Chapter 6 - Astral Spirits

The man in the white turtle neck turned to Delta, clearly trying to keep himself under control.

"You really don't know who we are?"

"No? Should I?"

Vis in the corner burst out laughing, accidentally spilling her drink on Pact, who had been laying down beside her due to its rather lazy nature.

In response, it lifted its head and roared, flames pouring out of its mouth and setting the deck chair on fire.

The two of them started squabbling in the corner while Mana sat there reading a book and Ki and Aura argued in the other corner.

From Delta's point of view, they looked more like squabbling children

Arcana huffed, seeming quite embarrassed by the others' behaviour.

"We are the Astral Spirits, the living forms of the energy all around you. You are currently in the Realm of Magic, a small crack in space where the six types of energy can appear in their full forms without annihilating the area around us. Normally, we'll send small apparitions made of our energy to go and inspect the new students, and then have those apparitions bid different benefits for the student to choose, but this is the first time in thousands of years that all six of us have arrived for a new student."

Delta figured it must have been the chip that Athena had implanted in him yesterday, but he decided to keep that a secret.

"Between you and me, Arcana is the best type of magic to take, but don't tell the others I said that. We aren't meant to say anything until bidding."

Delta roughly understood what was going on by now, but he still found these 'Astral Spirits' rather weird.

"So do we begin the bidding then?" he asked, trying to get out of whatever social mess he was currently in.

Arcana looked around a little, watching as Vis tried to ride on top of Pact's back and Aura and Ki had an arm wrestle to decide who was stronger.

"Well, it's not like we have anything better to do..."

He snapped his fingers and the area around Delta and Arcana reformed, a judges panel appearing before them with 6 seats, one for each Astral Spirit.

The Astral Spirits stopped what they were doing and walked over to their respective seats, glaring at each other as if to say they'd sort out their differences through the bidding.

Arcana cleared his throat before speaking, "Before we start, allow me to explain how the bidding will work."

He pulled out a scroll from a drawer under his desk and began to read.

"The bid shall start from the leftmost judge and move across the panel. The judges shall take turns to offer benefits that surpass the previous judge's offer. If the judge is unable to offer benefits superior to the previous ones, they will be dropped out of the race and will not be

allowed to rejoin. The decision as to whether a bid is better than the previous one will be decided by the individual or corporation being bid on."

Although the rules were simple, Delta still had no idea what was good and what wasn't in this world, so he'd do the one thing he had been able to rely on as a mercenary.

If ever in doubt, bluff, bluff and bluff some more. If all else fails? Bluff again. At some point, Delta had picked up the nickname of 'the Indecipherable'. Nobody could ever read his true intentions, because half the time it was a bluff anyway.

"Vis, you go first," Arcana finished, taking a seat.

Vis stood up, quickly scanning over a paper she had in front of her.

"I would first like to say that your hair looks great today! I don't know what you did with it, but it looks good on you."

Delta was very disturbed by this remark because he was currently an 11-year-old, and flirting with an 11-year-old was pretty much paedophilia.

Vis saw that her attempted flattery hadn't gone to plan, so she quickly switched tactics.

"If you study the arts of Vis, I can promise my full support in everything you do, so long as it isn't entirely chaotic or evil."

Pact, who was sitting next to her, groaned loudly. "If you're going to support him, at least go the full way! If you study under me, I can promise my full support in everything, no matter what it is, and I can also ensure that you get the first pick of magical beasts, so long as they accept."

Vis pouted, before sitting down to wait her turn on the next rotation.

Arcana stood up next, adjusting his glasses and clearing his throat.

"I offer you my full support in your actions as well as state of the art equipment that people from your world have never seen before. I can also supply you with the materials required to further your research and allow you to rise to the heights of alchemy. I'd like to highlight that 65 of the richest 100 in the world have done so through alchemy. "

Pact's mouth fell. "You can't take what I say and add something small!"

Vis looked at him, fully perplexed, to which Pact responded, "What?"

Mana stood up next. "I can offer my full support, my personal teachings and the strongest magical artifacts I can offer based on your strength. I can also supply you with all of the materials you could ever need for weapon craftsmanship"

Delta still hadn't said anything, so the judges simply had to assume that he agreed the offers were getting better as they went along.

Whilst he was capable of staying up for hours, Delta decided that the Astral Spirits would be there a while, so he might as well get some sleep.

He dozed off with his eyes open, remaining firm on the spot whilst his body caught up on lost sleep.

A few hours later, Delta woke up again, being careful not to alert the judges of his little snooze. It quickly occurred to him, however, that they wouldn't have noticed him anyway. The entire room had descended into chaos after each judge took turns taking out better offers than the others.

Even though the values of their offers were getting dangerously high, none of the Astral Spirits wanted to pull out of the bidding, because there had never been a man with complete affinity to a type Magic, let alone all of them!

Arcana spoke, exhaustion leaking out through his speech as struggled to sound words out.

"I'm willing to offer my full support, state of the art materials and equipment, unlimited alchemical ingredients as well as two million gold pieces, a top-level membership card to all my representative companies that includes all of its benefits, my own tutorage as well as a magical artifact that allows you to identify anything you see."

Mana spoke next, enjoying the suffering of Arcana.

"I'll do everything he did, but instead of two million gold pieces, make it five million. Also, instead of just the identification artifact, add a cloak of invisibility and a piece of the Shadow Realm Key."

Vis choked on the juice she was drinking, whilst Ki and Aura stopped arguing, both turning towards Mana. He had left his seat a while ago and was floating above his desk, eyes shut and a book balancing on his face.

It was Arcana who broke the silence.

"Mana... do you know the value of that thing?"

No reply. Mana didn't even open his eyes, choosing to completely ignore the shocked looks he was getting.

Whilst Delta had no idea what the Shadow Realm Key was, he could tell it was important. He also had the guess that if he collected the pieces he could enter the Shadow Realm, but who knew what that was?

Ki, who was supposed to go next, sighed and sat down, muttering "I'm out."

Aura let out a celebratory whoop, celebrating lasting longer than his rival. "If he's out, so am I."

Vis sat back in her seat, completely relaxed under the false sun she had formed with her magic.

"You guys can knock yourselves out"

Pact came up next. "His current Pact Animal has one of the best synergies to him that I've ever seen. I'll do everything Mana did, including the shadow key. I offer a dual-mage contract to Mana."

Mana opened his eyes for the first time in a while, turning towards Pact.

"Fine, but his major will be Mana. Otherwise, I'll take this bidding even further."

Pact knew about the near-limitless numbers of Magical Artifacts that Mana had acquired in his quests, so he wisely accepted. Besides, he could still tutor the boy in his free time.

Arcana looked between them, before resigning.

"I'm not going to offer anything at the value of the Shadow Realm Key, so I'll pull out of this race."

With that, he banged his gavel against the table, and the meeting was adjourned.

The Astral Spirits all departed, other than Mana and Pact who stayed behind.

Each of them waved their hands, creating a hole in space. They reached into the holes they had created and pulled out a hose.

"A hose?" Delta asked.

"It's for what comes later," replied Mana.

Mana then took out a pouch, opening it wide before putting the mouths of the hoses into the bags before turning the hose on.

Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of coins began to pour out, reaching a number that no small pouch should've been able to hold.

"It's magical," Mana explained.

Delta nodded, still slightly confused.

10 million coins later, Mana handed the pouch over to Delta.

"We don't want you getting robbed, so here's a ring to hold the bag."

He pulled a plain silver ring out of the hole in space he had made, rubbing the top of it before pointing it at the bag of money.

The bag disappeared, turning into a wisp of light that moved towards the ring.

Mana handed the ring to Delta, who put it onto his left middle finger.

"Now the Identification Artifact."

Mana reached back into his spatial tear, pulling out a glass eye, after fiddling with it, the eye turned into a small clear contact lens, which he gave Delta telling him "Put it on, you should be familiar with these."

Whilst Delta was busy with putting the lenses on, Mana pulled a cloak out of his spatial tear.

"This is an invisibility cloak. The side with the stitches is the inside, and anything under it will seem invisible, it won't mask your scent or any sounds you make however so be careful when using it."

Delta nodded, before turning to Pact who seemed to be trying to say something.

"While I'm not sure what the beast you've made a pact with is, I do know that its power is off the charts. Because of that, there's a good chance that you won't be able to fully control the power it gives you. This necklace will solve that."

Pact awkwardly fished out a necklace from his spatial tear. It was a smooth chain of a peculiar silver-like material. Shark-like teeth were attached to the chain, their sharp edges glinting in the room's light.

"The necklace I've given you will limit its strength until you break one of the attached teeth. There are 5 teeth on the necklace, each holding 20 percent of its power. Once you graduate, I'll come and see you and help you release the first tooth. You'll be studying Mana in the Academy, and so that they don't bond you to a weaker beast, we'll make Mana your only visible affinity."

Delta took the necklace carefully, looping it around his neck before holding the chains together before realising there was no clip to hold them together.

Pact came to his assistance, "give it a second."

He waved his hands and the metal chains linked, clipping with a satisfying clink.

"One last thing before you go. The key fragments."

Mana and Pact took out small black keys. They looked completely normal, seeming extremely boring for what was supposed to be "invaluable".

The two held the key together, touching them together. A faint glow illuminated the realm, uniting into a single, slightly larger key with II inscribed on the bottom.

"Obligavit animam suam"

Delta faintly understood what they were saying. He had learnt a little Latin during his time as a mercenary working under Caligula, so he could make out the words 'bind' and 'soul', but not much else.

The key fragment turned into mist before flowing towards Delta's mouth, entering his body and binding itself to him.

"There are 7 pieces in all, spread around the universe. If you find all of them, you can enter the Shadow Realm and receive the will of Arceus, lord of Time. That'll take a while though, so don't get your hopes high. Either way, you need to make your way back to the Academy before they come for you themselves."

Mana put his hand on Delta's shoulder, then pushed him back, sending him flying back through the portal.

Mana and Pact turned into mist, their final words being "I hope the Headmistress doesn't cut our wages for this."

ED: Hello everyone, in case you're wondering as to why the previous chapters had a sudden increase in quality, it was I, TehGodofDoooom! Simply put I'm the new editor and I've fixed up everything after chapter 2, hope you enjoy the story!