“I finally made it back”

  Seeing how it was already morning, it must have been over a full day since I left for what should have been a normal hunting day. These days not many people are coming to Arbourne let alone this early so i was able to just walk up to the gate and show my identification to get past the walls. As i pass the guards i hear one mumble to the other guard

  “Tsk,he's still alive? Seems he has no idea either”

  By now I'm used to it so I pay it no mind and just keep walking though their words for some reason give me a bad feeling so I pick up my pace. Arbourne is set up in the usual fortress city way with it being split up into 4 districts. District 4 is on the outskirts and is where the poorest live whereas district 1 is reserved for the city lord and those in his council as well as their families. As for where im heading its to district 3, thats where the commoner owned business are and most live in the same buildings as their business, me and my father are one such example

  I hear Nox’s voice in the back of my mind “These people have seen better days”

  “It didn't used to be like this, though to be fair i dont remember the times before since its been getting worse every year since i was born”

  Looking around it really does seem like a sorry state, people in a state of depression, starving and looking half dead line the streets with their gaunt figures doing whatever they can just to survive another day, looking to the future is a privilege only the wealthy get. As I get closer to district 3 I notice the gazes on me aren't just filled with their usual hatred but also a mocking glare.

  ‘No, something is wrong’ I think as I quicken my pace more until I'm almost running, it doesn't take long before I'm right around the corner, one more turn and I'll be at our family's butcher shop. I'm hoping that I'm wrong, that I'm just being paranoid, but of course life is never so fair. As I turn around the corner I don't see my family's butcher shop, just a smoldering pile of ashes and rubble…

  The color drains from my face as I'm horrified “No…NO, FATHER!”

  I ran to the pile that was once my home. Using my hands I dug around in the ashes and tossed rubble to the side, not caring about the burning of my hands from the smoldering charcoals or the sharp bits of rubble cutting my arms and hands. Only one thought was running through my mind, I had to get him out of there. If he's alive I'll save him, if he's dead I'll find his body.

  “Ren… Ren… REN! Snap out of it”

  I hear Nox yelling but I ignore him and continue, I don't have time right now. My palms are a mass of blood and torn flesh at this point but I manage to move a rather large piece of rubble to the side and I see my worst nightmare… There, laying next to where my father usually slept was a charred skeleton, hand outstretched to where the front of the house used to be. Still stuck between 2 of his ribs was an axe head, the handle had been burned away but the axe head remained as evidence this did not happen randomly. Blankly I collapse to my knees and stare at the axe head for a moment before tears start falling, I raise up my head and let out a pained scream.

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  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

  As I scream an invisible pressure surrounds me and all the rubble within 5 meters, including the charred skeleton of my father, is crushed down into powder then my consciousness fades.

  As I gain consciousness I notice it's already mid day, and that I'm no longer in the rubble but on the walkway, someone must have dragged me out which surprises me. I look at the rubble and remember the axe head, I recognize that axe head, it belonged to the man who attacked me before, Victers father. With eyes full of hatred I swear to myself, he will die.

  “Hey Ren, are you back to your senses?”

  “Yeah I'm fine, did you heal me again?” i notice my hands which had been torn to shreds had healed almost completely

  “ I didn't need to, you're probably the first person to ever become a mage before even being able to rotate your mana”

  “Huh, I became a mage?” i look at my hands i can feel more power in my body but it is not moving like it was when he opened my mana channels, like its stuck in place and i have no idea how to move it

  “Yeah in that state earlier you tapped into some of that mana you've been absorbing and it saturated your first mana point which is also your mana core, so congrats.”

  At this point my stomach growled and I realized I still hadn't eaten since before I left the day before. Using the wood scraps of the house I build a small fire in a clearing around the wreckage and pull out the boar meat looking at it for a moment before shaking thoughts of my father out of my head. Half of it had spoiled but I cooked the rest of the meat and ate the first good meal I've had in weeks.

  “Hey Nox, how do I rotate my mana?”

  “You need to sense it by yourself, there isn't much I can help with in that regard. Your mana is always connected to you, it's basically an extra limb, one that you didn't know you had so you don't know where the connection is. Once you can feel it you can move it, then its all about learning to control it down your mana paths”

  “Nothing i can do about it for now then”

  I get up and wipe the soot off my pants

  “Well have plenty of time while waiting for night fall”

  “You seemed to recognize that axe head, are you going for revenge?”

  “Yeah, debts must be paid”

  I walk down the road then slip into an alley and climb to the roof, on the other side of the buildings is Victers house. They live on the second story above a butcher shop, but they just hunt the meat. The shop is owned by someone else, I sit down cross legged and start feeling around, trying to find the connection between me and my mana but I cant find anything I try to think back to when Nox opened my mana channels. Replaying every detail through my mind, looking for where it started then focusing on that area but that too yielded no results.

  I suddenly had a thought, maybe I was going about it wrong. I was trying to find where it started so I could push it through my mana channels but that wouldn't go along with what Nox had said, he said it's a part of me. So the connection would be through all of the mana itself. I start focusing on the heat itself and sink into a trance that feels almost comfy as i try to sense all of the mana currently stationary in my mana channels, once the sun finally goes down i sense a ever so slight ripple as my mana moves just barely through my mana channels and a grin covers my face.