"An examination... When can you do this?" Quinlan said. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ nοvelfire.net
"When I have the time. But of course, we have to celebrate first." Siderius said.
"You damn right we have to!" Bas slammed the table.
The bartender approached their table and put down a large wooden mug of dark beer. He also brought more ales for Quinlan and Bas.
"You drink liquor?" Quinlan raised an eyebrow. Siderius seemed rather young for alcohol.
"Looks can be deceiving, my friend. I am a slave for the liquor." Siderius chugged the dark beer down his throat in one go.
"That’s my man!" Bas laughed.
The bartender observed them with wide eyes. Even for him, a man that could finish the giant wooden mug was surprising. This wasn’t a small mug for drinking water. It was a half a liter beer mug.
"Give me another one, bartender!" Siderius said.
"Me too, bartender!" Bas slapped the table again.
"You drunkards better not wreck my inn." The bartender glanced at the trio.
"Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on them." Quinlan said.
Siderius spent the day drinking and talking with Quinlan and Bas. The two were fun to hangout with and could tell a lot of things about Everia, the neighboring kingdom of Eldoria.
Thanks to them, Siderius learned a lot more about this world. Everia had an entire different religious faith from Eldoria. Eldoria believed the Creators were the Mother Trees. While Everia believed in Gods.
Ancient and primordial gods that shaped the sky and land of this world. The Outsider, a god that did not take part in creating the world, but a very powerful god that existed outside of time and space. He was the force of the abyss, the voice of the void.
The kingdom of Everia was also ruled by monarchs. The King ruled them all and under him were houses, not clans like Eldoria.
Each house had an animal as their emblem. House Carlisle was a golden crocodile. Their homeland was a vast humid swamp in the corner of the Everia kingdom.
Quinlan belonged to house Carlisle, the only living member at the moment. His mother had died when he was too young to remember. And his father passed away recently due to an illness.
Bas was a low-born mercenary, a sellsword who traded his strength and steel for coins. He didn’t talk much about his past and only told stories about where he had travelled and the people he met.
He was extra careful when talking about Will of the Spirit and usually changed the subject whenever Quinlan asked where he learned it from.
Will of the Spirit was a confidential technique. There were a lot of variations of it and each Great House developed a different Spirit Art.
House Carlisle was a Minor House. They didn’t have a Spirit technique of their own.
Naturally, Spirit Art was not shared. Only the members and the loyalists to that house might study and train the art.
The fact that Bas also had a Spirit Art meant that he had connections with a Great House. Where he acquired that connection was a mystery that Bas did not like to talk about.
At the beginning, only Bas and Siderius were drinking. Quinlan, because of his illness, did not want to drink in front of Siderius.
Still, the hunter made him feel welcome enough to open up and have a feast together.
"It... Hic... It was good that you were there man..." Quinlan was speaking and having a hiccup at the same time. But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the moment. "I was almost killed by that ghoul... Hic..."
"Anytime, Quinlan." Siderius patted the drunken man on the shoulder.
"It’s a pity you killed that witch, Sid." Bas held the beer mug in his hand and swirled it. "She was fine as hell."
"Yeah. But we couldn’t let her go. Witches are a threat to any human society."
Siderius sneakily grabbed a handful of salt in his left hand. His right index finger dipped into the beer to wet it. Then, Siderius drew a small seal on the palm of his left hand.
The salt lit up in blue and seeped under his skin. A blue shining seal was temporarily placed on Siderius’ palm and stuck on it.
Siderius put that hand outside the window near their table. Suddenly, black liquid leaked out of his fingers and poured down to the grass outside.
"Another!" Bas shouted.
He and Siderius clashed their mugs together. They chugged another round of beer mugs down their throat.
"God damn, Siderius! You’re one tough bastard! I have to cheat a little."
Bas was feeling a little bit dizzy from the beers and ales. They have been drinking for hours. Even for a seasoned fiend like him, it was too much.
Bas closed his eyes. A faint white energy ran on his skin. This energy was thinner and dimmer than the energy he had used on his fingers, a more diluted version of it.
Bas opened his mouth and clouds of vapor exited.
The smoke was filled with the smell of alcohol. Somehow, by using the willpower of the Spirit, Bas had evaporated the alcohol inside his stomach and pushed it out his mouth.
"Interesting." Siderius observed him closely. The more he learned about the Will of the Spirit, the more he could replicate it.
From what he saw, Will was a type of energy that could affect the physical world. It was not as powerful as Aether and more like an element inside the human body.
It could spread to other object outside the body, namely a weapon. That was how the Spirit Swordsmen got their name from. They infused their sword with the power of Will.
Siderius asked himself. What is the limit of this energy? How to produce it? Where does it come from?
"Willpower is much more versatile than I thought." Siderius said.
Bas laughed. "Excuse me! Without pushing out some beer, I can’t continue drinking."
"No worry. I am the same."
Siderius raised his left palm and showed Bas the blue seal.
The two men laughed out loud. Quinlan had already passed out a few hours ago. His head laid on the table.
"You should have come a little sooner... Damien could join too..." Quinlan murmured then fell back to sleep.
"Damien?" Siderius said.
"A friend of his." Bas explained. "Damien of house Argentius, one of the Great Houses of Everia. He is deemed to be the greatest swordsman of our generation."
"Oh? That is a man I’d like to see."
Bas shrugged. "The guy is a little bit arrogant. He also has a very handsome face. He is very similar to you actually. Same shade of hair, only slightly darker."
"And why did the greatest swordsman of Everia come to Eldoria?" Siderius asked.
"Because of a woman."