After the group returned, a week went by, and the boys fell into a routine of going to Gideons and chatting and practicing magic with Jera. They have come a long way from where they were on the hill as they integrated their magic into life and practiced a routine. Jera never let the boys forget how far ahead she was, as she had already made her self-made spell where she could conjure an ice shard and control it in the air, far past what Kael could do. Still, Draven was close behind as he was working on something himself as he practiced with the spark around his fingers that he was starting to be able to shape into small flashes of bright light he was working on a light spell with his spark but he was having a hard time at maintaining the light but he was growing more and more confident with his flame and he could easily set his hands on fire and light the campfires when Kael and he went out to train. Every evening Kael and Draven made a trip to a clearing outside of town where they made a fire and meditated and talked about magic. the two boys were getting lost in the magic, not coming home to Ms. Bakers until late. They were always so full of energy as they got better at control and accumulation it got easier and they got stronger every day, the boys trained like clockwork never slacking off, but Kael knew his accumulation was vastly different than Draven's way of accumulation, he struggled with producing magic. the farthest he got was gathering his magic in his hands and he couldn't understand how portals or his magic worked. Kael felt like he hit a wall in accumulation and thought he needed to split the two stars because he couldn't use any energy in his body. He accumulated and learned he could only gather so much magic with his current two stars as he wasted it when he brought it to his hands. As for the last week, he had tried different things but nothing worked as he grew more and more frustrated one evening while the boys were in the clearing Draven decided to bring the bow he had bought at the blacksmith remembering what he had said about the bow so he decided, " Now that I have control over my magic to this point, he decided to mark his weapon and told Draven he should do the same tonight and they could start practicing with them in the next couple of days. Draven didn't like the idea of fighting, He thought to himself, " Do I have to?" but said "Sure thing." The smith had explained the process of marking a weapon with a personal imprint by channeling your affinity into it for several hours until your mark appeared on the item and that would indicate to the others that it has an owner. The marking disappears when you retract it or die.
It was late evening, and the boys had got to the clearing to train, they had brought their weapons in hand. Kael is equipped with a bow made of a special wood called Myrkweld and Draven has a steel short sword with a bright red gem equipped into it. they are both ready to mark their weapons. Draven started a fire as normal, and they both sat around the fire to start. Kael motioned a swift thumbs up before sitting down and closing his eyes. Draven Thought to himself, "How is he so brave? I want to be like that one day." They both began to pour magic into their weapon as they sat and meditated with their items in their lap. Draven sat there poring his magic in the hilt of the sword as he did the Sword's gem would react and slowly glow brighter as time went by and Kael did the same but when he channeled his energy into the bow, it began to give off a slight glow of purplish blue energy that ran through the grain of the wood and the quiver surprisingly absorbed the mana as well but it all went to the inside of the quiver where the top began to glow with the same energy. they sat there for several hours until late when it was time to go home, Draven had finished marking his weapon and when he finished a symbol of a flaming dragon appeared on the hilt. For Kael, the process was much harder for him, he barely had enough magic to finish imprinting the item and could hardly walk because he was so tired from the marking. Draven was tired but not near to the level of drained as Kael. Kael's mark showed up as a snake in a perfect circle with a star in the middle with eight points. Kael looked at the item and thought "I get the star but why the snake?" Draven showed Kael his and said, "We should get back to town." the boys exhausted, scrapped back to Ms. Baker's where they crashed until morning. They slept in past breakfast, but Ms. Baker knew the boys would be hungry as she heard the boys get in late, she left plates out waiting for them. The boys got up right before noon, which was extremely late, so late that Gideon had Jera get the boys from the inn. As they had been at the shop way earlier every day. Jera came in with a cold demeanor telling the two boys "This is why you guys are behind me in the training." She thought "If I was going to travel with them, they needed to work harder than sleeping in till noon and running off into the woods every day." where Kael rolled over saying "Who asked you to check up on us?" and Draven cut in apologizing, "Sorry we had a long night." rubbing his head awkwardly, he showed her his sword that had his magical mark on it and Jera instantly became embarrassed and said, "You guys already have artifacts! Where did you get them?" Draven explained, "We got them at the Smith." Jera told the boys " Hurry up and get to the shop." Jera then ran out the door, where she went to demand an Artifact of her own from her dad. Draven started to notice how Jera was kind of spoiled, being an only child and living with just her dad but from spending time with her he knew she was a lot nicer than she seemed, she only got rude when it came to Kael. but he was sure it was harmless as he knew Kael was hard to love sometimes.
The boys eventually made it to Gideon's where they showed up with their artifacts, Gideon examined the bow and the sword and was quite impressed by the two weapons the boys had managed to acquire, as it was quite hard to get weapons like these anywhere outside of the big cities. The materials that channel magic outside the tower are quite rare and valuable. he then asked, "Where did you obtain these fine items?" Draven explained, "The Blacksmith gave them to us for a good deal." Gideon sighed and thought to the blacksmith, who he knew was not a fan of himself, because of the two types of people they were. Gideon never knew he had weapons like this there. Gideon told Jera "I will take you in a minute if the boys are okay watching the shop." over the last week the boys had been helping in the shop, Kael had been apprenticing under Gideon for medicine and was homing in his skills to create medicine and process herbs. Kael told Gideon "I can watch the place, we don't get many customers, only sick people and people buying herbs. I think I can handle it until you get back." Jera Looked over at Kael saying "Of course he will. Now let's go." Gideon hurried and took Jera to look for a weapon. the two boys stayed in the shop. Draven began to clean, and Kael processed herbs. An hour went by and no customers came. Gideon and Jera eventually returned, where Gideon wore a gloomy look on his face, and Jera with the biggest smile, was holding a short spear that split in the middle to become two pieces that had a spear tip on one side and had a small club head on the other end and had two gems on each piece that were as blue as the ocean. Jera immediately came in ranting at the two boys flaunting her new weapon as she was eager to imprint it, she went to her room at the shop and immediately began as the blacksmith explained the same thing to her and charged Gideon a hefty price for the time and the weapon. He was sulking at the loss of so much money in the last 2 weeks and how he barely had any customers this time of the year. They had barely sold anything since the kids awakened. Still sulking he headed into his office thinking of the money lost over the last two weeks and he knew there was more to come.