"I cannot possibly believe that you thought that was cool for even a second."
Subaru dropped his arm and slouched at the mages comment.
"Come on, I was doing a whole thing here when I leveled up and you had to go and ruin it."
Shin, his new Yin spirit gave off the emotion of also being put out by the sour man's comment, which only worked to double Subaru's own annoyance.
"Truthfully I was in awe of your natural born talent for Spirit Contracting, but it was immediately ruined by that embarrassing display. Please brat, try to be less of a fool in the future for your own sake. Now come along."
He spun around, his robes briefly fluttering in the wind as he did so before walking away with a smug smirk on his face. He lazily raised one arm and waved it to signal Subaru to follow him. Slouched and with his mood thoroughly ruined he began to follow.
The two walked through the two doors to enter the arena again. After walking down the hall for a moment Subaru realized they were going in the opposite direction that they came from.
"Hey, this isn't the way back to Al's room. Where are you taking me?"
Subaru stopped and pointed an accusatory finger in a drastic manner at the mage. Shin popped up for a moment next to him, shaking. He could feel the spirit giving off a wave of anger and confusion, obviously not understanding exactly what her new master was upset about, but angry anyway. The mage turned around and stared at Subaru with a Sanpaku eyed sneer.
"How dull can one brat be? You were told before we left that you would be spending your nights with the other brat. We have a special room set up for apprentices."
"Oh"
Now that Subaru thought about it he did remember Captain Wess telling him that the gladiators and their apprentices weren't allowed to stay in the same room in this arena because of some sort of incident. But Al was different, he had slept in the same room as Aldebaran for months and nothing had happened.
"Al isn't like that, we've been sleeping in the same room for months now."
Subaru argued, not wanting to sleep in the same room as someone he did not trust. Not that Subaru was necessarily a paranoid person, but he was in a strange land in an arena with strange people and just as he had started to become used to his environment back at the Sword Arena they moved to the Spirit Arena. Naturally all this would make someone as young as Subaru a little worried, especially since the loss of Subaru's family was constantly at the back of the young boy's mind.
The mage ahead of him had his back turned to Subaru as they walked down the hallway, blocking Subaru from the view of his constantly scrunched up face but he could see the man's hand curl up into a fist as they walked onwards. He had been expecting some sort of mean retort that the mage had become known for in his own mind, a rude remark or even an accusation placed on him or Al for some crime that had never once happened… but instead he was only treated with silence.
Sensing the mood of the man ahead of him suddenly turn foul, Subaru decided to also remain quiet, the only sounds that could be heard now were the men's sandals and Subaru's shoes shuffling across the long rug.
The silence was strange now that Subaru thought about it.
'The fighting should still be going on, but where is all the cheering?'
Subaru allowed himself to be lost in his own thoughts as they continued walking, deciding it was better to distract himself with that rather than pay any attention to the mage's sudden change in mood.
After a few more minutes of marching down the long blue rug and counting the various painted shields and flags lining the halls they stopped.
"Here you go, brat, this is the apprentices room. Go on ahead, I have quite the headache and you are only adding to it."
Subaru frowned as he pushed past the mage, Shin zipping into the room, leaving a dark purple trail behind them as Subaru pushed the door open and walked into the room.
Subaru's eyes scanned the room nervously, fiddling with the straps from his school backpack. Oddly enough he felt almost the exact same way he did on the first day of class right after summer break.
The first thing that Subaru noticed was the fact that there were actual real beds in the apprentices room. That fact floored Subaru as he had spent the last several months sleeping either on the hard wooden floor of Al's room, or on the hay and animal skin shelf/bed thing that hung off the wall.
Part of him was annoyed that Al hadn't told him that they had actual beds back at the Sword Arena. Another part of him was sure that even if that was the case he most likely would still choose to stay in Al's room instead of with the other apprentices unless he was forced not to anyway.
Next to each bed was a small dresser for clothes and personal effects, as well as a footlocker at the foot of each bed. The walls had several Vollachian flags placed around it, which Subaru had long since learned to ignore since they were quite literally everywhere. Aside from the flags though the room looked surprisingly comfortable.
A light in the corner of the room caught Subaru's attention, he turned his head to see a small figure slouched over on one of the beds. It was a child with medium length curly golden blonde hair sitting cross legged on top of one of the beds. In one hand was a lit candle that he was holding by a small metal disk, and in the other hand was a small book.
The child on the other side of the room locked eyes with Subaru as he entered, the lighting from the candle made him look somewhat intimidating even though Subaru was pretty sure that they were the same height.
..
..
Deciding that the situation was far too awkward to stay as it was Subaru decided to break the silence.
"Y-yo!"
The blonde ahead of him didn't respond, instead he just tilted his head in confusion.
'Oh yeah, that's an Earth thing not a… shit.'
Subaru quickly realized that his instinctual usage of Earth lingo was starting to seriously starting to hinder his first impressions when it came to meeting people in this new world.
"Uh… I mean hi!"
The room remained quiet for a moment before the boy on the bed dog eared the page in the book he was holding and briefly turned his back to Subaru to place both the candle and the book on the end table next to his bed.
The boy hopped off the bed and stalked up to Subaru who noticed that the boy was actually a few inches taller than him. Subaru shrunk back in on himself a bit as the golden haired boy stood a few inches taller than him looking straight down at him. Subaru could now see that his eyes were the same color as his hair which Subaru had never seen before.
After a moment of some slight terror and briefly considering just running back to Al's room instead of staying here with the pre-teen serial killer the golden haired boy startled Subaru yet again.
"..."
He just grunted and looked up to Subaru's left, right at his new spirit friend Shin who seemed to not even really understand what Subaru was worried about. After staring at Shin for a minute he looked over his shoulder and nodded at the air as if responding to something unseen. He turned his head back at Subaru with a hard expression remaining on his face.
"Were you the cause of those spirits earlier?"
His voice was quiet and overly soft making it hard to hear what he was saying at first.
"Um… yes? I just got here and they had me go to the Spirit Grove to test my affinity. That's where I contracted Seishin."
He pointed at his new Yin Spirit friend, who spun around in the air to show themself off, obviously basking in the attention and not reading his master's mood at all.
Surprisingly the taller apprentice's face softened after hearing that making him look much less intimidating. He put his open hand out in front of him towards Subaru.
"My name is Kaulter, it's nice to meet you."
Subaru sort of numbly took Kaulter's hand and shook it.
"I am Natsuki Subaru, but my first name is Subaru."
Kaulter tilted his head a bit at the strange naming pattern but mostly seemed to ignore it. He turned around and motioned for Subaru to follow him as he walked off. Subaru quickly followed behind him, stopping at the boy's bed.
Kaulter sat on his bed and continued to examine Subaru, although this time he had a slight smirk and didn't look nearly as mean.
"You spiritual affinity is really high, when you called the spirits in the grove they appeared all the way out to the arena. It stopped the fight completely which is alright I guess, it was just about to end anyway."
Subaru took his backpack off and dropped it at the foot of the bed next to Kaulter's. After that he plopped himself down on the bed, letting his feet hang off the edge while he faced Kaulter.
"Really? That was the first time I ever tried to talk to any spirits. The mage that brought me there was super surprised… he was also kind of a… dick."
Subaru was still getting used to the way Al spoke, being able to swear whenever he wanted was weird. Al didn't even bat an eye when he did it by accident in front of him, even his dad would at least laugh before telling him to cut it out. Kaulter didn't seem to be any different as he didn't seem to hear him say it.
"Ah, that would be Victor. He is known for being quite sour but I believe he means well… I apologize for cutting straight to the point here, but I would like to discuss spirits with you."
Subaru was a little taken aback by Kaulter's abruptness, but the topic was also interesting to him as well. After all, he had just contracted Shin less than an hour ago and was excited to learn more about the spirit arts in general.
"Alright… What exactly about spirits do you want to talk about? I haven't had much experience with them outside of… well, an hour ago."
Kaulter nodded and thought for a moment, cupping his chin with his hand as he hummed in thought. After a few moments passed he held his hand out and two balls of light appeared. One of them was a small green ball, the same size as Shin. The other was dark blue and closer to the size of a golf ball, Subaru could instantly tell that this spirit was somehow an upgraded form of either Shin or the green spirit.
"This is my Quasi-Spirit of Wind, Sir, and my Spirit of Water, Missus."
Kaulter almost seemed a little smug which would have been the most emotion he had visibly displayed aside from 'thoughtful'. Shin moved in to slowly circle around the two new spirits, inspecting them like a dog would inspect another one of its kind upon first meeting them. The other two spirits did the same with Shin, the three of them circling each other in an almost hypnotizing pattern. After a moment of just watching the trio of lights dance around each other he realized that Kaulter had said something he hadn't heard yet.
"Quasi.. Spirit?"
Kaulter seemed to have also been distracted by watching the spirits play, he looked over at Subaru with a raised eyebrow before nodding.
"I suppose it makes sense that you wouldn't understand the different tiers of Spirits if you had never interacted with any before this point."
He shifted on his bed so that he was facing Subaru directly, raising four of his fingers.
"There are four different stages of a spirit's life, should they live through it all. Minor Spirit which is their youngest and weakest stage. Quasi/Lesser which is equivalent to the teenage years of a human, these spirits are stronger than a minor spirit but still weaker than a full spirit, these would be the rankings of my Wind Spirit Sir and your Yin Spirit Shin."
Subaru looked back to the small purple and green spirits. They were flying around each other much faster, it almost looked as if they were playing a game of tag. The larger dark blue spirit hovered a small distance away from them, almost looking like a parent supervising two children playing.
"So then Missus must be a full spirit then?"
Subaru asked, the rankings of spirits wasn't a very difficult subject, it seemed to be fairly straight forward. Kaulter nodded.
"That's right, Missus is a full grown water spirit. As a Full Spirit she is like an adult, in fact she has almost been like a mother to me since I contracted her at that level. With enough time and work both my Sir and your Shin will also grow to full spirits and be much more powerful."
Subaru nodded along, getting a better picture of the relationship that Kaulter had with his spirits, and also getting excited with the idea of leveling Shin up to be even stronger… even if he didn't really know what he could do yet.
"You said that there are four different tiers of spirits, what's the last one?"
Kaulter put his arms back down and leaned backwards against his bed, resting on his elbows.
"The strongest and final tier is Great Spirit. Few spirits ever actually reach this rank, and as of right now I can only think of two in the world who shave the great spirit rank. Those being Odglass in Gusteko and Muspel in Vollachia. Although I think there is another great spirit in Lugnica but I can't be sure. Either way, Great Spirits are so strong they scare away all other spirits."
Subaru nodded along, momentarily day dreaming about Shin becoming a great spirit and growing to the size of a black hole.
"Oh! I was told that my spirit might know a spell sort of uh… instinctually or something like that."
Kaulter nodded with that, he raised an open palm out in the air.
"Sir, come here please. Go ahead and call Shin over."
With that the small green spirit stopped playing with Shin and darted over to rest above Kaulters open hand.
"Oh, Shin, come here please!"
Subaru said possibly a little too loud, he copied Kaulter and held his open palm out and let Shin hover above it.
"Sir only knew the Fura spell when we met, although we have been working towards doing more. Currently we can cast all the different tiers of Fura spells, and we have been working on some different types of wind magic defenses and offensive spells. Your spirit should know a spell already if you ask it."
Subaru looked down at the buzzing purple ball in his hand.
"Shin… do you know any Yin spells we can practice?"
Subaru fidgeted in place with anticipation, the only magic he had been able to use so far was a slight mana enhancement on his leg which ended with him breaking two of his toes. He suddenly realized that Nat was not here and any injuries would probably have to be taken care of the same way they did on earth.
Shin stopped moving for a moment as if in thought before quickly darting off towards Kaulters bed, hovering above the book the boy had been reading earlier. Subaru glanced at Kaulter who did the same to him, he turned back towards the book and picked it up, tossing it to Subaru.
While it was in mid air a thought invaded Subaru's mind.
"Vita"
The sound distracted Subaru as he went to catch the book, only for it to slam into his chest with far more punch than it should have. The sudden weight caused Subaru to dramatically fall over, the sight must have been ridiculous to behold since he could hear Kaulter laughing at him as he struggled to shove the small book off his torso.
Eventually Subaru finally managed to shove it off, it made a big indent in the hay mattress he was sitting on.
"What the hell was that!?"
Shin flew in front of his face and danced around in the air, it was far less cute this time and felt more like taunting than anything else. Subaru sat up fast and tried to snatch the ball out of the air, only for it to fly between his fingers and out of his reach.
"Not cool… bro… but also kind of cool."
He looked back at the book which was still causing an it sized indent in the bed. He stood up and tried to pick it up, needing both hands to do so. The book was now very heavy, Subaru guessed it had to weigh around eighty or so pounds.
"So Vita is a spell that makes things heavier… not going to lie, that's kind of disappointing."
Subaru sighed out, an offended feeling burst from Shin.
"Sorry bro, but I've seen Al create a wall of sand and shoot giant sand spears. In comparison those are just bound to be cooler."
Kaulter behind him hummed quietly while scratching his chin.
"I can see several uses for being able to add a large amount of weight to an object, especially if your Shin can extend its uses to work on people or large areas."
Subaru looked to Shin for confirmation, the spirit in question only giving the mental equivalent of a shrug. Subaru smiled and hopped off his bed, placing both hands on his hips. Shin flew up and rested just above his shoulder in preparation.
"Well then I guess we are going to have to figure that out right n-"
The door to their room was kicked open, causing Subaru to let out an embarrassing yelp. The sour face of Victor came poking through the now open doorway.
"I knew you brats would stay up, go to sleep dammit."
Kaulter only waved in apology as he blew out the candle sitting on his end table, leaving the only lights in the room as their spirits. Shin was especially hard to see since he didn't actually give off bright light, only a dark and dull purple colored outline with his center mass being black.
Although Kaulter's Sir and Missus both gave off enough light that Subaru could see him just fine, his body was covered in a mix of blue and green lights.
"Sorry Victor, we will be going to bed now"
Kaulter spoke in a soft, neutral voice, holding one hand up in surrender. Victor remained at the door for a small while longer, squinting in his eyes in suspicion before slowly walking back through the doorway, pulling the door shut behind him.
Without another word the blonde boy climbed up in his sheets, his water spirit flew into the candle flame, plunging the room in darkness.
Blindly and wordlessly Subaru opened his backpack and pulled out his fathers tracksuit jacket. He placed it on himself as he pulled the covers over him.
"Good night Kaulter…"
He only received snoring in return.
'Who the hell goes to sleep that fast?'
Though Subaru found himself falling into unconsciousness mere moments after.
"VITA!"
Subaru cried out while pointing at a large ball that was traveling through the air towards him. It rapidly fell to the ground as if it had previously been traveling through the air weightless, only to have gravity suddenly imposed upon it. Of course this was not the case, it was simply having the weight of the object skyrocket, causing the small rubber ball to slam into the ground with great force.
"Glad that this worked out ya know? It isn't the best spell, but I can see it having some uses… How would you feel about having a big hammer or something?"
Al stood thirty feet away from him in the sand pit, rolling his shoulder in it's socket. He leisurely made his way to the ball that was sitting in between the two of them, kneeling down and attempting to pick it up.
After a moment or two he gave up, the one armed gladiator found the extra hundred or so pounds a little too much for him. That and the fact that he didn't really care enough to waste the energy to try to lug it around, they were almost done anyway and someone else could come pick the damn thing up after they were done if they wanted to.
"I don't know… do they even have a warhammer here? The only weapon I have seen since we got here is your sword."
The Arena of the Spirits did not allow weapons in the arena when fighting so therefore there was no reason to keep any on hand. Al was only allowed to keep his so that Subaru could train with it. That and it was a weapon that Al had bought with his own money and brought with him just before coming onto the Gladiator Islands.
After a moment of thinking Al shrugged.
"Probably not, No real need to have them around."
Subaru sighed. The coolness of being able to cast magic had slightly worn off after he realized that he could only cast this specific debuff. The implication that he may only be restricted to debuffs in general was pretty terrifying to him… until he realized that he could just get more spirits like Kaulter did.
Speaking of Kaulter, Subaru turned his head to the side to see a far more extreme version of training in comparison to his own.
Kaulter was currently just… flying, or something along those lines. It looked more like he was standing in place at a point in the air.
Below him stood Victor, two minor spirits hovered over his shoulder.
"El Huma"
Four ice spears manifested in the air and shot towards Kaulter, who instead of moving summoned small bursts of wind magic from his hands to divert them before they managed to land a hit.
Subaru considered it completely unfair that while he was stuck with just the ability to increase the weight on an object greatly, Kaulter had the ability to apparently walk on the air without any apparent effort.
'Maybe if I contract a wind spirit I can do the same thing?'
A pang of sadness came from deep within him.
"Oi, Shin, I didn't mean anything by that, I swear. It was just one of those sort of 'What If' thoughts you know? We'll figure out how to ma- Oof"
A heavy rubber ball slammed into Subaru's chest, causing him to fall down. The sound of Shin laughing rang in his head.
"Oh sorry bro, but you gotta pay more attention while we're training… a-are you okay?"
Subaru chose to simply groan while he continued to lay down on his back in shame. The feeling of the sand on the ground finding its way under his shirt and resting within the pores of his skin. A purple ball of light… of not-light? Subaru wasn't sure, appeared above his head.
"I know… I deserve this…"
The ball of light bobbed up and down to show that it agreed with his statement. An unpleasant face appeared above him shortly after, Victor.
"Are you done moping about brat? I have work for you"
Subaru pushed himself up off the ground, his dad said that you should never talk to another man while sitting down. Although Subaru often forgot this, he refused to be looked down on by someone like Victor.
"I'm training with Al right now, can't whatever you want me to do wait for later?"
"Tch, you call that training? It looked like the two of you were finished with the way you were lazing about like that with your spirit. You are young and should have plenty of energy to do chores."
Subaru rolled his eyes in annoyance, a gesture that was promptly ignored by the Sour Mage.
"Since you saw it fit to drain all the pyroxene crystals in the Spirit Grove then you can kindly go and replace them all."
Subaru blinked at Victor while he processed just what he was saying.
"How… How do I do even do that?"
"Tch, come on brat. It's easy, it might even help train your gate."
That got Subaru's attention. Since Subaru was new to this world his gate was equal to that of an infant in strength. Even casting one spell from it had the potential to fracture it, and multiple spells could shatter it completely. Not even Nat was good enough at healing magic to help if it came to that.
When it came to Mana Enhancement Subaru was also very weak, currently he could only enhance at most one limb, and even then it fluctuated. When he had first tried to cast magic they had made the mistake of not checking for Subaru's magical affinity, Al said that he figured Subaru would just end up with what he got. The only thing that ended up happening was Subaru filling his leg with mana, and then nearly snapping it in two when he tried to stomp on the ground and summon an earth wall.
Both Al and Nat blamed it on his oddly infantile gate, well odd to Nat anyway. So when the idea of training said gate was brought up Subaru found himself far more willing to cooperate.
"Fine"
"Tch, You say 'Fine' like I was giving you a choice brat. Come on, follow me"
"Alright, it's easy. You simply need to move mana from your gate and expel it into the pyroxene crystal. It's like mana enhancement, it's so simple even a brat like you can do it."
Subaru sat on top of a large mossy log, a bucket of dull pyroxene crystal's piled high stood next to his foot. Victor stood across from him with a dull crystal in his palm. Closing his eyes he shifted mana from within his own gate and pushed it towards the crystal, causing it to glow a crimson red.
Carefully he walked over to a tree that was lined with the same crimson red pyroxene crystals and placed his own at the front of the line.
"The Pyroxene Crystals are used to enhance the signal that people send out when calling the spirits. Usually we have no need to replace the crystals since spirit affinity is not only rare to come by but usually fairly weak. But your affinity was so high that all the crystals were used up trying to further enhance your signal."
Subaru felt a bit of pride leak into him as he collected one of the dull crystal's from the metal bucket at his feet. He brought it eye level, Shin appearing out of thin air to inspect the crystal out of curiosity.
"I actually have never done mana enhancement on purpose, me and Al have never actually practiced it…"
Victor's sanpaku eyes narrowed as he collected another crystal from Subaru's bucket.
"Just how long have you been an apprentice for?"
Subaru rubbed the back of his neck, a habit he was beginning to copy from Al when he got nervous. He had been a gladiator's apprentice ever since he got summoned so…
"I think for a little over four months?"
"A little over four months and you have never practiced with mana enhancement? What about before you came to the island?"
The subject of Subaru's life before coming to Gunihive was a little taboo for the boy. Obviously he couldn't just tell Victor that he was from a different world, nor did he want to. Luckily he and Aldebaran had worked out some backstory, at least one that would work so long as Subaru wasn't placed under a crazy amount of interrogation.
"Uh, nope. I didn't practice with it before I got to the island… and I haven't practiced it since."
Victor stared at Subaru with an incredulous look on his face.
"You have NEVER used mana enhancement? I believe you are twelve correct?"
Subaru swallowed and nodded his head.
"Then how is it possible that you have never used mana enhancement, I have never met anyone who hasn't been practicing it since birth. I could almost forgive it if maybe you were just born with some defect that required you to do it manually, but you are telling me that you have never in your life done so?"
Subaru gave a silent nod.
Victor cupped his chin with his hand, resting the elbow on top of the other arm that crossed over his chest. He stood like that, in thought for several minutes, each second causing Subaru to sweat more and more.
"I do believe that your last arena, the Arena of the Sword, had someone in the staff that was capable of healing magic, no?"
Subaru nodded, his mind briefly flashing to the human incarnation of the color blue, Nat.
"Did she ever take a look at your gate? And if so, did she mention any possible defects with your gate that might have not been written on your file when giving you a checkup?"
"Well… she did say that my gate was sort of like… an infants?"
Victor rubbed the palm of his hand over his face as if he was wiping it clean of sweat or dirt.
"Well congratulations Subaru, you will now be filling pyroxene crystals with mana, draining them, and then filling them up again on repeat for every spare moment that you have from now until you leave this arena."
Subaru swallowed a mouthful of his own saliva.
With a wave of his hand both of Victor's minor spirits appeared in the air in front of him.
"Monitor his mana output, if it looks like he's about to blow up one of the crystals then drain it for him. I suggest you command your yin spirit to do the same"
And with that Victor spun around on his heel, facing towards the entrance to the arena.
"I need to speak with Aldebaran and… help instruct him on how to properly instruct an aspiring gladiator."