Unknown Intrinsic Nature

"Affirmative. IE initiation phase-2 launched. Please standby for mission briefing."

Lance laid back down on the moist grass. He felt at peace in his heart as the decision had already been made. All that remained was to do his best and face whatever came his way.

The feeling of having the power and control of everything around was still fresh in his mind. It was intoxication and he wished that whatever mission came, he could gain those powers again or at least something similar.

As Lance idly day dreamed of flying through the air with the powers of superman, he heard the voice once again in his ear.

"Anomalous condition 66 detected: Unknown intrinsic nature. Summoning ancestor."

In the area in front of Lance, a human figure started appearing. In a few seconds, the familiar booming laugh echoed through the ground as Attok appeared.

"I knew it boy! You are one in a million! And here I had started to lose hope in my line. Well done!".

Lance was by now sick of all the mysterious uttering of the old man with no explanation whatsoever. He snapped, "What are you talking about old man? Can you stop being all mysterious and for once give me a piece of information I can fully understand?"

This was Lance's nature. He had an unruliness which surfaced when anything irritated him beyond his limit. His limit wasn't really small, but it wasn't all that large either. Once he had lashed out at a senior for just patting him on his head even though he had told him repeatedly not to do so. In his irritation, he had punched the thin as bones senior in the stomach resulting in him being hospitalized. What followed was repeated bullying until the seniors batch passed out of college, but Lance never once regretted his actions. The satisfaction that spreads in ones heart when one follows its wishes is worth almost any consequence, in Lance's opinion.

Rage flashed across Attok's face as he thought about teaching the kid a lesson. Reflecting that he had indeed been pretty ambiguous so far and that the kid in front of him was potentially a one in a million prodigy, he visibly composed himself.

"Boy, I admit my mistake of being mysterious, but if you take that tone with me again you will feel the full brunt of the fury that the denizens of Ashalok still dread about in remembrance even though hundreds of years have passed."

"You have gone through the first phase of initiation but there still must be some things about what is going on that you aren't clear about. I will first give you a succinct summary of what has happened so far and an overview of what your missions are going to be. Its all information that you were going to be debriefed about soon anyway, so there should be no problem with me telling them to you."

Although he had inferred a lot of things so far, an overall understanding of his situation was still something that Lance was lacking. He resolved to apologize to the old man if he actually gave such an explanation.

If not, he thought, lets see what it is that the so called Ashalok is so afraid about.