Kes was sitting next to Nash inside the academy excitedly kicking his feet waiting for the village chief to arrive and start the lesson, when his friend took notice.
Nash gave him a mocking grin. "Did anything good happen to you? Maybe you finally made a breakthrough in your Flow proficiency and are finally able to land a single hit on me?"
Kes hurriedly stopped kicking his feet and gave an annoyed look. "It's nothing like that, it is just that my mother told me about the lesson we will be receiving today."
Nash's face suddenly showed a look of interest. "Oh and what will this lesson be about?"
Now it was Kes' time to show a mocking grin. "Wouldn't you like to know, just wait a bit and find out."
Nash looked like he wanted to say something but before he could speak the village chief walked into the room. He had a serious look on his face. Even though he was usually quite serious he still had this weird aloofness about him. But now that aloofness was gone notifying everyone present that the next lesson he would be teaching would be required to be taken seriously.
Kes suddenly thought back to the conversation he had with his mother yesterday.
'The village chief is a mystery indeed, looking at him now he does look really dangerous. I'll make sure not to get on his bad side.'
The whole air around him was different now that he looked so serious. The whole classroom was quiet, there seemed to be a bit of a creepy atmosphere hanging in the air.
The village chief cleared his throat before he started talking. "Today I will teach all of you about your innate element."
A ripple ran through the class, disturbing the eerie and quiet atmosphere that lingered before. People audibly gasped and a lot of students had excitement written around their faces.
Nash also turned to Kes, his face was a mix between understanding and excitement. He opened his mouth to say something to Kes again, but was once again interrupted by the village chief.
"I know all of you are excited to learn about your innate element but let me say this loud and clear. This is only an explanation, actually doing something with the information you receive here today will put you in great danger and result in you getting temporarily suspended from the academy."
Another ripple ran through the classroom as the excited faces turned a lot more mellow. No longer being as excited as before with the threat of suspension lingering. The kids here might have been inclined to try something before, but everyone here knew getting suspended from the academy would just result in their growth being significantly slowed.
Seeing he had successfully subdued the excitement in the class the village chief continued. "Now that everyone here understands that, let's start the explanation. Today we will be going over what an innate element is, how you form your innate element, and how you use your innate element after having formed it."
The village chief stretched out his right hand in front of him when, just above the palm of his right hand, flakes of ash started forming.
The class gasped at the sight of the ash flakes swirling around above the palm of the outstretched hand. Even though quite a lot of hunters had awakened their innate element in Ashen village the innate element was limited and would usually be used up during the hunts of the day. Most of them had definitely been shown it a couple of times before but it definitely wasn't a daily occurrence.
The village chief clasped his hand together and opened it again, the ash that was floating in the air before now in the palm of his hand. "Your innate element is basically the ability to turn your otherwise incorporeal Flow into a certain element, in my case this being ash."
"Most of you will have the same innate element as me since an innate element is hereditary and gets passed down via lineage. There are exceptions of course, but most of the time when two parents with the same innate element have a child their child will inherit their innate element. So because most of the Ashen village has the innate ash element most of you will inherit this trait."
The chief suddenly turned his gaze to Kes. "Which brings me to you, you have a mother with innate sand and a father with innate ash. This makes you the one with the largest chance to have a different innate element in this classroom."
Kes raised his hand and started talking when the village chief gave him a nod. "So, what does this mean for me? Does this mean I have a fifty percent chance to become an innate sand user and a fifty percent chance to become an innate ash user?"
The village chief sighed. "Well it is a bit more complicated than that. Most of the time it does come down to one of the two indeed, but sometimes a completely different element can form from the child between two different innate element users. But like I said before it is also not completely impossible for this to happen for a child between two people holding the same innate element. Think of it like your appearance. You don't look exactly like one of your parents, instead you inherit traits from both. In the big cities it's very possible for two parents to both have brown hair but birth a child with black hair. This usually does not happen in the rural villages because our blood is thick, this is the same reason I say it is very likely for most of you to also hold the innate ash element."
Kes raised his hand again and got another nod from the village chief. "So what kind of element can I expect in case I become a mix between my parents' innate elements?"
The village chief sighed even louder this time. "I do not really know the answer to this question. All kinds of research is being done in the big cities about lineages and hereditary traits but I have not visited them in a while and am not up to date with the latest news. I expect Nora, your mother, to know more about it than me but I doubt she would answer your questions. And even then I doubt she would know the actual answers you want."
Another hand shot up in the classroom, it was Cenice.
Earning another nod from the village chief she asked her question. "None of my parents have formed their innate element yet, does this mean I can't form one either? And does that mean I will get some random element if it is possible to form mine?
"For the first question, no, you will be able to form your innate element regardless of if your parents have formed one or not. I will get into more about this later. For your second question, also no, your element will form dependent on the traits you have gotten at birth, so basically dependent on what your parents would have had. The only issue this creates is that the child will not know what innate element they will form. But this is much more an issue in the big cities where their parents can almost hold any element compared to this village where the chances are still huge of it just being ash." The village chief responded.
Cenice nodded understandingly with a bit of a disappointed look on her face.
The village chief seemed to catch this. "Are all of you really that disappointed about having ash as your innate element."
Nash started talking before even raising his hand. "Well it would just be nice to have a very destructive element, like fire or something making it easier to kill something."
The village chief shot him a disappointed look. "Every element has potential, even one that looks as weak as ash. A true master over ash would be unmatched by any strong innate fire user. Also raise your hand before you speak next time."
Nash quickly raised his hand this time.
The village chief sighed and gave a nod signaling that he could talk. "You say every element has potential but aren't some elements just stronger against each other. Like water against fire for example?"
The village chief's face seemed to brighten at this question. "A very good question Nash. Yes it is indeed true that some elements are stronger against others. This is often how battles between groups of innate element users are fought, trying to match up against the element your own would be the most effective against. But these matchups too have limits, even water turns to vapor in front of the hottest flame. You must always be careful about who you are up against and never assume you have won just because you have a positive matchup against their element."
Nash gave a nod of understanding, it seemed he had already heard more about innate elements from his parents beforehand but that he had been enlightened by the chief's teachings.
Another hand shot into the air, it was Ade this time.
She started talking when her grandpa gave her a nod. "Besides Nora, are there any other innate element users of different types in our village?"
The village chief nodded. "Yes there are, we have one whose type is very rare and unusual actually. It is Cher, she has recently awakened so she is not part of the academy and also does not have any kids yet but most of you should know her. She has formed the innate obsidian element which is incredibly rare, even in all the long years I have lived she is the second one I have come across. The first one being her grandpa who I imagine she inherited it from."
Most kids in the class knew Cher. She was considered the genius of the previous generation, far surpassing all her peers. But this was a time before the new initiative of the academy, hopes were this generation would surpass her. But standing at only about ten years older than most kids in the class she was definitely a genius for forming her innate element so fast.
"There are also some people who have innate fire or innate fire ancestry, this is a volcanic region after all so there are a lot of people with an innate fire element living around here. But none of the people who have formed their innate fire elements have children in this class and as far as I know no one in here has innate fire ancestry either."
Not every villager sent their children to the academy as it was still a work in progress right now. This resulted in only ten different children for this first segment of the academy. The rest would get either added in later, when they turned old enough, or would just be educated the same way as before the academy existed.
The village chief looked around the class. "I see none of you have any more questions, well then let's get into how you actually form your innate element."