Bab 60: She Hears the Hero's History
Robin looked up at that now pleasantly dimmed ball of light, and smiled.
"Wow, so this is the light of a person with 100% light aptitude, huh? Usually, the radiance would not be so stable, and would flicker like flames. But yours is like the sun shining through a crystal ball. Very nice!" Jasmine complimented.
Robin shone a rare genuine smile of delight, unconsciously. Most of the time, when she smiled, it was deliberate. It was only around her older brother that she felt she could smile freely. But, this time, she had forgotten herself in her success in magic.
"Me too! Ask me to do something!" Gerard asked, wanting to earn some credit as well.
"Well, first off, do you know what element green mana is connected to?" Jasmine asked.
"Um…nature?" Gerard guessed.
"Nope! Guess again!" Jasmine replied.
"Wind?" Gerard asked, after contemplating upon the mana before him.
"Oh? Good job! Yes, green mana is a sign of the wind attribute. Incidentally, the nature attribute shows up as purple, and the poison attribute is indigo, so it can be easy to confuse the two.
The other attributes are red mana for fire, orange mana for lava, yellow mana for earth, blue mana for water, and the very rare black mana. Black mana is a bit special, here. It used to be only useable by the demon king, due to its violent and volatile nature.
However, there was one man who was able to stabilize black magic, and used it to create a magic artifact that can endlessly create the space magic stones used in magic bags. He was the Great Sage of the Beginning, and the same one who created the magic artifacts which our kingdom possesses. Even Robin's hero sword is one of his proud creations."
Robin felt her head begin to hurt. 'Why do I get the feeling that this "Great Sage of the Beginning" was a junior high schooler struck with chuunibyou?' she wondered to herself as she eyed her sword, suspiciously.
"You doubt it's authenticity?" Jasmine asked. "This sword will never waver, never break, and can only be carried by those whom it acknowledges."
"You make it sound like the sword is alive." Robin noticed.
"Perhaps it is." Jasmine smiled, as she began to once more create images on the magic chalkboard.
"There was one time where a hero was actually slain by a fearsome bandit king who coveted the blade. But, upon the hero's death, no one was able to move it, even with the power of a herd of horses. No magic could destroy it, no man could move it. Even the dirt beneath its blade was immovable, and unbreakable."
"What happened next?" Gerard asked.
"The bandit king was so incensed that he was determined to make sure that no one else could get the sword. So, he ordered his army to dig all around the sword, until it was so high up from the ground that no one could remove it.
It took them 3 long years even with earth mages, but the plains for 3 miles around were lowered to the point where the sword stood upon a stone pillar a mile above ground. The pillar was coated in a slipping magic to make it impossible to climb. But, soon after, the bandit king's army was decimated and destroyed by infighting, and faded into obscurity."
"Hmm? But, someone must have taken it back, right? Otherwise it would still be up there on that pillar, now." Gerard noticed.
"You're right. The earth that was excavated from the plains was piled up into a huge mountain range, upon which a species of large eagles decided to roost. After many years, a roaming nomadic tribe also settled down there, and built a village. They befriended the eagles, becoming hunting partners.
One such youth became curious about the stone pillar upon the horizon, and convinced his eagle partner to fly over there, and see the strange thing up close. It was this youth who was able to pull the sword up out of the pillar, which then triggered the pillar's collapse.
He brought it back to his home, and mystified his village with the sword that only he could lift. After considering if it was a good thing, the villagers gladly left the sword to him, as only he could seem to use it. From that day forth, the youth was inseparable from his sword and his eagle hunting partner.
Soon after, a huge group of demonic beasts attacked the mountains where the youth's tribe lived. While, before this, he had not shown any signs of having magic talent, in this desparate time, the youth managed to connect to his mana core.
That youth used the sword, in unison with rudimentary light magic, to completely destroy the demonic beast horde in a single swing."
"What? How did he do that?" Gerard asked.
"The mountain range was right next to the ocean. And the plains were already a mile below sea level, so the hero used a huge blade beam to carve out an inlet. The rushing sea water flowed in and drowned the beasts. After that, the plains became a salt water sea, and the mountain range became a peninsula.
"That person was the first hero of our Ekkinshire Kingdom." Jasmine finished her story, recalling her mana from the magic chalkboard.
"Ho? But I don't see any mountains?" Robin said, looking outside the window.
"After many long years, the capital was moved to a more central position." Jasmine shrugged.
"Sounds amazing!" Gerards eyes sparkled in admiration. "I wanna be just like the hero!"
Jasmine laughed mirthfully. "You forget that the current hero is right next to you?"
Gerard blinked. "Oops!" Then he turned to Robin. "Can I be the hero after you?"
Robin chuckled. "Then you need to concentrate on raising your light magic affinity. All the past heroes had very high light affinities. So, if you can raise it, the sword might acknowledge you."
"All right! I'll raise it so high, it'll be even higher than yours!" Gerard replied enthusiastically.
Robin refrained from bursting Gerard's bubble while Jasmine smacked him on top of the head.
"Ow! What was that for!?" the aggrieved youth looked pitifully at his attacker.
"You can work on raising your light affinity, but not before you master your wind magic, first." Jasmine lectured. "If you don't, then it will take a longer time to raise your light affinity, and you might become an old man before you are acknowledged by the sword. Then what use will you be? You study wind magic first, you hear?"
Gerard laughed bashfully, and nodded obediently to Jasmine. "I will!" he nodded.
"Good! It's a good thing that Robin's affinities are high enough. If we needed to find an active volcano to increase her affinity to lava mana, i think I might just scream."
"wait, lava is an element?" Robin asked.
"Didn't I say that earlier?" Jasmine sighed, but continued to explain. "To be more precise, it's plasma, but people understand it better if we say lava." Jasmine shrugged.
"If you don't have a high affinity with a certain elemental mana, then spending your time meditating in an area rich in mana of that type will help you raise your affinity. However, there are accompanying risks involved, as such locations are usually too perilous to meditate within unguarded." She warned.
"So, with my own affinities…" Robin began to ask.
Jasmine smiled. "Quite frankly, I was very surprised. You have such high affinities, that you can already perform grand spells in every category. This is something that only someone like the hero can accomplish."
Gerard shrugged. He had figured as much. Someone like the Hero would surely have a magic affinity far larger than his own.
"But...now, I am rather curious…" Jasmine looked at Gerard with interest.
"To succeed on the first try means that you also have no small amount of affinity for wind magic. She drew a small crystal out of thin air.
"Here, hold this for a minute." she gave the crystal to Gerard.
"What is this?" Gerard asked, holding it up.
Robin, seeing it, felt it looked a tad familiar.
"Hey, isn't that-"
"An affinity testing crystal? Yes." Jasmine replied. "I happen to have a portable one with me."
"Couldn't we have just tested me on that, instead of the royal magician's crystal?" Robin asked.
"In hindsight, no. This crystal can only test the aptitude of only one aptitude. If we had used this one, not only would we have not seen all your aptitudes, the crystal itself might have overloaded and shattered. Since all those under the title of hero have never had a problem with possessing more than one aptitude, it was safer to use Old Albus's crystal ball." Jasmine explained.
When the crystal lit up, the carriage was filled with a breezy green glow. Jasmine's eyes also lit up as she took the crystal with a hand covered in a velvet cloth. "What a gem! Gerard, your wind affinity is at 76! Your affinity is even higher than the Hero's at this point!"
Jasmine trembled at the thought. As soon as the hero appeared, such a rare talent was discovered. Would Robin find more raw talents like this one?
Gerard's eyes almost popped out of his head.
"What!??"
He couldn't believe it. He looked at Robin for confirmation. Robin nodded and smiled, giving applause.
"Congratulations, Gerard. Looks like it won't be too long before you can start working on raising your light affinity."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
BriarRose
BriarRose My apologies for taking this long, I have been ill these past few weeks, so it has been a bit of a struggle for me to write. This one may be not on time, but that doesn’t mean that the next one won't be. Please continue to be patient with me.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
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