44 Tower System IV : Teluna and Nisi

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UNKNOWN CHARACTER

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"seriously Dad, what are we doing here. Don't you have a meeting with the church elders, you'll be late." Jason complained as he stood in front of a set of massive double doors with his father.

"You don't have to worry about that, this is more important." His father answered as he placed his palm on his son's shoulder, squeezing softly.

Jason looked up at the doors as he read the words printed on it's surface. [Shao Lao Institution Of Martial Knowledge].

"You brought me here to learn karate?" Jason asked with a surprised tone.

"Yep, among other things." His father replied.

"Why?"

"So that you can get stronger. Your punches are sloppy, and seeing as I'm a man of God, I rather not be responsible for teaching my son how to be violent even though I sowed the seeds." His father explained.

"Aren't you being hypocritical?" Jason asked again.

"I am."

"Then why do this if you're aware of how it makes you look." Jason asked with honest curiosity.

"To be honest, I just want you to be strong enough that I wouldn't be able to hit you anymore. In a manner of speaking I'm looking for punishment. If I can't fight back, and you can, you can pay me back for all I've done to you." His father explained with a solemn look on his face.

"You're messed up old man, you know that right?" Jason asked with a smile on his face.

"I know that too son."

"And you fucked me up too." Jason commented with a sigh.

"While I don't condone your crass language, that is also true."

"Our family is doomed to tear itself apart, both literally and figuratively. It makes me wonder what I live for." Jason whispered as he clenched his fist.

His father looked on ahead, affected by the depressed mood and atmosphere to even greater lengths than his son. This was the truth of their life, they really were broken and torn apart at the seams. It was hard to say who was to blame, was it his wife who had been unfaithful, or himself who couldn't fight back at such injusticeand ended up taking out his pain and frustrations on his innocent son until he was nothing more than a shadow of himself. Or was his son at fault, for understanding the pain, and for loving his parents unconditionally even when they were both trying to destroy him.

"I know what you can live for Jason, you can live for the right things in this world. You can be a good person, and fight the injustice in this world. You can make sure that what happened to me, and to you. Never, happens to any body else again. I believe, you're going to do what's right, and what's just."

It was words as true as anything from the heart of a father. This was a way he could show his son how much he cared, how much he respected him, how much he loved him. Because in the end, it's the parent's job to encourage and guide their children. There was still hope for Jason to take the right path, the just path.

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THE PIT

TWO MONTHS LATER

THE TOWER

BASEMENT FARM

TELUNA MERCADO

Teluna was trying his hardest to master this new ability of his. It was something that would keep him safe for a longer period of time, and he might be able to keep Kael safe if he could master it. There was not much he could do at the moment, and that was because he was still stuck in the tower, and it has been so for months.

There was really no where he had to go, and even though the cave had been expanded by Nisi in a desperate bid to complete the construction agreement she made with Kael, he still felt suffocated. He was frustrated, everyone was busy going about doing their own thing, acting as if the most important part of all their lives was not lying helpless a few feet away and completely unresponsive to the world around him.

It was not fair, even though they had deduced that his coma had something to do with the tower and the spirit crystal that was sucked into it, they should have at least made some sort of attempt. But nobody said anything, it was hard to imagine if they cared one bit, especially those women bonded to him. They should be here, at least they owed him that much.

Teluna waved his hand in the air, and a stream of dark clouds wisped out from between his fingers, filling his surroundings with a dark fog that was extremely suffocating. But the darkness was without direction, or form, it just floated around him like a normal cloud of smoke.

Teluna drew in a deep breath, and pulled his fingers back, he clenched his fist together and then opened his palm wide. The darkness then began to recede and coalesce on the top of his palm, shrinking and contracting until all the fog was gone, and all that was left was a small black orb made of pure darkness. This orb in his hand could not be considered normal, it did not look glossy like glass, and it gave off no reflection. In fact if you looked at Teluna's hand from above, it would look as if he had a black hole right in the center of his palm.

One deep breath later, the orb of darkness began to roll around his palm, but even as it rolled, it shook, and vibrated, almost as if it was resisting commands to move. Teluna's breathing became labored as he began to feel the strain from moving that orb of darkness. Cold sweat broke out from the top of his forehead as his vision began to blur with the advent of a headache. He had reached his limits.

But Teluna gave one final push as he gave a muffled shout, and was able to raise the orb of darkness ten inches into the air, hovering above his palm. Teluna felt like he had the weight of the world on his hand, and with each second that passed, it got heavier and heavier. The weight jumped a few hundred pounds every second until eventually, Teluna could not hold on to it anymore. The orb began to shake rapidly as it's round form began to distort and look misshaped, like what ever was contained within was trying to break loose. With a muffled puff, the orb exploded as it released a wave of darkness energy that threw Teluna off his feet, and into a patch of Java berries, crushing the juicy fruits to a paste beneath his weight.

His vision was graduallybeginning to go dark, but not before he was able to see this.

[DARK ELEMENT MANIPULATION] {3}+{1}

THE PIT

THE TOWER

INSIDE

NISI

There was something about the earth Nisi has been trying to understand for a long time. Most of the time she really didn't get it, but by now she was sure.....she was sure the earth was alive. Of course the stories always spoke of the earth as a living thing, the earth which birthed them all, and the earth which takes them back when all is said and done and they have lived the life they were given.

But for the past month or so, with Kael in a coma and tower pulsing with his heartbeat, she came to understand something. It was speaking.

And it was weird, it was not a language like any other, in fact it was not a language at all. It was like an expression of feelings, like multiple sounds of an instrument coming together to make something that is well and truly wonderful and majestic. Powerful and safe. She felt like she was being watched over, and not just by the earth, but by Kael.

She was sure Asha and Xaseah could feel it too, they were bonded to Kael. So if they had any strange urges of hugging the tower, then it would probably be because the tower now gave off the same feeling as Kael did. Like they were one and the same, two sides of the same coin, but different yet the same. It made her convinced that Kael has been trying to talk to them for the past month, and she was determined to send back an answer.

Gnomes were born naturally capable of manipulation over the earth and all it's subsidiary elements like wood, metal, crystals, lava, and even magnetic fields. But gnomes were a simple race, they were never ambitious, which was why they all settled for being able to get the food they needed, or helping the vampires mine for some extra change. Very few gnomes ever strived to attain the perfection of earth mastery, an ordinary example of such a gnome would be the merchant who had bought her and took care of her for a while, before she met and ran away with Teluna.

But even then, the gnomes as a race were always content, which was why when he got to a point he was capable of protecting himself, and was above average in controlling the earth as opposed to other gnomes, he came back from the outside world where he had gone to be a mage. He came back and became a merchant, of course his reputation as fourth circle earth mage was enough to bring him some sort of popularity that helped boost his business. But much like many of his predecessors, he hit a wall of his own making, and decided to stop pushing.

Nisi remembered stories of legendary gnomes who at the snap of their fingers could change the very landscape of the world itself. One such a gnome was the Earth Mistress Sanai, also know as the gnome goddess of the earth. She was a lesser goddess compared to other major earth gods on Shearath, but she belonged to the gnomes. She was proof that they could strive to be better than they already were, that if they so wished it, they could be Gods.

Nisi gave a cursory look at Kael as he was lying down, covered in thick animal furs. The pit was always warm, but there were those few months when it become unbearable cold, which was no surprise. It was thousands of feet below a mountain range of ice, wind, snow and death. She was worried for him, which was why she made a silent promise, she would help him wake up sooner.

The secret to manipulating the earth like almost every other caster class on Shearath was communication. The elements on their own were willful, they were entities that encompassed much more of existence than a single measly living being. Which was why the elements could not be controlled, at least not until the person trying advances to the eight circle and becomes a legendary being, two steps below becoming a god. It's at that point the earth truly bows to the commands of a manipulator,because by then you were well and truly above the constraints of the elemental laws.

But Nisi was no legendary being, she was just a second circle earth mage. And it was something she had gained through very hard work and suffering. While the gnomes can control earth, it is not very refined due to their low attainment in magic. Their connection to the system and from it the ether has to be strengthened constantly. It was only when a gnome gets to the fifth and sixth circle, that full control of the earth, according to the amount of energy you have is possible.

So the one way Nisi could make this work, was to communicate with the spirit of the earth, she had to cajole it.This might be too risky for her to attempt at the moment, but she really didn't have much of a choice. To advance to the next circle as an earth mage,she had to master at least three third circle earth spells, and a minimum of six second circle earth spells. Short of creating her own, Nisi doubted she would be able to achieve that.

She felt the ether connect, as it flowed through her system. She could not access the way due to the slave seal she had, but she could still use her abilities, relying on instinct and calculations to monitor her growth. As soon as the ether flowed through the system, she could feel it become refined, she could feel it changing, until it turned to mana that flowed into her mana heart, and filled the three rings there to the brim with power unprecedented. It was an intoxicating feeling, something young Nisi could get lost into, but she had a job to do.

She placed her hands and the ground, and waited for that tell tale shake that signifies the tower's heartbeat, Kael's heart beat. It came just as she expected, it was like a pulse of energy crawling underneath the skin of the earth, like a shark prowling beneath the surface of the waters, coming closer and closer until it grabs at it's prey.

Nisi's intentionwas to intercept that energy using her own mana as a beacon of sorts. It would be like connecting one operating system to another. She had seen illustration of the technology that was outside this prison, she was trying to use the same approach. Kael and the tower seemed to operate on an entirely different but the same frequency, Nisi planned to connect and adjust her own mana to match with that frequency, so that she could connect in some way to either Kael, or the tower.

Which was why as soon as the energy was release once again, moving to the pulse of Kael's heartbeat, she reached out her own mana. Stretching it forth like a hand of friendship, tentative at first, slow in approach, and steady.....it was a mistake. As soon as her energy came In contact with tower's, she felt it yank at their connection, and in secondsevery last drop of mana in her body was pulled out. And when there was nothing left to suck out, the energy lashed out, throwing Nisi of her feet and slamming her against the uneven and bump filled tower wall.

She landed on the ground, and she could feel blood pooling from the back of her head as her grey skin was cracked open by the sudden attack. Before she lost consciousness she could only say one thing.

"I failed."