章 39: Exposed [4] - Manipulation

Keira suddenly stepped forward and wrapped Silas into a tight hug. He had always known that she was the softest in their family. Sure, she had a hard shell, but she was soft on the inside. All he had to do was break through her shell, and he had done that by default when he became her grandson.

Silas was trying his best to not grin since his father could see his face; however, he did not stifle the quiver in his lips. It added a real aspect to his facial expression.

The hug lasted for quite a while. Keira held him tight for a few minutes before she finally separated and looked Silas in the eyes.

"Silas... That's not something you should be worrying about. You're still a kid..." Her expression was guilt-ridden, but she continued to speak.

"I'm sorry. If you didn't feel comfortable telling us about such a thing, then we failed as your carers." She placed her hand on Silas' shoulder and looked down at the ground.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It's not your fault." Silas smiled, the final tears in his eyes streaking down his face.

Of course, this was just another way to make them feel guilty.

They continued like that for another half an hour. They had chosen to sit on the grassy field filled with bright green grass and pink tulips.

They talked and talked. At first, Silas felt a little uncomfortable, but when they changed the subject to something less tense, he didn't mind it anymore.

He saw that they couldn't look him in the eye for more than a few seconds at a time, but that was the point. Even though his father seemed skeptical and a lot less guilty than Keira, it didn't really matter.

The entire purpose of this conversation was to make them feel guilty enough that they wouldn't mind if he broke a few rules occasionally. Keira was the strongest person in the house, so her words always overpowered anyone else in the Skylark home.

Actually, it had been a part of his plan for a little more than a year now, even before Nymira had challenged him to a duel.

"Silas. If you don't mind, please explain your blessing to me again. I can't really get my head around it." Lochras asked, causing him to receive a burning glare from Keira, who looked like she might have strangled him on the spot.

"If there is a monster, beast, or human who's awakened an element, I can 'select' them and use the element opposite to their's. I can select 2 people." Silas explained, making sure not to change too much of his explanation while also making sure to not make it the same since, that way, it would seem rehearsed.

And from how he was wording his answers, he wasn't lying either.

"So... When your grandmother is around, you use the water element, and when Syra is around, you use the earth element?" Lochras asked while narrowing his eyes.

"Yep." Silas smiled.

"Wait... Is that why you asked me to buy that book on advanced earth magic when we went to the light festival?" Keira asked with widened eyes.

"Also, yes." Silas smiled at her. He had planned it from the start. Sure, he wanted to have the book, but he also knew that her not giving him the book would work out in his favor when he eventually told them about his magic capabilities.

He had already thought of how he would tell his parents about his magical capabilities when he was only two years old. From then on, he laid down the foundation for his telling them.

It was unfortunate that he was forced to use the air and fire elements during his fight against the shadow swarm since those elements were technically his weakest, but there were only two elemental creatures around, so he had to use their opposite element.

"What about your mother? She has the light element, so what do you get? The darkness element? But that wouldn't make sense since Syra saw you use the light element to heal your mother." Lochras became dead serious while Keira looked at Silas for an answer.

'So healing is considered a light spell? That doesn't make sense, though. Why is healing green, but when those white knights use it, it's a goldish-yellow?' Silas raised a brow.

He already knew that his healing spells weren't made out of the light element since the green screen told him that he had an affinity to the life equation, not the light element.

However, did that mean healers like his mother had connections to the life equation? If that was the case, was that why he was reborn into her child's body and not a random person's?

'Now that I think about it, the light element works quite differently from the other elements. It's not a part of mana, so I assumed it tainted it. But the light element needs a source, just like the rest of the elements.

What's its source. My green energy comes from my connection to the life equation, so what does the light element come from?' Silas sighed. He knew that he couldn't get the answer to his questions now, so he'll just wait until the information was prevalent enough for him to get.

Opening his mouth, Silas answered Lochras' question.

"When I got my blessing, I automatically awakened my mana core. When I awakened my mana core, I automatically gained an affinity to the light element.

I'm assuming that I always had the affinity to the light element; it just took me awakening to find that out." Silas explained. Only a second had passed in the real world during his internal monologue. The monologue went a lot faster in his head than time moved in real life.

"And to answer your second question, I can't use the darkness element. I'm unsure why, but every time I try to copy and reverse mom's element, I don't get anything. Either I can't use the darkness element, or I don't know how to use it." Silas shrugged while Lochras sighed.

He had tried to catch Silas off guard, but all he had done was make himself feel like a fool. On the other hand, Silad didn't lie. He had tried to copy what the shadowswarm did with the darkness element, but since he didn't actually have the affinity, he couldn't use it, nor replicate what it did through the life equation.

'I know everything about you. I am capable of deciphering your thought process. I am capable of breaking you down to your fundamental properties and mapping out every single thing that you might do. All of you are so predictable.' Silas smiled warmly at his father.

A minute of silence passed. It was still morning, so the sun was high in the sky.

"Grandma, Dad..." Silas muttered just loud enough for them to hear. He breathed in as if he was trying to gain motivation and finally spoke.

"I want to continue training in the forest."