Annabeth sat in the wagon staring outside her window, an open book resting on her laps. Her eyes were busy analyzing the activities and buildings within the campsite.
The view outside was not anything extraordinary by any means. It was a basic slave traders campsite, with an absurd number of bandits or whatever they called themselves now. However, it was how much this place had changed that caught her attention.
When she was first dragged to this place, there was only one structure within the whole compound. In fact, the enclosing walls of the campsite had not been present at the time. Back then, Annabeth would have described this place as a typical bandit's den.
In her first life, it was Talin, the current gate captain, who had captured her and several other girls in the streets of Liberdade city. He tied them all up to transport them to this place.
Annabeth wriggled and struggled to break free from the binding ropes to no avail. Being only 6 years old, her tiny body didn't have the kind of strength to write home about.
As if to compensate, she kept trying to bite Talin all throughout the trip. But upon arrival, things took a drastic turn.
Talin and the other bandits took turns having their way with her and the other girls. She died on the inside around that time, becoming an unfeeling shell of a human being at a young age.
Just like some of the other girls in the bandit's den had done, she planned to take her own life if the r*pings continued. Luckily, the bandits soon began selling off the girls as slaves and she was the first one to be sold. The man that purchased her was kind and told her he would set her free. She killed him anyway since she just couldn't trust him. She felt that it was her only way of attaining true freedom, even though freedom felt pointless to her. She did not care much for her own well being.
Annabeth felt empty once again after coming back to this place. Although this time was different, she could not suppress the empty feeling this place created in her. Her chest tightened a little. Right there and then she made her decision; this entire place needed to crumble, and she had to be the one to do it. Vengeance was hers for the taking.
A drunk bandit near Annabeth's wagon was busy whipping and shouting profanities at a male slave tied to a pole. Suddenly, he flinched, a mortified look finding its way to his face. His heart was beating furiously because for a split second he had felt like someone was about to kill him. But he could not find the source of his fear after looking around. Scared and confused, he decided he had drunk too much. He stopped beating the slave and went to one of the rooms to blackout.
Lost in her thoughts of revenge, Annabeth had accidentally let out her killing intent. She quickly controlled her emotions within a fraction of a second, hoping no one felt her desire to spill blood.
Memories of her past were riling up her emotions and they needed to be kept in check. She decided to distract herself by reading her book as she waited for Lord Canning to return to the wagon. She gently smiled when she remembered how Talin could not see Lord Canning in the wagon earlier. She finally understood why Lord Ollie and Lord Brodie never saw him during their argument.
***
In the last 9 years, Annabeth had trained and grown to become a powerful young mage. Like the ordinary mages her age, she could only perform up to Tier 4 magic (Basic fusion magic). However, her training made her able to face Tier 5 magic users with ease.
The standard training for ordinary mages only permitted practicing with one innate element. This element was referred to as the primary innate element and it was the one the mage had the greatest affinity towards. This training applied to the stages below Tier 4 magic (Basic Fusion magic).
During the Tier 4 stage, the mage learned how to fuse their primary innate element with a secondary element. The secondary element was an innate element to some degree since they were born with it, but the mage had a very low affinity towards it.
An example would be Lord Ollie who was born with fire as his primary innate element and earth as a secondary. His fusion only added a small amount of earth magic to a large fireball spell to get molten lava. If it had been the other way around, the result might have been a burning solid rock instead.
Every person was born with one primary element and two secondary elements. At Tier 4, a choice of which secondary innate element to fuse with the primary innate element had to be made. This fusion ability would slowly progress after the Tier 4 stage until the mage reached Tier 7.
The Intermediate Fusion stage caused exponential growth to a mage's fusion abilities. It allowed the casting of more powerful fusion spells using the innate elements. Very talented mages had the opportunity to even fuse with the other secondary innate element. Trying this before the Tier 7 stage created magical imbalances inside the mage's body. If the mage was immediately killed by this imbalance, he would be considered very lucky. The unlucky ones would feel their vein burst and the magical realm in their body collapse. The feeling was equivalent to having a million bullet ants biting inside one's body with no chance of them stopping any time soon.
One generally accepted fact of primary and secondary innate elements was that polar opposite elements were an extremely rare occurrence. These were cases in which one of the secondary elements was a natural enemy of the primary element. A simple example was water being the natural enemy of fire.
Even in the slimmest of chances that one had polar opposite elements, most mages avoided such fusions. Performing fusion magic using a polar opposite secondary element reduced the destructive capabilities of the primary element. To these mages, this was taboo.
"Fusions were only for making the primary element more destructive, " they would often say.
However, a few mages relished technique over brutality. Polar elemental fusions to them were a gift from the heavens. They could create unique fusions to form effects such as steam, charged air, and other results. Their numbers were fewer than one could imagine.
(Steam = primary element fire + secondary element water). (Electrostatically charged air = primary element wind + secondary element lightning).
Most times, these effects were mistaken for less powerful Tier 8 techniques (Basic Field magic). Field magic allowed the user to create an environment in which their own abilities would be enhanced excessively. A mage with water as a primary element could create a water field to boost their water techniques.
For this reason, earth and air as primary elements were considered overpowered elements for mages. The earth and air were almost everywhere and acted as diluted Tier 8 fields for their mages. These mages were strong from a tender age since they lived in a natural field that boosted their abilities.
As if to make things a little fair, only about 10 people were born with either earth or air as their primary element in the whole world.
And then there was Annabeth.
The revered earth and air elements were both her primary innate elements now.
Lord Canning specifically trained her to fuse primary elements only. Where others would use a secondary element to boost their primary element, Annabeth's primary elements would boost each other. It was a case of a destructive power powering up an equally destructive power.
However, the only downside was that she could only form one fusion at the current stage like everyone else. She had to wait until she was able to perform Intermediate fusions (Tier 7) if she wanted to make more fusions. After much thought and planning with her uncle, they came up with a fusion she could use until then.
Lord Canning brought her to the campsite as a place for her to test her new ability. He hoped she would gain some actual combat experience from this event. There was a fighting tournament she had to prepare for after all.
The other reason was that Canning had finally reached the Tier 8 stage and had his own ability to test.