On a clear and sunny day, in a giant garden full of life, there sat a young boy under a big tree. Light seemed to reflect of his golden hair as he sat there, with his eyes closed and hands reached out in front of him.

That boy is Ariel, who has been training for the past whole month. Soon something began to change and from Ariel’s hand, a small ice crystal started to condense into something slightly bigger, after some time, what came out was a beautiful ice lotus, which could make anyone enamored with it. Unknown to others, who would think what he did was amazing, Ariel was feeling frustrated.

For a whole month he was making ice flowers each more beautiful than the last, but he still hasn’t broken trough to the Acolyte rank, which made him a little depressed. One time he had enough of it and went to go look trough the library, where he found out that Mana quantity and control weren’t the only things needed to advance.

On top of those, he had to improve his mental strength, his familiarity with his element and also his understanding of his own affinity. Considering he was a variant, he couldn’t find out anything about his peculiar affinity in the library, which left him stumped, since he would have to look for a bigger library to find anything new. This was impossible right now and unless he tried to explore his affinity on his own volition, he won’t advance in that respect..

He has also found out that the amount of Mana he had, was really large for him, but only for an unranked, since it makes it hard for him to collect Mana quickly. If he broke trough, his Mana would instantly skyrocket.

‘Sigh I really have to break trough as soon as possible, or with the difficulty of advancing for a variant, and not having a proper meditation technique, I will fall behind really quickly.’ Ariel sighed while thinking about his problem. There were few meditation ways in the library, but not one truly fit for him, he could only hope there will be some in the academy.

‘Maybe I should go look through the library again, there might be some more books I haven’t read.’ With that taught in mind, Ariel with a quick pace, walked down the corridors until he reached the library. Walking inside, he right away went to the magic section and started looking trough the books searching for something that may help him.

Suddenly, he noticed a little green book, which’s title said “Magic stones”. It wasn’t exactly what he was looking for, but it didn’t hurt to check. After reading trough the little book in less than an hour, he mostly understood what it was about.

Magic stones were basically, Mana stones, which stayed in a certain environments for a long period of time, where there was an abundance of elemental Mana, like inside earth or a fire. These stones were used in many places, for example to fuel magic items, alchemy, blacksmithing and uncountable other places. One of their use, which Ariel was very interested in, was they’re ability to increase elemental familiarity. It is one of the ways to advance his rank and maybe, it would be enough.

‘But where could I get some, it is probably impossible to get an ice one, I can only hope water ones will be able to help, to some degree. From what I read, there should be a river in the forest, behind the mansion, but there will be some danger, it is not very deep but also is not very close. There is a chance I could meet a monster, on top of that, I have to get away from Derek. I don’t want others to know about my capabilities, and he would never let me go without protection. If they found out I want magic stones, they might get suspicious for what I need them for. So I can only go there in secret.’ After evaluating his pros and cons he came out of the library, where Derek was like always, waiting for him. “Lets go I want to get some rest, in my room.”

Like this Ariel went to sleep, and get ready for tomorrows expedition. That is certain to be an eventful one.

The next day, after breakfast, he like always went to the courtyard, but when he finally reached his place of meditation, he made a turn and started heading straight to the forest. After hopping the small wall, barely few meters away form it he could already see the forest. Like all forests it had giant trees full of leaves and that distinct forest smell.

Entering the forest he could hear the sounds of countless forest critters, which slightly unnerved him as it was hard to recognize all of them. From his memory the river could be found walking straight from the mansion, so he shouldn’t have to look too hard. Still, walking trough a lone forest was a bit uncomfortable, every tree seemed to be slightly intimidating and the never ending labyrinth of plants made quite a sight.

Right as he was felling spooked, he heard a rustle from the bush on his right. He was already ready to run as fast as possible, when a creature jumped out giving Ariel quite a fright, only for him to find out that it was just a horned rabbit, a harmless critter commonly found around the whole continent. ‘This damn fur ball, it is asking for it.’ While narrowing his eyes Ariel let out an annoyed sound. If he was capable of outrunning it, he would probably really have given it a few smacks on the nose.

After a few moments, the rabbit once more returned to the shrubbery like he was never there in the first place. Soon, while letting out a sigh Ariel continued looking for his goal. It took him thirty minutes to finally hear the rivers noise, which helped him be motivated to pick up his pace.

When he got out into the clearing, he could see a small river full of clear, running water together with the trees in the background and animal drinking out of it. Several seconds passed, while he was admiring the scene, before remembering his true purpose of coming here. He ran up to the edge of the river and started searching for any magic stones, at the bottom.

This proved to be quite difficult, since even if it was clear water, it was running making it quite hard to see to the very bottom.

Unfortunately, even after a whole hour of searching along the shores, Ariel still wasn’t able to locate even a single one of them. Water magic stones are blue in color and are usually found at the bottom of lakes, rivers and other water deposits.

This clearly meant that there was a chance of finding it here. The only problem is that, Ariel seems to be really unlucky today.

The only option left for him now, was to continue moving up the river, in hopes of stumbling upon a magic stone.

Some time passed with Ariel not having any luck at all, when he finally found something new, a waterfall. Deciding to take a closer look around here, Ariel started to hunt for it once more. ‘Again there doesn’t seem to be anything in even close resemblance to it, I am about to give up’ Failing to find anything again, he was almost about to move on, when he notice something unusual about he water fall.

There seemed to be something behind it. Going in for a closer inspection, Arial found out that there was a spacious cavern behind it. ‘Well it is worth a look’ There was a chance he could find a magic stone there so he still wanted to give it a look.

The inside of the cavern was wet from drops of water, and because of that, the walls reflected the light coming from the outside, while giving the cave an ethereal look.

Ariel for a second time taught if it was a good idea, there could be a dangerous monster living inside of here, but the hope reaching the Acolyte rank was too much of a temptation.

Pushing out doubts from his mind he started going deeper into the cave. It was not long before Ariel reached an open room with nothing but a lake in the middle. This place was one of the most beautiful places he has been to, apart from the ethereal lights on the walls, the lake in the middle had almost fully transparent water and at the bottom you could see an unimaginable amount of glowing blue stones, crating a wonderful lightshow.

A lot of time passed until Arial finished appreciating this picture, but right after that excitement appeared in his cold eyes, and once again a rare smile broke out on his face. He didn’t think he would be able to find so much of them in a single day, but he didn’t have time to dream, he took one of them and decided to return for the day. Since he knew where this was he could always come to get some more, there was no need for impatience.

Walking out from under the waterfall, he once again cast his eyes onto the water stone in his hands. While thinking about reaching the Acolyte rank, he let down his guard, and unfortunately his moment of luck, finally ran out. As suddenly, he heard a ferocious growl behind his back

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If you want to read further, visit https://verathragna.wordpress.com/ I will always have an extra chapter there