Clinton Van Ferra

Clinton was at the table, having breakfast with his family. His brothers looked at him with envy and some rejection. Since his ascension to talent, his future as head of the family has been set in stone. Although he was the fourth child, he had become the best candidate to be the leader, just like his father at the time.

Although there was no comparison, his father awakened as a magician in the middle of the ninth month, while Clinton awoke in the first half of the seventh month. The father was all smiles and praises towards his wonderful and blessed son. Clinton would probably be a much more powerful wizard than himself and would take the Van Ferra to an even higher and more prosperous level in society.

Given the time of his awakening, he would have to wait until the middle of the eighth month to participate in the magic affinity detection ceremony at the Guard Tower in Telassa, the Royal City. From Clinton's point of view, although the way his family treated him at the time was more than suitable for a person of his talent, being at home was annoying to him. He wanted to leave as soon as possible; his admission to the Tower of Liev was a fact; he did not want to waste more time in the company of these people who claimed to be his family.

'My son is a genius, a worthy son of his father,' said Sven, drinking more wine. He was satisfied with himself. He still remembered the relaxed way in which his son knocked on the door of his room a few days earlier. The angry Sven woke up in the middle of the night to find a feeling of magical energy and Clinton on the doorstep, accompanied by a maid holding a lamp.

'Father, I have awakened,' said the young man with absolute indifference, showing his father his right hand covered with scarlet.

'This is my son!' cried the father excitedly. 'Wake up, all of you! Clinton will be a magician like his father!'

'Excellent, you have always been an extraordinary child,' said Biela, Clinton's mother, praising her son.

'Congratulations, Clinton,' his brothers added.

One of the servants approached Sven to serve him more wine and took him out of his memories. He continued eating and drinking with a smile, thinking of the bright future of the family. A powerful magician would give them new life and the necessary impetus to return to their old glory.

Clinton showed little reaction to the whole show. Ever since he was a kid, he was aware of how special he was. The fact of becoming a magician was something that he took for granted. Now everything was at his feet; although his older brother was supposed to lead the family and was being trained for that role for years, there was only one person suitable for that position, and his name was Clinton van Ferra, or that was what he had thought until a few years ago. Things had changed, and now the limited Van Ferra house was not enough to meet his ambitions.

While everything seemed normal on the table, great dissatisfaction invaded the other members of the family. The congratulations, both from his mother and his brothers, were not sincere at all. For Biela, the most precious and wonderful of her children was her second daughter, Martel van Ferra, a beautiful, pampered, and incompetent girl. She was scared of Clinton's cold nature. For Clinton, she was the least important member of the family; he considered her more like an object of decoration than a person. Her only use would be to marry her to another nobleman to foster blood bonds.

The one most affected by Clinton's rise was the elder brother. Emer van Ferra was a blond and obese man. He was twenty years old. Despite the perfume, his body exudes a strong smell; his forehead and neck where always sweaty, giving him an even more repulsive appearance. However, he was very good for business, a liar, and a skilled manipulator, in addition to being a ruthless man. Emer, for his part, used his status as an heir to bully the others. He constantly reminded his brothers that he was the eldest son, the future head of the family, and that, as minor brothers, they had to find ways to make a living in the future. He despised Clinton for his slender figure, his handsome face, and his physical appeal. The way he kept calm was, above all, annoying. With Clinton's awakening, his situation changed, and the reason for Emer's self-perceived superiority disappeared. Now that Clinton had everything Emer ever desired, his total indifference to this change of life and to a secure future irritated his brothers even more. Any one of them would kill for the chance to be a magician. However, Clinton acted as if nothing had happened.

Clinton really didn't care about the family's future. Though he held a face of total indifference, he enjoyed the face of concern of his older brothers now that he had a significant advantage over them in all respects. There was really no need to alarm his father or the whole family at midnight for his awakening as a talent. His father would have noticed the magic energy coming out of his body the next day, but to see in his brothers those faces of despair that tried to simulate joy and conceal the desire to cry was too pleasant to let it pass.

Clinton hated his family, his incompetent brothers, and the whore that gave him birth. His mother was a cold woman; everything in her was fake; her marriage was just a way to climb the social ladder; she spent her life gossiping with other nobles; she was not interested in her children, her husband, or her family. But the worst of them all was his father. Sven was a mediocre magician, a coward, and a man with a lot of ambition and aspirations but without the necessary talent and too lazy to do anything. At least he had managed to maintain most of the fortune created by his grandfather, and with this, the Van Ferra's remained a high-class noble family that began to decline in recent years.

After several days, things at Van Ferra's house became more cheerful for Clinton and his father and more tense for the rest of the family. Particularly, his older brother was beginning to lose sleep. He had never been very kind to Clinton or anyone for that matter, and given his sense of superiority as the future head of the family, he mistreated others and now was paying the consequences.

'Good morning, Emer,' Clinton greeted his older brother; his voice was as cold as ever.

'Good morning, Clinton,' Emer's greeted. 'Well, your life has become very chaotic; the number of ladies from other noble families at your disposal has become ridiculous. All the nobles around us want to try to arrange a marriage.' Emer envy was palpable.

'It's really exhausting. Future magician, future leader of the family,' answered Clinton, rubbing salt on the wound and putting on a face of fatigue and stress.

Clinton's mention of becoming the new leader of the family changed Emer's face. His jaw became stiff as he struggled not to show his anger. Although he maintained a serious and unchanged face, seeing Emer's forehead veins swell and his jaw contract while trying to keep the false smile made Clinton jubilant.

'Yes, your future is assured, but if you end up being a shadow mage...' Emer tried to put his faith in this hope.

'It's a possibility, but I don't think it's my case. I can almost feel the power of the fire in me,' Clinton lied.

It wasn't true; he didn't know what elemental affinity he had, nor would he know until his magic energy stabilized. Since his father was a fire magician, him inheriting that elemental affinity was the most likely thing to happen, but there was no certainty; most magicians were shadow mages, even in descendants of magicians of other elements. With this lie, he only wanted to destroy his elder brother's hopes and plunge him a little more into misery for his own pleasure.

'Then I congratulate you,' said Emer, closing his right fist and clawing his nails on his own palms almost to the point of bleeding. 'Well, brother, I have some matters to attend to, so I'll take my leave now. I guess you also have a lot to do, given your new obligations.'

'Yes. Father continues to arrange meetings with the noble families around us; it is very tiring to be the center of attention,' said Clinton, with a smile.

Emer began to walk at a pace that denoted hurry; his anger betrayed him. Clinton saw him flee in silence with a small smile on his face. He knew exactly what his brother would do. Now, to relieve his stress, he would abuse one of the servants and force some unfortunate plebey, handed over by his family to "work" as a servant in the noble house, to be his sex toy for a while. He didn't even want to imagine how unpleasant it must be for anyone to have his brother's repulsive fat body on top of them. The poor creature would suffer even more if Emer switched to physical punishment to discharge his anger after satisfying his lust.

'Pathetic,' said Clinton to himself. The plebeys seemed repulsive to him; 'although it made sense, cockroaches must be coupled with cockroaches,' he thought.

Although Clinton occasionally had sexual desires, he would never lower himself to mate with a creature that was, in his opinion, slightly above a monkey. However, the Plebeys were a suitable couple for his useless and incompetent brother. Clinton would never take as a mate anything that was less than a high-class noble magician or someone from royalty. This was clear from the beginning, from the day he began to feel attraction to the other sex. Humans should not be mixed with inferior species.

'Ah! 'Here is my boy, the pride of our family,' said Sven when Clinton entered, after knocking on the door and receiving permission.

'A young man of great stature, Sven, you have reason to be proud,' agreed a gentleman of about fifty years old, who stood up to give Clinton his hand.

'Leader Yuri van Derrama, it is a pleasure to meet such a esteemed person,' flattered Clinton while taking the hand of the leader of the Van Derrama and bending his head slightly.

'Moreover, polite and knowledgeable, surely a future leader,' said Yuri with a smile.

Yuri van Derrama was a high-class nobleman with some influence in the royal court. Clinton knew who he was. Unlike other nobles in the surrounding area, the Van Derrama were one of the few to whom he paid some attention. Although they were not at the top of the social ladder, they were way more important than the Van Ferras and their neighbors.

'Father, if you are busy, I will come back at another time,' said Clinton.

Clinton knew perfectly well that all the nobles who came to the land of the Van Ferra family had the goal of getting closer to him. However, he played the role of the obedient son to give more protagonism to his father; he joined in the make-believe game that they came to see the current leader of the family and not him. At least in public, he had to keep the appearances; his father's mediocrity annoyed him, but for now he still was the head of the family, and until he knew for sure what element he had affinity for, he should behave.

'There is no need, Clinton; you are the subject of our conversation. Leader Yuri has come up with a very interesting proposal for you' assured Sven.

'For me?' asked Clinton, pretending to be ignorant, as in any other occasion.

'You see, leader Yuri has a daughter about your age,' explained Sven.

'Oh, but, leader Yuri, I am only a sixteen-year-old boy.' Clinton continued to pretend to be innocent; this was not the first time that such a proposition had been made in recent days.

'I understand it perfectly,' said Yuri, following the game. 'However, I consider you a good candidate. My daughter is also a future magician who woke up during the seventh month, and I would like to pair her with another talented noble magician.'

This time, Yuri's words had an effect on Clinton. Every year, the number of magicians who woke up during the harvest months was getting smaller and smaller; besides that, most of them were shadow magicians, and for the most part, they woke up during the last months of the harvest. The quality of the magicians had declined significantly in the last fifty years; his father, Sven, was an example; he could hardly be called a fire magician. His affinity was a miserable three percent. A mage who awakened in the seventh month, like him, was destined to be a powerful magician, at least in theory.

'I am sure that your daughter is an incredible girl, and she will be an extraordinary mage in the future. It will be a pleasure to meet her and bond with her,' Clinton replied with reverence.

'Excellent,' said Yuri. 'You two will meet when you attend the magic afinity recognition ceremony in the royal city.

While the adults talked about other topics, Clinton thought about his personal affairs, paying only the necessary attention to the adults conversation to capture relevant information about his persona. A few meters away, one of the maidens listened attentively to what was happening in the room. A few hours later, she would be telling Emer the marriage offers available for his brother, increasing his anger. Emer's rising anger would delight Clinton even more.

Days passed by, and meanwhile, Clinton mentally tortured his older brother. However, his fun was about to end; soon, he would go to the royal city and measure his elemental affinity. From that point on, it would be known which element he dominated and what his degree of affinity was. This would be the last nail in the coffin of his incompetent brother future. He was a perfectionist and a man obsessed with power; he did not tolerate people who conformed to the most basic things and did not seek progress. He was convinced that he was destined to pass into history as a legendary individual. Not as a mediocre failure like his father.

To improve the family's relations with other magicians and nobles, the Van Ferra decided to hold a party after the elemental compatibility test. The plan was to introduce all future magicians in society and foster partnerships among them, create alliances, and make commitments and proposals for marriage between the families.