"As I always say, if you're going to make an entrance, make it a dramatic one,"
"If you can't make it dramatic then don't make an entrance at all hehe." Lord Canning happily said, gratified by his perfectly timed intervention.
"What?!" Annabeth exclaimed. Canning always seemed to spend more time finding new tactics to shock and annoy her at the same.
"If you're going to make a-,"
"No…"*huff* *huff*
"I got you the first time!" *huff* *huff*. Annabeth was having a hard time catching her breath.
"You were watching and waiting for when to make a grand entrance?" She managed to say after catching her breath a little bit more, staring at him with a look of disbelief and coldness.
"No, I just happened to arrive in time to see you about to get plummeted by that ball," he replied, pointing at the rubber ball that now had a grey area with Canning's handprint.
"I-I had it under control," Annabeth argued. She did not believe her own words.
"With those tiny arms? Suuureeee."
And apparently neither did Canning, his words hitting a sore spot in Annabeth's already self-injured confidence. All Annabeth could do was to throw him a glance that said 'really?' and 'that hurt' at the same time.
"Kyeuk! D-Don't look at me like that. I should be thanked and worshipped for I, uncle Canning, saved your life muahahaha,"
"You won't get either from me." Annabeth was not in the mood for his ceaseless weird sense of humor. She had never been in the mood for it anyway.
"Meh, I don't need them. I am getting paid to train you after all," Canning pouted a little. Annabeth found this expression to be slightly more disturbing than when he would smile maliciously.
"On to the next step of training. Get enough rest and I will see you tomorrow," Canning suggested, turning around and ready to leave.
He did not want to talk about the ended exercise or Annabeth's progress in her control of wind magic. Menzine, the butler, had already filled him in about everything that would happen while he was away through letters. She was really lucky he was not teasing her about getting knocked out by a rubber ball for four days. He had a lot on his mind from his recent trip.
"Can I at least know what I'll be doing tomorrow in case I have to set my affairs in order?" Annabeth asked, bringing him back to reality.
"Working on those tiny arms… you might die still so do what you have to do," Canning advised, getting back to his usual cunning smile and tasteless jokes when he was up to nothing good.
"Played right into that one, didn't I?" Asked an almost frustrated Annabeth.
"Yep,"
***
The next day, Annabeth found Canning seated in the host's place of a dining table, having his breakfast. Menzine was standing next to him, listening closely as Canning was telling him something with food in his mouth. Menzine bowed to him when he stopped talking and started walking away. When he met Annabeth, he smiled and gave her a small bow as well, leaving the room to attend to whatever business Canning had instructed him about.
"Good morning sweetie," greeted a very cheerful Canning. His smile at least seemed genuine and lacking maliciousness on this particular day. Annabeth did not feel as cheerful.
"Don't call me sweetie," she replied.
Annabeth usually came off as not much of a morning person to everyone… Or a really messed up kid with a sh*tty attitude. The former was the popular choice among the servants.
"Munchkin?" Canning teased. He knew about her hatred for pet names over the course of staying together for a year. Seeing her pout was like finding a fountain of youth to warm and feed his aging soul.
"That's even worse"
"Meh… I give up," he said. He had no idea what other pet names people called their children… He even wondered at what point he had actually started thinking of Annabeth as though she was his own kid.
"Today's training will begin soon, so eat as quickly as you can little munchkin," he continued, he decided to not let go of the pet name.
He grabbed two long boxes from underneath the table and set them on top of it, side by side. One box was made of polished wood while the other had a matte black metallic surface. Each box had several decorations of shiny golden patterns on them that made them even look more prestigious than royal treasure chests. Annabeth could not even begin to imagine what priceless treasures were contained inside, even enchanted wouldn't require such beautiful casings.
Or so she thought.
Canning opened both boxes, one at a time, carefully avoiding touching any of the things contained inside. Annabeth moved closer to him to see the mysterious treasures. Her heart was racing, and she could hear it thumping away. She almost held her breath as her excitement hit the roof.
Almost.
Inside the boxes were… open bracelets.
"When you are done eating you should put these bracelets on," Canning finally instructed.
Annabeth was still in a state of euphoria despite finding out only bracelets were contained within each box. The bracelets were neatly arranged in pairs with velvet cushioning separating each bracelet from its adjacent. However, what was most intriguing about the interior was how each pair of bracelets looked.
They all had a beautiful glossy exterior with a realistic design of some image on the inside. The images differed from pair to pair but she noticed that a pair in the wooden box would have a similar design to one in the metallic box.
"Pick out four pairs from the wooden box, and wear one from each pair on each arm," Canning instructed as he pointed at the wooden box.
"Pick out the exact same four pairs from the metallic box and do the same for on each leg," pointing to the metallic box.
"When you are done, meet me near the training hole. You can look for Menzine and ask him for directions," Canning said, turning around to leave the room and most likely the mansion too.
"There is a training hall here?" the slightly confused Annabeth asked. She had been staying in the mansion for a year now and she had not seen such a room before. It probably had to be a big room given that it was called a 'hall,' but how it would have been perfectly hidden was beyond her.
"Not hall... hole..." he corrected.
"H o l e," he spelled it out with a slight smirk.
"And no, there is neither a training hall nor a hole here. You will be digging one," the smirk broadened.
He walked out of the room offering no explanation about what each bracelet signified. It was something she had come to realize about him, he was cunning the most when it was the most inconvenient. Annabeth climbed on a chair, bending down to get a better and closer look at the bracelets.
When it came to specific designs, the bracelets had an almost realistic image inside them. One pair looked like it had a fire inside, only that the fire didn't seem to move at all, while another looked like it had hundreds of water drops on its inside surface. Her girly side kicked in and she honestly wanted to have them all. Just picking out 4 was too tough a decision to make and felt like torture.
However, she knew the bracelets had something to do with her training so she had to be careful. Each pair seemed to represent each magical element available and so there should have been 16 pairs but a pair was missing in each box with their slots empty.
She started going through the list to get a better idea of what she was dealing with. The one that looked like it had flames in it was obviously fire, while the one with water drops should have been water.
And so, she made a list of the ones she could identify; Fire, water, ice, lightning, plants, earth, poison/acid, metal, beast (type 1), beast (type 2), light, and darkness elements. She could not identify 3 bracelets and even among the ones she identified, the two beast bracelets didn't offer any explanation on what they do so she just labeled them type 1 and type 2. If she was correct, one would allow her to summon a beast while the other would transform her into one.
The decision was tough. In as much as they all looked important, she had to pick out what would help her in her training… that she had no clue about thanks to the master she had chosen. She scratched her hair with both hands in anguish while cursing his name, Canning really drove her crazy at times.
After much consideration, she picked out earth, lightning, fire, and darkness elemental bracelets.
Earth was a priority on her list as it offered good defense against a possible death while lightening, Earth's natural opposite, had excellent offensive power in case she had to fight off who knows what. Fire was great for offense and defense while darkness, she thought, sounded pretty freaking cool. Plus, it was as close to forbidden magic as she could get legally without being killed.
The bracelets were light in weight but looked too big for her arms and legs. Surprisingly, when she was done putting all of them on, they shrunk to fit her perfectly at the same time.
"Nice!" she happily exclaimed a little, making a little fist pump in the air. She was glad she was alone in the room too, the embarrassment of having someone see her having a little happy moment would be a little too much for her.
"Very nice indeed Ms. Annabeth," someone said from behind her and made her freeze in place, her only desire being to bury herself in the ground.
He held a brand-new shovel and a tightly woven basket that could be carried like a backpack. His name was Menzine, and he was the butler.
***
Somewhere on the clearing past the woods on the southern part of the mansion, a red-faced Annabeth approached Lord Canning, carrying a shovel and basket with her.
"Ah," Canning said when she was close enough, "Menzine thoughtfully gave you something to use I see. He is such a gentleman that man." He did not know why she looked embarrassed but he knew her day was about to get worse.
*Sigh*
"Yeah, unlike some uncle of mine who enjoys seeing me suffer," Annabeth retorted. She was over the embarrassment and was back to her usual self.
"Awwww, she called me uncle…" Canning replied with a hint of sarcasm, there was just no winning when arguing with him. Annabeth gave up. If there was one person she would be on a constant rollercoaster of emotions around, it was definitely Canning.
"Let's just get started," was all she could say in the end.
"Alright, for the next 3 years you'll be digging a hole here," Canning said, pointing at a circle he had drawn on the ground using a stick. It was perfectly drawn and had a diameter of 7 meters.
"What?!" Annabeth exclaimed. She had expected the digging, but for it to take 3 years was too shocking. This sounded like slavery.
"I know right, why would anyone want a huge hole here?" Canning replied teasingly. He knew she disputed the 3 years part… he too did back when he was beginning this training to his master.
"You see the thing is, I need a..."
"What do you mean 3 years?!" Annabeth interrupted. She was definitely not in the mood for his lame jokes.
"3 years? Uh... 36 months?" Canning pushed on.
He was the type to push jokes to the point of almost breaking before getting serious. To Annabeth, he was the definition of infuriating. She wanted to kill him… she wished she could kill him… but using her bare hands while looking into his eyes as he lost consciousness. He had brought out her past desire for killing that she buried deep down inside of her for later years in life when she was stronger.
"Haha, calm down… little munchkin" her bloodlust was already overflowing and Canning could sense it, yet he still smiled on like he knew she couldn't do anything to him. She couldn't.
"Don't call me little munchkin!" was all she could say.
"Okay. Okay. But first, you need to let me explain so calm down a little... munchkin," he pushed again, he was having the time of his life.
"I am not saying you will be digging every day. You will be alternating between digging and four other tasks based on the bracelets you have chosen. This only applies to weekdays, so you can rest over the weekends," Canning explained. He looked at her bracelets and almost unnoticeably knitted his brows for just a moment. He wasn't concerned much about three of her choices, it was the darkness bracelet that bothered him.
In Annabeth's weirdness, he had noticed something deep and dark lurking within her. He could not really pinpoint its origins or what it meant, but whenever it surfaced, it gave him an uneasy feeling. At times he would annoy her on purpose, trying to bring it out but it just wouldn't clearly show itself.
He concluded she had it under control… but that didn't mean he stopped searching for answers about it. He would normally travel searching for answers as to what exactly that darkness in the girl was, and why it was causing him that uneasy feeling.
Psychic-type magicians would provide answers if you paid the right amount to them. The problem was finding them. Some belonged to cult communities hidden who knows where, while others preferred secluded settlements in the wilderness. At times it would take weeks just to locate exactly where one was based.
He, however, didn't even need to explain to them what the problem was when he would find them and pay the fees, as they would already know using their magical powers, making things easier for him. But easy did not mean answers were found.
Even the mages would tell him that they could not see what was inside the girl exactly. It was like a void and at the same time tangible darkness that was locked deep down inside her. They advised him not to worry for now since the girl seemed to have it under control, but Canning knew by the time he would have to worry, the situation would already be hopeless.
He, however, did not make mention of this to anyone. He just told everyone in the mansion that the girl was a little weird with his usual always-joking attitude. No one knew about his reason for traveling other than Menzine, but he only knew his master was looking for Siers (psychic type mages) to prevent some calamity, he did not inquire. If he needed to know, his master would have told him.
The reason Canning had not told Annabeth what each bracelet in the box represented was that a particular bracelet element would call out to a person based on their nature and desires. What Annabeth had thought to be choosing, was simply her answering this call. Canning had purposely removed one of the bracelets, the air bracelet, as this one would call out to her the loudest given that wind was her innate magic.
In another sense, therefore, she had chosen the earth element to defend herself against the piercing fists of the mysterious man, lightening to offer a more powerful offensive power than wind magic, fire magic was greatly boosted by wind magic and would offer great fusion power, and then finally the darkness element, because of her strong desires to torment and cause anguish to others.
But most of these things were unknown to Canning, but even much worse to Annabeth. In Canning's view, earth was as a result of trying to prevent what he had been jokingly telling her that she would die during training, lightening for more offense than wind and fire to combine with her wind magic. The darkness bracelet called out to her probably because of what was inside her. He was right in a way.
Seeing the darkness bracelets on both her arms and legs made him become serious all of a sudden. The rules of training a student in Tier 0 strictly forbade interfering with the student's choices of the bracelets, other than removing the bracelets of their innate magic. Fate was such an unforgiving thing, and trying to alter it would lead to severe backlash and consequences.
He was worried, but there was nothing he could do about it. His only hope was that she would remain in control of the darkness inside her, and that the darkness magic wouldn't fuel it. His expression got serious as he further explained to Annabeth the other rules of the training.
"Each month, you are only allowed to take off the bracelets once, for a whole day... and it will also be the only day you can use magic," he said.
"Those bracelets you're wearing are very magical items. Do not worry about cleaning the skin underneath them, they won't allow any harm or effects to come to that skin. They, however, take away your ability to perform any magic, so every task you complete will be done using physical strength only," Canning explained. He would have enjoyed showing a smirk about this to annoy Annabeth but he had become very gloomy.
Annabeth had noticed it too.
"This is Tier 0 training, where you temporarily become a non-magician,"
"But of course, it has one incredible benefit... Your body starts accepting the elements contained in those bracelets as your innate magic too. You understand right?
The elemental magic of those 4 bracelets you are wearing will come naturally to you just like wind magic does, but that's after three years of wearing them," he's mood sinking deeper upon saying. This meant that the darkness magic would become an innate magic too.
"I understand the bracelets part... but what about the digging?" Annabeth asked, she had not heard much about the digging aspect.
"That's for your tiny arms," he smiled a little and said.
"Ghaddamn*t," she feigned to be frustrated a little. She actually managed to smile a little too. Maybe seeing Canning less gloomy made her happy just a little bit. Wait… Could she actually care for Canning? The thought was quite provoking.
"Yeah you played right into that one hehe," he laughed a little. Annabeth convinced herself she didn't care for him, even though she chuckled after hearing this.
"Lastly, during the next three years, no one should touch your bracelets while you're wearing them," Canning said, returning to explaining the details of the bracelets.
"Why?" she asked, getting her expression back to the usual 'resting b*tch face.'
He walked up to her and showed her a small white box with golden decorations on it. It gave off a feel similar to those long boxes that contained the bracelets earlier. He opened it, and sure enough, there were two pairs of bracelets inside, all of the same design, separated by the same velvet cushioning from earlier. They still had that glossy look like the other bracelets. The design of each bracelet's interior seemed barely cloudy in some areas while most areas were transparent.
"Lift up one of these bracelets and tell me how its weight compares to those you are wearing," he instructed.
The bracelets all looked as light as the ones she was wearing. She picked one up and was surprised to find that despite its size and look, it was actually heavy.
"It's heavier than all the bracelets I'm wearing combined!" she exclaimed.
Canning smiled when he saw the look of shock on her face. "It's an air element bracelet," he said, "and that's the element you're most in tune with,"
"But now observe what happens when I touch it." Canning extended his hand and laid a finger on the bracelet she was holding.
The bracelet dropped to the floor with a loud thud. Annabeth had failed to handle the instant change in weight as soon as Canning touched the bracelet. She was surprised by how much the bracelet instantaneously got extremely heavy. These bracelets were really mysterious.
"You get it now right? If someone else who is better attuned to an element than you touches that element's bracelet, it becomes heavier and the effect will last for 24 hours before resetting to its original light weight," Canning explained, as he bent down to pick the bracelet with one hand. He lifted it with ease and placed it back inside the white box before closing it.
Annabeth did not realize just how physically strong Canning was until he stopped the rubber ball with one hand, but this was still shocking. She also learned that if Canning had also undergone this training, one of his innates was air magic. And then suddenly, something occurred to her.
"Does that mean that the more I get attuned these bracelets..." She tried to ask.
"The heavier they become yes," he interrupted and confirmed her suspicions at the same time. Annabeth knew what exactly this meant. The heavier the bracelets got, the more sluggish her body would become. She would not only have to exercise during every other normal activity like eating when her body got attuned to the bracelets, adding something like digging was simply overkill. This training was far beyond hellish.
"You might want to get started on that digging now," Canning smiled a little. He walked away, looking like he was not enjoying this moment as much as Annabeth thought he would. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts about something. Was he worried about her?
Annabeth shook the thought out of her head knowing that she could only speculate, hitting the shovel into the ground to initiate what would be part of her life for the next three years.