The Elemental Tower

"Here we are! This is it! The ELEMENTAL TOWER!" At last, our heroes reach their destination. "Whoooo! Ace exclaims, "It's so freaking huge and glowy!" when he sees the 50-meter-tall Elemental tower, which had a distinctive design with designs of the four elements—earth, fire, water, and wind—covering all four of its sides. The tower glowed at night like a star.

"Uhh. I loathe flashy stuff," Amon remarks. "So, this is the place where we can quickly earn some cash. Is that correct?" "You bet! This tower hosts many events where you may win cash and some really awesome rewards just like this sword that I carry. It is called the "Light's Bane". I won it the last time I came here. I can't give you any more information since the events change after every few months. So, let's just get inside and ask for further information from the event host."

After Luxman's brief explanation, they all enter the tower. "Welcome Sirs! How may I help you?" "Hey, host lady! How can I buy this tower?", Ace runs toward the event host and gets to the point right away with excitement. "You are asking the wrong question idiot!", Amon pulls Ace back and asks, "Excuse this fool please, we would like to know about the event that is currently taking place in this tower and also how much money can we make in the event?"

"Very well sir, allow me to brief you on every aspect of the event that will begin in two days. It's called "Scythe Pandemonium." There will be two rounds. Each participant will be placed into one of four groups for the first round. To locate one of the four element scythes—the Air, Fire, Water, and Earth scythes—each group must participate in the treasure hunt. We have buried several treasure chests full of cash, gems, gold, and magic stones, so even if you are unable to locate the element scythes, you will still come away with something of value.

"Ok… And what about Round Two?" The victor of round two, or better still, the whole competition, will get our event-exclusive weapon, the "PRIME ELEMENTAL SCYTHE". Round two will be a straightforward royal brawl between the four finalists who obtained the elemental scythes in the first round. Not to add how 10,000 chronos will be awarded to each finalist." "Ten, whaaat?" Amon loses his mind when he learns that the finalists will receive a substantial quantity of money. "No way you are for real right now."

Ace quietly asks Luxman, "So, can I buy the tower with 10k chronos?" without Amon noticing. Luxman says, "Probably not," with a lack of assurance.

Amon says, "Now listen, you guys, I will kill you both if you don't make it to round two, regardless of whether we win that scythe or not… All right, ma'am. Kindly enter our names for the event; we'll be coming in two days now."

As the trio begins to leave the elemental tower, Ace collides with a guy. "Oh sorry! I was in a hurry." the guy says. As he stands up, he notices Ace, Luxman, and Amon in a fighting stance, seemingly taken by surprise. It was like this maroon-haired boy had teleported in front of them out of nowhere like a swift and sneaky death reaper. Amon recovers quickly and apologizes, saying, "Oh, I sincerely apologize, it was just... we were caught off guard. C'mon! snap out of it, you two!" Ace and Luxman also let go.

"Well, don't worry about that; I'm used to having people be cautious around me. Please excuse me now." The man enters the elemental tower. "Not gonna lie… It is embarrassing for me to be taken by surprise in that way. We would be goners if an enemy caught us off guard like that.", Luxman admits. "I don't think you should be feeling ashamed since it was not your fault. It was that guy… he gave me a weird vibe, it was like he just teleported in front of us. I couldn't even sense his aura until he ran into me.", Ace reassures Luxman.

"Yeah, I get why he could easily catch you off guard but to catch Ace and myself off guard too… His concealing VIGOR seemed different from any other I have seen. It was like even his life energy vanished along with his aura.", Amon remarks. "Huh? Do you think catching me off guard is easy? Why don't…" "What the hell is a Vigor? Is it tasty?", Ace interrupts Luxman and asks a more important question. "Of course, that's the first question that comes into your mind!" "No for real, even I want to know what is this Vigor thing…", Luxman asks.

You know how MANA works right?" After witnessing the clueless expression on Ace's and Luxman's faces, Amon comments, "Ok, that was a mistake on my part for believing you know anything about the world you live in… Let me tell you from scratch… About 98% of living beings in the world have a reserve of MANA which is also called the ENERGY CURRENCY OF THE LIVING. Mana's expanse varies from one race to another. Usually, Races like demons and Angels have an abundance of Mana however, humans and demi-humans have a scarce amount of Mana."

"You say Mana is like an energy currency, but what is the use of mana?" "Lemme complete my explanation, will ya? From ancient times, mana has been used for performing the fine art of Magic which is of two types: Element magic which includes, flame, earth, water, and air magic. Aether which is an ancient magic also comes under this category. It is not confirmed by anyone yet but rumors say that VOID magic is also element magic that has been lost for a few centuries, not even I know of its origins and how to use it… The second category of magic is summoning magic which is further divided into two sub-categories- PACT summoning in which the master can make a pact with any mythical being or magical beast as long as the master's magical prowess surpasses that of the creature or it finds them worthy to be served, the mana it takes to make a pact depends on the creature and the number of previous pacts made by the master, however, the mana used to summon the beasts later is considerably less with no time limit unless the magic beast or the master is hurt fatally and the second sub-category- PROVISIONAL summoning, which is the magic of summoning any desired mythical being or magical beast even with force where they would have to follow the summoner's orders even unwillingly, however, that takes a considerably large amount of mana and strong will power. Over the course of magic's prolonged history, sages and wizards of great power have conducted numerous experiments and created a wide variety of magical abilities that do not come under any categories I just explained such as physical enhancement magic. They have even discovered ways to store mana in weapons and other objects, enabling them to create magical vessels and weapons. There are many more explored and unexplored facts alike about magic, but I am a bit lacking in information about its usage in the current generation."

"Spoken like a true grandpa who has lived for many centuries.", Luxman comments. "Excuse me! I am only twenty and will you stop interrupting me, you stupid angel?"

"C'mon guys don't start arguing for no reason. Just tell me if that Vigor thing is tasty or not, and where can I find it?", Ace asks for an answer to his important question again. "Aaaah! why are you both such a handful…" Amon says with frustration and continues, "As I said, in comparison to races like angels and demons, humans have a very trivial amount of mana reserves so they developed a technique of their own and called it 'VIGOR'." It's not a food item, then :( "

"Now, there are different kinds of vigor, such as concealment vigor, which lets the user control their mana flow while keeping it from leaking out allowing them to hide their present or even intimidate enemies by letting their mana go wild. Mana can also be materialized with vigor. "Mater-" "I know, I know, you two are dumb, so allow me to explain in more basic terms,"

Ace puts his hand on Luxman's sword and motions for him to laugh it off without even looking at him as Luxman draws his sword in anger. "Materialization of mana refers to the creation of tools, weapons, and even tiny, disposable armor pieces such as..." Amon shuts his eyes and swings a transparent stick that was not in his hands a few moments ago at Luxman. Luxman yells, "What the hell did you do that for and... How?" as he barely manages to repel the surprise attacks. Ace murmurs to himself, "Not gonna lie, that was actually kinda cool.", as he laughs.

"That was the manifestation of mana; the only distinction is that magic was used to create it rather than vigor. Unlike using vigor, where I would need to train and practice materialization without mana wastage before getting the hang of it, materializing mana with magic is simpler because all I have to do is visualize the physical form of what I want to materialize. However, you can't control its rigidity with magic unless you are skilled like yours truly. You can materialize things that are as strong as the metal Espite (a strong metal) or as feeble as Luxman's brainpower.

"This guy is getting out of line now!" "At least let him finish the explanation then you both can have an eating competition or something to settle the score. I would even take on the role of referee," Ace declares while drooling. "You do know that referees aren't allowed to eat, right?" "Huh!? Why is that? That's so unfair"

"Uhmm… Uhmm… So, I was saying that the strength of materialized mana items depends on the user's imagination, mana level, and size of the item (The bigger the item, the more fragile it is.) And now, the most powerful and deadliest ability, both for the user and enemy that can be accessed by only humans or hybrid humans is called BLOOD SACRIFICE." "I am impressed how you didn't sleep a single time during this whole explanation." "Actually, I did take a few power naps while Amon wasn't looking." "Damn you are sneaky, even I didn't notice you dose off." When Amon notices that Ace and Luxman are not listening to his explanation, he becomes irate and declares, "All right, I'm done with you guys. I'm just going to turn in for the night."

Luxman grins as he finally gets the chance to put Amon in his place, saying, "Go ahead, see if I care." "Yay! Yay! Go Lux, Go", Ace cheers for Luxman. "Yes, exactly! See how well you care about sleeping on a sidewalk." Using earth magic, Amon constructs a small hut to pass the time before the event, while Luxman and Ace, broke, do small jobs and spend two nights on the footpath.