Ichor

As Everyone began to take their seats, I stood before all of them. Like a professor would stand in front of his students. 

"What are we doing here? You're supposed to be teaching us how to fight."  Said Noa, as she stood in place. 

"What I'm supposed to be doing is preparing you all for the real world," I said, my voice carrying a hint of frustration. 

"Answer me this. Do you even know where on the map we are right now? Do you know the name of the kingdom we're in? Hell, do you even know the name of this planet you're on?" I asked, my gaze sweeping across the room. There was silence as they looked at each other, clueless. To this, she had no reply.

"Exactly. So take a seat." I said, to which she did with great pain.

"Alright. As I said earlier, I'll be teaching everyone about ichor." I started. 

"What's ichor? Some sort of super secret technique that can only be learnt by otherworldly beings?" Asked Colt, making kung fu gestures in the air. 

As I sighed I continued to talk. "I think it'll be quicker if I just showed you." As I said this I cast a football-sized fireball in my hand and cast it into the sky. It flew at great speeds and blew up after a couple of seconds.

"WOAH!!" Exclaimed Colt falling back in his chair. 

Everyone practically jumped out of their seats because of the phenomenon they had just witnessed. 

"What did you just do?" Asked Aaron.

"You still wanna go back to dummies?" He said taking a jab at Noa. She just stared at him dumbfounded. 

"Everyone sit back down so I can properly explain what just happened." After some mumbling and 'OMG' faces, they finally settled down. I don't blame them really, I was the same when I first found out.

"What I just did is called sorcery. Think of it as magic." I started. 

"Everyone is capable of sorcery, it's just about whether they can utilise it or not." After I explained this I saw a couple of faces light up, such as Stacy. She must've been glad that there were other ways for her to be useful.

"Sorcery is powered by ichor. Think of it as the fuel that makes a car move. For those who are familiar with games and such, it would be something similar to mana." 

"Ichor is drawn from the surroundings, it's in the very air we breathe, all around the atmosphere. It adapts to complement the user's magic and is influenced by their elemental affinities, DNA, and genetic code. Therefore, each person's ichor code is unique due to these factors." I said with small gestures as I carried on.

"There are also a variety of elemental affinities a sorcerer has and can utilise. More specifically, there are five. Solar, Lunar, Sky, Nature and Earth." I explained, I felt as if I was going too fast and losing some people so I tried to slow down the pace.

"Some of these elements are straight forward such as earth and Nature. However, others are quite unclear in what they portray. For example, what I just showed you was fire manipulation, it's one of the elements of solar. And so is light." I said showing them, once again a football-sized fireball.

"An example of others with multiple other elements would be, Wind and lightning for the sky element and darkness and ice for the Lunar element," I explained. I could tell I had their full attention, I mean how couldn't I, I was like a familiar giant telling a boy they were a wizard.

"Although not the same as these other elements I just mentioned, some say once a person gets to a high enough level with the earth element, they can even start to control other similar elements, such as metal." During all this, their jaws had still not got up off the floor.

"A person usually only has one elemental affinity. Different people have different levels of affinities. It makes it easier and less ichor-consuming to summon and use spells if you have a high affinity with your respective element. And anything below average takes the normal amount of ichor and difficulty." As I explained I could see some of them dozing off, more specifically Colt, so I had to give them a flashy fireball every once in a while to keep their attention.

"A person can sometimes have two elemental affinities. But most of the time the second element is usually at a lower level affinity."

"Now, the elemental mastery is separated into five different categories. Novice, Apprentice, Adept, expert and master. At the Novice stage, a person's elemental control is at a beginner stage. They can't do much with the control of their element, however, don't be discouraged, sometimes the most creative and wittiest beginner sorcerers can beat the advanced sorcerers." To this they looked surprised, so I kept going.

"Then the apprentice stage allows you to utilise your element at an intermediate level. With some elements, such as Nature, this stage comes with a few perks."

"And the Adept level is when you can finally control your element at an advanced level. But never be cocky. Usually, this is where people think they've reached the top and they stop training. Nope, this is just the beginning of your journey." I gave a slight pause and carried on.

"For those determined enough to make it to the expert and master level, they will be able to achieve truly magnificent things with their element." I clarified. I was being truly honest when I said this, the last two ranks were no joke in the world. So much so they were thought of as myths and legends.

"Any questions before I move on to the next subject?" I asked while I looked around and saw someone raise their hand, for some reason I was hoping I didn't have to speak to this person.

"Yes?" I asked as Noa started talking. 

"Do you have more than one elemental affinity?" She asked. I felt slightly annoyed by this question.

"How about you worry about yourself before asking personal questions," I said as I prepared to continue. 

"How is it personal? It's just an innocent question." She said with a cocky face. 

"OK everyone, here's a lesson to all of you. Rule number 1, don't ever trust anyone." I said as I felt kind of annoyed I had to explain something so simple. It was extremely obvious these people have not had any human interaction with people other than themselves since they've come to this world.

"Telling someone your elemental affinity is the same as telling them your strengths and weaknesses. As a fire mage, what would you do if the enemy brings a party of ice mages that could overpower your element? What then? You've seen how Order has described the people of this world, they are not to be trusted." I explained.

"So does that mean you don't trust us?" She asked, completely ignoring most of what I was saying.

"No, I don't," I said blatantly. 

"Now as I was saying." I carried on as she stood there defeated. To be honest the others didn't mind this too much, because they knew that the feeling was mutual.

"We've talked about elemental affinities. Now it's time to explain personal aspects." I said as Noa finally sat down, as she seemed to be interested. 

"Unlike elements, which can be used by any individual with an affinity for them, personal aspects are abilities which are unique to the individual. It's a manifestation of their soul." I explained, which some of them couldn't understand. 

"And because there's no such thing as two people with the same soul, there's no such thing as two people with the same personal aspects. Two people can have similar personal aspects, but never the same." I stated.

"Personal aspects are also separated into four different categories. Common, uncommon, rare and unique. The categories just indicate the potential of your ability. Someone would be able to get the ability to control time." 

"However if it's a common rank, the capacity in which it can be used will be severely limited. It's possible with a common rank that the person may be able to control the time of objects only." I concluded

"Now that we have that out of the way, it's time to start awakening your elemental affinities and personal aspects' ' After hearing this they all started to get excited and talk. 

"I'm going to blast out giant fire tornadoes at my enemies. I'll be the strongest in the world. HAHAHAH!" exclaimed Colt, as he imitated a tornado.

"That's not possible." I slightly paused, practically slapping myself in the face for forgetting to tell them this.

"The human body has a limited capacity to hold ichor, as the core does not grow beyond a certain point," I said as I tried to dumb it down as much as I could.

"The 'core' in which I'm talking about is the heart. It's where the ichor is stored and the blood vessels are used to carry ichor around the body. Since our hearts are quite fragile, extreme amounts of ichor cannot be stored."

"So really big spells like that will either drain all of your ichor or you just won't be able to do it. It should also be noted that forcibly inserting ichor after your core is already full will result in heart failure and perhaps permanent damage to it." This seemed to make them a bit wary and suspicious.

"Although the consequences for exerting all your ichor in one go isn't as severe, it will still leave you bedridden for a day or two. So let's not be stupid, eh." I finished off as I went back to what I was doing.

They seemed to be a little down after hearing this, as their imagination which was running wild, was put to a stop. But magic was magic, they were still happy.

"Alright everyone, come to me one by one. What I'll be doing is inserting a bit of ichor inside you so that your body may circulate it and begin to familiarise itself with this motion."

"After about ten minutes, it'll be able to absorb and circulate ichor by itself, although not much." I made sure to eyeball them so they wouldn't all just swarm me like children at the ice cream van.

"Me first!!" Exclaimed Colt as he bolted toward me. 

"Wait, I have a question." Looking into the crowd I was met with a kid with arched eyebrows, brown eyes and a bowl cut. It was Johan.

"How will we be able to know what our elemental affinity and personal aspect are?" He asked, the others looking like they had just thought of this question too.

"Well, you check your system, of course," I replied.