It was always a problem of hers. When even an inch of doubt poisoned the apple of hope, profit, or prosperity, she could never take a bite of it.
If she didn't, the shadow of failure couldn't follow her. After all, if you dodge all the things you might fail to keep your success rate at one hundred, who could say you weren't triumphant?
'You won't progress that way, Valpal.'
Her father's words came to the forefront of her mind.
'You can't only practice the songs you learned and hope to improve. Growth lies in overcoming both the known and the unknown.'
He would always utter those words during their guitar sessions, his daughter busy chasing the feeling of plucking the strings and hearing them resound just as she intended. The sound was distinct, one she cherished instead of improving, growing.
Val was at a junction in her life where her cause for decision would change where she would tread from now on, a choice that might distinguish a life of an outstanding mage and one to be forgotten in a year.
She thought about how Caro would grab the opportunity in a second, always starving for chances to leap ahead. She ruminated about how Dad would work endlessly to advance his adventurer rank in hopes a higher standing would earn more for Mom. She reflected on how Kenneth never hesitated at a chance to learn more.
'I'm weak,' Val realized, 'and I can't be weak if I want to save Mom.'
She needed to become better, refine what she lacked in and upgrade where she was strong.
Obtaining an Aether Artifact, she figured, would be her first step. 'I mean, it seems solid enough to me.'
Val sat back down. "I want it."
"Good." Fiona bobbed her head. "I take it you know what an artifact is?"
Val simply nodded.
"Well an Aether Artifact is no different, except for a few qualities," Master Winsford led. "The first is that it takes form in a manner most aligned with you, as a person and a mage. We seldom have any idea what shape it will be when bound to you, though cases of it being unusable have been lowered greatly."
"The next thing you need to know is that it takes time to tame and that it grows in tandem with you as a wielder, which brings me to one of your responsibilities," Fiona cut in. "You are implored to enroll in a government-sanctioned institute that will help you learn the ins and outs of the device."
There it was, Caro's earlier estimate was right on the money.
"All functions, save for the auxiliary ones, will be banned until then, unless a certified instructor decides to take you on earlier," Master Winsford supplied. "The deadline for submission is the end of Tricember and the refusal of doing so is the immediate confiscation of your device."
"So if you didn't plan on post-secondary," Fiona leaned forward, "plan for it now."
"Is that it?"
"Almost." Fiona handed her the tablet, line after line of dryly worded text filling the screen. Val scrolled through the rules and restrictions slowly, making sure she grasped all of them.
The major rule to understand was that she, among the others, was called upon if war broke out, requiring their immediate conscription. It was a little dubious, even if the event of war in massive proportions was on the rare side.
At the bottom was a blank where she signed the form. 'What could go wrong?'
"As of Janos 10th, 2001, 11:49 p.m.," Fiona announced, "you are now a Crown."
Val let the name settle, a slight smile splitting her lips. "I like the sound of that."
"As do I," said Master Winsford, asking her to lift her sleeve as he unfastened the briefcase. Inside the protective foam laid the perfect orb, untouched and unblemished. He whisked a tong-like tool out of his pockets and picked it up gingerly, pausing as he cast a look at her. "Just to be safe, you know what to do when awakening?"
"Stay still, let your soul stake do the job, etcetera etcetera." Val waved a hand. "It's been drilled in."
"Great." Winsford smiled, glancing at Fiona before recreating eye contact with her. "On three. One, two—!"
He jabbed the piece of metal into her wrist and it absorbed into her skin.
'That old heaven-forsaken man—'
Without delay, she was thrust into the immaterial world.
Val floated downwards as the boundaries of physicality faded, omnipresent darkness pervading as far as she could see.
Arms flailing helplessly, she froze and took in her new constitution. Cream-white specks floated out of her translucent form, filling the light-sucking void.
Urging her soul stake to twirl around on the spot, Val found it hard not to feel insignificant in the vast space she descended into. 'Stay still,' she reminded herself, keeping a vigilant eye on the surroundings.
A low rumbling reached her ears, or rather the alternative hearing faculty within her soul stake. She swirled, gaze turning to each direction—up, left, right.
When she bowed her head to survey what was below, visceral fear permeated her gut.
Ardent radiance rose in an ascent so fast, it seemed as if it was devouring the surrounding void in earnest. Before long she beheld a gate of immeasurable proportions hovering on the same horizontal plane as her.
Val was no artist, yet the polarity between the surrounding white backdrop compared to the obsidian rectangular-like frame of the arcane structure was entrancing, captivating.
A tiny crack split the metallic sheen covering the gate's opening and a lapis-blue string stretched out of her sternum, latching onto the gate. Val grinned internally. 'It's happening.'
It yawned wide and she intrinsically knew exactly which Elemental Gate she was bound to.
The Elemental Gate of Metal.
A multitude of metals—liquid, solid, or in forms she just could not recognize—swirled inside the shining gate, in golden-yellows and vivid-greens. Who knew ores could be so fascinating?
"I'm a metal mage," Val murmured, a little hard to swallow. Any other element would've made it easier to appraise her next directions, but life liked to give her lemons instead of straight-up lemonade. 'Nothing I can't handle… I think.'
Ready for her awakening to end there and eager to get straight to spellcasting, she pondered curiously why she wasn't coming to.
Floating towards the gate and swaying her head to the side, she caught the sight of a flood? It seemed like a wave of an abounding vacuum swallowing the surrounding light in its approach, feeding off it while remaining starkly dark. 'The hell?'
It stirred into an egg-shaped portal, ill-defined outlines of primordial beings frozen within their boundaries. Though there seemed to be no space for eye sockets in bodies composed of glowing lines, she sensed their appraising gaze on her. 'Okay, this is getting weird.'
As if trying to spur her train of thought, fingerstyle music flowed from the south, turning Val's soul stake around in full.
An austere staircase led upwards, ivory steps infinitely treading to the boundlessness above. Her attention wavered between the mysterious, warbling gate, the simple flight towards unknown things and the rigid and varied Metal Gate.
Boom!
Walls of glowing script crashed into the space, slamming against the consuming portal and stone staircase. Val felt her connection… dim? 'That's funny.' She had no guess what they were, and yet they appeared in her realm, where things remained harmonious to her soul.
These blue, runic words were the opposite, a glaring piece unwanted, discordant. At its core, the growing boundaries of inscriptions felt more like an invasion.
She hissed as the cable between the Metal Gate and her soul stake tightened, creaking as if someone was tugging on it. The shaking glow of the luminescent string was the last sight she saw in the immaterial realm.
And like that, Val woke up in cold sweat, back inside the dentist chair as an ordinary and humble metal elementalist.