Arlen woke up when his watch started to vibrate. He was starting his day, going for a short run before showering and eating breakfast. It was still a day off and everyone was waking up later, everyone but him.
He liked to enjoy the cool temperature in the morning, to walk around while watching the city come to life. I was watching people open stores, watching a city come to life.
When Arlen had gone through his routine in his new home he met Brand at the door of the rooms.
—I see you're still waking up as early as ever.
—Well, hobbies I guess. Thanks for yesterday Brand.
Brand looked at the boy in front of him and smiled.
—Don't worry, come on, I want to talk to you.
As they both walked around the combat department district they both talked quietly.
—Tell me, did you manage to open the box?
—Oh, yes, yes. Inside was this necklace —said Arlen, taking out the necklace with the Phoenix—. And also a letter.
—A letter? But first, How did you open that box?
—Haha, well, I looked for a lot of information and it was with my DNA, although I didn't manage to open it until the day before I got here.
—With your DNA? Haha, so much secrecy for a necklace and a letter.
—I'm sure they wanted to prevent an old man from opening the box and getting in where he wasn't wanted.
—Okay, fine, you win. And what was in the letter?
There was a moment of silence. Although Brand felt it like Arlen was remembering the contents of the letter Arlen was consulting with Edgar about the possible lies he was going to tell Brand because telling him he now had a voice in his head didn't seem right.
—They told me how much they loved me, to make me the son they are proud of, and to live to the fullest. They told me not to hate them and assured me that I would awaken my bloodline sooner or later.
Arlen did not enjoy lying, but at that moment, as he spoke, he realized that he wished he had been given such a letter. And at that very moment, he wondered what kind of bloodline his parents had.
—By the way, Brand, I never asked you, What kind of bloodline did my parents have?
—Well, I really don't know. But it must have been a high-level one because they were as highly valued IOH agents. We only knew each other outside of battle. We weren't comrades in arms, we were friends.
A moment of silence ensued as the two were locked in thought. As they strolled along they reached the art district when they passed a store that had in the window a picture of two people kissing, which reminded Brand of what happened the day before.
—By the way, have you talked to Miss Olivia Wolf yet?
Arlen blushed and hesitated a bit before speaking in a trembling voice.
—What are you talking about?
—Oh, so you can't admit the look you dedicated to her last night. Hahahaha, youth.
—Stop embarrassing me, old man. I'd never stand a chance with an heiress of a great family with no skill and no bloodline.
—That's why I called you today. What do you know about skills?
—What little we were taught in compulsory school. There are many diverse skills, in general, a person can learn any ability they want and it is not hereditary, although some families force children to learn a skill by 'tradition'.
—Very well, but there is one more thing, there are skills that cannot coexist with your bloodline.
—What? What do you mean?
—You can only learn one skill, which if we were normal humans everyone could learn any skill, but the bloodline has prevented that. Now the skill you can learn also depends on whether it's compatible with your bloodline.
—What if you haven't awakened a bloodline?
—It doesn't matter, even if you don't know it, you have inherited a bloodline. For example, yesterday Caleb White. His family is known to be the tiger family, but also the main family is known to be white tigers. That bloodline allows very few skills, one of them being snow.
—So it's more complicated than it seems.
—Don't worry about it. We don't know your bloodline, but it's just testing and seeing if you can learn one.
'Edgar, some example of what my skills might be.'
"The truth is that you have several examples, wind, earth, telekinesis... I recommend that you don't choose a fire skill and you won't be able to choose the snow one."
'Mmmmm... which ones else am I not going to be able to pick?'
"Let's say skills like water, camouflage, poison, also no fast-moving skills or shadow skills like Olivia's."
—What do you think?
—Ah, sorry Brand, I was thinking about what skill I would like to have.
—Well then, let's go into the store.
When Arlen looked around he saw that they had stopped in front of a rather large store with quite a few decorations. It seemed quite an expensive store and the sight had impressed Arlen.
—Where are we?
—We are in a store near the center of the academy. It's a store dedicated to selling skills, but it also sells armor, weapons, and fancy party stuff.
—This store sells a lot of things, doesn't it?
—Well it sells a little bit of everything, but you'll find a lot of stores throughout the academy that sells armor and weapons, especially in the combat district.
—But one thing Brand, why did we come here?
—Because I'm going to give you an ability.
—What, why, you don't have to, you already do so much for me, I can't let you gift me a skill, on top of that I heard they are super expensive.
Brand smiled as he listened to Arlen. He couldn't help but feel that what he was going to do was no big deal, but somehow he was glad Arlen was like that. Besides, she was hardly around during his days in compulsory school, he knew she had suffered a lot and couldn't do anything about it. Giving her a skill as a gift was the least he could do.
—It's no big deal a skill for you. I do it because I want to, that's all.
—Thank you.
Arlen replied sincerely. While Brand was talking to a clerk to take him to the area where they had skills Arlen was looking around. He could only see luxuries that were out of his reach. Shining armor, silk clothing, and exposed weapons of high quality. As he used the skill to analyze everything he could only see that everything there was mind-blowing.
"It really is a high-quality store."
'It's all so good.'
—Arlen, let's go they're taking us to the skill area.
—Yes.
As he followed Brand and the store clerk Arlen kept talking to Edgar.
'By the way, do you know where the skills come from?'
"Yes, they are subsequent to bloodlines. When a person reaches high levels of assimilation with their bloodline, Master or Complete, there were cases of them awakening an ability, scientists in the face of this great discovery wanted to isolate those abilities in orbs and they succeeded. Now, everyone can learn at least one skill, and when they reach those stages of assimilation with their bloodline they can have two skills. That's also a reason why you can't just pick any skill. It doesn't do any good if you pick a skill you'll get later."
'Is that why you told me about fire?'
"Oops, gotcha."
A while later the three of them came to a room where there were a bunch of orbs. They were all different colors and of different intensities.
—Well we have arrived —the person who was attending to us addressed us —, the intensity of the orb means the quality of the orb, the brighter the better the quality. There is a label under each orb with the skill it contains. Let me know if you have any doubts or if you decide on one.
—Thank you very much. Well Arlen, look and decide.
Arlen walked around using the different orbs to analyze them.
[Water Orb. Medium Quality.
Not compatible].
[Wind Orb. Low Quality.
Compatible.]
[Earth Orb. High Quality.
Compatible.]
Arlen and Edgar were discussing which skill could be better, the different skills, and how they could improve it until Arlen analyzed one that Edgar liked quite a lot and that Arlen didn't think was bad at all.
[Telekinesis Orb. Elite Quality.
Compatible]
'Elite quality?'
"Those have very, very high efficiency. It's very rare to find one and I doubt they even know they have one. Besides telekinesis, that's an ability that can be very powerful."
—With that telekinesis, it shines pretty brightly. I like it.
—Do you think it's okay Brand?
—Personally? I actually like it. Telekinesis used to belong to a family that was under the protection of the Wolfs, but they died in the war against the Reddaj, so the ability started to spread, but I don't think many people use it. Do you like it?
—Yes.
—I think it's a good choice.
—Thank you very much Brand, I promise not to let you down.
—Just keep being yourself, that's good enough for me and if you need help let me know, you know you can count on me.
Arlen was happy, not only because of Brand's words but also because this was the first step to becoming someone strong and dependent.