Douge was laying on the floor gasping for air. The hole in his chest had shrunk but was still seeping blood. Both the girls were still asleep and the color of Sophia's skin had returned back to a normal shade of white. Liliandra was now soaking wet as the frost soaked her fur. I shook Liliandra to wake her up but she remained asleep. There was no time to really think about what I should do to get her awake so I slapped her. The sound echoed throughout the small room. She gasped and bolted right up bringing her hand up to her face with a shocked look.

  “ Did…did you just slap me Rin?”

  “ Yes now get up and heal Douge if you don't do anything he's gonna die.” I moved out of her way and pointed at the man. He was still gasping for air like a fish out of water. Liliandra to her credit immediately jumped towards Douge scrambling on all fours across the now wet and slick floor. She looked over him with a worried look on her face. The hole in his chest was about the size of my fist and about as deep. It appeared the sudden inflow of mana Douge had experienced due to his new affinity had healed him a significant amount but it wasn't enough. I could still see the bones of his ribcage flexing in and out as he tried to breath his lungs bulged against them like a caged balloon.

  “ Well?” I asked Liliandra. I could hear the worry in my own voice. That was new. Am I genuinely worried about him? Or am I worried about his usefulness to me

  “ What happened, why….why is he like this.” Douge reached a hand up and Liliandra grabbed it, he shook her hand away and reached out for me.

  “ A wraith attacked Douge and I fought it off but not before we both got hurt.” I said as I knelt down grabbing his hand. I could feel Liliandra looking me over. My overclock had done a great to help heal me but I still had a ton of tiny cuts and gashes not to mention the intense burning sensation all over my body like needles being rapidly stabbed into me but it was only skin deep.

  “ Rin. I'm sorry if I hadn't turned towards you at the last moment you would have never been hit.” There were tears in his eyes and blood on his lips. His large face looks oddly thin right now.

  “ Shut up man that wasn't your fault we just need to train more our teamwork has been good considering. We've only been working together almost a week now, but it could always be better. Once Liliandra heals you up we can spend time on this floor and get better so something like this never happens again.” Douge just shook his head and coughed blood spraying the floor as he turned his head.

  “ Liliandra is too kind and I'm sure she's too nervous to admit it but there's no healing this.” His voice became more strained as he talked. “ I can feel it. My heart is missing. I think that Wraith destroyed it.” His heart? There is no way he doesn't have a heart right now he would be dead already. As if he could read my mind Douge answered my question. “ I'm pretty sure it's the residual mana that's flowing through my body keeping me alive. It's not unheard of for people to survive a fatal wound after gaining another affinity. Our body gets flooded with mana and it heals us.”

  “ I don't believe you. Liliandra just heal him already.” I demanded

  “ I can't Rin.”

  “ Don't fucking lie to me you healed that hole I had through me. You can heal this.”

  “ No Rin.” Her voice was soft and gentle like she was speaking with a child. “ That was different. The wound hadn't hit any vital organs and you had already healed a good portion of it. It wasn't a stretch to help your body along, but if I try to heal Douge with the extensive injuries he has. I'll simply just kill him myself.”

  “ That's bullshit you're just to fucking scared to to try cuz you're not good enough to do it. That's what it is!”

  “Rin?” Liliandra looked sorry for me. That looks made my blood boil why the fuck is she looking at me like that. Why…why is my face wet? Did I start bleeding? I wiped away the blood and looked at my hand. It wasn't blood, it was clear like water. I slowly brought my hand up to my face touching just under my eyes where it was the wettest. Am I crying? Why am I crying? I've never cried, not even when my parents died. Why now? I could still feel it. The selflessness in his aura, the need to protect all of us despite the danger he was in himself and now he was dying. Did I really care this much?

  “ There has to be a way Liliandra. I refuse this” My voice was quivering. I could feel my teeth chattering against themselves.

  “ I simply can't heal him.” She said I can see tears walling up in the corner of her eyes as well.

  “ You say you can't but the way you say it tells me that there is a way to heal him. What is it?”

  “ We would need access to a hospital. A full medical suite. He would need to be put on life support. Get an artificial heart.” She paused for a second.

  “ Or we would need somebody who has a light affinity and can use pure light magic, not this facsimile we use . But only Lumia’s chosen have an affinity for light mana.” I froze and turned towards Sophia. She's still knocked out.

  “ Do it. I don't care if you think it's worthless and a waste of time. Just listen to me and set up the ritual. Set it up as if you were going to be using actual light mana.” Liliandra said something but I had changed my focus onto Sophia and did not hear her. I picked up Sophia the same way I did Liliandra putting her into a sitting position. I could still feel the strength of overclocked flowing through my body as I slapped her awake.

  I was now. Currently sitting next to Douge just outside Liliandra's ritual. My nose was now broken. Sophia who was still scowling at me, her arms crossed, she had woken up violently throwing a punch right into my nose.

  “ I don't know how waking up Sophia is gonna help, she only has fire and wind as her elemental affinities.” Liliandra said. Sophia's face softened as she turned towards Liliandra.

  “I can do it, you just need to couch me through the proper words of command .” Sophia said. Douge had lost consciousness as was now laying in a pool of blood that was steadily growing.

  “Okay I can do that.” Liliandra said with a sigh. “ But if you can't perform the spell properly the ritual will go wild and Douge will be injected with more mana then he can handle. Best case he dies in agonizing pain, worst case…” She paused, placing the last bit of iron shavings to complete the ritual.

  “ I know Liliandra. I won't mess up.” Liliandra nodded

  “ Let's do this.”

  The two girls got into positions and Liliandra started chanting out her spell. The ancient language grated against my ears. Mana from Sophia start to flow into the ritual like a wisp of bright white smoke. I could actually see Sophia's mana and it was so pure. Her mana spread across the room causing my hairs to stand on end.A new notification flashed across my vision.

  [ Skill: Mark Of The Void. Has reacted to a high concentration of light mana.]

  [Requirement 2/? Has been met]

  [Requirement: become enveloped in my loves divine essence.]

  That was an odd notification. My loves divine essence. There was a lot to pick apart in that small sentence. Whose love? This Mark of the Void, how similar was it to Sophia's mark? Was it connected to another god like hers? If I meet all the requirements well I get my ability to use magic back. Hope flooded me. Lost in my own thoughts. I had missed the entire incantation. The ritual circle was glowing, a bright pure white. It began to slowly pulse before fading leaving only molten iron. Sophia collapsed to the floor kneeling over and panting. Liliandra carefully walked over the red hot metal and examined Douge. Her tail started swishing back and forth.

  “ He's alive, all of his wounds are healed.” She exclaimed in a shouting whisper. I felt relief as tears flooded my eyes. These emotions were new to me. All so new maybe I really did see them all as friends and not just tools but I still wasn't sure. I could hear a small voice in the back of my head. It was unintelligible but the intent behind its words I could feel and they felt vile.

  Five days had passed, Liliandra didn't heal my wounds and they were slowly healing on their own. I wanted them. I wanted the pain as a reminder of the emotions I felt that day new emotions.Douge remained asleep, an after effect of physiological changes his body had gone through that day. The way Liliandra had explained it to me it was normal for somebody to sleep for an extended period of time after awakening another affinity typically only two or three days his body was becoming more suffused with mana and he needed to adjust for it. His appearance was slowly changing, his once pudgy face was becoming thinner and chiseled around the edges. The fat he had slowly shrank and muscles you couldn't see before became more prominent. She had expressed some concern after the fourth day however, since his vitals had remained stable she turned her attention elsewhere. Her and Sophia spent most the day training their mana control meditating with one another. After revealing to Liliandra that she was in fact, Lumia's chosen Sophia let her aura out. It was commanding. Not a tyrannical commanding but more like a leader that you would trust with your life. Their auras clashed against each other day in and day out as they practiced. I could feel it as Sophia attacked Liliandra. Her aura took on a heavy weight to it while Liliandra's aura felt sharp and light. Thanks to the Tibemases we had an abundance of earth crystal and after making an initial batch of ammunition using the old shell casings I started using them to earth shape. I created or tried to create small statues of everybody I've come across since my last birthday. I was trying to train my own control over mana. I now knew what my wisdom stat would do and it felt like another important stat. I was sure if I dumped stat points into it this would become a lot easier but I could feel myself slowly getting better. Levels felt like they were coming slower and slower but the moment I began to practice my mana control in earnest they began to roll in. I was already up to level fourteen. I decided to continue to increase Spirit to twenty before working on anything else. After Spirit I put the rest of my stat points into wisdom bringing it up to fourteen. Looking over my stats I began to feel like dexterity was becoming my dump stat. And figured after I brought wisdom up to twenty that would be the next step I focused on in conjunction with my own Constitution.

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  [Level 14]

  [ Stats: Strength 20, Constitution 13, Dexterity 10, Intelligences 20, Wisdom 14, Spirit 20]

  With the reduced cooldown of overclock, if I used it with only a magic device or tool, I tried to train it. Activating it on cool down as I made my small statues, the first time I attempted it, the statue I was working on exploded into tiny chunks of rock that pelted everybody in the room.

  Douge finally woke up around dinner time on the fifth day and we were all now sitting around a campfire. I had gone out and gathered the wood a while ago. It was all mostly wet but some of it had started to dry out by now.

  “ Sophia.” I said not looking at her but at Douge his right thigh was glowing brightly. “ I think it's time you actually showed everyone your mark.” She nodded silently. She seemed lost in thought but pulled down her pants to relieve the wolf. “ Douge please do the same.” He two nodded silently. We had all sat her in silence and it had started to piss me off so I took charge. Really the question was obvious so why hadn't anyone asked it yet.Douge showed us his thigh. A majestic dragon tattoo lay on it, the detail was incredibly good just like Sophia's wolf make. Douge's dragon was half coiled around a rock, the back legs gripping into it, it had a tail that wrapped even further around. Its upper half was lifted up roaring at the sky. Liliandra gasped at the site; she bowed her head in reverence saying a quick prayer.

  “You both are chosen. The goddess Lumia has brought you two together.” She said Douge frowned, obviously not wanting to be revered like this.

  “ Yeah.” Douge said

  “ Wait. Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait.” Liliandra said.

  “ If you are the chosen of Lumia then that demon was here for you? And this whole situation really was an assassination attempt.”

  “ Looks like it.” Sophia said her face was a twist of emotions that I couldn't read.

  “ Does it matter if it was?” I asked but didn't wait for anyone to respond. “ We're here now and nothing is going to change that. I believe we have a unique opportunity. This place is like our own personal augment realty training room and we can use it to our advantage.”

  “ Uhhh have you ever been inside an augmented reality room?” Douge asked “ like I see your point and we do need to train our teamwork as well.” He looked at the myriad of cuts I had that were slowly healing. The tips of my fingers were still a ting darker than the rest of my skin as well.

  “ I haven't no. But I have seen the videos all over the net and even watched a few tournaments so I got the jest.”

  “ How long should we stay on the floor? The stairs are right here so we can leave at any time.” Liliandra said she had scooted closer to me. She did that a lot while we ate dinner these last couple of days. She always tried to be next to me.

  “ Rin how many MREs do you have left?” Sophia asked so I opened my inventory and drilled down to the box of MREs

  “ Five days maybe if we ration it for all of us. But those Tibemases have a lot of meat so if we could supplement their meat into the meals I can stretch the MREs a lot longer.” I said

  “ Can you give me a number?”

  “ Nineteen left, mostly lunch. I got one more dinner and five breakfast left. If we split one for each meal that should leave us with one left at the end of five days.” I said.

  “ I don't like the idea of eating monster meat but we could use my wind magic and Douge's new fire magic to smoke a bunch of the meat to make jerky.” Liliandra said.

  “ We will do that “ Sophia and I said at the same time she glanced at me and nodded.

  “ Let's spend the next three days going out and fighting. We can store the monsters in my inventory and bring them back for harvest. If everybody agrees.”

  Once everyone had finished eating we all started discussing how we were going to tackle our training. I had never realized how much preparation and work it took to get a proper and considerable plan. By the end of the night we had something usable so Sophia and Douge went to sleep. I pulled out my wardrobe and sat on it to clean and look over malice. This had become a ritual to me, something that brought me comfort even when I did know I needed it. And to help me complete the ritual Liliandra sat down next to me. She had done this every single night. At first we just sat in silence and she would eventually lean against me and I would let her. I knew she was getting the wrong idea from it but I let it keep happening. Tonight was no different.

  “ Can we talk about how hot Douge is now.” She said as she lend against me.

  “ I wouldn't go that far. He definitely has more chiseled features and his fat all turned to muscle. I would even say to some his late form would have been hot.” I replied

  “ Yeah but now he's more conventional hot you know?”

  “ Yeah. How did that happen anyways.”

  “ When he got his second elemental affinity he gained more mana and another reservoir to pull strength from. It happens from time to time but I have my theory that his Mark Of Hilos pushed the transformation a little further than it would have normally gone.”

  “ Makes sense I guess.”

  We sat there in silence and continued to sit there in silence for a long and uncomfortable time. I assumed anyways I was always comfortable in silence and after spending most of my teenage years living alone. And with this past what? Week. Two weeks? I was honestly losing track already. I found out it was hard to tell emotions. I could get the basic emotions but these more complex ones. I understand them in concept. It was easy to be happy and make friends when I could see happiness or make an enemy when I saw anger or hostility. But the emotions that came with a deeper connection. I closed my fiist my knuckles turning white.

  “ Is something wrong?” She asked tilting her head up to me. I didn't want to lie but I also didn't want her to know the truth.

  “ Yeah.” I said after a moment. “ Seeing Douge up and moving around really reminded me of how useless I felt in those last moments.” To accentuate the point I unfurled my fingers and looked at the discolored tips. “ It fills me with anger to think about like a pot of stew boiling over.” I decided to tell a different truth. One that I felt wouldn't reveal too much. “ Everything just feels so rushed, so haphazard on my part. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about how fast things have changed and I just can't get over it. I think maybe if I wasn't thrusted into this and had spent more time training and understanding my power I could have prevented what happened today.”

  Liliandra placed her hand over mine lacing her fingers between mine. Her fur was soft, so soft.

  “ You can think of it that way Rin. Or think of it this way. If Valder never put you here in this team for this exact mission. The three of us would most likely be dead. When a rift forms, it creates an astral space outside of our current existence that transformation can destroy atoms and reconfigure them. Without you somehow creating a safe pocket for us, we would have been dead right there and then you fought that demon and won.”

  “Luck” I interjected and she flicked me on the forehead causing me to wince.

  “ Not luck. A blessing by the goddess Lumia. You were given the tools specifically to save us and that's what I truly believe. Knowing now what I know about Sophia. I'm sure you must be a chosen hero and you've yet to be given access to your power. “ I scoffed in response

  “ If I was a chosen hero, why would I have such limitations on my current powers? Why must I pick and choose when to increase my strength and not just have that strength from the jump? Why would it feel like I'm weaker now than when I was when I fought the demon.”

  “ I think that comes down to simple human psychology and the moments that you showed your greatest strength. You were concerned for all of our lives and that gave you strength beyond what you would normally have.” she said

  “ You're way too optimistic.” I said

  “ As a priestess of Lumia I am taught to see the light in the darkest hole and if that's not what optimism is then I don't know what is.” I let out a soft chuckle and shook my head. This conversation did make me feel a little better actually.

  Eventually Liliandra fell asleep against me as usual.

  “ You can tell her no sometimes.” Sophia said the second part of my ritual is now complete.

  “ I'm sure it makes her feel better, so what's the point? We could all use some comfort now and then?” I said as she sat on my other side.

  “ We need to talk. I've been holding off on it until Douge woke up. I wanted to confirm. I wanted him to not have that mark on his body. That means his fate is tied in with mine. Mine and I don't want to subject him to that.”

  “ All of our Fates are pretty entwined now being stuck here and all.” I did not say.

  “ I have a few questions for you. Actually I wanted to wait and ask Alverez and Valder but I need some answers. The way Liliandra talks about the gods and goddesses bestowing. Their marks to their chosen makes it sound like a well-known thing but down in the blocks we know of religion and we know of gods but our worship Halls are nothing more than a painting with a couple of pews pointed at it. We don't hear grand and amazing stories of chosen heroes.” I said she sat there for a moment. I could see the gears turning in her head as she thought.

  “ So are you asking if there's a dark God?”

  “ No no. I know that there's a god associated with each element and that includes light and dark. I also know that the dark God Edric is responsible for the calamity that happened all those years ago. I know that he's responsible for the outbreak of monsters in the ruin that civilization across all planets saw. He's evil through and through what my question is. Does he have a chosen hero? Or?”

  “No he doesn't. Though that skill of yours holds a similar name to what my Mark is, you don't have a scar on your body like I do so it must just be a similarity and nothing more.” Sophia said. She was surprisingly perceptive being able to understand exactly what I wanted to hear, but was it just her telling me what she thought I needed to hear to keep going. Does she view me as so weak that she needs to placate me with lies? I could feel my anger boiling again. I didn't let any of my inner thoughts show keeping on a mask of civility.

  “ Thank you.” I said “ Douge is a good man and I don't think him being marked by Helios has any impact on any decisions he's going to make in the future? The three of you seem like great friends and push comes to shove. I'm sure each of them would follow you to hell itself.” I said

  “ What about you?” She said What about me?

  “ I mean you were pretty much a huge bitch to me for the first week we knew each other so I don't know.” I paused and gave her a grin, a practiced grin “ yeah sure I'd follow you.” She just rolled her eyes