Devol pursed his lips, looked away, and made no attempt to answer. “Well then, second question. It’s more personal curiosity, to be honest.” He looked at the anchor point and noticed another small pattern above the top arrow in the shape of a rectangle with several smaller ones inside and stitched together with lines. “Why did you think punching the anchor would get it to work for you?”
The youngster rolled his head to look at him with weary eyes. “I was merely eliminating all my options.”
“As you might have noticed, all you managed to do was trigger the protective ward,” he retorted and indicated the rectangle that faded slowly. “And you are lucky it is there. If you had managed to damage the anchor, be it the symbols or rock, it would have simply made it deactivate.”
“The symbols or the rock? I thought the symbols were the anchor,” Devol muttered and narrowed his eyes at the large stone. “That’s not simply a rock, then?”
Vaust shook his head slowly. “No, that is not ‘simply a rock.’ If it were that easy to make anchor points, they wouldn’t be so valuable.”
“A fair point.” Devol sighed, straightened a little, and rested his hands on his knees as he stared at the symbols. “I wasn’t eliminating options. The truth is that I got angry.”
The mori chuckled and offered him the pitcher. “It took a while but you are honest, at least.”
With a self-deprecating grimace, the boy took it and drank some of the water. “I tried doing the…oh, that is refreshing.” He took another gulp and wiped his lips with his jacket sleeve. “I did exactly as you did, but the symbols didn’t light up for me. Then I tried letting my Mana trickle in. That got them to light up a little, but when I poured more in, nothing happened—they didn’t even get brighter.”
He is close—or at least on the right track. This was not a test for him to get into the Templars’ keep. He had said that purely as motivation. What he was trying to do was get him to understand how much Anima enhanced the trinity. He had hoped that he would catch on given that he had already seen what Vis and Vita could do. It wasn’t unreasonable to expect that he would come to the final conclusion on his own—what were the possibilities of Vello?
But he imagined the boy was getting hungry and there was no use to continue the training if he would pass out from hunger and exhaustion. He stood, took a swig from his gourd, and went to retrieve the large bag of food. In silence, he returned with it and placed it on the ground. He was about to address his companion when he saw he had drawn his sword and now stared at it. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m gonna try something,” Devol said, pushed to his feet, and approached the symbol.
“You can have more time once you’ve eaten,” he told him and sat with his legs crossed. While he was not exactly sure what the young Magi was contemplating, he was fairly certain it would not work.
“What’s one of the differences between you and me?” the boy asked and held his blade up.
“Well, there are so many,” Vaust responded as he undid the knot on the bag. “Most aren’t kind—at least to you. I don’t think you need to bruise your ego any further.”
Devol looked at him with an exaggerated frown. “Thanks for that,” he muttered and turned toward the anchor. “But in this case, I thought the one thing you have that I don’t is that you are used to your majestic.”
“That is one thing, certainly,” he agreed and selected a tin which he opened to reveal herb-buttered salmon. “Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a bite? One of the things your realm does better than mine is food, although that may be due to the big difference in diet.”
The boy’s blade began to glow with the same white light as before and Vaust was grateful that he still wore his shades in this enclosed area. It seemed brighter than he remembered. “What are you doing?”
His companion did not answer and instead, placed the blade against the rock. With that, his purpose suddenly became clear. He thought the majestic acted something like a key and that one needed to have it on them or active to open the anchor before they could control it. It wasn’t a bad train of thought, but it was a futile one. After all, not every member of the order had a majestic.
He lifted a piece of fish to his lips to take a bite but a loud roar was immediately followed by another burst of bright light. Vaust dropped the tin and almost drew his kama as his eyes widened.
Devol now stood in front of an open gate. The image of the Templar castle was visible on the other side of the large portal. He could feel the wind from the mountains and the distant heat of the flames that adorned the hall but did not understand how the boy had accomplished it. There was only one way to control an anchor point.
The young Magi looked at him and beamed as he held his sword aloft. “It looks like I passed the first test, eh, Mr. Lebatt?” he shouted victoriously.
The mori relaxed, moved his hand away from his weapon, and simply gave the boy a nod. He had indeed passed his made-up test, although he wanted to accuse him of cheating. Unfortunately, he was unsure of how he did it.
Still smiling, his young companion ran toward him, placed the tin Vaust had taken out into the bag, and tied it again. “We’ll bring this with us,” he said happily as he shouldered it. “Maybe we have enough to share with your Templar friends.” Oh, there would be, the mori
