20 A Secret Friend

It was late morning when Obrecht got up from the makeshift bed that which he had shared with Videre. The latter was out like a candle light in the middle of their conversation. He didn't want to bother his rest, and so he had simply laid sideways beside him, after making sure that he would not wake. Although he did get up later on, it did not mean that he slept. Rather than sleeping, he had spent the hours imprinting Videre's face to memory. It was his first time to see a person with black symmetrical markings on their face that wasn't man-made.

Taking the wet clothes that have dried overnight with him, Obrecht took one last glance at the boy sleeping silently on his bed.

He thought it would feel strange to share a bed with a complete outsider—no, a new friend. Yet as he did so, all bouts of anxiousness, and strangeness had been foreign to him. Rather than being worried or feeling weird about it, he was delighted, much to his bafflement.

He had fully enjoyed their conversation last night and much more than that, Videre's company.

Naturally, Obrecht had learned how to judge people by a young age. All Lumeans, the moment they start walking, are given a basic schooling on weaponry, healing, scribing, people-reading, and other basic skills. This gives them a chance to choose their occupation and chosen specialty when they come of age. Even all kinds of weapons and basic fighting techniques were not left out, so it would not be an exaggeration to say that all Lumeans know how to wield all kinds of weapons in existence.

Although Obrecht excelled in using the long sword, he wanted a much challenging one that didn't deviate far from his foundational skills. Thus, he chose his occupation to be a Lumean hunter that excelled in the heavy sword, and a swordsmith as his second occupation like his father.

It didn't take long for him to arrive at the Circ. He strolled towards a small open shop that had a small stall put up in front. A man had sat cross-legged on top of a carpeted table that displayed various clothes, leather and metal armors, and weapon holsters.

"Obrecht, ma boy!" The man on the table greeted. "Congratulations on yer comin' o' age! Have ye done yer ceremony yet?"

"Not yet. I just got back from the outskirts of town." Obrecht directed a shy, sincere smile at the man. It was one he had practice a lot of times before in front of his reflection in the water.

"Are ye excited? I bet ye'r!" He rubbed his nose. "On ma comin' o' age, I was just like ya—couldn't even stay still for a sec!" He laughed as he started reminiscing and sharing his good old days with the young man.

Excitement. It was a feeling that seemed quite foreign to Obrecht.

As the Hunter-kind had hidden along with a few other human-kind races, it was inevitable for the blood of their ancestors to have mixed with them and diluted them but the Hunter-kind's blood had remained strong. Nonetheless, every generation, there would be quite a few that differed from the rest, for good or for bad. To accommodate these changes, the Lumeans had created labels such as Hunter-born, Mage-born, Shifter-born, and Walker-born.

Those Mage-born had inherited mostly the powers of the Healer-kind and the Sorcerer-kind. They used to be labelled separately, but eventually, they had been labelled similarly instead.

The same thing happened for the Walker-born who inherited mostly from either the Djinn-kind or the Korrigan-kind. While Djinns have been known to be walkers of the dream and ethereal world, Korrigans were walkers of the wind and sky. Although a pureblooded Korrigan can grow wings, those that are blessed by the blood of the Korrigan have diluted blood could only glide or stay in the air for certain amounts of time at most.

Lastly, the Shifter-born pertained to those that had Kupwa-kind ancestors.

Obrecht was a Hunter-born, just like his Apa. His Ama, on the other hand, was a Mage-born from a family that had produced a lot of Walker-borns. Apparently, she had hit the recessive gene pool jackpot and became a Mage instead of one of the Walkers.

Although Obrecht's blood predominantly held the Hunter-kind's by nearly half a hundred percentage, the other half was equally distributed among his Ama's Sorcerer's blood, and grandparents' Djinn's blood. This relatively large portions of hereditary percentage had given lots of good physical traits and mental prowess to Obrecht, but unfortunately, it somehow stunted the growth of his emotional capabilities. But though it was so, it was still harder to find a Lumean with such a balanced blood lineage as Obrecht.

He could feel emotions but they weren't as notable when compared to other people. Knowing that he was different from other people, Obrecht had another skill added to his repertoire at a very young age—masking.

Smiling at the man, who was his friend's Uncle, Obrecht took out Videre's torn clothes and instructed, "I'd like to have a few custom-made clothes in this size. A few for daily wear, and a couple for training. I'd like to have one of the training clothes to be sleeveless for free upper body mobility, and the other one padded with leather armor fit for taking basic practice blows." He was thumping his index finger on his cheek cutely as he conversed with him.

Even though he thought that he had needed to learn the new habits of young adults, he was partially lazy to do so. Thus, he settled for using the habits and expressions of children, though he does get scolded about acting like a kid by his Ama and Apa often times.

"Haha! Alright, I can do that for ya. But to whom yer gonna give it to?"

"It's~ a~ sur~ prise~" Obrecht giggles. "If I told Uncle Tarruk, then it wouldn't be a surprise anymore, right~?"

Tarruk, the man cloth and armor maker, simply laughed and promised to no longer ask.

Having taken care of the clothes issue, Obrecht made haste to go home. Just as he had entered the front door, he got an earful from his Ama, as what he had expected. Tapping his ear for a while to regain his hearing, he started to prepare for his ceremony in his room.