Ch 2: Eloise

The beautiful sunlight fell from the blue skies and landed upon Lotus City. Whose wide streets were filled with people going back and forth. The shops were opening up and vendors were setting up their stalls for the day. On the main street leading to the white Lotus Mage Academy in the distance. There was a young lady, around 5ft tall, slim, wearing a white cloak that covered her from head to ankle.

She stopped and took off her hood revealing her round face, ash gray hair and eyes, a straight nose, and thick purple lips. "So this the best magic academy on the Lithuanian continent? very impressive." She said to a tall man walking behind her. He had a full beard, tall brown hair, and brown eyes. He was wearing a full suit of lightweight brown armor and it seemed like his body was built for speed.

The man raised his head to look in front of him. What he saw in the distance was a group of tall towers reaching into the clouds. But what impressed him was the high level of mana the school was giving off; it was the highest Gin or Eloise had ever encountered.

Being from the Leroy Province in the southwest where there are no Academies,

 only a large guild. The Leroy pavilion, where one would have to sign a soul contract with them if one wanted access to a high concentration of magic energy or magic resources to get stronger as a mage.

"Gin. I think we made the right decision coming here," Eloise said with conviction.

"I think so too," said Gin, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I will become stronger, I will go back there and I will take revenge!" Eloise became serious. 

"I know you will, my lady."

"Let's go."

The breeze blew through a colorful field of medical herbs; the plants danced in the breeze with loose leaves escaping from their stems to dance in the open air unimpeded and free. The field was split in two by a stone path lined with Ivery Bamboo trees. At the end of the stone path, in the middle of the field of herbs, sat at the mansion built from green bricks and had white windows sills.

This was Verra's own mansion. She bought it after a year of hard work. A green-haired teenager stood in a bedroom on the 2nd floor with gold eyes, around 6'2ft and slim frame. He was standing in front of a mirror, seemingly staring into his own eyes. It had been a week since Xasha started staying in Verra's house while his own home was being constructed. During that time the two of them had gotten really close.

The more Xasha got to know Verra, the more he realized that this girl was obsessed with money. She loved money more than anything else in this world, she even charged him rent. He had to pay her for the food he ate, water he used, and for the fire Crystals to put into the lamps at night.

This was Verra's second year at the White Lotus Academy, she's been studying to become a combat mage. She really looked up to Xasha's Father Saxon and wanted to become a grand court mage one day. This was her dream, and she was working hard towards it.

While Xasha was looking at himself in the mirror, Verra walked into the room, "Morning," she said with a warm smile, "staring at those eyes again?"

"I can't get what you said last night out of my head," Xasha said, still staring in the mirror.

Verra walked to the couch by the window. She sat down comfortably and said, "On Semeria it is rare for a person's eye color not to match their hair color. In this world, most people get their hair color from their elemental affinity.
Blue hair, = water,
Light blue hair = lightning,
Red hair = fire,
Brown hair, = earth,
green hair = wind,
Light green hair = nature,
Black hair = shadow,
Gray hair, = metal,
etc, etc, etc," Verra informed Xasha like a teacher teaching a student.

"I know all that, but it really doesn't explain my situation. For example, your talent is in lightning, but you have light green hair from your nature affinity like your parents. But I get my eye color from my talent, not my affinity," Xasha sounded confused, he had this exact conversation with his father and got the same answer.

"Well, there are no rules that say that your hair color can't come from your talent and no rule says that you get your talent or your elemental affinity from your parents. Your dad is the most powerful flame mage on the Lithuanian continent. But you, his son, has an elemental affinity with the wind. All of that is natural and pretty common, but where you are unusual is the fact that your hair color comes from your affinity, but your eye color comes from your mage talent, which is unheard of."

"I had no idea it was so rare. I knew I was different but there are other people out there that are like me, I mean, I'm not the only one with the eye of truth, right?" Xasha asked sheepishly. Hearing all that again made him feel uncomfortable. It felt like one more thing to draw unwanted attention to himself other than who his father was, which was already a pain.

"It's true that you're not the only one with the Eye Of Truth, but none of the others have different colored eyes. It doesn't overwrite their affinity color like yours do," Verra said Matter-of-a-factly.

She took a sip from the glass of white ginger tea that she brought in with her then continued, "Maybe what you have isn't just the Eye Of Truth."

Xasha seemingly gave up on staring at his eyes in the mirror. He walked to his bed and sat down. Looking at Verra he said, "well if it isn't the Eye Of Truth, I don't know what it is. It works just like any other Eye Of Truth, I can tell when somebody is lying, I can see things other people can't see like the color of one's soul and I can read and understand anything I see even if it's in another language.

"Most people say it's useless but when paired with my Open Mind talent that allows my brain to process things three times faster than a normal person and gives me photographic memory. I just need to glance at a page once for a few seconds and I would not only remember everything I just read but understand everything that's on it," Xasha said feeling proud of himself. He was not boasting, he was really passionate about magic research and not necessarily combat magic like most mage apprentices, and his talent was perfect for his interests.

"I wish I had a talent like that, the magic books in the library are thousands of pages thick and the magic concepts are hard to understand. I take weeks to finish just one book," Verra said dispiritedly.

"I can understand magic concepts pretty easily, once I lay my eyes on them it's like they explain themselves to me," Xasha chatted on, not caring about Verra's feelings one bit.

"The Eye Of Truth can be amazing, I hear that if you become powerful enough, you can even see into the future."

"I hear that too, but that's all legends and bedtime stories. Thousands of people have this talent in this world and none of them can see into the future."

"I know but if they could, wouldn't it be awesome? Anyway, let's go, breakfast is ready, we're having sesame bread and roasted poison beak dove," Verra said with a smile as she made her way out of the room and towards the dining room.

"Sounds good," Xasha said following after her, he is starving. 

"4 Libras for the breakfast 8 if you want seconds."

"Ugh," Xasha groaned in frustration. 'She likes money way too much' he thought.

"By the way, what is it like seeing somebody's soul?"

"Well, my father says it's their soul, but I can't say for sure, it's more like their moods and thoughts. I can see a faint glow around people. It changes color and form based on their mood, or if they have evil intent towards me or not," Xasha explained.

"Those are some nifty skills to have," Verra laughed.

"Nifty, huh?."

The next morning after breakfast, Xasha and Verra left home together. All classes start today, Verra is a 2nd-year student, and she was in the combat course while Xasha was a first-year in the Magic theory Course.  All students had to learn magic theory and basic combat, combat magic, Enchantment, and Alchemy where known as magic paths. Depending on the course chosen, the more in depth the lessons.

Xasha made his way to class, classrooms were in the tall white towers erected throughout the school and the S class lectures were held in the tallest one. Luckily his class was on the second floor, unlike Verra who had classes on the 39th floor and had to use the stairs.

When Xasha walked into the classroom it was practically empty, in a room that could hold hundreds of students only around 20 people were inside sitting far apart except a few that seemed like close friends. Everyone was either checking each other out or minding their own business.

When Xasha walked into the room, everyone glanced at him for a second. He looked back at them. They were all young people, some younger than him, and they seemed to have recognized him. He made his way to an empty seat at the back of the classroom and closed his eyes; he took a nap before the professor showed up to start the class.

This class was a magic theory class called mana manipulation. Xasha already learned all this from his parents and probably knew more about it than the professor coming to give a lecture.

When the professor finally showed up, it was a blue-haired old man wearing a long blue robe, carrying a pile of books in his hands. He rested them down on his desk then introduced himself as professor Hanaqua and he made each person in the class stand up and introduce themselves. Xasha was uninterested in all this but the people who caught his attention were a girl named Eloise who had gray hair. It was his first time meeting someone his age with metal affinity and another pink-haired girl named Megan. Her pink hair meant that her talent was healing, healers were rare, and S rank healers were one in a million.

Once the lecture began Xasha realized he was right, everything professor Hanaqua taught, his parents had already taught him and with his open mind talent he already remembered all of it. It was the same with all the classes of the day.

After classes ended, he made his way to the library; paid 10,000 Libras for a 1-year unlimited book pass and entered the library. The Library was in one of the towers but much shorter than the one Xasha had classes in. Inside the library was a circular room with shelves on the wall running all the way around the building with thousands of books. In the middle of the room were reading desks and chairs. Some sections had couches and coffee tables with waitresses serving tea.

Xasha went to the first shelf, picked up the first book, made his way to an empty table, sat down, and started reading. He decided that he would read every book in this library over the next 4 years and keep all the knowledge acquired by this school in his brain to help him develop new magic techniques.