Small announcement at the bottom, so if you want to see that, go ahead... I'm not stopping you. Nope.

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Chapter 8: Next Stop Is...

“Ta-dah!” Atira opened the door to her room, revealing multitudes of weapons and hard material. “This is what I used for the prototype,” Atira picked up a bag full of small stones that were a variety of colors.

“This…!” Ezra gasped, “Lapidus.”

“Yep!” Atira smiled proudly, “I had a few bags of them, so I thought I’d make everyone weapons of their choice.”

Ezra grinned, “I haven’t seen this in a while.”

“The last time you saw it was when I made your rapier,” she shivered. “It was a masterpiece.”

“What’s lapidus?” Kai asked, tilting his head back and forth.

Atira explained that Lapidus was the only magic stone in the world that allowed you to bind it to yourself. It’s highly recommended rankers and adventurers use this for their weapons and gear due to its durability, strength, and its binding magic. However, it’s very expensive and rare. Those who have pure lapidus weapons are probably rich, in the top 100 ranks, or found it lying around somewhere - like Atira did. But she won’t tell them that.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” Kai shouted, moving side to side at the speed of sound.

“Why did mine break?” Eve pouted.

“Ah, that… you see,” Atira said that weapons with only a partial amount of lapidus aren’t as strong as those with more lapidus mixed in with the metal. However, pure lapidus weapons can only truly be seen within the top 10 ranks in the world.

“But look what we have here!” Atira jumped in excitement, “bags of lapidus! I can make pure lapidus weapons for everyone here, even Rhett!”

“It’d be an honor,” Rhett bowed, placing his right hand on his heart.

“How long would it take you?” Ezra asked.

“About a month or so,” Atira sighed. “I can get it done within three weeks tops - if I skip meals and sleeping…”

“It’s fine, just take your time,” Ezra then told the children, “go ahead and ask what you want.”

“A hammer!” Eve yelled.

“Wait, wait!” Atira yelled, putting her hands up. “Let me just ask, who wants a different weapon than their starting one?” Everyone but Caelus and Eve raised their hands.

She sighed, “alright, get in a line.” One by one, the children lined up and told them what they wanted. From one child to the next, her face became more and more disbelieving. Until finally, Kai went up and whispered what he wanted in her ear.

“What?!” Atira exclaimed. “What would you need that for?”

“Hehe,” Kai giggled, grinning up at her, “if I’m gonna be the fastest, I gotta have the fastest there is!”

Caelus snorted and said, “he gave up on being the strongest and went for the fastest.”

“Nuh-uh!” Kai stuck his tongue out at Caelus, who lazily rolled his eyes and closed them again.

“Huh… I might need someone else to make this, I mean, I’ve never attempted this before,” Atira groaned, rubbing her temples. “Alright then, I’ll get it done.”

“Yay! I love you, Atira!” Kai smiled brightly.

“Hehe…” Atira started panting to herself, thinking of unimaginable fantasies.

“Okay!” Brent yelled, sobering her up.

“If I want to get this done by this month, I need to start now! Everyone, out, out!” Atira pushed them outside. “Until a month from now, don’t bother me!” She slammed the door in their faces.

“Hm… well, it’s already dark outside,” Ezra commented, staring through the window. “Time to go to bed!”

“Night, night!” Kai yelled, holding Lilith’s right hand, Eve was holding her left hand.

“....Mm,” Caelus nodded, floating to his room.

Everyone soon dispersed and the hallway became empty.

…

“Hmm…” Eve mumbled, opening her eyes, the moonlight directly on her face. She got up from her bed, not feeling tired at all, but perhaps a little hungry.

Eve walked downstairs, rubbing her eyes. She headed towards the kitchen and opened the freezing compartment, grabbing the last cookie rather than the healthy sandwich.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked.

“Eh?” Eve reacted with nonchalance to the voice, “who is it?”

“It’s me, moron,” Caelus replied, floating into the kitchen, his blue eyes glowing in the darkness of the room.

“I was hungry.” Eve told him, then she asked, “why are you up?”

“I was hungry,” he repeated after her.

“I see...” Eve stared at her cookie - the last cookie. “Want some?” she offered.

“Do you want me to say no?”

“...I can’t answer that.”

“Yes,” he said. Eve split the cookie in half and handed him the smaller side, to which he raised his eyebrows at.

“At least I’m sharing,” she shrugged, closing the freezing compartment, which she almost forgot about as Caelus interrupted her.

Eve slowly walked upstairs, Caelus trailing behind her.

“Slow,” he commented.

“Then why are you here?” she glared.

“I’m bored,” he yawned.

“You’re tired.”

“No,” he shook his head, “bored.” He stared at her, his eyes boring into her. “Entertain me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why is that?”

“Go away,” Eve frowned, walking to her room and closing the door in front of his face.

Thus, Eve and Caelus’s first night encounter ended, with many more to still come…

…

For the past few days, Ezra made them spar against Brent. He told them it was to gain experience with their new abilities and get used to it. Also, he would award them if they took down Brent (who will be holding back).

They were allowed to draw blood, but they couldn’t seriously injure anyone. Weapons were allowed, but only those that they provided.

Orion glared at Brent, holding onto him. Then, in a blink of an eye, Brent was sent flying into the air. Orion chased after the direction where Brent was flying towards. After catching up, he touched Brent’s shadow, grabbed it, and threw it up in the air, causing Brent to fly in a different direction.

“I hate this!” Brent yelled, “take this!” Brent sent a beam of light towards Orion, who dodged by melting into his own shadow. “Tch.”

Orion materialized two disks and sent them flying towards Brent’s head. Brent made a finger gun with his right hand, “bang! Bang!” Two beams of light shot from his finger and pierced the disks, breaking it.

“Time!” Ezra yelled.

“Darn it,” Orion frowned. The next person who went up was Kai.

Brent, still in the air, was taken by surprise by Kai who teleported in front of his face.

“Hi!” Kai smiled, taking both of his hands and clapping it by Brent’s ears. Brent frowned, he couldn’t hear in that ear anymore.

Kai drew back his fist, wind circulating around it, and punched Brent, causing Brent to plummet to the floor.

He’s fast, Brent commented, landing gracefully on the floor.

Kai inhaled and whistled - albeit no sound came out. However, Brent noticed one thing, a cut on his sleeve.

This brat’s sound is strong enough to cut, he grinned.

“Missed,” Kai exhaled, falling to the ground. Right before he touched the ground, Brent caught him.

“He ran out of mana,” Brent told Ezra, handing him a powerless Kai, who slept peacefully. “He tried something new,” he showed him the cut on his sleeve.

“At least he made progress,” Ezra nodded. “Next!” Ley would be up next, but he could only shoot thunder while toddling around - not much he can do. Therefore, Caelus went up against Brent.

However, Caelus floated around in one spot, holding a sword.

Brent twitched and decided to attack first. He jumped towards Caelus, leaving behind a gust of wind. Caelus watched carefully, then, using his index finger, pointed towards Brent. The sword became alive.

Caelus commanded the sword to chop down at Brent, who dodged back. Brent grabbed the sword’s hilt and threw it to the side, but it only went a few feet away before coming back again.

“This power is convenient,” Caelus nodded. The sword and Brent battled it out for a few minutes, before he finally got into hitting range of Caelus. However, Caelus held out his hand and a wind-like barrier separated them, knocking Brent back. The earth began to chip away due to Caelus’s barrier, until a small crater stood in its place.

It was similar to Eve’s barrier, but closer to Kai’s method of sound - a burst of wind.

As Brent was knocked back, he shot a beam of light at Caelus, who flew out of the way. Caelus circulated wind around his hand and threw disks of wind at Brent one at a time. Brent dodged the disks and sent his own disk at Caelus.

Caelus dodged and made a finger gun with his hand. “Thanks for teaching me this,” Caelus smiled, shooting small, bullets of wind at Brent. Each bullet pierced through the ground and created small holes in it.

“You’re trying to kill me!” Brent yelled.

“I thought you said you could take us down easily,” Caelus smiled. “This shouldn’t be a problem.”

Brent shot up from the ground and punched Caelus’s sword - breaking it. He then used the sword as leverage to get to Caelus from the air.

“Prepare yourself!” Brent yelled, throwing a punch at Caelus. Caelus redirected the punch by using a strong gust of wind. However, Brent anticipated this and grabbed Caelus with his free hand, throwing him to the floor.

“Time!” yelled Ezra.

Caelus fell at a fast rate, only stopping mere centimeters above the ground. A cloud of dirt and dust rises around him.

“Better luck next time, kids,” Brent winked, giving them a peace sign.

And so the days passed like so, getting beat everyday by Brent and later meditating to cultivate their mana and ki. Finally, a month passed and their spirit test has arrived.

Like last time, they walked up to the temple-like building and waited in line, some people were staring, others were making comments. However, they ignored it all and continued on their way.

The same old man was guarding the door, he eyed them and just waved them in, without asking for their information.

Surprisingly, they had the same operator - Eldrick.

“Oh?” Eldrick watched the children with surprise, noticing that they had gotten stronger. “Long time no see. Well, it will be the same as last time - oldest goes first.”

Orion exhaled nervously. What you get on your spirit test entirely changes your fighting style and career. If his spirit turned to be mana-favored, he would practice developing his spells and skill set, whereas ki practitioners were more hand-to-hand combat and weapons.

Orion walked up the stairs and gently placed his hand on the large orb. He felt a mixed energy surge through his body and exit out of his fingertips. A warm and fuzzy feeling was left behind inside him.

“Orion, balanced practitioner.” Eldrick announced, “you have good talent, boy.”

“Thanks,” he smiled graciously.

“Next!”

One by one, they each went their turns. Some results were as expected, some were surprising, and some were disappointing. Ley and Lilith were mana-favored, while Eve, sadly, was also mana-favored. Caelus was balanced and Kai was the only ki practitioner.

“Only real men fight hand-to-hand!” Kai declared after getting his results.

“Why did I get mana-favored?” Eve pouted, she wanted to be a ki practitioner to strengthen her hammer skills more. Mere seconds later, she accepted being a mana user, thinking she could develop spells that allowed her to utilize her hammer more.

“Atira should be done sometime this week,” Ezra told Brent, as they walked down the street - the children following.

“Or today,” a voice huffed behind them. Atira was currently panting, carrying a box that looked light. “Here, hold this.” She handed the box to Brent who couldn’t reject fast enough, the weight surprised him and almost made him drop it.

“Don’t drop it,” she glared. “Anyway, we have to get going. Like, now.”

“Why the rush?” Ezra asked.

“Well, you see… I kind of learned that a noble in Skystead lost his bag of lapidus and was currently looking for the thief…”

“Are you the thief?”

“Maybe, kind of… Yes.”

“Do they know?”

“Hum… They might’ve saw my face.”

“Alright, everyone!” Ezra yelled, “today we’ll be going to a new destination after we arrive at-”

“There she is!” a man dressed in black yelled.

“Thief! We finally caught you!” a noble-looking man with green hair pointed at her. “Get her!”

“Run!” Atira yelled. “We’re going to have to carry the kids!”

Ezra picked up Orion, Caelus, and Kai, while Atira carried Lilith - who was carrying Ley - and Eve. Simultaneously, Brent, Ezra, and Atira then jumped into the air, leaving a large depression on the ground.

“We have a car at the log house!” Brent yelled, gasping for air as he tried to get a tighter grip on the box.

From a bystander’s point of view, one would see three blurred figures jumping from one rooftop to the other. Some would assume they were either monsters, or they were hallucinating. However, all would watch as they passed by, ignoring the group of guard and their noble’s incessant shouting.

As they arrived at the log house, Brent quickly placed the box on the ground and ran to the back of the house.

“What’s in here?” asked Kai, eyeing the box.

“Your weapons, what else?”

“Candy?”

Atira opened the box and revealed metal crystals that were of a variety of colors. “Here, bind these quickly.” She passed the colored crystals to the children. “We don’t have much time.”

“How do we bind them?” asked Orion.

“Infuse your mana or ki in it - doesn’t matter which.”

As Orion binded the crystal to himself, the crystal disappeared into his body. He opened his hand, palm down, and a black scythe materialized in it.

“Cool!” Kai yelled, binding his, too.

Unlike everyone else, Kai chose a more modern weapon - a gun. More importantly, dual guns. They were a sleek, black color that radiated a light blue color on the side of it. Kai pointed one of the guns at the ground and pulled the trigger, a sonic boom was released and hit the ground - leaving a large imprint.

“Cool! Cool! Cool! Thank you, Atira!” Kai jumped up and down, dematerializing his guns.

“Sorry, I’m late!” Brent yelled, pulling up next to them in his eight seat car. Ezra, naturally, got the passenger seat. “Where to, boss?”

“We go to Eradion - it’s time we show the children the kingdom of humans.”

“Got it. Next stop, Eradion!”

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Thanks for reading, comment what you think/give criticism! On the side note, I finally added some of the romance elements.

Small rave/rant/thoughts right now:

Okay, so I feel that I'm getting stuck in a writer's block - but I'm trying to push through. Unfortunately, my writing quality dropped. I'm having a hard time moving from one event to the next and it's making me impatient of myself. I mean, I kind of planned for them to go to Eradion a few chapters back, but I added a few more elements. The way I ended last chapter gave me a bad start for this one - a really bad start. I even randomly added the nobles in the end. (Although I did hint Atira stole it without realizing it).

Anyway, new ideas will start to come to me, now that we're in a different setting. (I'm thinking of one right now, too).

Oh, for those who want to know/don't want to know, but I'm still telling you:

I have an art section that contains a few of Spirit's future artwork in it/reject artwork. So if you want to check it out, here's the link.

Also, I'll be accepting any suggestions for the story, so PM me your ideas/comment below on what you want to see more. Hopefully I'll be adding in more of Kai, Orion, and Ley - I feel like I'm leaving them out a lot, despite Orion being one of the stronger figures in the story.