Uther Quinly

My grandson.

He had his mother's pert nose with his dad's golden eyes and jet black hair, he was adorable and the best-behaved child I'd seen in my life. On the surface, he was just an average child, but I knew there was something more. When I had done the affinity test on him to check what mana he would be able to use, I was astounded to see his core had already developed to that of an average 9-10-year-old child. I'd been suspicious, so when everyone went to sleep, I opened my mana vision.

I could see the swirling platoon of colors all around me for about a kilometer in every direction, as vast and mysterious as ever. I focused on a room on the second floor where Ace was put to sleep at night. He'd already graduated from a crib to a small bed. After my senses settled in on the room, I found Ace nestled on his bed, with a ten-pound book sitting in front of him. I observed as his pure mana manipulated the air around him to turn the pages every few minutes.

I focused away from his room and onto Ace himself and was shocked to see that he had his mana circling his body, it was slow and unrefined, but it was being done nonetheless. This was a technique that kids only started to learn at about age ten, age seven, if they were a prodigy, it wasn't an understatement to say that a two-year-old performing this technique was unheard of for a human child. Cycling was known as manipulating mana to move throughout your body. There were six general tiers for skill level, used chiefly to estimate a mage's ability. It went in descending order, so Ace was currently at the bottom tier, Tier six; if he could move around while still cycling, that would be closer to Tier five. I was Tier one, but I've lived over ninety years and never seen anything like this done by a human.

As I was thinking over the possible reasons for Ace's exceptional skill level, the book in front of him vanished. I watched the mana where the book had been and saw the ambient mana change. The next second the space was replaced by a new book, this one smaller and detailing the races of the continent of Athia, while on the shelf was the ten-pound book, placed as if it had never left. There was only one element of mana that could alter space to that degree.

It was common knowledge that space mana existed. However, the only human space mage I'd met in my life thus far was far from average and about as unfriendly as you could get.

If Ace could already cycle at his age and had a space mana ability, it would shake up parts of the country. If the royalty and the thing over in the capital heard of this, they'd want him whisked over right away; even if I flexed my political influence to keep him here, he would likely come here himself and take him by force. When I had fought his brother, we were evenly matched, and I knew for certain he was stronger than his brother. Even if I called in some favors to help keep him with the family, the kingdom would likely offer up one of the princesses in an arranged marriage. So while it was one thing to reject sending him off to the capital, it would be another thing entirely to decline marrying into the royal family.

I'd have to keep this a secret at all costs, lest I accidentally sell off my grandson or worse. Space mages were few and far between, and all almost were exceptional in some way. The current situation in this country for a new space user was not ideal. They probably wouldn't kill him right away, most likely opting to see if he would join their side willingly; if he refused, they would kill him, or worse. When he gets a little older, I'll have to train him personally or even call in some more favors from old friends to get him some lessons with the human space mage. For now, he just had to grow up without any significant hurdles, and once he reached an old enough age, we could make some real progress on not just his ability, but his knowledge of this continent and the world. As I was thinking through my plans, my partner Hubert perked up beside me.

'How long can you afford to wait? It won't be long before Nicholas picks up on it; he isn't as perceptive as you, but he's still your son, and as much as he loves Ace, he puts his duty as an earl first. He would have no trouble accepting an arranged marriage; hell, you could explain the true nature of the royals, and he'd still probably send him off.' He spoke directly into my mind, jolting me out of my train of thought. I looked over at him and watched him stretch his legs before pulling a paw to his face and giving it a lick. He flew across the room to his designated mini-griffin-bed and set himself down gracefully.

" We can at the least wait until he can run on his own, not much to be trained if he's still a child," I opted to speak aloud instead of through telepathy but kept my voice low.

'I wonder about that; what two-year-old child is reading books that large?' He paused to let out a yawn before promptly plopping his head back on his pillow. 'You and I both saw the spirit that day, and Ace's seems to match up nicely.'

I considered his words for a moment. Ace had been brilliant, but not overly so. He still cried, giggled, and pooped as any baby would. Aside from his odd magical and reading ability, he was as much a baby as any other. They say you can tell someone's intentions from looking into their eyes, and when Alecia embraces him, his eyes look truly at peace. I opted to answer telepathically this time, lowering the mental barrier around the memories Ace simply acting like a baby. Ace giggling, Ace crying, Ace sleeping, Ace wagging his arms in curiosity at the sight of Hubert.

A painting is worth a thousand words, but a memory is worth a million. Hubert mentally nodded his understanding to me, realizing what I meant.

"We can still monitor and guide him; if something seems amiss, then we'll cross that bridge when we get there," I spoke aloud. I tossed Hubert one of his favorite treats and scratched behind his ear. Despite his current minimized form, Hubert was older than me by almost two hundred years. While I wasn't overly suspicious of Ace, I still wouldn't ignore the words of my partner; he had saved my life many times over our time traveling together.

I'd met Hubert on a day when my former party and I had gone particularly deep into the Great Forest of Atron to explore and map. We were all high-tier magic users from all over Athia, and we were arrogant. There were four of us, and we hadn't encountered a single creature we had trouble defeating when we were together.

While moving past an odd rock formation in the forest, our earth mana specialist, a man named Thadrick Earthson, a prodigious mage hailing from a famous noble dwarven family, noticed something amiss in the ground. Thadrick stood at 4 feet tall, with stocky arms and legs that appeared odd on his small frame. In addition, he sported a brown huli, a form of dwarven clothing similar to a robe, and a black mustache across his upper lip.

"Stand back everyone," said Thadrick in the voice he used when he was about to show off as he manipulated the earth underneath us into a way down. While a simple tunnel would have sufficed, Thadrick's version came complete with a spiral staircase and extravagant-looking chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Smooth railings and designs were imprinted on the walls, and the colors of dirt changed depending on what you were looking at. As a water and wind user, I had extreme difficulty influencing or creating fire and earth mana, so a display like this was out of my reach. It was impressive something made from the ground could be so refined, even if the creator had an earth affinity, and was a dwarf.

Thadrick looked to the three of us huddled together a safe distance away from his grandiose display with a smile on his face. It lasted about three seconds before a tendril of green vines came out of the ground behind him and smacked him upside the head.

"Save your mana for the fighting, not for over-the-top decorations!" said Camille Speargrove, our team leader and healer. She was a demi-human of the fox-kin race, with soft facial features and two fluffy ears sprouting out at the top of her auburn hair. Her tail twitched as she spoke, betraying her serious demeanor as she once again walked up to Thadrick and rapped him on the head.

Alfred Hunter, the final member of our four-man party walked past them and onto the staircase. With a snap of his fingers, he created pockets of fire to light up the staircase, he even lit up the chandelier, making the already impressive entrance even more refined.

Alfred had been raised near a volcano for the first twenty years of his life and came from a long lineage of impressive fire mages. Despite his famed lineage, he was the best in his family and had even developed an affinity to create lava, a subtype of fire mana. He was a large man, standing at nearly six feet tall with pale skin and a matching set of bright red eyes and hair. He paused at the entrance to the stairway and looked back at us.

"I lit up your chandelier, now can we gonna get going?"

We obliged and began our descent into the earth.

After a ten-minute walk down the impressive stairway, we were let out into a scene that had taken my breath away. Before us was a massive spherical dome, stretching out over at least 4 kilometers in every direction, complete with a large stone castle in the center. A small river of water ran through the area, surrounding the castle. The rest of the area was covered in dense trees.

I activated my mana sight, opening my senses to the particles of mana throughout the area. The trees were mostly the standard green, representing nature mana, with bits of yellow wind particles flitting through. While that was mostly standard, the river was a pure-looking blue, and I could make out the forms of water spirits in and around the river. None appeared to be too strong, mostly in the low-mid tier range. They would be no threat to us, and spirits generally preferred to stay away from humans.

The real oddity was the castle, which exuded a hostile dark-red aura, representing blood mana. Blood mana affinities were unheard of in humans and generally considered a forbidden topic to delve into. While it didn't seem too strong, it was still unusual. It would take almost one-hundred dead humans to exude the aura it was giving off, coupled with the fact we didn't know how long it had been here meant we could be in for a surprise.

"What the hell is that?" said Alfred beside me, looking to Camille. Despite her appearance, she was more talented than all of us, especially in the sensory category. She could normally sense everything around her hundreds of meters in all directions, and paired with her affinity for nature she was perfect for discerning the truth behind mysteries like this.

Camille narrowed her eyes and frowned. "Somethings blocking my perception of the castle, I can't tell what it is."

That was something new, Camille hadn't ever been unable to get past a barrier in all our time adventuring together, so whoever's mana was keeping her out must be strong.

"Let's get closer and see what's wrong," Alfred spoke up from behind me, already jumping forward with a blast of flames at his feet. Thadrick followed close behind, jumping from our elevated position and creating little stairs of earth mana mid-air.

Camille looked hesitant but summoned a platform for me and her to follow. I stepped onto the platform beside her and converted my pure mana to wind, lifting the platform and imbuing it with a will to carry us through the air towards the castle.