At no surprise to myself, Amun of Odissi had always been a curious child. Not only in the fact that his inquiring mind never ceased to turn but in the fact that he held a certain quality that could only be described as, otherworldly. And throughout the entirety of Youtera's extensive history, only one being had ever been described as such.
I felt it the moment Ebbet first handed him to me and I turned him to face me. The cold and analytical eyes that gazed into my own weren't filled with the warm relief one would expect from a newborn seeing their mother for the first time. Instead, it only reminded me of the analytically skeptical eyes of the elders, and of the eyes of the being, that forever changed the elven way of life on Youtera.
Like Emeric knew at first sight that Amun was a Sorcerer, I was fully aware that he was the Cleric of legend, Telin's Champion.
As I swore to do on that day as a young girl, I dutifully watched my son as he grew up around the confines of the Cole Estate. And neither his genius, physical prowess, or magical ability had ever surprised me in the slightest.
Emeric, however, was more than delighted at having such a gifted and prodigal son. As would've anyone, I supposed. Even more so for someone of royal standing, again I supposed. Such nuances of the human world were and still are an enigma to me.
Still, Amun's hold on elemental manipulation was like nothing I had ever seen. Not even humanity in their prime during the climax of the war compared with the command of nature he and his vassals held. Which brought me just as much joy as it did worry.
"Our son is amazing!" Emeric gasped after we'd made it to our residence, the simple log cabin we'd first taken root in after our arrangement.
"Do you remember our agreement, Emeric?" I asked with no regard for our son's praise.
"Of course." He nodded with sudden confusion. "We were to sire a child and raise him together until he attended the awakening ceremony. Then you'd go back to Youtera.
"But what happens after?" He added after my affirmatory nod.
"The portal to Youtera will close and not reopen until after his fiftieth birthday. At which time Amun, will travel through it to learn the art of mana forging and of his heritage as a half-drow." I calmly explained.
Emeric knew I would never divulge elven secrets to a human, regardless of how highly he was regarded by any of us and regardless of the same flustered expression he always had when I spoke in near-tongues about our child. However, the prodding words still poured forth from his lips.
"Surely you needn't wait until he's fifty!" He scoffed. "The longer you, wait the more detrimental the effect may be. Surely you must be aware of this."
"I am not who decides such things." I calmly shook my head.
"If anyone decides it, it should be Amun." He pouted with a raised finger. Admittedly catching me off guard.
"You've seen how intelligent the boy is." Emeric continued, taking advantage of my moment of conjecture. "It's only a matter of time before he pieces the mystery together himself. Then, he may harbor ill feelings towards the both of us omitting the truth; whatever that truth may be."
As much as I hated to admit it, I could only see just that happening when imagining Amun's analytical mind coming to any one conclusion regarding his parents. I was more than certain he noticed the patterns, after all. The lack of intimacy shown between us, his parents, and the shortage of bonding time while my constant awareness of his progress remained intact. In fact, I was certain that he knew of Jonet's true purpose the day she started tending to the few needs he had and I couldn't help but get the feeling that he placed her in a similar position just to prove to me that he knew.
"Perhaps you are right." I sighed. "I will speak to him before his cores are awakened and inquire of his knowledge on the matter."
"Then we are agreed." Emeric sighed, coming in for a hug.
"Yes." I nodded, meeting his embrace. 'I will speak to him and judge if his will- his morals, are aimed in the right direction.
'If not…'
*** POV: Amun ***
Well, that wasn't ominous.
My mother had always been placid or at best amused by anything I did, but her sudden seriousness when she dragged my father off was nothing to wave off, in my opinion. Even Gerolt seemed to be taken aback by it as he watched my father hesitantly step behind my mother and disappear behind the walls to stare and wait a few seconds before awkwardly dismissing himself.
With my vassals and I in solitude once again and them awkwardly standing around waiting, I cataloged my thoughts and theories for later and loudly clapped my hands together to gather their attention.
"Excellent work everyone." I grinned. "With our little demonstration, I assume we'll soon be allowed to venture further from the estate without supervision. As there is no question that we can protect ourselves. It's' because of that." I paused to begin pacing. "That our dexterity and coordination training will be completely optional. Starting from today onward, it will be replaced with thirty minutes of strength training and conditioning each. After, we'll continue our routine of fighting our doppelgangers with and without weapons before we throw elemental fusion in the mix for another hour. And the last hour will be spent training our magical affinities and developing new spells."
An excited grin split Toril's face in two at the mention of affinities and spells, giving me all the more reason to begin with my lectures now.
"I'll assume you all have a basic understanding of spellcasting, so I'll ask if any of you have tried a reinforcement spell?"
"I have yet to try it, My Lord." Toril bowed first.
"Why not?" I asked. "I assume it'd be fairly straightforward for elec- lightning."
"I've split the entirety of my focus into my education, our training, and understanding your reading material, My Lord, per your instructions." He bowed again.
"True." I nodded. 'You all do still have to sleep, after all.'
I then turned to Jaimess, to which he solemnly shook his head in response.
Jonet on the other hand took a wide stance before and closing her eyes to focus. And over the next few seconds, the air around her grew colder than it already was before her body became enveloped in a sheet of frost that quickly thickened into a skin of ice that clanked and cracked loudly as she moved over towards a tree, cocked her arm back and drilled her fist into the trunk. Gouging a deep dent into the bark and causing shards of ice to spread up and down the trunk.
"Ice Armor." She called it as she returned to her prior spot and canceled the spell. Dying down the vibrancy of her ice-blue eyes and causing flakes of snow and ice to detach from her body and drift off into the air.
'Amazing.' I gasped to myself before turning back to face them all at once. "Toril. As I've said before, I have a few assumptions of how your reinforcement spell should work; and you should try it in a moment. But first." I paused to stare intently at my quartermaster. "Jaimess."
"Yes, Lord." He nodded at once.
"You may assume that your paper magic only has practical uses or that it's weak, but I'll tell you now that such avenues of thinking are entirely wrong. I'm sure you've experienced a paper cut, for example." I raised a finger like a teacher would when giving a lecture. Then pointed to a random tree just behind me. "So, give that tree a paper cut."
Jaimess seemed reluctant but nevertheless did as told and conjured a triangular sheet of paper that he filled with as much mana as he could. He focused intently for a moment with a scornful face before flinging his arm, sending the sheet hurtling towards the tree.
It sheared across the bark on impact, settling the sheet within a thin gash of bark where it remained even after Jaimess settled his mana.
"Paper has more qualities than you think," I explained, turning back to him. "If you remember that paper is made from trees, you'll understand the defensive capabilities your magic can hold. Which is what I assume is what will be reflected in your reinforcement spell."
"If I may, My Lord," Toril interjected.
Turning to him, I saw him already settled in place with his legs shoulder-width apart and slightly bent while his upper arms were held close to his sides and his fists were held outwards, clenched tightly.
As he focused, his eyes began to glow electric blue while the very air began to vibrate until his ear-length locks began to stand on end. Then, the cackling of electricity began to crack through the silent night.
Though his spell clearly succeeded, he seemed lost as to what to do next. Prompting me to reach down into my shadow and pull out a bowling ball-sized blob of the inky mass. A sinister grin came across my face as I swept my hand through the blob, pulling out a baseball-sized mass that I immediately cocked back in my arm. "Dodge!" I yelled, then launched the amorphous shadow at Toril.
The ground beneath him shook before his visage disappeared, leaving in his wake a field of electricity that quickly began to dissipate. If it weren't for him moving through the shadows, I'd have no idea where he was jumping or sprinting to and fro. Since that wasn't the case, however, I took control of the entirety of the shadow mass and divided it into dozens of spheres that were sent hurtling towards the leaping stream of electricity until my ammunition ran out.
"This is incredible!" Toril's disembodied voice exclaimed just before he came hurtling to a standstill before me, his body still cackling loudly with electricity.
"It is." I nodded. 'I can't wait to try it for myself.'
Without a word, Jaimess took the same pose and soon after began emitting the same off-white aura from his eyes as before. Over the passing seconds, hundreds of sheets of paper were conjured and enveloped his body in layers upon layers of the magic, much like layers of fiberglass glued together by mana. After roughly a minute of charging up the layers, Jaimess appeared no different than before, albeit noticeably wider and covered with a dull or matte sheen.
"As I thought." I chuckled aloud as I picked up my wooden spear and approached Jaimess. Twirling it about in my hand before thrusting forward. Implanting it directly into Jaimess' raised forearm where it landed with a loud knock before shearing off the side. Nearly knocking me off balance and forcing Jaimess to take a step back.
"Light, rigid. And capable of stopping a wooden spear." I grinned, patting him on his still-armored shoulder.
"That said." I turned to the other two. "I have the inclination that my grandfather's book didn't contain all the spell types known to humanity. As made obvious by the evident lack of progression from reinforcement spells."
"Progression into what, My Lord?" Jonet asked.
"It would stand to reason that if we can imbue our bodies with our attributed mana, then we could imbue other objects with it as well." Jaimess pondered, evidently to himself. "Or even make objects with such mana."
Apparently following through with his thoughts, he focused on his wooden dagger in one hand before his eyes lit up, conjuring dozens of sheets of paper like before that coalesced into first a handle, then pommel, then a curved blade that appeared completely identical to the last. Excepting the lack of wood grain.
"Exactly." I grinned before focusing myself and pulling out a rod of darkness from below me that I worked to reform into a spearhead of solid shade.
Jonet in turned focused as well to produce a short blade made of pure ice, turning her wooden dagger into a wooden handle. And Toril only managed to produce a stick-like torrent of electricity that indiscriminately arced out to touch our surroundings.
Which in turn gave me a brilliant idea.
After a few moments, they let their weapons dissolve, fall out or dissipate before turning back to me. And surprisingly, Toril spoke first. "I assume reinforcement brings about your Wraith Form, My Lord?"
"It does." I pulled out my grimoire to confirm while nodding and infusing my body with shadow mana. "It comes in two variants. What you see now is my Semi-Wraith Form. It allows me to fly around in a spectral form and allow attacks to phase through me at the cost of mana. My Wraith Form on the other hand." I grinned before flying backward into the dense shade of a tree. And before I could explain further, each of my vassals seemed to jump in place and suddenly begin scanning the woodline.
"Did he leave?" I heard Jaimess mutter.
"I'm still right in front of you." I snorted before flying upwards and around to their rear to hauntingly whisper in their ears. "My Wraith Form turns me invisible in deep darkness and allows me to phase and fly anywhere at a far greater speed."
"I thought you could already do that, My Lord." Jonet shook her head.
"When I slip through the shadows and seemingly teleport, I'm actually moving through an alternate dimension; like a mirror world. A realm where you all appear as ghosts to me and I as ghosts to you; in some cases, I've heard. In this case, however." I chuckled, moving around again to Jonet's faint shadow that was touching the greater darkness of the forest behind her. "Reinforcing my body with shadow magic turns me into a shadow, for all intents and purposes." With that, I flew upwards and then forwards before canceling the spell, bringing me back into the dim starlight materializing my body in midair. As much as I tried, gravity pulled my body down; despite ambient traces of shadow mana still coursing through my body. Yet instead of slamming into the earth, I passed seamlessly into the Shadowfell as my feet touched the ground. And emerged from the umbral plane a moment later with no damage.
"At any rate." I turned to face them. "I'd like to give you all a few pointers regarding your affinities before we get into training. We'll start with you, Toril. Strike that tree with a bolt of lightning."
"Of course." He nodded before turning to where my finger was pointing. Within seconds, his eyes lit up a cobalt blue as he charged mana in his hand and then thrust it outward, sending an arc of cackling electricity snaking towards the tree where a majority of it fell on target and a bit of it missed in curving arcs that impacted into the ground with thunderous booms. Causing the young knight to curse silently under his breath.
"That was good," I assured him. "Now do it again, on my command this time. Do as I do and gather lightning mana in your the tip of your finger."
He nodded silently and mimicked my movements in extending his index finger in the direction of the tree before charging his finger with the crackling energy.
"Instead of launching it at your target, I want you to imagine that there is an imbalance between your finger and your target. Visualize that your finger is a cup overflowing with liquid and that your target is an empty cup. Then, seek to-"
A blinding light suddenly streaked forth from Toril's finger, cutting me off entirely as it roared towards the tree in an instant and impacted with a cacophony of loud splintering groans and snapping wood, chased by the deafening sounds of thunder.
"Balance it." I belatedly finished my explanation. Then met my knight's grin in kind as he turned to me. "Do that, every time." I gave him a tap on the chest with my fist. And before he had time to voice his admiration, I turned to Jaimess and instructed him to give me a single sheet of paper.
Moving over to a clear patch of ground, I sat in a lotus position and carefully folded the sheet into the proclaimed best paper airplane one could fold that I once saw in a video online, then stepped back a few meters before throwing it over to him. Where it sailed gracefully across the distance and skidded to a halt in the snow just at his feet.
"Paper can be folded into a variety of shapes." I began to explain. "Shapes with many uses that will be extensively detailed in a book that I will be giving you within the next few days. Not only that." I added with a raised finger. "But there exists a synergy with paper and the other elements. Paper is flammable, can be carried by air; as you've just seen, and can become waterlogged; making it heavier and denser, but weak and unstable. All of that means that the potential avenues for your paper magic are near limitless. It is hindered only by your imagination, Jaimess."
"I understand, My Lord." He excitedly nodded. "I shall not disappoint you."
"Do not depend on the praise of others. Fuel your own pride; rejoice in yourself, and no one can break your spirit." I preached. Then turned to my spy.
"As I'm sure you've guessed, Jonet. Ice can also take the form of both water and steam; and snow as well." I gestured around us. "Unlike the rest of us, your ice magic gives your elemental magic an unlimited supply of water; which alone greatly increases your functionality and power."
"Of course, My Lord." She bowed.
"Not only that, but ice comes in many different forms," I added. "Which type of ice water forms into depends greatly upon the pressure and temperature at which it's formed, which translates to how densely the water molecules are packed together in their frozen state and in what arrangement. I can and will teach you of these different forms of ice, but I cannot help you in creating them. That, you'll have to accomplish alone."
"I understand." She nodded, giving me a slight smile.
"Good." I nodded, turning back to the other two. "Now, due to the nature of our affinities, this portion of our training will be self-taught. We will work on the accuracy and power output of our attack and defense spells and take the time to develop our own personalized spells. Once we get permission to camp on our own, we'll continue our training after your classes and not stop until the time comes to attend the awakening ceremony.
"Or until something else arises."