The ball room was to the right of the courtyard as we got out of the throne room. The room itself was huge, there were servants wafting through the guests with platters of food, wine and beer, mostly beer. The chandeliers in the ceiling were beautiful. They were lit by white orbs and the glass surrounding them made it seem like they were different colors every now and then. The silver curtains on the left were pulled back to reveal a balcony that overlooked the city. To the right, servants went in and out of some doors, most likely to the kitchens.

My father and I strode towards the center of the ballroom and were immediately surrounded by the guests.

“It is wonderful to finally meet you Prince Zed,” said a bald, dark skinned lanky man with gold bands on his wrists, gold rings on his fingers and gold earrings that looked like some kind of dinosaur. He wore a white robe with a simple yellow sash around his waist. “My name is Aukahnatep Mustashum, King of the Mustashum Kingdom.” Behind him were more dark skinned men but they had hoods on, covered their mouths with some cloth and carried scimitars? If that is what they would be called in this world.

Royal guards probably, I thought. “It is my pleasure to meet your majesty, the king of Mustashum,” I said bowing down as I was taught to do in my etiquette class.

Did I really have to think that? I thought, remembering the harshness of my teacher where a simple mistake brought several lashings. I do not want to relive that event, so we are just going to forget about it. Right forgetting, forgetting…

“… come Zed, the dwarves want to talk to you,” said my father dragging me out of my thoughts.

I didn’t realize that I had spaced out from my conversation with the king. Hopefully I wasn’t noticed.

The dwarves were a mix of their kin. One stood out as we went closer to meet him. He had gold hair that was combed. He wasn’t a stone or dark dwarf as his skin was bronze colored. He was facing away from us but he had a muscular and somewhat stout body. In his hands were two mugs of the beer and he was shouting, “Hey, you! Yes You! More beer! We dwarves love our beer! This human beer is good but there’s not enough! We need more!” As he said this the other dwarves around him also told our servants the same thing and they kept on shouting, “Beer! Beer! Beer!”

Dwarves live up to their name. I thought.

“Must you force our stock of beer to run out Boris my old friend,” said my Father.

Boris, the dwarf with the two mugs of beer, turned around and I could see that he had red eyes and that his beard was braided with some black stones to tie them. He had a long sleeved red and gold shirt that showed his muscles underneath. There was a medal with a silver hand on it placed on his left chest. A pair of black and gold pants and polished boots were also worn.

“Aaron!” said the dwarf opening his arms and dropping the mugs of beer onto his servants nearby.

“It is good to see you!” he said as he tried to hug my father with his short stature when we were close enough, “It is good to see your son as well,” he said after releasing my father from his grip.

“Yes it is good to see you, and I see that your drinking habits still have not changed over the years,” said my father.

“What can I say, we dwarves know our beer and yours is the best one among the humans,” said Boris, “I can’t say much for the quantity though.”

“That’s because they’re made for humans, not excessive drinking dwarves.”

“So this is the lad!” said Boris ignoring the beer and grabbing me. “He’s skinny,” he said.

“That’s because he’s only five,” said my father.

“Only five? Why when I was your age,” said Boris while looking at me, “I had these muscles you see, although smaller, and I was already drinking beer. Hey give this brat a beer!”

Another dwarf started giving me a mug but my father took it and said, “He’s still too young, wait at least five more years then you can introduce him to your drinking spree.”

“Five years is a deal then.” Boris said releasing his hold on me.

Afterwards my father and Boris started talking on their own and I slowly moved away as their talks turned into the shipment of beer between the two kingdoms.

I walked around dodging the servants with the idea of looking outside from the balcony. It was easy to get through as the servants were very mindful of the fact that there were dwarves in the ballroom.

I got outside and marveled at the sight. In front of my laid a giant city with large walls surrounding it. I could see two gates from where I stood with people coming and going through it. This was the outer section of the city, it was also the largest section. Closer to the castle was another set of walls just after the outer section of the city. Within this section was setup all sorts of shops as well as a giant ring like building. Then came the castle walls, within this section that I could see was a beautiful garden filled with flowers and hedges. Outside the walls was a vast plains. There were forests far to the left and right and a silhouette of a mountain was over in the distance in front of me. The sun was still up in the sky but it was going down over the horizon.

“It is beautiful,” said a voice beside me.

I turned around and it was a female High elf.

“It is beautiful isn’t it not,” she said again.

“Yes,” I answered.

The High elf had blonde hair, and pale skin, as they usually do. She had blue eyes, short hair, and looked as graceful as a falling leaf. She had a gentle charm around her that made me blush slightly. She wore a dark green dress that became whiter as it travelled down her body, slightly revealing what was underneath.

“Hehehe, I am too old for you boy,” she said as if reading my thoughts.

“Wh-What?” I said flustered.

“Hehehe, I’m just teasing you, my name is Talleria Wisteria, envoy of the Luna’tesh Kingdom of the High Elves, my mother, Elleria Wisteria, could not attend as she had business to attend to in the Lunar Plains,” she said bowing.

“No need to bow princess Talleria,” I said not really knowing what to do.

“But I did not come as the princess, I came as the envoy, as such my current status is lower than yours. It is only appropriate that I continue such courtesy,” she said not stopping.

“Um, well then, uh, raise your head, um Talleria,” I managed to speak out.

She gracefully stood up and said, “There is no need to be flustered, prince Zed.”

Awkward silence between the two of us as I couldn’t think of anything but just then my father came into view and said, “Ah there you are Zed. It seems that you have met princess Talleria.” He then turned to Talleria and said, “It is with great honor that we receive the envoy of the Luna’tesh Kingdom into our home.”

“There is no need for pleasantries, we are all friends here,” she said, “that being so I believe the young prince has still to meet Lunaria Federation guests, no?”

“Yes, and as such if you would please excuse the two of use,” said my father.

“Go and I shall have my fun enjoying the view from here,” she said.

My father and I proceeded to return to the ballroom and he said to me in a hushed tone, “Do not get close to her. Considering your ‘blessings’ I do not think it would be wise to be ‘blessed’ with her.”

I couldn’t stop blushing as my father said that. I just stared at him in disbelief and he just looked at me grinning from ear to ear.

We continued walking in the ballroom and we soon reached a group of people. They all had black hair, brown eyes and bronze skin. They were talking to each other until they saw my father and I. One of them came forward, unlike the others, this one had purple eyes and was dressed much nicer than the rest. He wore a blue buttoned shirt that had a crescent design on the shoulders. He wore white pants that had a gold chain showing on one side.

He came up to us and said, “It is great to see you again Aaron and a pleasure to finally see your son, Zed.”

“It has been too long, Vayasu,” said my father, “how is your wife?”

“The same as always, nagging and nagging,” said Vayasu.

“Aren’t they all,” said my father laughingly.

I suddenly felt a cold chill to my right and when I turned around, I saw my mother glaring at my direction. My dad’s not going to have a nice night, I thought.

“Zed, this is King Vayasu Imadul of the Lunaria Federation. He is also your father’s best friend,” said my father introducing me.

“It is a pleasure to meet you King Vayasa,” I said bowing.

“Such good manners. You brought up a fine lad for my daughter to marry,” said Vayasa.

Marry? Oh yeah apparently I have a fiancée, I thought.

“Hopefully you have brought up a fine lady for my son to marry,” said my father, “your temperament is not really suited for growing women.”

“Nonsense, I am perfectly capable to turn young ladies into women,” said Vayasu.

“Tell that to your one hundred concubines…” said my father.

“… alright, if it wasn’t for my wife I don’t think she could’ve been raised any finer. Come now Sasha it is no time for you to hide, come and meet your fiancé,” said Vayasu.

From behind Vayasu came a little girl. She had black hair, bronze skin and purple eyes just like her father. Her hair was long and she kept on hiding from behind Vayasu. She looked like a very shy cat that you couldn’t help but just hug.

She’s cute, I thought, wait, is this even alright? I mean my body is five years old but…? Is it alright?!

I was a bit stuck in a moral dilemma but I disregarded it and thought, I’ll just think that its alright since I’m basically five right now.

“My name is Zed Rigel, nice to meet you Sasha,” I said with a smile.

“…to… you,” she said softly that I could barely hear.

“Sasha this is your fiancé, you should get to know him better,” Vayasu said pushing Sasha towards me.

“Why don’t you take her to the garden outside,” suggested my father.

I nodded and took her hand while saying, “Come on Sasha, let’s go to the garden it’s wonderful out there.”

I led her to the balcony and went down the stairs that were not so easy to spot unless you knew they were there. In just several minutes, we were walking through the garden with me guiding Sasha. She kept her face down like she didn’t know what to do. In truth I didn’t know either. Suddenly, I saw some flowers and I got an idea.

I led Sasha to the fountain below the balcony and told her to wait for me there. I gathered flowers from the garden and made a crown out of them. Doing this reminded me of my past life in which I used to do this to get my sister’s mood to get better when she was sad.

When I was finished, I went back to where Sasha was and placed the crown on her head. She touched the crown wondering what it was and turned around to look at her reflection on the fountain.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said, “I love it, its very pretty.”

“That’s good then,” I said smiling.

Suddenly I was hugged and she said, “Thank you.”

“It’s no big deal.”

“Can you teach me how to make it?” she asked.

I said yes and taught her how to make it. After some tries she got a crown that looked like mine and she placed it on my head. “Now were king and queen of the flowers!” she said with her eyes closed and smiling.

She is very cute, I thought, I think I’m liking this life.

We then talked about many things, including her daily life back in her place.

“You have dragons?!” I asked excitedly.

“Yes but they’re not smart or can use magic. They’re used instead of horses, some of them can fly while some cannot,” she said explaining the dragons.

She said that they weren’t intelligent and that they were basically beasts that looked like dragons but weren’t really dragons as real dragons could speak and use magic.

We talked some more and she told me that her affinity was Spectrum and that she would attend Asmodeus Academy next month. Asmodeus Academy was the academy that Principal Artemia managed.

“You would probably also go there soon too,” she said hiding her face.

“Probably since she was here,” I said, “I wonder what It’d be like.”

“We have to take another test when we get there, it’s a test to figure out which portion of the affinity your most strongest at,” she said still not looking at me.

“Another test?” I said thinking about the bizarre orb, “will it be with the orb again?”

“No, they would just ask us to use our magic to do something simple with our affinity,” she said shaking her head.

“But I don’t know how to use my magic yet,” I said pouting.

“Hehehe, here let me teach you,” she said looking at me.

She told me that using magic is like thinking of things. If I wanted to burn a branch with fire, all I need is to think of burning the branch. She also told me that things could get complicated sometimes and that’s why there are usually names for our spells that we make ourselves or read about to make things easier for us to use. She couldn’t help me with my Supreme affinity as she only had knowledge of the Spectrum affinity for her. But I told her that I will manage and to watch me as I summoned something. I didn’t know if I needed to prepare anything so I just told her to stay behind me and she did while clinging to my clothes.

I started using my magic, thinking of some spirit that knew everything to come or maybe even something like a dragon that could do anything. I really didn’t know what I was doing and so I just thought and thought until I felt something tugging me in the back of my head. I felt it and started trying to pull it out. It started to hurt my head but I felt something was happening and that I needed to pull that something out. I kept on pulling until I could see in my head a bright white light. I pulled the light as close as I could and I could tell that I was getting tired until the light took over the darkness in my head. I opened my eyes and just before it disappeared, I saw some symbols and a circles on the ground in front of me. When they disappeared, everything in front of me became white and from that came a loud booming voice, “Who summons the codex, the knowledge of all magic.”

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