The preparations for their rites were over . The spell array glimmered when the mana shards sent threads of mana out and connected all the materials in the notches. Clay tried his rite first.

  “Fail, fail, fail,” Thorin mumbled in a prayer by the side with his evil grin.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Quin delivered a spinning kick to his ass and made him bite his tongue.

  “I’m going to break your fucking nose bitch if I really fail!” Clay yelled from the spell array too.

  Alas, he didn’t. When the glow of the spell array faded, Clay opened his eyes and sauntered out with a confident smile. The mana around him had sheathed his presence. His stature bore a greater might now but dimmed his existence. As if he wore a veil that concealed him.

  From this moment on, he was a Kinesis, a master of the Mind and the Shadow Arcanas.

  “How’s it?” Quin asked.

  “I feel lighter,” Clay said, smiling. “But also like I’m wearing a blanket.”

  “Is it really how the diary described it?” Thorin asked, forgetting his vexation in the face of curiosity.

  “It is,” Clay said. “The spells of mind and shadow arcanas should hold more power for me now. And the specialties of the arcanas should also take effect.”

  He had attained a higher stability with spell models—this came from his Mind Arcana. And his mana had gained the property of stealth—this was from his Shadow Arcana.

  When he demonstrated it, the threads of quiet mana slithered around his fingers with ease that Thorin only dreamed of. The pebbles that shot away from his cast of

  now traced a stealthy arc but still shattered the trunks of thick trees. If he used his mana artifact, the Onyx Shot, it would multiply the extent of destruction.

  Thorin lost his words when he saw the damage. A sense of anticipation bubbled in his heart. If Clay could do so much with only two arcanas, he only dared to imagine what he could do with five.

  ? Nevertheless, along with the anticipation, a hint of foreboding budded in his heart. His cousins would succeed, but he would fail… His smile waned away, and he pulled back from the excitement. The premonition was only a figment of his anxiety and dread, he reckoned. There was no basis for it, so he shook his head and ignored it.

  “It’s my turn now,” Quin said.

  Thorin didn’t have the capacity to curse Quin anymore. He watched on in silence as the spell array repeated the same process. In the end, Quin succeeded as well. He came off the spell array as a Berserker. The specialties of his chosen arcanas took effect. His mana’s synergy with the weapons soared—this came from his Weapon Arcana. And the cut he made on his arm healed before their eyes—this was from his Blood Arcana.

  “Let’s have a feast tonight,” Clay said, matching Quin’s delight with his grin.

  “I’d rather train my spells,” Thorin griped.

  “Don’t sulk,” Quin said and wrapped his hand around Thorin’s shoulders. “Think of it as a pre-celebration feast for when you succeed too.”

  “I want my own feast,” Thorin said.

  “We’ll do it again when you succeed,” Clay said. “Let’s just have some good food tonight when Byram comes back.”

  Before Byram’s return, however, a guest knocked on their protective barrier. Lanthern, the man who’d barged upon their hunt of the Fire Snakes with his two girls, carried a smile when he extended an invitation to the three cousins.

  “We’ve contacted almost everyone with the task’s diary in the street market,” Lanthern said. “There’s going to be a meeting in five days at the Rightseal Tavern. I’m here to invite you three.”

  “We’ll consider it,” Thorin said with a polite smile and sent him off.

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  “What do you think?” Quin asked when Lanthern’s back faded away among the woods.

  “There’s no harm in taking a look,” Clay said. “With the security of the street market, it should be a friendly enough meeting.”

  “I think we should go,” Thorin said. “It’ll be good for us if we create some contacts. Everyone has the same starting point as us, so there won't be any hierarchy.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Quin said. “This Lanthern guy looks quite eager for the leadership. Why else would he run around gathering everyone?”

  “Let him dream,” Clay said. “I doubt any group coming to the meeting will relent to him that easily.”

  “If he’s belligerent about it, we’ll back off too,” Thorin said. “Let’s see what happens in the first meeting.”

  “We still have five days,” Clay said. “I’ll get used to my class by then, just in case.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that too,” Quin said.

  ……

  Five days later.

  The meeting began in the early afternoon when reserving a room in the tavern was easier. Though the business lacked the crowd of patrons at this hour, it still served those who paid the coins. As the chilled glasses of ales occupied the table for all the groups present, Lanthern started the talks with simple introductions.

  “Every group here owns a task’s diary,” Lanthern said when everyone knew each other’s names. “And we all know the risks that come with it. My group was attacked for it, and I’m sure you guys experienced something similar. So, I thought to gather everyone here to create a strong and united society where we all will support each other. If we come together as one, we can squash any threat to any single group among us. What do you guys say?”

  “I’m not opposed to it,” the man with a blade hanging by his side, Stetson, said. “But I’ll need to hear more details.”

  “Of course.” Lanthern smiled at him then looked at everyone else. “My initial thoughts on it were about a society where we can create friendly transactional relationships. Where we can often come together for trade meets, and where we support each other through force in case of an outside threat. I understand what you’re worried about, so let me be clear on it. I’m not suggesting the creation of a precursor to a guild, but a loose alliance that can fill in the gaps for us. There will be no rules. I won't even advocate for a rule of no infighting among us. There will be no restrictions.”

  “Hmm, we can support that,” Stetson said after discussing with his team of four in whispers. Since they all stood at the same starting point, their numbers mattered more in determining the weight of the voice.

  One after another, the groups present added their assent to the support. Thorin did too with a nod, speaking for his cousins. Thus, a loose society came to life in the nondescript room of the Rightseal Tavern.

  “Shall we name the society?” Lanthern asked. “Do you guys have any suggestion?”

  “We all had our start on that mountain,” Stetson said. “So, let’s name the group Ashfall Society.”

  “No objection,” Thorin said.

  The others also agreed one after another, and Lanthern widened his grin at the success of the gathering. “Since we’re all gathered here for the first time, should we have a trade session? It’ll help us get acquainted better,” he said.

  “Let’s not,” Thorin said and poured cold water over him. Even his grin twitched and died. “We’re all beginners here. I doubt we have anything in surplus that we can use for the trade right now. I know we don’t.”

  “Yeah.” Stetson added his bit. “We don’t have anything to trade right now either. At best we can take out some mana shards to buy something, but I don’t think any of us here have anything to sell.”

  “Why don’t we trade some information instead? I’m sure we all have gathered some news by now,” Thorin said. A hint of hostility wafted in his direction when he did, and even Stetson shared the wave with him. They both glanced at Lanthern who had killed the glint in his eyes and widened his innocuous smile.

  “Seconded,” Stetson said with a chuckle.

  “I have a piece of information that I can sell,” Frederich, a man whose group touched the corner of the room, said. “But how will it work? What will I get in return?”

  “How about thish?” Lanthern said, taking back the initiative of the conversation in a hurry, slurring his speech. “You tell us a little about the information, and those who decide to buy it will pay you. Let’s make this clear though. Since this information won't be exclusive to a single group, the burden of the payment will be shared. And also, please make a promise that you won't sell this same information to anyone outside of the society for at least a while. We can further discuss the specifics of that.”

  “Alright,” Frederich said. “It’s about the street market and the changes that are about to happen.”

  ?