“...What did you just do?” Cornelius frantically asked.

“I think he just absorbed a core, I can’t tell which one though,” Kitara said, concern clear on her doll-like face. The electricity from the core finally started to fade away - no, that’s not quite right. It settled into my being, submerged, but certainly not gone. I felt as if I could call it into existence with my will. Just as I was about to do so, I remembered where I was and decided to warn my hosts.

“Hold on, I’m going to try something.” Without giving them the chance to protest, I swiftly backed away, held up my right hand, and focused on generating a spark between my thumb and index fingers. I felt a tingling sensation spread throughout my body, starting from my center and rapidly rising through my chest and arm. A whiff of ozone drifted into the air as a spark of energy was brought to life between my fingers, bright and chaotic, with a soft buzzing sound accompanying it. I quickly cut off the connection, satisfied that the feeling of control was just as I had hoped, similar to what I have experienced before. With this, I have taken my first step on the path of power.

“Dude, did you just summon lightning in our house?!” Kitara screamed at me. “That is not cool, what is wrong with you?!”

Cornelius looked like he was about to calm her down, but then thought the better of it and instead turned to me, saying, “That was kinda dangerous Zareb-”

“Kinda?! He could have hit both of us!” Kitara shouted. I admit, I might have been a little reckless and impatient, but I had it under control…

“-I don’t think he would have hurt either of us Kitkat, but yeah, that was a stupid move to pull with no warning,” Cornelius continued.

“I did warn you, I said I was going to try something,” I said calmly.

“You need to say a lot more than that for it to count as a warning! Like, I dunno, maybe ‘hey, I’m going to try using the hardest element to control a few feet away from you’ would have been better?! Do you do the same thing with women, just go ‘hey, I’m going to try something’ before ramming them raw?” I can’t be too certain, but I have an inkling that this catgirl is pissed off. Perhaps not without reason though.

“I don’t do stupid stuff like that, I haven’t even been laid in...you know what, that’s not important, the thing is that you are right. It was foolish of me to just rush into things like that. I am sorry for scaring you. However,” I stood firm and spoke clearly, “I have more experience than you can imagine in manipulating the elements. I assure you, I have perfect control over this lightning. Neither one of you will ever be harmed by my power, so long as we work together.”

They both remained silent for a long moment. Kitara threw her hands in the air with an exasperated look on her face. “Just don’t do that again, seriously. We train our magic outside, not inside.” The twitching of her tail told me that she was still agitated, but slowly calming down. Cornelius gave me a disapproving stare. I couldn’t tell if it was for the spark I conjured out of the blue or for upsetting his friend - most likely both, but more the latter. I met his stare evenly. What’s done is done, I was perfectly ready to move on. Besides, I could even say this was a bit of revenge for all the jokes earlier.

“So...lightning,” Cornelius began after a while. “Why not another element, if you don’t mind me asking?” I could tell that he was trying to be calm and civil, the peacemaker in the room. I chose to cooperate with him rather than escalate the situation further.

“I considered all of them, though to be honest, I based my choice off of how I dealt with the elements in previous worlds. I did read up a little on how magic works here, but I am certain that even though I am missing a lot of information, lightning will give me the greatest advantage out of them all.”

“I see,” he resonded. Cornelius took a moment to consider his next words, before saying, “I’m pretty sure you’re aware of this, but the residents of this world don’t have much regard towards that element. In fact, for those who want a balanced set of affinities at a higher level, they actually disregard the lightning element. It’s not too common, since a lot of the ‘Full Balanced’ individuals, as some call them, claim a certain sense of discomfort in their mana when they tried to keep a single element out of the equation, but everyone feels it differently. To some, it isn’t a discomfort at all. I can’t put any weight into their words since I focus only on earth, but what I can tell you is that even the people who strive to raise all the elements equally would rather ignore lightning.”

“I did notice that some of the books I read made scant references to using lightning, but I simply figured that the people here were not advanced enough to see the potential. Is that not the case?” I asked.

“Hm, it’s something like that I suppose,” he replied. “You and I both know, coming from Earth, just how useful and powerful electricity can be, but they just have no use for it here. We used it because it was an excellent medium of energy that everyone could benefit from. Here, the population has access to mana, which does a lot of what electricity can do and so much more.”

“However, none of that is really important. What you need to be concerned about is the scarcity of resources to bring your affinity up to the point of being useful.”

“What do you mean?” I thought that it would be easy to stock up on lightning element cores since it seemed few people would have a use for- wow. Yeah, I am dumb. “Never mind, I see what you’re talking about...since not too many people care about raising their lightning affinity, even if the cores I need are on the market, the fact that they are not high in demand means that it would be harder for me to get them in bulk.”

“Exactly right,” Kitara jumped in suddenly.

“You’ll have to find your own supply of lightning cores to raise your affinity,” Cornelius confirmed. Well, I never expected things to be easy…

“I’m okay with that. I presume this will involve a lot of hunting down lightning based creatures and taking their cores?”

““Yup.”” Came the double reply.

A small smirk appeared on my face. “Yeah, definitely okay with that. Before that, though, I want to try out this Arena we talked about earlier. I want to make sure all of my combat skills are in order before stepping foot outside of the city.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that for someone who only just unlocked their affinity,” Cornelius warned. “It doesn’t matter how much control you claim to have, you must have only, what, 0.01% available? That’s barely enough to kill a Duckmine, assuming you hit its beak with your element.”

I still have no idea what that monster is, but judging by his tone it’s a rather weak creature...but wait, shouldn’t his words mean that their reaction was completely overblown?

I frowned, saying, “If that’s the case then why were the two of you screaming at me just now? I wouldn’t have hurt either of you!”

Kitara opened her mouth, but Cornelius responded first. “That’s because we don’t know how strong the core you absorbed was, for all we know it could have given you 5% affinity, which would certainly be enough to kill a person when you don’t control it. Plus, just look at Kitara! She is a lot more sensitive to electricity that either of us, so of course she would react that way.”

I turned to look at Kitara, and noticed for the first time that she actually had patches of fur on parts of her body. Short fur, but it looked soft and silky...and it completely matched her milky white skin tone, which explained why it took so long before I realized it was there. It completely added to her cuteness factor.

But yeah, I can see what they were saying. I keep stumbling into these awkward interactions with them, this has never happened to me before... what is it about the two of them that constantly trips me up?

“I’m over it already,” Kitara threw in. “Let’s just move on already.”

No arguments here. “Sorry again, but yeah, let’s move on. I have 1% affinity, by the way, I guess since it was the Harpy Wolf Matron’s core that I absorbed. I didn’t know how big of a deal that would be, are you telling me that people usually start off with .01% and build up from there?”

Cornelius’ eyes widened for a bit at my words, but then he spoke as if it was normal for people to casually name drop a deadly creature like the Matron. “Usually, yes, but some get lucky and start off with a larger boost. It depends on the core they use. Since every other element is more desireable than lightning, you would find a larger market for more powerful cores that accelerate your affinity growth.”

“Good to know,” I nodded. “In any case, I should be fine in the Arena, I am more than capable of defending myself even without new lightning powers. Those I’ll develop later.”

He considered my words for a moment and slowly agreed. “Alright, you and I can go and get you registered in the morning. I typically go there to train, so we’ll use the chance to take care of you as well. Kitkat, you want to come with us or will you be crafting again tomorrow?”

“I’ll come with,” she said. “I need the exercise, and I could drop off the pendant at the same time.”

“Okay, cool. Oh, Kitara makes enchanted jewelry for a living, she’s the best in any of the eight capital cities, probably the best on this continent,” Cornelius proudly said when he saw the confusion on my face.

“Ah, I see, that sounds impressive,” I replied. Admittedly, I was quite curious in her ability. I spent an iteration or two delving into enchantments. Of course, the process is different across systems, but I always believed that support skills like enchanting, potion making, crafting of all sorts, should be heavily invested in. Give me a blade designed by a master level blacksmith, enchanted by a life long professional, and coated in the strongest poison that the blade could handle, and I would wreck nearly any foe. I doubt I would go too deeply into such skills this time around, but it certainly would not hurt to see how best to augment my power in this iteration. “I would love to know how you do your work, maybe we can talk about it on the way to the Arena tomorrow.”

“Why not now?” Kitara asked in a cute voice. I think mentioning her passion must have put her in a much better mood, I didn’t detect any of the irritation she showed towards me earlier.

“Haha, I would normally spend hours talking about enchanting and jewelry craft, but for now I want to get some actual sleep. It has been a really long day and it’s finally catching up to me.” And maybe create a skill or two before bed...actually, no, I don’t want to upset them again if anything does go wrong. Although I claimed I have full control, I should not have said that before testing every aspect of my new affinity first. I’ll do that in the morning, outside, before we leave.

“Oh, shoot, you’re right,” Kitara said in understanding. “Yeah, go ahead and get some rest. Really rest this time!” Cornelius nodded in agreement.

I bade them both goodnight and went back to the guest room. Stripping off my clothes, I sank onto the bed and let my head rest upon the pillows. I had no clue what materials everything was made of, but my goodness was it soft...I felt myself relaxing deeply before I even knew it.

The day finally ended. I found civilization, got arrested, became an adventurer, met other people from Earth, ate cookies, created lightning between my fingertips, and learned of a super powerful, suicidal being that is capable of dragging my miserable soul across multiple realities without a problem.

...Sometimes, I miss being bored.