Affinities and specialities

"Since you actually mastered your first spell, I'm going to teach you another one", Charles said. "The spell is a simple levitation spell. The same one I am using right now". Charles pointed at the lit up candles that was floating above the heads of the three brothers.

Charles willed it and the burning waters were put out. He waved his hand and silently casted a liquid gathering spell. The water floated off the table and went into the bowl. Then the floating candles slowly landed on the table; each in front of the boys.

"To cast the spell you basically do the same thing you did with the fire spell. You concentrate and then think of what you want your magic to do for you and then say the spell", Charles explained.

"𝑎𝑖𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑢́𝑚𝑎𝑖 𝑒𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑒́𝑟𝑎"

Charles demonstrated. The bowl of water he placed on the table started to slowly float above the table.

"You must be careful with how you say the spell. The spell is "Aioroúmai eis ton aéra". Saying it differently might cause a negative or positive effect depending on what you actually said and how you said it", Charles explained.

"Now try it with the candles", Charles said as the floating bowl of water landed back on the table.

Without hesitating, the boys casted the spell.

"𝑎𝑖𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑢́𝑚𝑎𝑖 𝑒𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑒́𝑟𝑎"

The candles slowly started floating and the flames lit on them still didn't extinguish.

Charles clapped again. He couldn't cease to be impressed by the three boys.

He waved his hand and the flames on the candles were extinguished and then floated to where they were on their shelf.

Since the boys had effortlessly casted the levitation spell, he had to make it a little bit harder for them. Three stone, each the size of a head floated from the shelves and landed in front of the boys.

"Try it on the stones next!", Charles said.

The boys hesitated a bit. They could tell the rocks were really heavy just by looking at them.

"𝑎𝑖𝑜𝑟𝑜𝑢́𝑚𝑎𝑖 𝑒𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑒́𝑟𝑎"

They casted the spell. Immediately after casting, the veins on their foreheads and necks became visible as they struggled to let the rocks levitate. The rocks started to shake and slowly levitate for a while but they had to put them back down since it was too heavy for their current level of control over their magic .

Charles stilled seemed to be impressed by their incredible feats.

"Incredible indeed! But like I said earlier, magic is like a muscle. The more you train it, the stronger it becomes. So keep practicing the spell, you'll be able to levitate boulders if your magic is strong enough", Charles explained.

"That's enough spells for today. Next, we'll be checking your affinities", Charles said.

He walked over to one of the shelves and opened an old chest. He took some kind of a metalic artifact out of it. The artifact was cylindrical and was about 20cm long. It had some kind of carvings all around it.

"Any time you cast a spell, a significant amount of magic is used up. Let's say, you cast a fire spell, you might use up a lot of magic but when I cast the same fire spell, I'll only use up a small amount of magic. That's what an affinity is

"So basically, an affinity is any kind of spell that uses up less amount of magic than it normally uses up for other witches"

"Affinities can either be elemental or non-elemental. For example, a witch with a wind affinity can freely manipulate the air to a certain extent without the need to cast a spell or use silent casting", Charles explained.

"I call this an "Affinity Appraiser". It does exactly what its name says. It finds the kind of spells you have the highest affinity for", Charles said as he waved the metallic magic artifact in his hand.

Charles passed the affinity appraiser to Daniel and said, "All you have to do is direct a small amount of your magic into it".

Daniel looked at the magic artifact in his hand before he directed a small amount of his magic into it. Just then, what looked like a force field appeared around the affinity appraiser. The force field enlarged, fully engulfing Daniel within it. Charles, Kevin and Bryce felt like they were being pushed back. Even though they tried to resist, they started taking a few steps back as they couldn't fully resist the repulsive force coming from the force field.

The force field shrunk back to its previous size before it broke apart as Daniel stopped directing magic into the affinity appraiser.

"Force manipulation! A very strong non-elemental affinity and a rare one too. With it you can control physical forces like gravity, kinetic energy, pressure and more depending on your magic power", Charles commented as he took the magic artifact from Daniel's hand.

"Your turn", Charles said as he passed the affinity appraiser to Bryce.

Charles stepped back after handing the artifact to Bryce. Bryce did exactly what Daniel did. He directed a small amount of his magic into the affinity appraiser. Strands of his hair started floating up and sparks started appearing and disappearing around him. The sparks then turned into many arcs of electricity disappearing as soon as they appeared.

"Electrokinesis! Gives you feats like creating and manipulate electric currents and lightning. You can also use it for other stuff once you started to learn more about it and increase your magic power", Charles explained.

Bryce stopped directing magic into the appraiser and handed it to Charles. Charles then handed it to Kevin. Kevin looked at the artifact before taking it. He directed a small amount of his magic into it. Then the artifact that was metallic started sprouting tiny multiple colored flowers all around it. Kevin felt something wrapping around his feet. He looked down and saw vines rising from the concrete floor and wrapping around his feet and back as if trying to protect him.

"Flora manipulation, vine manipulation to be specific. Not as rare as force manipulation or electrokinesis but not common either. Mostly used for binding targets by most witches. If hard enough, you can even effortlessly break apart the hardest boulders and if sharp enough, you could slice through them and impale people instantly killing them", Charles explained.

"By how fast you guys were able to master the fire spell, I thought at least one of you would have an affinity for fire but turns out non of have it", Charles said.

"So what is 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 affinity?", Kevin asked.

"Sadly, I do not have an affinity. I'm a rare case where a witch doesn't have an affinity but I have my speciality make up for", Charles answered.

"Speciality?", Daniel asked.

"You might have an affinity for fire spells, but that doesn't mean you're good at casting fire spells. Specialities are the kind of spells related to a specific idea that a witch finds easier to cast. Perfect example is the necromancer. A witch that specialises in raising or reanimating the dead"

"Specialities could be related to or not to your affinity, sometimes, a witch's affinity can even be the same as their speciality"

"Necromancers usually have either dark or poison affinities but some might even have fire or ice affinities. A witch could have at least one or two specialities", Charles explained.

"What is your speciality?", Bryce asked.

"One of my specialities is spell nullification. With it, I can nullify any spell within a certain range", Charles answered.

"With how fast the three of you were able to master the fire spell I just taught you, you could say, the three of all have a speciality for fire spells", Charles added.

He walked up to one of the shelves and picked up three old looking books and gave each to the boys.

"They are grimoires. I presume you all know what grimoires are since Bryce was given one by Janet.", Charles said.

"That's it for today. You must learn some spells on your own, I won't always be there to teach you", Charles said.

Charles was about to leave the basement when Bryce approached him.

"Hey, Charles", Bryce said.

"What?", Charles asked but didn't stop and continued to go up the stairs.

"Do you think that the gems have the ability to heal", Bryce asked. He was still baffled by how his injuries healed so fast.

"It may be possible. Remember, I told you that the full capability of the gems haven't been discovered yet. Why do you ask?", Charles asked.

"Well last night, I got into a fight with some drunk idiot. I beat him but I also got injured Then I suddenly had an urge to run. I ran away from the party and far as I could and then i healed up in an instant", Bryce explained.

Charles smiled and said, "Then I believe we just found out a new ability the gems might have".

*****

It was starting to get dark and Elena Grace, Beaconsdale Highschool's history teacher was on her home after a friend's house.

"How can she suddenly quit from the school like that", she said to her.

Mrs. Evelyn Morris, the English teacher had suddenly quit from the school and Elena was just coming from he house after talking to her. When Elena asked why she quit, she said she didn't know why but didn't want to come back.

As she was walking, she could hear footsteps following her. She turn to look but there was no one there. She decided to ignore it and kept going her way. Then she heard the footsteps again, she turn to look and there was no one there and she was starting to get little bit scared.

"Hello? Is someone there?".

There was no answer so she thought she was hearing things. She turned around and continued to walk to her house. She took a turn and almost bumped into a man wearing a black hoodie. Elena was about to apologise to the man when she felt a sharp pain. She looked down and found a dagger covered in blood in the man's gloved hand. She looked at the man and noticed his unnatural black eyes. The whole of his eyes and thin veins appeared under his eyes. He stabbed Elena twice with the dagger. She fell to the ground on her back.

"Who... are you?", Elena asked.

The man squarted beside Elena and said, "I'm no one important, just doing what the boss wants. I don't really agree with what he wants to do so I'm not going to kill. I'm just going to make it seem like a normal mugging".

"What are you?", Elena asked, whimpering.

He didn't answer.

The man took Elena's purse along with the valuables on her.

The man's eyes changed back to his normal brown eyes and the veins under his eyes disappeared. He looked into Elena's eyes and said, "Don't worry, you'll wake up in a hospital very soon. Forget everything that happened now and just lay down for a bit, help is on the way".

Elena suddenly felt light headed for a bit. The man then walked away and a few moments later, Elena could hear sirens.