thaks for pointing out the run on sentences thing I tryied to correct that more in this chapter. For the rest of the chapters I'll most likely go through them during my days off on the holidays. If people could point out some other problems other than the first three chapters, capitalizing proper words, or run on sentences that would be greatly appreciated as I'I slowly find out that my grammar is worse than I originally thought.

Chapter 11: failure

Today was the day Aion would find out whether or not he had manifested a spirit and was very nervous, in contrast his grandpa was calmly leading him towards the plaza were some of the kingdom’s Knights and scribes set up tents Un order to go through every person individually and record the spirit and whether or not a person had an elemental affinity.

This was done by the kingdom in order to ensure that anyone with a high ranked spirit would be sent to the Royal Flame Academy and trained to work for them. Aion had left early to ensure that he would be able to quickly go into one of the tents to test his spirit by apparently wasn’t the only one as there were at least six hundred children and only seven tents.

This number made sense seeing as the commoner district’s population was in the thousands. Aion quickly realized that he was late by the standards of other children as they had been so excited that they had run here with their parents before dawn.

Likewise parents wanted to get this done quickly and return to work or celebrate if their child had a high ranked spirit. Aion lined up and began the process of waiting all the while remembering that if he didn’t have a spirit he would have to use that terrifying Soul Rune technique, and hoping hat he would be able to use the Lightning Tyrant’s Body technique.

Ban noticed this and began to speak in order to distract his nervous grandson.

“Aion did you finally chose between wanting to be a berserker and an assassin?” Aion looked at his grandpa startled for a moment because he had been so focused on his thoughts.

“Un, assassin.” Actually he had decided this just yesterday, but he was determined that today he would finally start his path to gaining strength regardless if it was in the way he desired or not so he chose assassin because it would work well with either Lightning Tyrant’s Body or the Soul Rune technique.

“Assassin is it then, are you going to use one of the books given to you by me or your teacher?” Ban was actually curious about this as he knew that his didn’t interest Aion much, but he also didn’t know whether the one the young knight had would interest Aion either.

“Teacher, assassin technique for master stage.” Ban was greatly surprised as he didn’t think the young knight would have an assassin technique much less on that could be practiced to the master stage, he thought that the only quality skill he had would be the earth element technique he used when they met.

“Then your teacher has some nice books memorized.”

“Un, four.” This surprised Ban even further, he not only had two, but four books of the master stage, that was if he believed Aion completely to make sure he asked about the name of the technique.

“And what is the name of the technique you are going to use?”

“Lightning Tyrant’s Body.” This was the technique of someone Ban knew from legends, the Lightning Tyrant was a man who almost single handedly destroyed the Holy Sword Kingdom before a powerful being said to be above the master realm came and destroyed him.

This being was precisely the reason Ban didn’t attack the Church of the Descended Angel, because the descended angel was real and much too powerful to take on.

“That's said to be one of the most powerful techniques ever made if your able to learn it then you might be unmatched.” Aion didn’t mention the Soul Rune technique to solidify his belief that he wouldn’t need to use it. After five hours of waiting Aion and Ban walked into the tent and was greeted by a tired looking scribe.

“Welcome please but your hand on the crystal inside you will see your spirit and if it changes color that means you have an elemental affinity.” The scribe said this and pointed at the crystal which was as large as a grown man’s head and perfectly clear.

Aion stepped forward and put his hand on the crystal waiting for his spirit to appear but after thirty seconds nothing did and the crystal changed to a light gray color. The scribe looked at Aion in pity.

“Sorry you don't have a spirit while that is rare, it happen to some people, maybe it will awaken in the future. As for the gray I don't know what that is but without a spirit it doesn't matter. Now I'll need your name.”

“Aion Corvidae” The scribe didn’t write down much just his name and “no spirit” in the line below the previous child’s name. Aion glared at the crystal as if it had betrayed him, but soon stopped, after all it didn’t determine whether or not he manifested a spirit.

Ban on the other hand expected this and wasn’t all that surprised, the only thing that was different from his expectations was the gray representing an unknown elemental energy. But regardless he turned to tell Aion how his teacher would be able to help him condense a core.

“Aion I know a way in which your teacher can help you but didn’t say anything before so that you would wait at least until today.” Aion turned to his grandpa with a resolute expression as he had made up his mind to use the Soul Rune technique.

“Un grandpa don't worry, teacher told me how.” Aion told his grandpa not to worry because of the pain the technique would cause, Ban on the other hand thought that the young knight was indeed extraordinary for figuring out that the spirit was linked to the soul. As he had only done so after entering the master stage, with this misunderstanding they continued on their way home.

Once they were home Aion said that he would practice his new technique so he went directly to his room and feel promptly fell asleep. As he was now in the space of his soul he relayed the information to his teacher and began the process of inscribing the minor teleportation array and the holding bag array into his soul.

This would be the easiest part as he could use his will to do the inscribing as long as he was within his soul. He simply thought of it the minor teleportation array it appeared and he began to slowly push it to the edges of the space and willed it to be permanently inscribed on his soul.

As he did this he was overcome with a massive headache but nothing he couldn’t bare so he continued and after thirty minutes he finished the two arrays while his head pounded him from the inside.

Seeing all his pain David slightly regretted giving Aion the book containing the Soul Rune technique as he watched him disappear, likely going on to the second part of the technique. Once Aion woke up he could feel his head throbbing but it didn’t bother as much anymore and would not deter him from continuing.

He then began to considerate and bring out the gray energy fog that resided in his soul to begin forming the array. After an hour Aion completed the array, this was when the pain really started, he felt a headache on an entirely different level from the one earlier almost causing him to black out at that moment. But Aion resisted as he knew that if he blacked out, he would be unable to guide the fragments of his soul to the right place.

While enduring the pain that felt as if it had been going on for days Aion finally felt the gray energy mix into nine runes formed from fragments of his soul. This was completely out of his expectations as each advance should only be three runes at a time.

Regardless he guided the runes to his left hand putting eight of the rune going down from just bellow his shoulder to the back of his hand and the ninth was placed on his palm. This is were the second burst of pain came from as he felt as if his whole body was being ripped apart then reconstructed only to be ripped apart again.

Aion couldn’t help but scream out from the pain at the top of his lungs before fainting from the pain.

Ban was sitting in his study looking at the array he had previously given Aion, this was an array to contract an elemental beast, with the contract a human and magical beast would be linked by the soul and this could only be used once.

This is why Knights valued their mounts so much, because it would mutually link them making them as close as brothers. His fourth son actually had the luck of being contracted with a variant flood dragon.

As he was thinking of these things some time had passed when he suddenly heard a scream that could only be described as a death cry. He immediately ran towards Aion’s room and arrived in the room in under a second, after all he was at the master stage which made his body extremely fast.

Inside the room he saw Aion spasming on the floor uncontrollably and called out four undead tigers to hold him down and prevent his from hurting himself because of his erratic spasms. Once Aion was held down properly Ban noticed that Aion’s left arm was glowing with a dark gray Energy.

The spasms lessened as the glowing gray energy around Aion's arm lessened. After some time Aion had finally calmed down and was now sleeping peacefully, and Ban could begin to examine him and think of what could have caused it.

The obvious thing to do was look at his left arm, as he examined the arm Ban didn’t know how to make sense of it as it now had eight gray fog like tattoos from his shoulder to the back of his hand and one on his palm.

The next thing and most important point was to check him for a core because it was probably what he was trying to do. Ban couldn’t find a core in any location of Aion’s body. Having nothing more to do Ban simply confirmed that while a little pale Aion’s life wasn’t in any danger, he also copied the runes on his arm to study them when he had the chance.

After about two hours Aion finally gained consciousness this had been the first time in a long time that he had been fully asleep rather than entering his soul. When he woke up Aion was feeling extremely hungry and decided that it would be important to eat and replenish his strength before testing his new strength.

“Aion What did you do? And more importantly how do you feel?” Hearing his Grandpa Aion looked towards him and answered his questions one at a time very precisely in order to be able to get food quickly.

“The technique that teacher gave me is very painful. I feel tired, weak, and extremely hungry.” Hearing this Ban decided to put interrogating Aion off for another time and handed him a loaf of bread.

“Come lets go to the kitchen then after your better we’ll talk about this technique.” Ban helped Aion out of his bed and walked him to the kitchen and sat him down while he prepared some food for the boy all the while wondering what could have caused him so much pain to the point he passed out.

He knew that Aion had not lived an easy life when he was with his murder, and knew just how many times he had been almost beaten to death by other animals or beast, so he should have a higher pain tolerance than most his age making it extremely weird that a technique would do this.

If a technique were this troublesome no one in there right mind would use it as a child unless forced to by someone or had no other option.

Having ate five loafs of bread Aion was now feeling slightly better and had time to examine his arm, the book left out a lot of information regarding this technique and would only be understood after forming the first three runes.

Similar to when information on humans flowed into his mind, information regarding this technique did as well When he focused on it. Of the nine runes he would only be able to understand the second of every three and these would be a statement personal to him. The rest would be understood after completing twenty-seven runes.

Reading the runes that he understood on his arm they simply read “I Desire Strength” these runes would not be understood by any other person as it was in a language belonging solely to himself and his soul.

Seeing that Aion’s complexion had gotten better Ban gave him a large bowl or beef stew he had rapidly prepared and was going to begin questioning Aion as he heard Knocks on the door.

These were most likely going to be the neighbors or a nearby guard who heard Aion scream, having no desire for extended trouble Ban quickly got up to settle the mater and headed towards the door.