"How do you get it to work?" Taylor asked struggling to unlock the door.
"Like this." Alex said grabbing the card. He swiped the card like he had seen everyone else do it.
"Eh?"
He scanned the card. "Hey this card is for room six not nine."
"What? no it's not let me see." Taylor said while reaching out for the card.
"There see the words were upside down, if you hold it the way you did." Alex said pointing out the mistake.
"Well. I'm just gonna say, that maybe, just maybe, it was a misprint and the door is broken." Taylor said throwing out the possibility.
"Come on let's go." Alex said after giving a slight chuckle.
They moved three rooms over and Alex swiped the card.
"What did I say?" He said when the door clicked.
"I don't know something about the entire thing being printed upside down, and that because of that it was fine that I mistook 6 for 9."
"That's… you know what, sure."
Alex opened the door. They were surprised by what they saw, it was just an empty room. Nothing to punch, test your magic, on nothing at all.
'Is the only time this room is used when someone is breaking through?' Alex thought while looking at all of the runes.
"Well, I call the back half of the room." Alex said, already walking in that direction.
Taylor only nodded. He didn't see any difference between the front or back of the room.
Alex took a seat and began the process of breaking through. He went into meditation, trying to avoid accessing any memories. He failed as he was immediately dragged away, whenever he could sense again he was in a field of crops.
"Damn how am I supposed to make it through the year, when half of my crops were eaten up?" A man said while looking at a vegetable with small holes scattered over all over it.
"I'll have to ask ????? If he can give me a loan. Even though I don't want to, what else can I do?"
The man changed out of his overalls into an old suit. As he made his was into town.
He walked up to the bank, sighing after seeing how far he was pushed, and he entered.
"Hey, ????? How is it going?" The teller said to the man who had just entered.
"It's not going too well. It's bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Every year I have less crops that survive. This year is the first that I'm gonna have to take out a loan."
Alex watched as a man wearing a brand new suit came out from a room behind the teller. 'Such an evil man.' Alex thought as he felt something while looking at him.
The man saw the farmer and a look filled his face, it was a look of greed. Alex knew it all too well.
The farmer didn't seem to notice as he continued to explain his situation.
After he had said his spill he waited for a response. "I'll tell you what, I'll head off to the back room and see what kind of deal we can get you." The teller said as he went back to search through the set loan amounts for farmers.
"That man owns the biggest farm in this town right?" The greedy man asked the teller after following him into the room.
"Yes he does, the bug population in the local area has been increasing and it has led to him having to take out a loan." The teller replied while opening the drawer for farm loans.
"Forget the loans. I want you to tell him that the minimum we can give to him is twenty thousand." The greedy man said as he closed the drawer that the teller was trying to open.
"What!? He wouldn't be able to pay that back sir. No farmer within the next five towns even makes that much money in less than at least five years. I can't do that to him your asking me to destroy his life."
"I'm not asking you to destroy his life. Enough with all the nonsense. You heard what he said the bugs were eating his crops and their numbers continue to increase. The poor man would have eventually worked himself to death fighting the evil things." He said while putting on an innocent face.
"We are just going to expedite the process. Imagine how many more loans he would have to go through in the next few years with the amount of bugs increasing. Now if I were greedy, I would send out lots of loans over time and drain the poor man of all his wealth, but I'm not like that."
"Sir I understand what you mean, but it doesn't change the fact that he won't be able to pay it off. The interest will even grow faster than he will be able to pay it off. He will be in an even worse situation if he leaves his farm. You can't just switch professions, when all you have done is farmed all your life."
The greedy mans face revealed its true colors. "Enough with all this. You get out there and tell him what I told you to tell him. If you do well there might be a promotion in it for you, and if you fail, let's just say that your job is on the line."
The teller tried to ask for some leeway but the greedy man wouldn't budge, his irritation only growing.
The farmer was told of how the loan would work, and a grim look appeared on his face.
'I would have to quintuple my crop production to pay it of in a few years, but if I am not able to pay it off, then they will take everything from me.'
The farmer eventually agreed to the loan, ready to work day in and day out.
He ordered a five times the amount of seeds the for the next year, and he got to work tilling the land.
Years passed and the once strong farmer. Was now a thin and wiry. He smiled looking at the crops. The amount of bugs had finally decreased. Leaving him with more wealth than he had expected.
"This'll push me over twenty one thousand for sure."
In the following week he sold of the crops and headed back to the bank for the first time in three years.
He entered in and smiled as he saw his old companion. "Hey ????? I'm back."
The teller looked at his once strong friend and a look of guilt filled his face. His old friend was smiling too making him feel even worse.
"I've managed to get enough to pay of the loan."
The greedy man appeared, once again wearing a new suit.
"Ah you've returned Mr. ????? How has your farming gone, all good I hope?"
"Indeed it has, I'm just here to pay off the loan."
"And how much did you bring?"
"Twenty one thousand and two hundred dollars on the dot." The farmer said with a proud look on his face.
"Oh, well I'm sorry that if have to tell you this, but last year taxes were raised so the interest rate of our loans also increased. Your just five hundred dollars short of the payment."
The farmer froze after hearing what the man said. "How high did the taxes rise to the point that you had to more that double the interest rate!"
"They increased it by three cents on the dollar." The greedy man said.
The farmer who wasn't that good with math just stood silent. 'I was supposed to use the extra money to buy crops for next year.'
He panicked as he thought of how he would make money to pay for the seeds.
The greedy man seeing the farmer silent spoke up. "You can always apply for another loan if you need help to get some more crops."
Hearing what the greedy man had said the farmer lost it. "Fuck you and your damn money. Look at me and what the debt from this terrible business has done. I would have been be..tter… offf ifff i argh had…"
His yelling stopped as he clenched his chest. His heart had failed, leaving him with a strong pain.
The teller seeing what had happened quickly ran to go find the doctor.
When they had returned it was too late. He was already dead, killed by a heart attack. The greedy man took the money owed, hiding part of it, and later on claiming the farm and assets of the now dead farmer.
Alex watched in anger as it all happened, he knew math, and he knew that the greedy man had only increased the interest rate so that he would end up maximizing the profit from the farmer.
Alex felt a shatter as his darkness raged around him. 'I broke through.' He thought as he was pulled from the memory.
He was able to rein in his emotions slowly but surely. When he opened his eyes he saw a swirling vortex of darkness being pulled with in him. He had broken through and even made some extra progress.
Alex looked over to Taylor. There was a vibrant aura of light with him at the center, but the glow was getting dimmer as it retracted within him.
'It seems that he is finishing up as well.'
Alex then noticed something weird, in the middle of the room there was spacial energy just floating around. He watched as tiny specs of dust were intercepted by the spacial energy, they were instantly eradicated. The small particles left over were sent to the spacial dimension.
'I will call this chaotic spacial energy.' Alex thought seeing it.
'Speaking of which I should probably get rid of it.' He thought before taking it under his control and sending it away.
Taylor soon opened his eyes. "Fwoo that was something else."
"Now come over here, I have a strong urge to hug everyone I see all of a sudden." He said before sprinting at a faster speed than ever before towards Alex.
Alex tried to dodge the stampeding Taylor, but even with his newly enhanced speed he was unable to get away.
"Ow, ow ow ow! Okay okay calm down you are gonna break my spine if you keep up with that." Alex said as he was lifted off of the floor in a bear hug.
"Oh, sorry. I don't know what came over me I've just never felt that way before." Taylor said before putting him down.
Alex looked at Taylor and he was able to sense something he was never able to before. He didn't know how to describe it, he just knew that Taylor was nothing like the greedy man.
"Come on, let's go see if we can test out our new strength." Taylor said as he skipped out of the room a smile on his face.
'That's just strange, does this happen to all light mages?' Alex thought readying himself for when he was able to awaken his light affinity.
"Hey! Wait up!" Alex yelled as he followed Taylor who had already left the private training room.
The two sped through the halls. Heading back to where the instructors were. Taylor almost knocked loudly on the door, but he was able to hold himself back as he didn't want to mess with anyone's meditation.
Daniel answered the door stepping out and shutting it behind him. "Ah, your both done. How did it go? Is everything fine no problems with you affinities I hope?"
"We are both good, we were able to breakthrough perfectly fine." Alex replied.
"Yeah, thanks for asking." Taylor said before going in for a hug.
Daniel reached out an arm and held him at bay. "So I'm guessing that you both want to go test out your new strength right?"
"You got it." Taylor said after giving up on hugging him.
"Good you are free to go, just ask Deb. She should know that you two have broken through, so you have no need for an instructors approval."
They said their farewells heading back to the front desk.
Alex turned for a moment to look at Daniel who was already reentering the room. He could feel a slight amount of similarity between him and the greedy man, but even still he felt that that greed had no control over him.
"Hey, you're back already. You two wanna room to test your strength in right?"
"That is correct." Taylor said finally able to stop himself from hugging everyone.
"So how about it, same one as yesterday?" She said with a wink towards Alex.
"Yes we want that one. That's where you met Tom and James right Alex?" Taylor said and asked while giving her the black card and taking a new one.
Alex nodded.
"You knew what was gonna happen?" Alex asked Deb.
"Maybe I did, maybe I didn't let's just say I had a hunch." She said before looking back to her phone, her eyes landing on outfit she liked.
'Woah!' Alex thought as he had a realization. He watched her look at her phone and he also felt her greed increase for a second before plummeting.
'I have, I have a built in Greedometer!' Alex thought. 'This is just too weird.'