"It's that sound again!" Jack shouted. There was no mistake to Alice; she heard that sound many times. It sounded exactly like a slot machine; the jingle accompanied by the sound of slots spinning could be heard all around the boy. Alice looked at Jack and could see that his right eye had the spinning slot machine. It kept rolling and rolling.
"How long does it usually keep going for?" Alice asked, but Jack stood there frozen. "Jack!" She raised her voice.
"It's pretty random; sometimes it instantly slows down, and other times it takes a minute," he explained, his hands trembling, as he was scared of the outcome this time.
Alice kept staring at his eye. "Can you blink with your right eye for me?" That was a weird request, but Jack decided to humor Alice's request. After blinking, the spinning sound started slowing down. "It seems to only start slowing once you blink with your right eye."
"But why would it work this way?" He was very confused. "Is it because the tear is on my right eye?" He pointed towards the yellow light his tear emitted.
"You didn't know that your right eye changes into a rolling machine when you use your rend?" Jack's confusion turned into fear. He ran back to the house and checked in the mirror what she was talking about. He saw as the spinning stopped completely and ended on number four.
KA-CHING
All the small metal objects started levitating and slowly going in Jack's direction. But they were so slow that they weren't a threat.
"You see Alice. Last time it made me able to jump on air. and now I attract metal objects. He didn't understand what a slot machine was. Alice couldn't blame him since machinery like that didn't exist in this world.
"I might have an explanation for what your power is." Alice put her hand on her chin, visibly lost in thought "Its a truly amazing rend, I hope mine will be as good as this is" She pointed towards the metal pieces in the air that were hitting each other, creating metallic sounds.
"Just explain it if you know something." Jack was starting to calm down as this time the rend he got wasn't trying to kill him.
"I think that it's a power that allows you other powers, but at random." She took a step closer and bent down. "Does your rend deactivate on its own after a while?" She made a guess.
"How did you know?" A wide smile appeared on his face. "You actually know how it works?" He jumped up. "It lasts for around three minutes."
"Did you ever go to a carnival? One with a spinning wheel?" Alice tried to find a way to explain his powers to him.
"I did see a spinning wheel during a festival last year." The objects around him started to fall as his rent's time finally ran out.
"Imagine this then." She spoke slowly to make sure Jack understood what she had to say: "Your rend is like a spinning wheel; each time you activate it, you get a different power, the catch being that it's for a limited time. And the most important part, the lever stopping the wheel, which is your right eye.
Jack gazed at the mirror again. Staring closely at his tear, "My power..." He looked back at Alice. "This... is my power?" He ran towards the kitchen. "Mom! Mom! I finally understand my friend." He jumped at her, embracing her in a warm hug. "Alice figured it out and explained it to me!" Tears of joy streaming down his face.
"That's so amazing, sweetie!" She picked him up, spinning around; she was just as happy as he was. "I knew you would finally understand it!" Both of them tearing up from joy, "Alice, I'm so grateful to you. Thank you for helping my son." She smiled widely.
"Yes! Thank you, sis Alice," Jack was kicking his feet in the air from happiness. "I can finally go to an academy, Mom!"
Alice's ears perked up at the mention of an academy; she became very curious about the subject.
"Pfft," Elizabeth put Jack down. "You are still at least two years too young for that; you have to be at least sixteen to enter it. Most enter at eighteen because of difficulty, so you better study hard." She patted her son on the head. "But you are one step closer to getting there." She kissed him on the forehead. "Anyway, you should go to sleep, Jack."
"Okay, Mom..." He frowned but listened to her. After Elizabeth could hear him closing his door behind himself.
"Alice, come sit with me." She pointed to the table. When both of them sat down, she started speaking, "I'm really grateful for helping my son. I truly mean it. Her tone and gaze were way more serious than Alice had seen her make before. "Jack has always felt inferior because of his dad; he always admired his dad. He is a skilled soldier in the army. So thank you again. Elizabeth bowed in front of her.
"There is really no reason to thank me," she said, gently urging Elizabeth to sit up. "Uhm, if you want to repay me... then you could explain to me what an academy is." She scratched her cheek and looked away, feeling embarrassed.
Elizabeth raised her head, noticing Alice's embarrassment. "Oh, of course." She said, "An academy is a place where students focus on advancing their magical abilities and understanding their trends more deeply. It's similar to a regular school, with subjects like biology, math, strategy, and even a class about making gizmos. She explained, "But it's mostly about magic."
"Thank you so much for the explanation." Alice showed her respects by bowing for a moment.
"The next year starts in four months, and the price of it depends on the one that you attend to," Elizabeth added, seeing that Alice was thinking about going.
Because of that short explanation, Alice decided that her goal for now is to attend an academy and further increase her magic power. And why exactly? She saw how amazing magic is and wanted to learn more of it.
Alice ran outside the village, eager to train without any interruption. She had one goal in mind for this training, and it was to manifest all four elements. Air was already in her grasp, since she had already succeeded once at visualizing it. But Earth was a bit trickier.
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the ground shaking beneath her. It was hard to hold such a visualization for long, though, as she felt the sensation slip through her fingers. She sighed, frustrated at her failures. Then she took a different approach. Instead of imagining the ground trembling, she pictured an erupting volcano, a force of nature not to be reckoned with. She focused hard and poured all her mana through the palms of her hands, hoping to conjure earth magic.
...
But when she opened it, she was stunned at the sight in front of her.
Fire in one hand, flickering and dancing in its vibrant hues. But in the other, she summoned floating rocks, gently hovering mid-air. The sight was beautiful to her, making her lose focus and lead to the elements disappearing. She clearly remembered that there was no such thing as using two elements at once, yet she just did it.
She spent the entire night and the morning of the next day trying to replicate it, but no matter how much she tried, the two elements never appeared in front of her at once. But it wasn't all a loss of time, as she succeeded in manifesting all the magics through visualization.
Exhausted, she barely made it back to Elizabeth's house. Her mind was full of theories why she could use two elements at once and how to do it again. But for now she had to rest; she crawled into her bed and started drifting off into the night, one question in her mind.
"Could I ever replicate it?"