"Attention! Gather around people. Princess Rose has something she wants to tell you all."
Knights of both genders stood in formation. All eyes were on the beautiful princess whom was obviously concerned for only one person in the Knights order.
"Marc. Please come here." Straight after she had just said that all the other knights looked at each other adorning knowing expressions.
The man named Marc walked nonchalantly towards her as if this always happened. "Ahem, for your great work as Vice captain I'm gifting you this."
In her hands was a strange fruit. 'Eh? A fruit? Could it be!' All the knights had another collective thought.
"Could this be the famed Devil Fruit?" Marc took the words straight out of their mouths. Rose pretty much confirmed it with her enigmatic smile and all.
"Just one bite and you shall gain a power which you have never seen before. This one is especially unique in that it allows its consumer to gain the power to become a Spring Human."
Marc was confused as he had no idea what a spring was. "It's okay I never knew what a spring was either."
She passed it to him and patted him on the back. "Go back inside the barracks if you truly want to eat it. Be close to a bucket or the toilets trust me, you'll need it."
"As for the rest of you." Before she could get her words out a wind blew behind her pushing her backwards.
"Soap Shield!" Pink iridescent bubbles converged into one becoming a massive soap bar that protected her from the wind.
The soap bar was carved with the word Rose. "Let me give them a gift." Rose was shocked, this voice was undoubtedly a familiar one.
"Rude!" She gritted her teeth and paused her technique. "What are you doing here?"
The masked man laughed. His distorted voice eerily echoing in their minds. "I'm here to give you guys gifts as well on behalf of my employer."
Rose was shocked. She knew what the shop owner was like and wondered if he was going to make them pay for it.
Literally. "Don't worry he won't make you pay for it. They're for free and in exchange we get many souls correct?"
Rose nodded. That was the deal. He worked for them and he shall have an endless amount of souls.
Due to the increased crime within the kingdom the dungeons and prisons were nearly overcrowded. So while execution was fine and all the problem was the waste it made.
Cleaning up blood was not good at all. That was why straight after Sapphire learned of her powers she went on and took the souls of many criminals.
She then placed those souls into animals and objects discreetly and made those items her personal spies.
She had left many of them in all the nobles houses as her personal spies and communicated with them through a complex connection.
Thoughtless Transmission. A Communication based spell that sent information to the caster whenever one who was casted with it unconscious.
"Beltram. Walter. Lydia." Three other masked and robed humans appeared behind him.
One appeared to have spikes all over her. Another riddled with hardened cubes over his robe. And the last had sharp scissor like finger blades.
"Smoke Magic: Fuming Black Cage." Fog covered the entire field separating everyone else.
"Mist Magic: Hidden Doppelgängers." Within the fog appeared multiple mist clones that resembled the four employees.
"Glass Magic: Manarat Wadiha." Small rhombus shaped glass blinded them all as they reflected light.
And last but not least Rude. "Steel Magic: Mysterious Steel Santa." Steel hands placed objects in some of the knights hands.
The steel hands then rotated becoming a fan that blew away all the magic spells. The knights yelled out in shock after seeing what was in their hands.
A few had obtained a Stick, another few had gotten a Devil Fruit and a majority of all magic users had gotten a Grimoire which was basically everyone there.
Lydia bumped on Rude shoulders. "See? I told you we should have gotten more. Now the rest with only Grimoires won't feel special anymore."
Rude sighed saying he got it covered. "For those that had obtained only a Grimoire please line up and come with us."
Using his Lightning Human powers he appeared before them and finished the sentence. "We shall have you embark on the road of science."
.....
Dale, Rill, Heath has all met with each other before and now they had made new friends once more.
"I am Blake and this is my sister Rena." The two siblings introduced themselves to the others first.
"These two are Sera and Jacob." Blake pointed to them respectively And gestured towards them to smile.
"Hello." Was the only response he could elicit from them. But the boys were kind enough to wave back.
"Do any of you have special abilities?" Dale inquired. He was interested since everyone that came to the shop seemed to be rather interesting.
"Ah! I am a Cobra Human and my brother is a Wax Human." Rena replied swiftly speaking about their magic and Devil Fruit abilities.
"What about you two?" Dale gazed at the shy duo. His gaze caused them to back out even more.
He chuckled before finishing his cup of juice. Sizing them up he then realised that Sera had something on her that separated her from the rest.
"Isn't that a Stick?" He pointed towards the black badge pin with a caret symbol and small angel wings on her book satchel.
"Athena. What kind of Stick is that?!" Heath who was currently in charge became wary and activated Athena.
"Reporting. That Magic Badge has the ability to make things the user touches float."
Heath was surprised once more. The Magic Badge according to the customers files the badge went to someone named Adana Ilos.
"Where did you get Adana's badge from?" Sera was shocked and took a step forward.
"You know who Adana is?!" She shook in agitation and kowtowed down. "Please! Help me save my sickly older brother!"
The others were stupefied. They had no idea what to say in this situation. "Can't you do it yourself?"
Sera was confused and made an adorable sound. "Eh?" Her tone was that of a questioning one.
"I mean can't you just use Recovery Magic?" Rill spoke again unable to understand why she would to such lengths.
"Ah, sorry she's only been studying magic for a few weeks so she doesn't know that she could use a Flame based healing magic."
Blake had completely forgotten to mention this but had been too busy practicing for the past few days.
After all he was excited to meet the master who gave him his powers. "But tell me what's wrong with your brother though?"
"Ah, yes I'll tell you." Wiping out her tears she began to recount her tale. Her brother had bought a Stick from this shop himself during when Eliza bought in more customers.
He bought two of them. A Magic Badge and a Magic Bowtie. One day after using the Bowtie for work he started coughing up blood.
His mostly used Stick was the bowtie because of how versatile its ability was.
It could create giant phantom hands from his body usually his back. The size of the hands differ and the amount were also controlled completely by him.
It was from the Devil Wings series and had the letter T Emblem. "Ah I see the problem." Heath realised instantly what was going on with him.
"He must be nearing the end of his lifespan actually." This sparked rage towards him.
"Lifespan? You mean he's going to die?" Heath nodded towards her question. "But at the same time he won't die at all."
"What do you mean by that?!" Blake personally knew what it was like to lose an important figure in his life.
And he didn't want his friends go through the same thing once more. "As long as he uses up all of his lifespan using a Stick he'll become immortal. Or at the very least become a spirit."
Heath left no chances for questions and carried on. "Nathaniel's Sticks from what I hear were dangerous in that it used the lifespan of the user to work. However he created a new system in place. If a human dies using a Stick they shall be reborn as a Spirit or as his attendants."
From his point of view they were very lucky as they did not need to do that much and were able to achieve perfection through death and rebirth.
They still had day offs though. Family was important after all. "So I should just leave him to die?"
Sera's tone became graver. "Nope. You give him back his Stick so he can continue and become the first to achieve perfection. It's not a forced transformation and they do have the choice to what they become."
"Okay, I see." Sera was dejected after learning such huge revelations. As everyone else there they realised that the store while they had very shady methods they were nonetheless very good employers.
The users of the Sticks don't even need to be interviewed just asked. Not only that Spirits get free food and entertainment just for helping out for an entire hour.
"How envious. Well enough about that, I wonder where Nathaniel is now though?"