Chapter 2: Chapter 2 – Caiset Village
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After walking for half a day through the Path and separating from the other villages' groups, they finally arrived home. As usual, the elders and some family members were waiting for them at the village entrance.
The waiting villagers didn't look much better than the travelers. The poor living conditions and constant abuse made them look more like beggars than workers. From the children that suffered bad nutrition and often get sick, passing through the adults that would be regularly overworked to death, to the elders that bore the marks of decades of abuse and can't live longer.
Rainer looked at Karl with eyes filled with tears and gave him a warm hug. Opposite to Kanin's acceptance, Rainer always inspired Karl to dream about the fantastical world of magic. Since childhood, she wanted to be a Mage and escape social slavery. So, she projected all her dreams into her son and now she felt guilty because Karl also failed.
Physically, Reiner was somewhat different from the other villager's woman. She had the common medium stature but presented a very uncommon white skin. Although her body displayed the abuse marks of the commoner's life, she looked stronger and healthier than others.
Embracing the broken-hearted Karl, Reiner whispered in his ears:
"It's okay... You shouldn't give up on your dream!"
'Mom is always mom… she still doesn't accept her life…'.
Karl felt a little wounded and betrayed. He was hopeful after last night's events, but couldn't keep himself from mourning his dream of having elemental affinity. He forced a bitter smile and said:
"I'm fine, mom!".
Kanin, realizing the mother and son drama, interjected:
"We should be happy that our son can be with us. Remember that the merchants say that people with low affinity can end up as Mage's servants and experiments!".
Rainer spared a furious glance at her husband, promising him a good fight if he continued to speak.
Kanin was right. To make a Mage of someone with low affinity would take a lot of investment, they could only dream of being appointed as apprentices. If they end up as a servant of some crazy Mage it would mean a life of hardship and torture. Although Mages could use commoners for experimenting, apprentices had more resistance to magic experiments and bore better results because of their resonance with magic energy.
Kanin was very conservative regarding his family's dreams. He didn't believe that a commoner could become a Mage and also he didn't approve of his wife's ambitions for their son. However, he'd not put too much effort into changing their views, he knew that they were fated to accept reality.
"Let's go home. Why aren't you working in the magic fields?".
Staying almost 1 week traveling, Kanin didn't want to compromise his family's part in the tribute harvest. The nobles would never accept less than the required tribute. And he didn't want to be responsible for them taking villagers to be slaves.
"Hummpf…".
Rainer snorted at her husband's behavior.
Caiset was a farming resource village. So, most of the villagers have to work in the magic fields. And all their output would be collected and shipped to the supervisor city.
The Serion Kingdom has a hierarchical system that places commoners as slaves to Mages. The system has 4 layers that separate one according to their status. At the top and with the most prestigious status, there's the Magic Nobility. The noble title is given to families that produce mages with the highest magic potential and they can enjoy all the luxuries in the Serion Capital of Elements.
Subordinate to the Capital and the noble families, the second layer is occupied by the Magic Powerhouses. The Powerhouses are families and organizations that produced mages with high magic power, second only to the Magic Nobles. The Powerhouses reside in the 4 Elemental Capitals, located on the 4 main cardinal directions of The Capital of Elements.
The other Mage families live in the cities subordinated to one of the 4 Elemental Capitals. Finally, the bottom of the system is occupied by the commoners, grouped in villages that serve as resource sites for the cities.
This system guarantees that the higher the magic power fewer will be the mundane concerns. Annually, the villages have to provide the cities with food and materials. Likewise, the cities are responsible for providing for the Elemental Capitals and the Elemental Capitals to the Capital of Elements. Each layer of the system exploits the lower layer more, resulting in massive exploitation of commoners.
Disregarding his parents' usual dispute about magic, Karl moved thinking about what happened last night.
'Mages are amazing, they control everything and don't need to work for food'.
'-- Alchemy can also be very lucrative. In this aspect, it's even better than common magic --'. A voice in Karl's mind stated in a very distinct and proud tone.
"Who is talking?". Karl turned around but didn't see anyone close.
'-- I advise you not to shout. We can communicate with your thoughts, there is no need to speak. I am IMT 1 AI, but you can address me as Master AI --'.
Karl took sometime panicking and checking around if someone was pranking him. After verifying that no one was around, he took even more time checking if this was a dream. Then he decided to go with crazy or that it was magic.
"What a.... ".
'I'm sorry, I forgot about the whole talking with thoughts. So, what are you? Are you that glowing light from yesterday?'.
'-- For now, we should not discuss what I am. However, you should know my purpose. In the following decades, I will be tutoring you on Alchemy --'.
Karl deeply frowned, he was very confused, but also excited.
'What's Alchemy? Can you teach me magic?'
'-- Boy, why is it that your knowledge of this world is too shallow? --'. Karl could only smile bitterly and nod.
'-- First, everything around you was formed by magic energy. Therefore, there is no such thing as teaching magic --'. Karl was very excited, but he didn't forget to consider everything Master AI said very carefully.
'-- For us, is impossible to truly understand the Origin. However, we know that the Origin has endless energy, also known as magic energy. For unknown reasons, the magic energy that emanated from the Origin developed characteristics and formed our world. The Laws, Rules, and all things came, originally, from the manifestation of the magic energy. The differences and particularities that we see came from further interaction since immemorable times --'.
'-- Furthermore, since everything was once magic energy, it is plausible that magic energy can also change everything in our world. There are innumerable ways of using magic energy to change reality. Since ancient times, sentient beings have been developing technics to use magic energy, establishing magic systems with different types of magic --'.
'-- I will only tutor you in the most powerful magic category, Alchemy --'.
Karl was in awe. He was supposed to learn something so powerful. But with some thought, he was confused at how he never heard of this soo called most powerful magic. In his mother's stories, there were only Elementalists and Sorcerers.
'-- I understand and acknowledge your doubts. This type of magic was lost to your civilization thousands of years ago. Only some artifices remain. Now, answering your first question, Alchemy is a type of magic that uses a medium to control magic energy and execute a magic task --'.
Karl was a fairly smart boy, but he was lost in regards to what medium and magic task meant.
'-- The medium can be a magic Array or Rune, we will explore it later. And the magic task is anything specific that you want the magic energy to change in reality --'.
Something in Master Al's explanation made Karl explode in calculations. He quickly prompted:
'So, can I use Alchemy to do anything? If so, I would be the most powerful Mage...'
'-- Theoretically, yes. However, it is not as easy as just wanting to do something. Alchemy needs design, materials, and ability. For every different thing you want to do, you will need a specific design, materials, and ability --'.
Karl knew that nothing would come so easily, but now he had a chance to use magic. And all that he could ask, was a chance.
...
Far away from Caiset Village, in Wind Castle City, a boy with a shabby grey tunic was running through dark corridors trying to get out of Howland Maynor.
Only 5 days ago, he was booming with happiness in his registration ceremony. For all his life, his father would risk himself to get a piece of low quality meat for him to eat, hoping that he would develop magic affinity. On his registration ceremony, his father's efforts paid off when the Magic Association identify his magic affinity. He was the only one in his village and one of the few in the eastern villages. Since his father came to the ceremony, they quickly signed a contract of apprenticeship with the Howland family.
With the prospect of working as an apprentice, he would live a better life, and also send some good things to his family, everything was working great for him. Unfortunately, as soon as he entered Howland Maynor he was sent to be Mage Howland's experimental subject.
"Your impudent slave! How do you dare to run from this Mage? We paid such a good sum to your family and now you don't want to attend to your obligations, come right back!"
'Why did I end up here? I thought I would be learning magic. My father spent so much to get this opportunity... I have to escape... '
Stumbling over a table, the frightened boy sprinted to the main entrance of the Maynor. When he was a couple of steps from the door, an abnormal air current shut the metal door closed. The boy let a pitiful scream and tried to change direction to another corridor, but soon enough, another abnormal air current trusted his body against the wall.
"You should learn your place, slave! Thinking you could run from this Mage. Muahahahaha"
"Please Master Howland, I can't take it, it's too painful."
"You should be grateful, having the grace of helping this Mage find a method to create a wind core... Humpf... Now that this Mage found a subject with low affinity and similar body structure as my worthless son, don't dream about running... Muahahaha".
Mage Howland dragged the boy to his experimental room and used a rusty chain to tie him to a stone platform. Over the stone platform, several greyish crystals circled the boy's body. Ignoring the wails, the Mage put his hands over the boy and took his time achieving concentration.
A couple of minutes later, Mage Howland started to chant something over his breath. Sweat appeared over the Mage's forehead while more than half of his spiritual energy was spent.
Some air disturbances appeared all over the boy's body forming a small vortex in the middle of his chest. The crystals dimmed as their energy was fastly drained. The boy screamed and some lumps appeared over his skin, moving like it was separating the skin.
Sometime later, Mage Howland gave a sight looking over the fainted boy.
' Humm... It's not right yet... Next time I have to increase the concentration of wind energy over his organs while avoiding his brain. It would be better if he could collaborate on controlling the flow of wind energy in his body, but the pain is getting in the way... '
...
That night, a group of mounted messengers arrived at the Second Eastern Post Tower.
The group was very proud and disdained the lowly Eastern guards, not even giving them greetings. The one with the noblest demeanor signaled to the mounted man on his left. Without wasting time, the man dismounted and took a scroll with a golden seal and proclaimed:
"This is the Royal Edict to be passed to all resource villages. This one represents the Wind Castle Lord, to order you to transmit it to all Second Section Eastern Villages ".
Horacios quickly kneeled and said:
"This lowly one accepts the Royal Edict and obeys Wind Castle Lord's order ".
The mounted group didn't pay any more attention to the Second Eastern Post Captian and left.
'We should avoid sharing the air with these lowly peasants. Lord father really exaggerates, sending this son to pass the orders. Even if I'm not talented like brother, I'm still his noble son'.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
DreamWeaverWriting
DreamWeaverWriting Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed it!
I'm trying to present the world and the characters slowly, so the story doesn't get boring. If you have any ideas to improve it, leave a comment. See you in the next Chapter!
I'm using:
“ ” - For speaking
‘ ’ - For thinking
‘-- --’ - For Master AI
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone