章 10: The Orphanage

Power is something that everyone wants, something that can be truly hard to obtain on Grinmal. Each race has their own unique way to gain power, at the very least they have one technique to strengthen themselves. Of course one of the easiest ways to gain some modicum power quickly for any race is to be a mage. However, That alone can be difficult depending on your race. Most races has their own Mana attuned to only one or two concepts at all times, with the possibility of changing that attunement next to impossible. The races that truly excel at Magic however, are those who have several already attuned Mana on top of unattuned Mana, this allows those races to have Mana attuned to their more common concepts while being able to change the unattuned Mana as needed.

Outside of Magic though, there are still ways to strengthen yourself. For example, Dragons generally will sleep for days or even centuries at a time, this is so that they use almost none of the Mana in their Mana pool. They limit the usage because when they absorb Mana when their Mana Pool is full that Mana goes towards their body, strengthening various parts of their body. Almost every race has a unique feature or trait which can be leveraged to strengthen themselves in many unique ways.

-The Paths to Power (Author: Milrean Khandra), Page 1

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Charon deciding to reflect on why he lost himself to anger at the idea of having kids while he walked towards the orphanage. He could already tell what one part of it was, but he could sense there was more to his uncharacteristic anger. As he walked along the roads obviously deep in thought, everyone looked at this well dressed being before wryly shaking their heads, having seen this very face on many other magicians in this city before. It should be noted at this point that the citizens have not heard of Charon's new appearance, and without the intimacy that his family and friends have with him then he would not be easily recognizable. While being introspective, Charon let out a short gasp as he stopped in place.

"Hmm, it seems that my progress of merging the two parts of..." Charon stopped mumbling to himself as he noticed all the civilians filtering around their prince, "Well, those parts have now rapidly changed from completely separated to about fifty percent merged now. It's interesting however, I'm not sure what could have rapidly sped up this process... Unless, my lecture on it and my new comprehension on what I had to do allowed me to speed up the process by a lot more than if I hadn't understood the truth of the matter."

Charon shook his head before beginning to move towards the orphanage slowly again, but than he felt something in him twitch. He gave an annoyed look as this was the very same thing that was causing his anger to rapidly bubble up at the idea of choosing an heir from the orphanage. Just as he was about to cuss out the troublesome ability, he could hear something from an alley nearby. As soon as that sound was heard, the ability which had told him to freeze right there causing his subconscious part of his soul to comply, that same ability let his body move again as if telling him to go check the sound. He sighed as he thought to himself.

'I assumed this ability of instinct would always be more direct with me, but I suppose it can be annoyingly vague too. It seems I need to study it more in some way to understand it. I know it's purpose is to help me but Instinct is such a vague name for an Inherent Ability. I have no real clue what the limits of this ability truly are...' As Charon thought about the maddening mystery surrounding his Inherent Ability, he slowly made his way towards the sound in one of the alleys nearby.

As he got closer to the sound, he could hear the cries of a toddler, that of someone who is roughly one or two years old. Beginning to have a theory on why his Ability wanted him to avoid the orphanage, he rubbed his face with clear exasperation before quietly cursing 'This damned Instinct of mine'. Reaching a point where he could tell by the sounds that he was just around the corner, he listened in further and could hear the voice of someone else.

"Come on sister, I know we've had it rough for a while now but you need to eat this food. I can't guarantee when you'll get more." A young boy's voice so raspy that it only barely contains the hint of youth that would be expected from him.

Charon sighs before turning the corner and seeing them. One of the them is a young human girl, probably only one or two years old with blond hair and brown eyes. The other is also human, but is a young boy who looks to be around five years old with the same hair and eye colour as the girls. Both of them look so malnourished that for a brief moment, Charon feels his anger from earlier return. He takes a deep breath before coughing to get their attention.

"Wh-Who are you?" The boy protectively stands in front of his sister who is curiously staring the strange white haired man.

"When was the last time you two ate?" Charon redirected the topic.

The boy looked at his sister before glancing at Charon with suspicion, "A week ago, now will you leave?"

"Alright, come on. I'm taking you to a castle I guess. I'll have the servants clean you both up and then we can get you both some food and water. Come on." Charon nodded to himself and turned around to lead the kids to his families castle.

"No! I don't trust you." The boy held an arm out and looked ready to die for his sister.

"Now, I can go on and on about how I'm doing this for your benefit but I'm not really in the mood. See, I've had a very weird day today so I just want to get some sleep after this. So Boy, you have two options. Either I knock you both out and force you both to do what's best for you or you just stay conscious so you can see what's happening around you both." Charon looked over his shoulder, barely glancing at the boy while standing still.

"Fine, Just don't do anything! I still don't trust you!" the boy carefully followed Charon after that, keeping his guard up and his sister behind him the whole way.

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In a dark room, the four mysterious figures were still gathered as they conversed about their plan and the two freelancers separated from the noble and bureaucrat.

"So, did you do what I said?" The veteran stared down at the younger freelancer with a patient gaze.

"Yes master. The only person to worry about finding them now should be Hades but I doubt that he will due to him no longer patrolling as much." The disciple responded, unaware of how wrong he was.

"Good! After this we can escape this continent, You are not strong enough to be involved in this war yet. We shall instead join those who are exploring the Brindwal continent." The veteran said with a grin, unaware of a shadow in the corner of the room which seem to move as if it was alive.

The four people then nodded to each other before leaving the room, failing to notice the shadow following them out. Once the shadow made it onto the open streets as the sun was almost fully gone, it rapidly shot out towards the area of the city with the castles of the Four Houses.