325 Elemental magic 2

It had been about 4 hours since Ke's demonstration of elemental magic, in that time frame Ra and Mu had moved heaven and earth together with Ke and the other village leaders to set up the ceremony and the area it would be conducted, as well as countless advanced sensors in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding of this new school of magic.

"It's easy for the participant, you just stand in the middle of this rune formation and empty your head, doing that time a series of spellcasters will activate the formation. The spell itself will move mana through your body and that mana will gain your inborn aptitudes, allowing observers to find out what your aptitude is."

As Ke explained how the ceremony worked for Dax and the others she put attention to the nearly 50 square meters, extremely complicated rune formation which she and the other lamia's had drawn together with help from the dark elvers.

Needless to say, Mu had already taken multiple high resolution scans of said formation for further study.

"First up is you, Lilly, we're ready for you now."

As preparations for the ceremony were finally completed, Ke called on Lilly who would be the first one to undergo it, this had been decided based on the fact that she was already a skilled and natural born mana user, unlike Dax who manipulated mana through an artificial interface in his cybernetic spine and she was also one of the most experienced people when it came to dealing with the more irregular side of mana, having once had a contract with a spirit.

"R-right. Let's get this over with!"

Slightly nervous although she had repeatedly been told that the ceremony was completely safe, Lilly overpowered her nerves by acting though, an act which nobody fell for, but nevertheless acted as they did.

"If you're so nervous then I can go first."

"I'm not nervous!"

Except for Mare, of course, as Dax's habit of annoying other people by seeing through their intentions had rubbed off on her in a quite significant manner. Needless to say, this was a habit Dax and the others were actively trying to rid Mare off, but whenever they would chastise her, the beastkin would adorably wag her tail and act innocent, so there had been little overall progress in that endeavour.

Mare quite clearly already had everyone firmly wrapped around her little finger, with Lilly being the only one still in denial of that fact.

"As I said: Let's get this over with! I just need to stand here, right?"

"That's…"

"What's going on? Is she in trouble?"

As Ke completely lost her train of thought in wonder, Dax quickly got worried for Lilly, but before Ke could quell his fears another change happened to the space around the tiny elver.

"Are those… Flower petals?"

Looking at the air around Lilly, Solaris gradually started seeing changes to the mana around her, it was like the nature of it changed into something else, creating what looked like faintly visible flower pedals moving around in a vortex before the rune formation suddenly stopped shining, marking a sudden end of the ceremony.

With all eyes focusing on Lilly, the room fell silent as she took a deep breath and extended out an open hand in front of her, then mana suddenly surged towards it as the air around her started moving.

"What a terrifyingly potent aptitude."

Looking at what Lilly was doing, those words split from Ke's mouth as she felt a cold chill run down her back as the elver opened her golden eyes.

"Wind."

With a single word incantation, Lilly achieved better control of the surrounding air than she ever had before, it was like she had up until now been attempting to move her body while submerged in a vat of gel, but now she was free.

Looking at Lilly slowly lifting off of the ground, Dax quickly interpreted Ke's earlier words, it would seem that Lilly was extremely compatible with the wind element, but in exchange, it appeared that she didn't have any talent for other elements.

"'I was blind, but now I see'... I feel like I finally understand the meaning of those words."

When Lilly eventually landed on solid ground again she was quite perturbed as she looked down on her own hands which were visibly shaking due to her excitement. Lilly could no longer imagine how she was able to cast magic before she went through the ceremony, there was simply no way she could imagine how she was able to cast magic before that. As the ceremony continued, the other members of Dax's unit were also bestowed elemental magic, with Mare, Ra and Mu gaining control of the water element, Solaris having an extreme aptitude to the light element while Alice and Terra both displayed a high aptitude for both the earth and metal element. Lux, like Lilly and Solaris before her displayed an extremely high aptitude for a single element, the fire element in this case, just like Phillipa with the metal element, as for Dax…

"Did it fail?"

Having stood in the middle of the rune formation with an empty mind for the past hour, Dax finally ran out of patience as he opened his eyes, only to see Ke looking extremely confused as the light gradually disappeared from the rune formation.

"It… Didn't. It appears you have no aptitude for any elements... This isn't supposed to be possible."

"Well, according to you it just happened, what does this mean?"

Remaining calm in an attempt to calm down Ke, Dax walked out of the rune formation as Ke became increasingly more at a loss for words.

"I have no idea… This simply isn't supposed to be possible, I have never heard of this happening. But without an aptitude, there's no way you can use elemental magic."

(Well, shit…)