to test is your ice affinity. If you want to test the others to see if you have them you would have to go to the other towers or come back to finish going through this floor. You should go with your birth parents to see what you can do."

"You mean that this isn't all of them?! How many are there?"

This was mind blowing for me since as we walked through the room I realized that my previous estimate was wrong, there were more than a few dozen here.

There were over 60 so far that I had counted and I still hadn't seen all of them in this room alone!

"Of course it's not! Our Tower of Water only holds 10 out of the 26 elements and there are around 300 of these testing circles; we don't keep any of the Prime Element spells here. Though we do have one more element than the Life Clan's tower, they have most of the high ranked elements. But you don't need to worry about that, the odds you have an affinity for anything past advanced elements is basically nonexistent."

I had to snicker at this silently, if only I could tell him about my dream.

It would shock his socks off.

I was bound to have some stupendous affinities.

I was thinking to myself 'I doubt I would have any problem even learning Time spells.'

Boy was I in for a surprise.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Octatus' voice saying we arrived at the next circle.

"Same as before, tell me how you feel once you are inside."

I let go of his hand and stepped over the lines on the floor.

Unlike last time I felt myself cross a thin membrane of some kind and inside it was cold.

It was as if I had entered a massive walk-in freezer that had been turned to the lowest setting.

It was cold enough that I could see my breath as I occasionally exhaled.

I found it slightly uncomfortable but it wasn't bad and it certainly wasn't painful.

"It's cold, quite cold but I don't feel any pain."

"Hmmm."

Octatus looked at me in the circle with a pensive expression and scratched the side of his face.

"How long do you think you could stand in there before you begin to shiver? And then how long until you would need to get out?"

I closed my eyes and thought about the question seriously as it could affect how accurate my affinity would be gauged.

"I think around 20 minutes before I'd start to shiver, and around 45 minutes to an hour before I would need to leave the circle."

"Excellent, so you have around a high grade affinity with the ice element. You can come out now."

I followed his direction and exited the circle and was amazed as once I crossed the line the temperature skyrocketed from freezing to comfortably warm.

I grabbed his hand again, enjoying its warmth.

"Alright, I have enough information to do some basic tests with you now. I just have to do one thing and then we can move up to the next floor. You don't mind right? You can always come back and do as much testing as you want. Just bring an adult with you."

"Of course I don't mind. Do what you need, second father."

A sad smile appeared on his face as I said my last two words and he let go of my hand.

He spoke in a low voice.

"Follow me but stay back."

He walked towards me and I followed slightly behind him.

Once we got close enough, the wall became a staircase which hadn't been there before causing me to pause for a second.

Sensing my pause without turning, Octatus explained.

"The stairs will appear whenever you are close to a wall and want to ascend or descend to the next floor."

We got close but instead of heading to the stairs we walked to the wall, just off to the side.

Realizing we were headed to the wall I paid closer attention to it.

It wasn't a sheet like I thought it was, it was panels of fabric hanging closely together with a small gap between them.

I looked at the panels closely and paid attention to the patterns.

They were all different but I felt like I had seen some of them before.

I had an idea but quickly dismissed it as it would be too crazy, there were simply too many of them.

There must be over 1000 of these individually patterned pieces of fabric, all of which are identical in width and of a familiar length.

My mouth went dry and my feet stopped just before Octatus reached the wall.

I spoke in a small voice without realizing.

"There is no way… there's just too many."

"Too many Indeed."

Octatus spoke in a heavy voice, I could feel the sadness within.

"The room is about 225 steps all the way around and there were 1127 belts hanging on this floor when I last counted. And I am here to make room for one more, and to hang the 1128th. Please brace yourself, the room will move."

After he spoke the air around us became thick and heavy, the pressure building like the calm before the storm.

Then as if it reached the breaking point it erupted with Octatus at the center.

All around him his mana undulated violently causing wind to whip around him and tendrils of visible energy to be sent flying all over the room.

I had to crouch down as low as I could to avoid being thrown away like a lawn chair in a tornado.

Just as I felt I was about to lose my grip the direction changed, instead of being sent flying I was pulled forward with the same intensity as before.

At the same time the room rumbled as though some child was shaking a bottle with me inside.

I lost my footing and almost face planted but was able to throw my hand in front to save my face, but I felt a crunch in my wrist and a shooting pain appeared in my right hand as I fell forward.

Then as suddenly as it all happened it ended.

Octatus was still standing in the same position, while I was now lying on my side nursing my wrist with my left hand.

He looked back at me and gave a smile that was more like a grimace.

"Sorry I will heal that when I am done."

Turning his focus back to the fresh thick section of the wall that had appeared in front of him, I was left with nothing to do but bear with the pain and watch the process.

My wrist was definitely broken,

It didn't feel like much more than a dull ache at the moment but once the adrenaline wore off I knew it would suck, but luckily or unluckily I was no stranger to pain.

Octatus enveloped his finger in a dark color and began carving a name in the wall vertically.

Omkatus.

After he finished carving he cast a spell raising the ground under him.

Once his hand reached level with all of the other belts he drew out a small protrusion of earth from the wall.

He took a belt out from seemingly nowhere and stuck it on the spike of earth, then bent the spike to reconnect with the wall; forming a loop.

When he finished this he lowered his platform back into the ground.

Watching him spike the belt brought a memory to the surface in my mind.

When I was younger and first received my belt I would constantly complain about how long it was, it could go around me over 3 times with there still being room.

I eventually got used to its length but whenever I would ask her to shorten it she refused.

One time she caught me as I was just starting to trim it to make it fit better but she rebuked me so hard I would never try it again.

She never gave me a reason, despite me asking numerous times.

"You will understand one day."

That was all she would give as the explanation.

I was brought out of my reverie by a stinging and itching sensation on my wrist.

Thinking it was just the adrenaline wearing off I blinked and looked down at it.

Then I saw Octatus kneeling in front of me with both hands circling my injured wrist without touching it.

It was enveloped by a green light and I figured it was a healing spell.

He looked at me without ending the spell and gave a forced smile.

"Sorry about that, how about we go to the second floor now."