When he arrived at the training ground, Floki was already there, tapping his feet impatiently while resting from his long duty of waiting and testing trainees under the small stable. “Couldn’t you get more faster? You slowpoke!” “Sorry, sir. The farm needed all the hands it could get.” “... Right you are. Smartass. You’re the last one. Get on it.” Luckily, the training ground was empty. Of course, it was. Having most of its experienced members lost in the Abyss, the Union is practically as same as a newly founded Union and needed every request and quest they could get to re-establish the organisation of the Union and the trust of the city. So far, the result was dismissal. They could not deal with the Vorgion and stretch too thin to protect every farm. There were always casualties of properties and lives. To avoid eyes on his assessment, he dragged it to the very last day of the week. Everyone already got the assessment behind them and moved on to make their place in the Union. The assessment meant nothing now for a boy who lost everything.
His hands were dampened and the linen clothes stuck on his dripping back. Even he was away from the stable, he could feel the eyes of Cormac and Ludin watching him. Cormac and Ludin have the trait of a Cole horse with moderate height and strong legs that could work the farm. Cormac has gleaming dark skin and Ludin is a golden brown breed. “Alright, do the routine. Start from the summoning of fire.” He closed his eyes and reached out deep into his mind, feeling the entirety of every fibre of his muscles and body, filling with the power of life. “Right, focus within. It’s your inner sanctuary, your unique Providence.” Taking Floki’s fading words to his heart, the trainee boy invoked the words of prayers that were bounded aeons ago between man and elementals. Taking this power, he channelled it to the palm of his left and invoked the ancient pact exchanged between humans and Natura.
“Natura is everywhere. It existed as a stone. It existed as a tree. It existed as the air. It existed as a being. I am a part of Natura. In accordance with the ancient pact, I, therefore, request the presence of the fierce rage of life...” He felt his strength draining as his legs strained and hands heavy. As sudden, the air around his left palm became visible with light particles and gathering on his left palm. Elementals. “...that burns through and illuminates my path. Come to me and feast. Come to me and burn.” Taking the Natura in his body, the particles merged and shot away like a spreading line of fire. “Minor Flame Burst.” He directed the fire at the scarecrow across the training ground. A bolt of fire travelled across the ground and consumed the scarecrow hungrily. A vision of the hellfire of the cave skimmed into his mind. He quickly dismissed the vision and terminated the pact. The line of fire ended as he rested his left palm and caught some breath, watching the burning scarecrow as it burned down to a pitiable lump of scorched hay.
“Who told you to stop?!” He cried out in surprise and grimaced in pain, feeling his world filled with sparkles as a palm slapped on the back of his head. “...Don’t want to burn the dorm, sir.” “Bah! As if your puny lizard puff can do that much. Next...” Then, they moved on to the summoning of water aqua, wind ventus, and earth terra. “Seriously, we don’t need to cover for lignum, for one, I don’t know much about it which means you don’t know much about it too...” Yeah, baldy. Ridiculing the shining baldness of the stern face with a scar across the left cheek, he dismissed Floki’s attempt to steer away from his own inability to comprehend the wood summoning. Lignum is different as it requires the Maeist to channel the energy gained from Natura to a particular plant or seed and such subtle manoeuvrability reasonably eluded one such as Floki who did not appreciate the effort and time taken for this art and prefered smashing and destroying stuff. Nevertheless, that saved him some effort. Although he constantly practices with every basic he had been taught about Maeism even after the incident a month ago, he did not want to risk overburning. Overburning when using the art has its repercussions. Some of the dominant effects were migraine and hallucination as the art was empowered by the inner connection between the mind and Natura. The boy had enough headache of his own. He braced himself for the next segment.
“Alright, grab a shard of glass and some wrap cloths.” Sentry ward. The boy grabbed a wrap cloth and started to draw the circuit emblem on the cloth. By drawing a circuit emblem on a cloth, the cloth can be used as a circuit to channel and maintain the flow of Natura for a period of time provided that the circuit is completed flawlessly. Flawless in the sense that there is no loose end in the lines and curves of the drawing; everything must be connected to form a closed circuit. The efficiency of the circuit depends on the medium, the drawing, and the ink used. He bit his thumb for blood and used as the ink to form a compatible circuit. He could have drawn a straight line across the cloth, but the cloth would be torn asunder by the intensity of Natura’s flow. Therefore, he must create some resistance points. The drawing of a resistance point needed to be calculated as an overemphasis of the point could exhaust the Natura rapidly. For now, he drew a zigzag pattern as the resistance and designated the circuit in two halves separated at the middle with two ends of circles. He proceeded to pierce the shard of glass through the middle of the cloth with both edges of the shard touching the circular ends of the circuit.
While the boy was concentrating on his creation, Floki whistled and a dark-brown shadow darted from the corner of the stable. “Here. Here. Kibo.” Floki squatted down, hugged the shadow, and petted its head while the figure sat on the ground, licking Floki’s face. Around a fling (metre) in size, Kibo was an Agaseus or gazehound that was reared by Floki as his watchdog, either in the city or on a quest. Fiercely loyal and allowing no one but Floki to touch him, Kibo’s sharp intuition and instinct had earned Floki’s absolute trust. During the expedition to the cave entrance of the Abyss, Floki refused to enter the cave as his canine companion bore out his teeth and growled in hostility mingled with fear. It was a splendid hound, but with a weird name. Anyone with a right mind would know the name Kibo is a short-form of Floki’s Boy.
Shaking aside his wandering mind, the boy completed his sentry ward by sealing the circuit with the drawing of the symbol for the energy source, a shape of an hourglass with the front of the shape, a larger and pointed one, indicated the flow of the Natura. He touched the smaller one at the back. Painting the shape with his blood, he concentrated to the depth of his body and being. He drew and channelled his Natura to the hourglass shape. Filled with Natura, a faint shimmering of crimson red shone on the back of the hourglass shape and spread to the whole circuit. The circuit was alive. “In accordance with the ancient pact, imbued this glass with the eye that connects to my being and be my sight...” He quickly moved his hand to the glass shard and chanted as the power of the flow weakened in every moment. As sudden, he felt a sense of tugging in his head as the connection was established. Concentrating on the connection, he felt as if he has a second eye with even his eyelids closed. Satisfied by his handicraft, he handed the wrapping cloth with the glass shard to Floki. “The routine, Kibo, the routine.” Floki whispered to the dog’s ears as he wore the cloth around the neck of his beloved partner. “You, to your inner sanctuary.” His world turned dark as his eyes closed and concentrated on the sentry connection. “Go!” At the order of its master, Kibo ran straight away from the training ground.
“Now, get your second eye open.” He kept his eyes tightly shut while giving the sentry his complete attention and urged his second sight to awake. “... Whoa!!” Upon the awakening, he found himself rushing in low height over the main street. “Nice ride, isn’t it? Now tell me what did you see.” “Hmm, passed the main street and entered a small alley. I think it is Armo Lane...” He described the journey of Kibo to the proud and grinning Floki. Passing through Armo Lane, the dog went in deeper into the city. Strolling across the street which overlooked the second gate separated the city between the district of Rose Boulevard and Hay Compound, the sight brought him to the world of a dog phasing through the not-so-busy marketplace with its considerable size which housed various stalls and stores, cladding in cloths of different colours, forming a kaleidoscope of life and business as they sold varieties of goodies, ranging from foods and rations to toys and suspicious contraception, The dog earned some stares, and occasional scorns and gasps of surprise, but nothing major as they were getting used to the presence of this wayward canine.
Kibo moved on to the limit of the city, climbing the stairs to the Western Rampart, and overlooking Farfner Forest, savouring the revived lush of greenery after the last winter. “...By Tress’s belly, this dog knows his stuff. ” And then, he found his sight skimming on rows of dirtied and dilapidated buildings with its eerily quiet street. Wow, the backstreet. Interested, he shifted his head forward as if watching an intriguing new gimmick of a street show. They encountered some by-passers, cladding in suspicious thick robes even when the summer was looming around the corner. Paying no attention to the dog, they merely trod on with quick and silent strides. Sometimes, they found people dressing in rags, tattering on the ground. At one time, the dog escaped from a drooling man with his hands outstretching in anticipation and menace towards Kibo. “...Get me the description... I will personally roast his balls and feed them to dogs...” He ignored Floki’s growling and continued his doggy journey with Kibo.
As if he caught some suspicious noises, Kibo’s ears stood up and he tracked in walking speed to its source. He almost rolled his eyes in disgust when Kibo found the source of noises. A strong-looking man was hugging a girl from behind by her hip while the girl supported herself on the wall of a building on a back alley with both of her hands. The man was working his powerful hip and slammed to the girl as they writhed together. He recognised the broad shoulders he just bumped into this morning. Jasse... “...What?! You lost my boy?” He had no choice but to report briefly on Jasse’s tryst. “That punk... I will get to him later...” Kibo lost interest and went on his tour as he headed to the North Gate which faced towards Gradri, another city-state a century older than Tressmoor, in more than a hundred mils away.
“Whoa... whoa... whoa... That is enough. You know you got a crazy range and Natura. The flow should have been spent some time ago...” Deciding that the sentry ward was good, perhaps too good, Floki gave him a deep and contemplative glance and ended the session. Taking a whistle strapped on his neck, Floki blew a shrilling yet inaudible noise. He always wondered how Kibo managed to catch Floki’s call even when they were far apart and surrounded by myriad sounds. “We always know. Either it is the whistle or the howling.” He recalled Floki’s jest and knew it was not overrated. Moments later, Kibo rushed back from the main entrance and jumped into Floki’s arm. “There. There. Good boy.” Patting Kibo’s head, Floki removed the ward. Terminated the sentry ward connection, he opened his eyes and watched the playing session between the master and the hound with a dazed expression. What a trip. He whispered solemn gratitude for Kibo and looked far ahead towards the eventual revelation.
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