"No?" Alder turned his gaze from John to me, and for the first time I saw a hint of shock on his face. "And why is that young mortal?"
I feel my throat dry up, and started to sweat in nervousness, but I committed to this and squared my shoulders. "yes 'no' because you are asking a complete stranger to clean up 'your' mess, by risking his life for home he did not even know about until a few days ago."
"Alex wait-" John tried to speak, but I cut him off
"No John, they are using you, and using your kindness against you."
John shook his head, "But they saved my life, they put me on earth and gave me a new family. besides, I owe my parents that much, they gave their lives for my home, so I should return the favor and continue my family legacy."
He was always stubborn, but he was not thinking this through, like always, "John, just because they gave birth to you does not make them your parents, it is the ones who raised you, feed you, clothed you that you can call mom and dad. The same goes for your home, besides what about your friends and family back on earth, what should I tell them, that I just let you die?"
"If we go by your definition then the maids and servants who raised me would be my parents, those people who I call my 'parents' just had me for a better status." he smiles and shakes his head. "Its ok Alex, you don't have to blame yourself, this is my own decision, I am old enough to choose what I want to do. If that means being a hero my parents wanted me to be then so be it"
"But it is not your decision to do this, but theirs!" I point at the other people in the room. "You were just an innocent baby during all of this, you owe nothing to these people or this world. As for your birth parents wishes, no sane parent would want their child risking their life."
He puts his hand on my shoulder trying to reassure me. "Alex, you have been my best friend for years and you know that I have always wanted to help people, to change the world. being a hero is not just for my parents, or returning a favor, it is my wish and dream to help these people. I will save these people and try to find a way for you to return."
He looks up at the light god as he says this, and Alder nods, "If you defeat the demon king than we will grant any wish you have, and if that means returning to earth then so be it." he looks one last time at me, before his eyes gravitate to my right hand for some reason. If I did not know any better, I could have sworn his left eye twitch in annoyance.
In a quick flash of light, Alder leaves, leaving the entire throne room silent in shock over the events that just transpired. The High priest is the first to get over it before he leaves the room, but not before he gives me a death glare.
The rest soon follow, and the king soon returns to his throne. "With that out of the way let's get down to business." he gave a nervous laugh to try to break up the mood that had ensnared the room."um... right! Chancellor, I believe it is time for the mana test?"
"What?" the mage looks questionly at his king before he suddenly remembers. "Of course your majesty, it is all set up in the back room, I will get it out right now." The old man rushes to a door by the side, that I only just realized was there.
A few minutes pass before the chancellor, who I learned was named Alistair, came back with a strange sphere floating behind him. He soon explained to John what it is there for. "This is here for you to figure out your affinities. You most likely know that each soul is different per person, each soul generates different type of mana, this here-" he pats the sphere. "is to show you the percentages of each type of mana your soul produces."
John nodes, but asks. "What does it matter that we learn this?"
Chancellor Alistair seemed to switch into teacher mode, and pushed up his spectacles. "Mages souls dictate what types of mana that each mage can use, the percentages, show the affinity that the mage has over the element."
The chancellor places his hand on the sphere, which causes it to light up with a multitude of lights, with red and brown taking the majority. "Here I have a forty percent affinity to fire and earth, with ten in life and ten in wind. but the main point is that when a mage starts out, they can only use elements that they have a twenty five percent affinity or higher, until they reach a certain rank that is. So when I began as a novice, fire and earth was what I had and could only use at that time. this also means one can not have all eight elements."
With the explanation done, he motions to John to place his own hand on the device. Me having read plenty of novels and played plenty of videogames had already closed my eyes as I had an idea of where this would lead, and a second later I was right.
As bright as when Alder had appeared, a flash of light lit up the entire room. A multitude of lights flashed like a disco ball, and with a shout, an energy sphere enclosed it in a bubble, lessening the light before it did any damage to one's retina.
I looked and saw the chancellor, rubbing his eyes furiously with one hand while the other was glowing and pointed at the sphere. Although the mage wanted to be furious at John, he couldn't stay mad at the hero, who was right now apologizing to everyone in the room with an embarrassed smile.
A cough from the king drew everyone's attention back to the sphere in the room, which at that point looked like a rainbow. A multitude of colors which added up to six where equally grouped, with none overshadowing the other.
However, both John and everyone else in the room noticed that two of the elements seemed to be greyed out. It was the green and brown, which going by the elements is most likely wind and earth.
Before John was going to ask the reason for it, the chancellor beat him to it. "The reason for that is most likely due to the fact that your body is not strong enough to handle all six elements, so until then you can only use light, life, fire, and water." he started leading John away from the sphere when he finished explaining, but John stopped and looked in my direction.
"Why don't we let Alex give it a try?" John asked the chancellor
"Hm? of course, of course, we can't forget the heroes companion."
The way he said it, he most likely forgot about me, but I was used to it , and just walked up to the device. With an ok from the chancellor, I placed my hand on it, and right away I got a reaction. I felt something start leaving me as it went from my arm all the way to the device, it was not mana, but something pure and familiar to me.
Before I could think further into this, a bight light with different colors started lighting up, though not as dramatic as Johns, it was still bright. right away I saw a lot of green, and black. Alistair took a closer look at it and somehow got different percentages from the blobs of light.
Although how he did it I have no clue.
"thirty percent air, twenty-five darkness, fifteen earth and fire, ten percent water, and five percent life."
The darkness affinity shocked me, as the wind comes easy to me but sending my thoughts toward a shadow near me, I tested it and expecting nothing from it. Instead I felt a rush of cool energy being drawn toward me, as a few shadows twist and turn in the cornee, but just as quickly I shut it off as I remember the exhaustion from the first time.
Right away I felt tired, but it was not as bad as the first time. Without my knowledge, the chancellor was watching the entire time and when he saw me stop he gave an encouraging nod.
Clapping his hands to get everyone's attention he takes both John and me back out the way we came, but not before saying goodbye to the king and queen. Alice wanted to join, but the king told her to stay for a while, he was still a father and was worried sick when she did not return so of course he would spend some time with his daughter.
Finally outside the castle, I took a deep breath of fresh air to calm down from the events that took place. After calming my nerves, I watch the old man walking ahead, with me and John soon following the chancellor into a new carriage. Though strangely there were no horses or driver but I did not think much of it.
Once inside the chancellor's serious personality seemed to wash away into childish glee.
this caused a chill to run up my spine as I suddenly had a bad feeling.
"Your going to love this!" he suddenly said, and with that he slammed a palm into a crystal that started glowing.
"What?!"
"What?!" both me and John said at the same time.
just as suddenly the carriage started taking off into the air, with me and John screaming, and the chancellor laughing in joy "Next stop, the school for mages!"
*******
Without anyone's knowledge, a shadowy figure was watching the events in the throne room the entire time. backing away the figure melded into the shadows, before appearing before a richly dressed noble. the figure knelt on the ground and explained the situation.
The noble was swirling a glass of wine, but stopped when the spy reached the part about Alex's argument with the hero.
"Be prepared to kill that companion, we don't need the hero getting any ideas of leaving us." the noble takes a sip of the wine. "put a hit out on him with the assassins guild, a hundred gold, and tell them to do it outside the school. we don't need that crazy mage after us."
The shadow nods, and is preparing to leave, but not before the noble gives him one last order. "and make sure it is painful."