Black Onyx - Forgotten Magic

Sera looked at him with the most innocent look possible. "If I'm around people my tongue might slip and I might reveal your secret," she said while giving Gerald a mischievous smile.

"Ooh, I see. You are trying to blackmail me." Gerald crossed his arms on his chest and returned her a wicked smile. "Okay sure, you can join me. But I have a few conditions! I will decide when and where we go, and no matter what happens on our 'adventures', it stays between us. No one can know what happens. No. Mater. What." He especially emphasized the last few words.

Sera looked at him with a confused expression, but quickly her face reddened and she covered her chest with her hands and gave him an angry look.

Gerald sneered in his heart. She misunderstood him, but he purposely gave her a few dirty hints, so now she will be disgusted with him and she definitely won't be bugging him anymore.

"Okay, fine. I accept your conditions." Sera said quietly, looking at the floor. She was trying to hide her embarrassment.

If Gerald was currently drinking he would definitely spit out the drink. 'This girl... Going with a guy she just met a few days ago and not even giving it a second thought?! There has to be something wrong with her brain.' Gerald thought to himself.

He just opened his mouth to attempt to distance himself from Sera again, when a voice came from his side.

"Excuse me."

Gerald turned and looked. He was actually standing at the front desk arguing with Sera, letting Luna listens to it all. He sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand. That was an extremely embarrassing moment for all of them.

He tried to calm down the best he could and have a nice smile. "Hi, I am here because I would like to join the Warriors Guild. Could you help me with that?"

"Sure, that's my job after all," Luna responded and took out a piece of parchment. "Here, you have to write some of your personal information, and then we can measure your stats. The registration fee is five gold coins."

"Wait, five gold coins?" Gerald repeated. He never heard that there would be any fee, and he obviously didn't have that kind of money.

Luna nodded.

Gerald made a disappointed face, but then he suddenly remembered something and he turned to Sera. "It would seem that we are not meant to be together. Unfortunately, I don't have five gold coins. I'm afraid that I won't be able to join you on your adventures. Sorry."

Sera looked perplexed and she was muttering incoherently, "B- But... I… We…"

Gerald was already celebrating in his mind. Worst case scenario, he will just ask for help from the Academy and maybe he could get some work there.

He could for example help translate books for headmaster Orin. That would be an easy job since he understood every language perfectly.

He could of course just borrow the money, but then he would probably have to work much harder to pay the debt off. He didn't like that idea.

Thud!

A muffled sound woke Gerald up from his fantasy. He looked over his shoulder and there was a small leather bag full of coins on the counter.

"I'll pay the fee for you. I managed to save five gold coins in the last two years. I at least hope it shows that I'm sorry for dragging you into trouble with Adelard," Sera said quietly.

Gerald was actually stunned. That was not pocket change. 'She needed two years to save it up and now she just gave it away?!' Gerard exclaimed in his mind. 'Okay... Maybe I judged her too fast.'

"Sigh, fine, I guess I have no choice now, do I?" He pulled the document closer and filled up the wanted information like name, age, gender… He wasn't actually that opposed to joining the Guild.

"Oh, so you are that Gerald, huh?" Luna commented when she read the parchment. "Sera told me a lot about you," she giggled when and looked at Sera who was blushing behind him.

"So I've heard," Gerald said indifferently.

"Follow me, we need to conduct a few tests before we are done," Luna waved her hand and led Gerald into the back room. Her assistant took her place in the meantime.

In the backroom, Luna first tested Gerald's physical strength with weights, and after that, she made a few tests to check his physical and mental health. Lastly, she gave him a milky-white transparent crystal the size of a quail egg.

"This is a Pure Etherium Crystal. Insert your Mana into it for a few minutes. Try to last as long as possible," Luna said. Then she took out an hourglass and indicated Gerald to begin.

Buzzz!

A quiet buzz came out of the crystal when Gerald started inserting Mana into it. It felt like he was expelling the Mana inside and replacing it with his own. Soon the crystal began changing color. From white, it went to a gray color and it still kept going darker. After about five minutes it turned completely black.

Gerald felt like he just finished a long workout, he felt exhausted. His muscles were fine and full of energy, but his mind felt tired. He figured it had probably something to do with the fact that he just transferred all his Mana into the crystal.

Luna and Sera were staring at the Crystal in his hand.

"B- Black?" Luna blurted out. She then quickly took out a book and tried to find an explanation in the manual.

"There has to be something wrong… It can't be black… Did I miss something?" she muttered to herself.

Gerald just scratched his head in confusion. "What's wrong?"

Luna tried to calm down and took a big breath of air and said, "There are six Elements. And they all correspond to a different color. Light, Wind, Water, Earth, Fire, and Space. They have yellow, green, blue, brown, red, and purple colors respectively. " Luna explained.

"Ther is no black, and I have also never seen results like this," she said.

"Well… could it be maybe Space? Or it could be just a mixture of colors. You already know that I have multiple elements." Gerald guessed. He didn't actually believe it himself. It was just something he said to calm the girls.

"Space… Yes... Yes, that has to be it!" Luna quickly agreed. "You have a really strong affinity with Space!"

"Wow, Space affinity. That's so rare. I thought it was only a legend." Sera voiced her thoughts.

"If it's so rare, then I assume it's not a well-known Element?" Gerald asked.

Sera and Luna looked at each other. "Well, it's actually a useless Element," said Luna in embarrassment. "No one was actually able to use it until now as far as I'm aware. The only good thing is that you can use a Space Ring with it, but that's about it."

"What's a Space Ring?" Gathering as much knowledge as possible on all aspects of this world was a must for Gerald, so he just asked whatever interested him.

"It's a magical artifact from before the Great War. I heard it can store stuff in another separate space, but you need Space affinity to control it." Luna explained to him.

Gerald scratched his chin as he was in deep thought. Having an item that can basically have access to a separate space dimension was amazing. Just the convenience of not having to carry around a bunch of stuff was extremely convenient.

"Where can I get a ring like that?" he asked Luna.

"Ugh, I don't actually know. There aren't many of them in existence." She stayed silent for a while, thinking hard. "Maybe the royal family has one, but I don't think they would sell it to you."

"Why not?"

"Well, even if they can't use it, it's still an extremely valuable artifact. And even if they were willing to sell it, I don't think you could afford it."

"Is it really that expensive?" Gerald curiously asked.

Luna giggled and said, "If you think that something being worth tens of thousands of gold coins is expensive, then yeah."

"Ugh!" Hearing that, Gerald was stunned speechless, and disappointment was clearly visible on his face.