Later that day during night.
Knock..
Knock ..
Knock ..
"Hmm, come in," said Gideon, closing the book in his hand.
Arthur entered the room with a complex expression on his face but his eyes doubtful as if something bugged him for a long time now.
"Captain…"
"No.. Gideon is fine" Arthur was interrupted before he could say anything.
"Gideon, I want to ask something important" Arthur said as his face became more puzzled.
"Hmm" Gideon listened closely.
"I did die. Didn't I? So how am I alive now. I did hear sound of my heart bursting before everything faded and everything turned dark." Arthur raised his head to look Gideon in the eyes.
Gideon left out a soft sigh as he stood up and turned to look at the pond outside the window.
"Yes Arthur, you did die at that moment. Your heart bursted because of excessive amount of blood your body required, logically you raised from the dead. Which is impossible until I saw for myself." Gideon turned back to face Arthur, he continued.
"The pendant you were wearing was not a normal pendant. After seeing it in action I decided to investigate it and I did find some records of it."
"Pendant?" Arthur was surprised as his hand subconsciously reached his chest to check.
"Hmm? What! Where did it go!" Arthur exclaimed as he tried to find nothing in the place where he had been carrying a pendant since he was seven.
"It disintegrated ,Arthur." He paused as Gideon continued to speak "It was actually a legendary relic from stories. Made by Grandmaster craftsman"
"Grandmaster craftsman!" Arthur's eyes widened as he heard the grand title.
Not just Arthur but almost everyone in the world have heard this title. Grandmaster craftsman was not a name but a title. Only ever given to one person. This title was so famous that people actually forgot the actual name of the craftsman and just remembered Grandmaster as a way to address him.
Grandmaster was a Dwarf who was born during the AGE OF LIGHT, 1000 years ago. He was the one who changed crafting forever. His work was like that of gods. He was also given the title FATHER OF CRAFTING.
His work was considered so out of the world that craftsman all over world built an unspoken rule to take blessings from Grandmaster before starting work everyday.
"Yes, it is one of the 10 great relics made by the grandmaster. Well it's actually a part of one of the relic." Gideon picked up the book from his table as he directly jumped to a page and showed to Arthur.
"Your pendant was actually part of the relic Heart of the elements."
"Heart of the elements? What's that?" Arthur did hear about 10 great relics by Grandmaster but didn't knew there names. He took the book in his hands as he looked at the page Gideon opened.
The page had a picture of 5 different pendants while one resembled the pendant that Arthur had.
"Amber heart" Arthur read: "This pendant named Amber heart has a fire elemental heart stored inside it. Information on how it is to be activated or used is lost now but it is said that heart inside this pendant is of higher tier. Giving the user more chances in future to develop the flames into higher and more complex elements. But it is said that the bearer of the pendant will have an untimely death."
Arthur read the whole information under the Amber pendant as he recognised this with the first look.
"What is an elemental heart? How was it stored in that pendant? Higher elements, what's that? And what does it mean the bearer will meet an untimely death" many questions erupted in Arthur's mind as he read the whole information.
"You just became a mage so you must have not known Arthur but magic is not just waving hands and wind bullets coming out of hand or a large fire shield forming. On the basis of its manifestation magic is divided into 4 main branches." Gideon spoke as he explained to Arthur in detail.
"There was something like that?" Arthur thought to himself as he listened to Gideon with concentration.
"Spell casting: In this branch, the mage invokes magic by reciting the spells they previously learnt or made themselves using specialised prefix, suffix and sentence structure. It is one of the branches which demand perfection from the magic user. Even one tiny mistake can completely change the effect of spell"
Arthur heard about it and immediately remembered his duel this morning.
"Then this morning when I fought Matilda, was she continuously casting spells the whole time she was moving around and firing arrows with incredible precision." Arthur could not help but marvel at how incredible her ability to multitask was.
A smile emerged on Gideon's face "Don't feel too bad. Matilda has practiced her spell casting almost all her life. She is one of the very few mages who understands this magic branch very well"
"What? But how can a mage not understand his own magic branch" Arthur asked curiously.
Gideon laughed loudly as he said "It's not that simple. For example if we take Arrays which are the second branch for manifestation of magic then they are often considered the most complex and extensive branch. In this branch the mage draws specific symbols on paper or different surfaces in different order but in a pre-set structure to bring out different magic.
First of all there are if not tens then hundreds of pre-set symbols which are to be remembered exactly to even start doing anything. And if shapes are just even slightly off then the Array which was supposed to teleport might suddenly explode or release toxic gas. Killing or injuring thousand of people"
Arthur was tongue tied but at the same time excited to hear all the working of different branches of magic. At this time an image appeared in Arthur's mind from when he first opened his eyes here. He remembered the paper with symbols lying all over the messy table.
"Wait!" Arthur exclaimed as he ventured deep in his thoughts.
"Was that weird symbol that was drawn on the ground all around my bed where I woke up a second time an array too?"
"Yes, that was an amplification array. Your injuries were so severe that many of your organs or body parts like your heart had to completely grow again, which was incredibly difficult for Ben alone. So quints drew a large amplification array on the ground to increase the effect of Ben's magic to heal you" Gideon replied.
"That's right, I almost forgot. Heart. Yes heart. How did I survive even when my heart ruptured and what's this elemental heart." Arthur was so consumed in knowledge of different magic branches that his curiosity took over his questions.
"Alright, to answer your question, let me explain you elemental heart first. Elemental heart is actually a physical heart beside the actual heart you are born with.
Mages or more precisely elementalists make them using concentration of mana for a specific elemental essence over a long period of time to slowly condense the mana, extracting specific elemental essence which is present in your body in liquid form to form a living elemental heart.
Mana is life force and fuel for magic but it too is fundamentally made of five elemental essence. Namely Fire, water, air, earth and space." Gideon walks up to his study table and takes out another book. Again he flipped through many pages and gave it to Arthur.
"An elemental heart is a like a purifier and motor at same time. It actively quickly draws out mana from the mage's body without him needing to concentrate specifically to draw out mana and extract only the elemental essence which it is made of. Like you have a Fire elemental heart, so in future when you control your mana. The heart will take in mana quickly and extract fire essence from it in almost an instant. Of course you need to train too to have that kind of fluency in the future."
Gideon took a pause as he finally said how he survived even after rupturing his heart.
"So when this mana heart flowed into your chest. It acted as a catalyst to bring out all your mana and opened the blocked passages. And during this process your body instinctively pushed all the mana to your fire elemental heart.
After receiving so much mana your heart didn't know how to release it, so it released all outside your body in every direction randomly. And pumped your blood too for a short period of time. Long enough for Ben to completely regenerate your heart back and then handed over the job of pumping blood back to your heart"
Arthur was completely concentrated on Gideon's explanation that he even forgot to blink all through the explanation.
He finally opens his mouth and asked "That means maybe the sentences saying that bearer of elemental heart pendant will meet an untimely death because for the elemental heart to flow from pendant to the bearer's chest it needed to fulfill one condition and that is most likely that the mages heart need to stop beating."
Gideon was surprised by Arthur's theory and immediately agrees with it "Exactly. To become an elementalist which is the third branch for manifestation of magic, mages need to form an elemental heart but they do it as slowly as possible because of how risky it is. Almost sixty percent people die in an attempt to become elementalist, so they stretch the process over the course of months or even years to make an elemental heart and become an elementalist."
Gideon looked Arthur directly in the eye as he said.
"But Arthur. In your case, the heart was already completely formed but for it to flow in the chest. Your current heart had to go to make room for it and for that reason I believe this event happened"
After the long explanations, Arthur finally let out a long breath of air of relief. He stood there completely in silence. Still holding many questions in his head "How did mother got hold of this great relics? Who am I really, father and mother were only normal people but how did I turn out to be a mage?" But Arthur withheld these questions for he knew that he won't get any answers for them here.
"Oh, you said that there are 4 branches for magic to manifest. What is the fourth one?" Arthur asked as he remembered their previous discussion.
"Well, it's Mysticism. I don't know much about it, the truth is that most of the knowledge about it is lost. It was very prominent during AGE OF LIGHT but for thousand of years it declined because it had less potential for fighting. But if you really want to know then you can ask Ben about it. As he must have already told you, he is a mystic" Gideon told Arthur as he put back all the books he took out to answer Arthur's questions.
"Well you should go to sleep now Arthur. It's already past midnight and in morning your training will start to properly utilise your powers"
"Yes" Arthur was sad and energetic as he left the room. It was like a fog have been cleared out of his mind only to find that a new layer formed itself on the surface.