Rick Morrison

Morning Sam, I saw you looked tired that's why I didn't wake you.

That said, I am going into the city to get some goods. I will be back tomorrow.

There is food in the container and there is no need to open the shop today.

I know you won't leave the house if it's the weekend and the shop is closed, but I will suggest that you take a walk around the neighbourhood. It's not good to stay cooped up in the house.

Oh, and Devin came looking for you this morning. We agreed he should come later since you were sleeping.

A simple note with information and instructions. It provided enough to answer most of his questions but left one out. The answer to why he could not recall why it was the weekend. He had turned it over in his mind, yet, there was no change in his conclusion.

He opened the container to see the food steaming hot. He closed the lid and put the question behind him while he prepared himself for the day. This took less than an hour, and after eating the food, he left the house.

Walking around the town was unacceptable to him, so he chose the first destination that came to mind— The Market. This was the loudest place in the town and there was always information flying around. He imagined that finding answers there would not be too difficult.

However, the moment he entered the market, he felt like he had stepped into a circus. The sights took him by surprise, so much so that he turned to look behind him, believing that he had gone to the wrong place. Unfortunately, the iron gates of the market assured him that he was in the right place.

In the first store on the right, a store owner who sold meat had fire coming out of his fingers to roast the meat. The store on the left, a woman washing clothes, had the water float out of the wet clothes she hung to dry.

Puzzled as he was, he greeted them and continued walking through the market. He knew his way around this place, so, he went on an exploratory walk.

The sights did not change, no matter where he went. Every few shops he walked past; he would see someone do something similarly bizarre. He was starting to see a pattern in what they did. The market took him about an hour to walk through, and at the end of his exploration, he had questions and some answers dancing around in his head.

He kept all these thoughts from his mind while he walked back, and it was only when he got back to the house that he brought them to the forefront. Taking proper consideration of the sights he saw; a few things became clear.

This was not a dream. These people had magical abilities and were capable of harnessing natural elements to do their bidding. Water, drained from wet clothes; Fire, conjured to roast meat; Wind, conjured to turn a mill; Ice, conjured to freeze food so that it remained fresh.

In his confused state, he decided to look for the assignment book he was meant to submit— The one he copied from Devin.

Going through his school bag, and turning the room inside out showed him that the book was not with him. This meant that it was indeed the weekend; however, it also meant that he was missing a day's worth of memories. He sat at the table and picked up one of the textbooks he emptied from his school bag.

He paid no attention at first, but after a few seconds of staring at the cover, he opened the textbook. He scanned through the pages quickly, flipping every few seconds.

This went on for about five minutes, until he dropped the textbook, picked up another and repeated the act. He did this for all his notebooks as well and by the end of it, his eyes showed a mix of surprise, confusion, and a bit of concern.

Starting with the textbook on general knowledge, there was nothing too peculiar about it. It mainly dealt with general information as the name of the book describes. The reason he went through it was due to the change of the cover. It was simply different with a fantastical look to it, and it contained even more fantastical general pieces of information.

In it, he found that the world had a few continents with each having a bunch of countries. There were four major continents and three minor ones.

The major continents were termed this based on the apparent power and wealth they had. In this way, the size of the continent meant nothing, and there were two major continents with a landmass that was less than half of the smallest minor continent.

The four major continents were coincidentally located on the four cardinal points; north, east, west, and south. The minor continents were scattered in between these four in no regular way.

There was a world council that comprised selected individuals from each continent. Each continent also had its council comprised of elected leaders from their constituent countries. These elected leaders were called Presidents and governed with a council of their own.

Each country had their number of states, and each of these states had elected leaders called Governors. The division of power was basically the same as the normal world he knew. The only difference here was the requirements to be a candidate for election, as well as the way these Presidents were elected— Nothing special and it was nothing he didn't already know.

But as he scanned a bit more, he was hit with some surprising information— Each elected person was as powerful as possible because every one of them was a highly-ranked astral warrior. These terms from all the information that he read, simply meant powerful people. There was a threshold, a rank that all of them were meant to be at to meet this requirement.

This was where the power classes among astral warriors came into play. The power classes were divided into many ranks, starting with the foundation where they were termed 'Apprentice'.

As beginners on the Astral path, the apprentice was a proper designation as they knew very little and had a lot to learn. From here, breaking through ranks was the next thing to do, and with each rise in rank came qualitative change and an exponential increase in power. It was the real-life version of levelling up.

He sat back after reading them and let his thoughts run wild. His thoughts, disorganized as they were had one constant idea… The world had changed, and the world he knew was gone.

Power classes? Astral Warriors? All of it sounded like the plot of a fantasy novel that Devin would write. He was still deep in thought when he heard knocking.

Someone was at the door and opening it revealed a face he knew quite well; one he had just thought of.

"We have to go to Rick's house, right now" Devin started immediately after the door opened.

"Why? What happened?" He asked.

"He got it," Devin said. "Rick awakened his first element" He added when he saw Sam's clueless expression.

He opened his mouth, but stopped before he asked the question— What do you mean, awakened his first element?

Devin saw this and took it as a look of surprise. He helped Sam close and lock the door before they hurried to the Morrison house. This took a while because Devin couldn't sprint and the house was quite far away. On the way, some of the things Devin said, things that he could relate to the most were those statements involving the dynamic involving himself, Rick, and Eyva.

Eyva was the class representative, a smart and beautiful girl, one that Rick had always tried to court since he was the assistant class representative. He was the wildcard, the worst student in the class and the only student that all but one teacher hated unanimously. However, Eyva had taken it upon herself to make him a good student, an act he regarded as annoying and bothersome. You could imagine how that would rub Rick off in a bad way, and that meant, Rick hated him.

Devin's statement showed him that most things stayed the same, but magical and fantastical things had been injected into the world.

After a while, The Morrison house came into view, and around the entrance was a crowd, intent on entering the compound to see the little boy wonder.

"Looks like the whole town knows"

"I wouldn't expect anything less. We expected Eyva to be the first person that awakens an element. Now, we won't hear the end of it" Devin said with a scowl.

He gave a slow nod to Devin's statement. On the way, he had put things together and figured out the proper intent that came with saying that a person awakened an element.

Astral warriors are not born. They start on that path by awakening an element to become an Apprentice. From the rank of Apprentice, they would then move up the Power class by breaking through.