Chapter 10: Critical Thinking

It took a month of constant restraint to finally help Gabriel leave the haze that clouded over his mind. Time that his family lay in constant fear of what was happening. Seamus had reached out to all of his contacts in the capital in hopes that someone could aid his wife in diagnosing his troubled grandson.

"Is there any news on Marcel or Lily?"

Looking up from his desk to see his eldest, Elijah, Seamus was once more left in a daze. The man that his son grew into was someone worthy of his own respect, only he was a little too rigid in his thoughts and that was the only thing preventing his son from succeeding him.

"Marcel, yes… Lily, no…" Answered the great General as he held his head in his hands. "Marcel claims that it is just the mental after effects of the bloodline awakening. He thinks that Gabriel is dealing with the shock that he can't externalize his mana in a very violent way. Think about it, he was able to beat Derrick only because of his hard work in finally casting Earth Spike. Now he won't be able to do anything similar unless we can get him into the arcane warriors, besides that did you not see how he mutilated himself in attempts to achieve power?"

"Casting magic is fine and all, he was just too eager for results he neglected the spell parameters that needed to be adjusted given his lack of an outside medium. Dad it is completely possible for him to find his own path even without the warriors. I know he can. The boy lacks talent and creativity the least out of all his gifts!" Derrick was not one to allow anyone to look down on his nephew even if that person was his own father.

Gabriel fell asleep after weeks of constant struggle against his restraints, his sleep was peaceful and relaxing in comparison to how enraged he was prior. Slumping heavily against the large golden chains the boy finally was given a break from the constant thoughts of rage and destruction that covered his eyes.

As he drifted off into the depths of his subconsciousness he felt at peace just like he had before he left the space of the enchanted chest his father left him. The memories of his month long struggle finally began to arise as his mind cleared. The horror of what he had done etched across his face but surprisingly it was only for a moment as he slowly started to accept what happened to him.

He didn't hate himself for attacking his grandmother nor did he hate his family for their actions against him. Coming to an eerie state of acceptance and indifference the boy's mind roused into action, thinking upon the reason for his actions.

He attacked out of rage, that couldn't be changed. So why was he mad? That was a bit more intricate. Was it because of self loathing, was it because of being lectured, was it because of suppressing his emotions for so long, was it because of his failure in casting his "internal-magic," or was it something else entirely?

Self loathing: probably, he was too depressed about his inability to cast magic. Being lectured: unlikely, he had been lectured before even more severely and it had not yielded such an intense reaction. Too much bottled up: unlikely, his time within the chest dimension had taken off virtually all the weight on his chest leaving nothing to bottle up. Failure in casting a whole new school of magic that wasn't globally recognized: highly likely, nothing had been impossible for him and he had no intention of letting even this keep him from his perfect track record of excellence. Something else: also highly probable, the awakening of his mother's bloodline couldn't have held zero side effects.

All the records he had read stated that in order to gain great power from bloodlines or anything else required something to be given up, there was no such thing as a free lunch. For the dragonkin, it was their extremely long development time. Demons, their unstable emotions. Seraphim, their unconditional loyalty to whatever divinity sired them. Vampyres, their extreme sensitivity to light. Each race had their own drawback to the immense strength they possessed.

Now the issue was finding out which race his mother was and what was the drawback to being one of them, even if only half or one. He doubt his father would fall in love with a demonkin. And from the descriptions given by the rest of the family his mom seemed completely human, so it was unlikely that his bloodline came from demons. Lacking the horns of the aggressive race cancelled out that idea. That also ruled out dragonkin, beastkin, seraphim and the countless other humanoid races. But the possible races that he knew about were still a lengthy list: vampyres, elves, tenkos, succubus and a few others.

None though matched with his inner rage issues. Unless it was a variant of the vampyr, there was little to no evidence proving otherwise besides his disregard for light of any kind. If anything he assumed that his mother could have been a hybrid much like himself which would touch on all issues present. If she had demon blood that explained the rage, if she had vampyr blood that explained the indifference.

However it seemed that his subconscious was enraged at the thought of being seen in such a manner. It was an odd sensation when the subconscious fought actively with the conscious self. His subconscious tried to send emotions in a vague attempt to explain what his bloodline was.

Rage. Uncontrollable rage. A rage so volatile it threatened to destroy the entire world.

Disdain. Like a heavenly dragon among countless plebeian mortals. The dragon could destroy them with but a thought but it disdained to taint its glory with their pathetic mortal lives.

Greed. A limitless greed that sought to possess everything that it could see and even that which it had not was not safe from its ambitions.

Pride. So proud that it stood tall above all the kings and emperors in the world, just so it could show the world who was truly superior.

With each emotion that came slowly changed Gabriel and how he was. The rage became normal and a part of who he was. The disdain became his view on the world around him. The greed entered into his mind and poisoned it to match itself. The pride became rooted in the depths of his bones. Though they were only seeds, these emotions started to shape the boy into their own image.

These seeds, while incredibly insightful, did nothing to help Gabriel learn about his bloodline from his mother. All it showed was the bloodline was full of anger, disdain, greedy and prideful. Each one of those emotions showcased some form of extreme being that correlated into a few things he could take away from the mystery race.

Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to warrant such pride and arrogance. And if it was that powerful then there had to be a reason it was so damn angry at the world.