Chapter 4: What awaits, may not be what it seems

The trio would jog down hills and walk up them when they approached places with stronger incline. This was the most energy conserving in the long run for a lack of better terms.

Still…it took them almost 2 hours to walk nearly the 20 mile distance. Halfway they would stop 30 minutes to catch their breath. This was very taxing on their young bodies even if Apollo did gather their spirits to drive on. Even though he too was dog tired, he kept up a driving spirit.

They finally saw by about 11 the outer sect city. It was at least 10 times the size of their village of 500 residents. This was their first time coming to a certain place like this. On the way in, for a good stretch of the last mile, were perfectly arranged farming and cultivation grounds for plants and food for the village. Outside the gates about 400 meters was an open dirt ground scattered with large rocks that men were lifting up and down for training.

A man was yelling in rhythm to the lifting, whereas 2 men were sparring on the other open half of the dirt ground. One was teaching, while the other was being beaten. Although this looked like a sword hitting tofu in context, they could tell he was going light on him allowing him to learn from it each time.

Apollo realized this is what Helga said the man looked like. The man he was to go to as teacher 'The Martial man'. Yuki looked over to the gate, another man with papers was standing there. He walked over to him and asked where the botany house was.

''Oh hello little lad, oh the botany house? Its past this gate about 5 blocks up the main road, take a left and when you see the peach blossom trees its right in the grove a bit deeper.''

"Thank you senior" He said respectfully, Spectre walked beside him asking of the smithy.

"Now that… is about 25 blocks up the main road, you'll see a small peak and on top of it is the smithy, you'll hear them clanging hammers all day shouldn't be that hard to miss.''

''thank you as well senior'' He said respectfully.

"You too are quite well mannered...." He said non chalantly on the surface, with the praise he was receiving from children he quite liked hearing it. His job was monotonous with numbers, hell not many people like him even saw the light of day, except he was positioned at the main gate.

Since Apollo already guessed where he was to head he walked over to Spectre and Yuki and clapped them both on the back. "Sounds like we've made it! We got a little time, wanna walk around the city a little bit and get our bearings?'' It was a good idea since they were new to this place, and wanted to coordinate that knowledge.

"Sure let's do it"

The man looked at Apollo, without even thinking about it he pointed to the Martial Teacher out on the dirt grounds. "He's right there"

"Wha…What?? How did you know I was going to see him??'' Apollo asked aghast "Are you some psychic or something?"

"Haha no no… you're a strapping young lad with a fighting spirit. It's easy to realize."

"Oh I see…" Apollo said as if a big Epiphone had struck his brain.

The three walked through the gate, taking in the opening stores of the late morning. Seeing flower shops and item stores, they walked around for a full twenty minutes before stopping and then huddling.

"There is an item shop 3 blocks over, as well as a medicinal shop. They could be useful to us in time, if we make money let's buy something from them. It could be useful to us.'' Let's go check it out first before splitting yeah?" Yuki said aloud between them. They felt this was a good idea to follow, they were curious as well of what magical things may be there.

They walked the 3 blocks at full speed to save time. They arrived in front of a large purplish brown wooden door, it's not that it was painted but the wood itself seemed to be purple.

It was engraved with small little sigils saying the name "Nimbus magic shop!" In swift and clean letters that looked like they were not painted but casted on with a tiny shimmer to them. They were fascinated by this, and decided to walk inside. The room on the inside was much larger than the outside. They chalked this up to it being next to other buildings, so it must have branched out into rooms and kept the store front the same size.

The walls were lined with items, each with a unique look to it. It could be water in a bottle that was constantly moving, or even winds. A lantern had an eternal flame inside of it. Next to that were varying stones of sizes that each gave off a certain light.

On the other walls there were rows of wands, weapons, and even shields or brooms. In the middle of the room were racks and rows with clothes, mirrors, plants in vases closed by glass shells. Gems packing a barrel or books and tomes stacked upon shelves. This was a room full of treasures!

They took a full minute just to scan the large room before their puppy dog eyes landed on an old man with a cheerful smile on his face smoking a pipe.

"Hello young adventurers! What brings you to my wares? Care to see what lies around?" He said in a proud and aloof tone that made them all the more curious of the shop. Spectre looked at his brothers before stepping forward 10 paces and looking over the counter at the old man who in turn laughed and stretched his neck to see the young fellow in front of him.

"Seems you got some energy to you three, have you ever tested your affinities for magic?"

Spectre looked up puzzled, "Affinities?"

"Oh! Well then I'm happy to have met you young lads, I'll tell ya something… Affinities for magic are the inherent magic potential you're born with! Some can be born with affinity to earth, fire, water, air, even lightning, nature, metal, light and darkness! These are usually passed down by parents. If your mom is a water affinity mage, or just plain has it, and your father has a fire affinity…you have the chance to be born with both! Or neither one at all! Or even, a cross between them such as steam. These chances lie with fate as well as which parent has more dominant an affinity. If the affinity is equal, you're more likely to have both or a cross between them. Make sense young lad?" He said with wisdom.

Spectre gazed at him for a second, reaching up to touch his chin as if stroking a beard he has many years before he acquires. "I do indeed understand, some of the books on mages, warriors and tales I read that passing bards in our town brought by taught me somethings about this. But they were mostly stories of great people in the lands and mages. I didn't know people could have affinities!" he said with fascination to the arcane arts.

The old man could tell this kid was boiling over with fascination to the subject and carried on.

"Alright this old man will give you a few other points. People can also be born with vessels. A vessel is the route in which magic takes within you, there is the mind vessel, body vessel, and spirit vessel. Each of this has a unique way of utilizing the energies and magic of the universe and heavens. The mind vessel is for manipulation, the body vessel is for physical integration, and the spirit is the most unique! Where to whatever affinity you have you can be born with the ability to conjure up a spirit related to your blood line and affinity. Such as a person with a spirit of earth can be a wolf. They can strengthen it over time with cultivation or killing beasts to siphon a trait related to their element. If they killed a Rock Backed Tortoise they could give the wolf spirit an almost impervious stone shell on its back."

"That's amazing!" Yuki chimed in as he had long stepped up to the counter with Spectre to listen to the information and knowledge he was giving them.

"Alright one last point! There is the positive and negative of the world right?"

"yes!' The three said in unison. The world had different forms of energy such as fire and water, hot and cold, light and dark. These were the positive and negatives.

"Our being can also have a positive and negative!" The old man exclaimed.

Apollo looked confused, "you mean like spoons are attracted to people?"

"Hahaha no no…no magnetic positive and negative. Energy flow! These are separately called Exo and indo, Exo being outter and indo being inner. Remember how I said people can have a wolf spirit?"

"yes!" they all said in unison again.

"Well…if you have an exo wolf spirit, what would that mean?"

Spectre thought for a moment before saying, "it would mean outer wolf spirit, like when you said they could summon it! But if I'm correct, the indo sprit wolf would be summoned on your inside?"

"Haha almost, you're a smart one! You don't just summon it, you become one with your spirit! This would be called spirit integration. The indo wolf spirit used could become a 4 legged wolf or with a greater spirit a Werewolf!"

The three young lads were bursting with curiosities and questions about what all this could lead to for them. Which one of them wasn't wondering what there affinities were and what vessel form they had?

"is….is it possible to test people for these things?"

"I thought you would ask, yes. There is indeed a way to check what you have. Got the time for me to take a test?"

The three boys looked at one another with excitement! But in seconds they had a sudden realization…..They still had to work today! They've been in here for almost 15 minutes, which meant they had about 25 minutes left before noon when the jobs started. They didn't have much time at all.

"eh…" "eh…." "*sigh* that old hag"

Each taking turns to vent their thoughts, realizing the situation.

"Mister Nimbus sir, we were sent by our foster mother to go start work today. She said on the day of our 6th birthday we each have to start working, Yuki my little brother here will work at the botany house and my large brother Apollo with the Martial Teacher. I have to go work at the smithy. We start at noon and sadly…..wouldn't have the time to do so" A look of disappointment casted upon their faces as they tilted their heads down.

The old man looked astonished at the fact their foster mother would make 3 young boys work at the age of 6, seeing to as most boys would wait until at least 10 to do so. They were still growing!

"Hmm… birthdays you say? What a day to start working too! You're all so young, did she give you anything nice for the sendoff to work today?" he asked inquisitively.

"eh?... no sadly not, she hoards the gold she receives each month and we get scraps each day let alone a present…that old hag" Yuki said, while Spectre and Apollo nodded in agreement. She really was an old hoarding hag. She was indeed nice sometimes, but that was when she was mostly sleeping.

Poor lads, they must've grown up in a precarious situation. I know they'll become miracles one day however.

"Well I can't just stand here as the old man I am, and let you walk out of here without giving you something, how could this senior not do something nice for 3 young curious juniors of magic. Let's see, take these..." He handed 3 crystals to them, they were clearer then still water.

"These you can use to see what affinities you have, just focus real hard and pour your thoughts into it. Even if it's just a thought. It will do the work for you and pull what magic you have yet to control out and tell you! Secondly… while you 3 are doing that, I'll be right back." He turned and left, while each boy picked a crystal up off the counter.

"You think we'll get something good?" Apollo asked hesitantly.

Spectre couldn't guess in his wildest dreams as to what they could get. "Guess we can only find out right?"

He held the crystal in his hand and closed his eyes, Yuki and Apollo did as well. They started sending there Will into the crystal with the thought of "magic magic magic" constantly bouncing around there heads. Before too long, the crystal gave a pull and they felt as if water was flowing through their veins towards the crystal.

Yuki's crystal was first, it began to have an intense light green color suffuse through the outside ridges of the crystal. After a while red, blue, dark green, and yellow, white, black, grey and azure amongst many colors started to appear within the crystals surface. He didn't know what it meant but it was sure beautiful. The light green became an unknown plant outside, as well as inside, the crystal.

Apollo was second, a deep dark green started to grow on the inside of the crystal, and then it stopped at about a thumbs size. A second color of silver started to pilpher out from it, creating an almost egg shell like shape on the inside. The dark green stayed on the inside and began to take the form of a wolf head, after it did it opened its mouth to let out a silver flow like that of mercury. "woh" Apollo blurted out.

Spectre was so fascinated looking at theirs he hadn't looked at his own. As he did he was amazed to find that the crystal had 9 equal portions of color equally on the outside as well as the inside of the crystal, almost like the crystal had 9 different colored lights shining from the middle outwards. The colors on the outside became a ring around the crystal, the colors on the inside compressed together until becoming a small ball. A purple ball appeared on the outer ring and began to revolve along it, each time it went through the energies and met between each color a new color would be born, such as when blue and yellow met it created green, Red and blue to purple, red and yellow to orange. It was gorgeous!

"What the living fuck does this mean!" Apollo yelped.

Spectre was looking between them, with his mouth wide open. This must be they had a good affinity for magic!

He thought that these were what all magic users would see when they were quasi tested like this. But what he didn't know is that this was one of the most rarest occurrences across both continents.

With all 9 colors he had a strong affinity for all of the possible affinities, as did Yuki just in a different way. Apollo had a monstrous affinity for Earth as well as this strange floating silver color with a strong spirit of the wolf.

This was unprecedented. If his thoughts were heard by anyone in the magic community their mouths would be agape or dying of hysteria from a child having limitless potential thinking that he was 'normal' and not the freak of nature or monstrous genius he would be called.

They turned their heads to see the old man standing behind the desk, he seemed to be as jovial and smiling as he was when he left. As if hearing Spectre's thoughts, "Why yes you indeed do have quite the strong potential young lads, you could very well be the greatest of this world" He said smiling, concealing his thoughts.

"Well I am a man of my word, I'll tell you real quick what you each have, before your presents what are your names?''

"Spectre!" "Yuki!" "Apollo!" each exclaimed proudly.

"What fine names! Alright now first, Yuki you have a plant spirit of 8 elements. Which means your plant spirit has an affinity with the 8 types of energies including nature. Since it was on the outside and inside of the crystal, this means you have both an indo and exo spirit. Very rare my little man."

"Next Apollo, you have a great affinity for earth as well as the body since your energy was contained within the crystal, You as well have a spirit related to a wolf. That was surrounded by this energy. Meaning you have a dual vessel of earth body, and wolf indo spirit. Very rare too! This floating silver mercury you see, is actually a form of energy I'll let you discover later on. Focus on your Earth first."

"Lastly, Spectre you have a strong and equal affinity for all 9 elements, as well as the ability to fluently merge their energies. It's on the outside and the inside without form which means you have the mind vessel as well as indo and exo of that vessel. Exceedingly rare! You three will grow to become something special in this world. Because of this you'll also experience more pain than any other mortal."

"Since you two both have all 9 affinities you'll have to choose which will be your dominant used magic energy. You can indeed choose all 9, but it will take longer to master. Focusing on one and then merging it with the others can be much easier. Although it is easier, it is still as difficult as fighting the heavens themselves. Apollo, focus whole heartidly on your earth affinity first! Simply. Oh I almost forgot!"

The old man Nimbus reached out and 3 items magically appeared on the counter.

"Where you three stand, the item directly in front of you is now yours, as well as these…" He pulled out at the air and three tomes floated from behind the counter and rested beside the items.

''These are tomes you will study to learn of your magic, study well! And boys…Happy 6th birthday, I'm proud of you 3 already."

FLASH!