Chapter 8 Tradition
3 years later
“Focus on your footwork Xion! It's so close to perfection!”
Wearing traditional garb I move through the stances, apparently the history of Fox-kin martial arts is that an ancestor of ours used this to seal away a great evil spirit and deliver the souls it was keeping hostage to the afterlife. Today it's used in a small ritual we keep yearly, with each new year we go through the stances, exorcising any evil spirits in our vicinity to welcome the new year. Now its used as a tool for self defense In mothers case, and as a way to honor our ancestors.
[Skill learnt! beast style arts-purge evil spirits and dispel evil energy in a small radius around you, its more mundane effect is a set of traditional martial arts that focus on using your tail as a counterbalance.]
As soon as I finish the set I raise my arms to the sky and laugh.
“I did it! I finally did it!”
My mother rushes to me, picking me up in a too tight hug.
“We knew you could do it!”
I gasp from between her arms, for a mage shes way too strong!
“Mom-cant-breathe!”
She sets me down and I take ragged breaths, coughing a small bit.
“I'm gonna go with my friends…”
I say quietly, my lungs re-acclimating to having air inside them.
My mother gives me one last gentle hug and tells me to come back by sunset.
As I walked towards our new base, a tree house we built with sticks and some know-how from Derek, his parents being carpenters, I checked my status.
Status
Name Xion
Age 13
Fox kin
Strength 15
Agility 20
Intelligence 35
Endurance 15
Mana 18
Skills
Swordsmanship,fire manipulation, basic wind manipulation, mana manipulation, acrobatics, beast style arts, basic stealth.
A few of my skills had improved over the years the description of acrobatics simply made my skill be a bit easier with all acrobatics, letting me do vaults and flips rather easily and mana manipulation just improved the ease of using magic even more. I quickly climbed up the wooden hand holds we had leading upwards to our secret base and met with everyone else.
Derek was in the corner, working on his basic fire manipulation, Jean was talking with Alice and as soon as I got up Sarah rushed me and gave me a quick hug.
“Xion! I thought you might be stuck training your beast arts with your parents again!”
I hugged her back gently, she was kin, she knew how hard it was to learn the skill.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“I just got it today actually, mom almost killed me with a hug the moment she heard.”
“So, you got that skill finally? Good, im trash at planning things, thats more your speed.”
Jean shrugs and points to the small crude map we have.
“The plan I had was for us to run quietly through the forest and grab as much as we can, with Xion and Sarah smoking them out.”
Our plan, our masterful ingenious plan, had been set in motion a month earlier, while we were out practicing fighting slimes and a particularly angry mole we came across a bee hive. It was no doubt filled with delicious honey, that we could eat until we were sick and sell for a profit, hopefully being enough to get us some real equipment for when we came of age in 2 years. The ceremony being for everyone who had a birthday that year.
“The plan is good enough, I trust that everyone has been saving up for their first set of equipment?”
Alice sheepishly put her hand up.
“Yes Alice?"
I ask.
“Well. Um. The last caravan that came through… they had a nice set of charms and I… might have… used up most of my savings….”
She murmurs the last bit.
I massage my eyes a bit in annoyance.
“Well, I guess we can buy you the bare essentials with some of what we make tonight, but you'll owe us ok?”
She nods quickly.
“Alright, Jean, have you gotten the tools?”
The tools in question being both several bottles and a knife to take apart the hive for their delicious honey, we would have Derek knock it down when we were ready.
“Then lets move team!”
We all began filing down the wood ladder, one by one and as I got to the bottom I was pleased by a new skill.
[Skill learnt! Basic leadership- all allies within 10 meters will get a small bonus to their stats when they follow your orders. “Everyone,follow my lead!”- Salas the hero-]
We moved into the forest, following markers we'd left behind, grooves taken out of trees, and slowly came to the hive. We gathered sticks and dry leaves and made a small fire close to the hive. Me and Sarah worked, using our fire manipulation to smoke the bees out. It worked and within a minute there was no more buzzing.
“Derek, Jean, now!”
I whispered loudly. Derek poked down the hive and Jean quickly began slicing and bottling up the hive, putting the honey in a separate container when it started leaking from the hive.
I heard buzzing coming back around.
“Hurry! They're coming back!”
They looked up in worry, and moved even faster, scooping the last of the honey into a flask and putting the pack with all of the containers on Derek's shoulders. We began to move.
“RUN!”
I yelled.
But it was too late. All the bees had returned and they were ANGRY. We ran, getting stung multiple times across our bodies as we ran out of the forest and back towards home.
After finally losing the bees we came back to multiple townspeople staring at us after hearing the commotion.
One by one they laughed, the Elder breaking out in chortles as he saw our ridiculous condition.
Our bodies were stung all across, Jean in particular looked fabulous as the bees had only stung his chin, and everywhere else that wasn't his face. He still looked silly though. The rest of us weren't any better off, with my body covered in stings and Derek looking like a half deflated pin cushion. We blinked a couple of times made a quick circle where we huddled and schemed.
Jean spoke first.
“I say we sell all the honey to the next caravan and don't let any of them get a taste.”
We nodded one by one as we broke the huddle and went back to our secret base where we hid the honey and honeycomb.
The next week when a caravan full of traders came on by we sold the honey for a good profit, being able to outfit us with proper gear if we saved just a bit more from all the odd jobs we did around town.
One thing we did buy with our money was a spell book for us to all study, the boys could barely use fire magic as is so a proper book should help them get up to speed. The spell book was called “basic elements for aspiring casters.” Once we got back to base we opened the book, me and Derek munching on a piece of honeycomb we kept from selling.
“So it says here that some people are really good with some elements, and terrible with others. That would explain everything it seems.”
I muse aloud.
“Lets see, ah, here's light magic, you want to be a priest right Alice?”
Alice's tail wags a bit as we work on light magic together, Alice gets it quickly while I dont.
“Well I guess im not good for light magic, Derek, youre next, I have a feeling earth magic might suit you.”
Once again im proven right, I can cast the spells, but I dont get the skill like Derek does.
“Alright, Jean, youre the only one left thats struggling with magic lets go through all of them to see if anything clicks.”
We go through every basic element in the book, and finally he gets dark magic down.
“Finally, I thought you were an anomaly for a minute Jean, its been 7 years since we started training together and it took you 6 for fire magic.”
Jean at least has the grace to look embarrassed at his general lack of magical skill.
“Well, we've got every basic element covered besides water, so ill work on that one in my spare time, to even us out.”
I see nods from the group, Sarah still pouring over the book as she recently got basic wind magic just like I did, we were relatively even in terms of magical skill, with me having the slightest edge, the only ones I can't compare to are Derek, he's way too strong, and Alice, her alchemy is something I can't wrap my head around. For the remainder of the afternoon we all sat in our hideout, enjoying our spoils from the hive and practicing our respective magics. By the end of the day id managed to get a new skill.
[New skill learnt! Basic water manipulation- manipulate and create water with greater ease]
[Attention! New skill, basic omni magic criteria at 50%!]
[Memory lock at 55% integrity and falling!/ past memories may be called upon with some clarity]
