Anomalous Items

"An item can have a soul?" Lua asked with curiosity etched on his face.

Daniel nodded and put down his cup. "How else do you think we gave Arc a soul? He was just a regular toy until we split your soul into pieces."

Lua nodded with a thoughtful look, understanding the principle in these objects. Daniel interrupted his thinking and continued his explanation,

"We call these "Anomalous Items". Most of them are fine with the souls inhabiting them being weak and not powerful enough to have a will, but there are some like the Brass Glove i just mentioned. Those are very dangerous and need to be contained properly. In fact, there are entire organisations that exist to contain them."

Lua pondered on this. If items had souls that were put there by humans, didn't this mean the items were basically identical to a human trapped in an item? Lua shared this thought with Daniel, but he smiled and shook his head.

"Not always. Souls can be manufactured by humans, although it is quite difficult for someone of our levels.. I haven't tried it, nor do I plan to. I will stay six feet away from whatever horror I will wake up during my attempt." he joked, but he was half-serious. "During the creation of an artificial soul, if you make the slightest mistake, it's possible to summon an evil spirit who is hellbent on destroying whatever it can find. Normally, these spirits are roughly your level. After all, trying making them more powerful than you can kill you."

Daniel chuckled. "It's like trying to make orange juice with lemons."

Orange juice with lemons.. Isn't it meant to be orange juice with not enough oranges? Is he hinting that something of a higher level is thoroughly incompatible? Indeed... my dear father has been hiding stuff from me.. I should ask him how he evolved when I get the chance. Perhaps I can get to his level instantly. Lua resolved to ask his father at a private moment to rapidly increase his level.

Lua watched his father and his mother talked some more. Elizabeth explained Lua's wonderful screeching adventures from earlier that day, and Lua was forced to give his account of the event as well, albeit limited to prevent exposing himself.

Throughout the explanation, Daniel simply nodded with interest and didn't speak much. He had a grave emotion at the end of the tale, yet still chose not to speak.

Lua got up shortly after, disinterested in the small talk that had started between his parents. He retreated to his room, sitting at his desk. He pulled out the paper with the icons he believed to belong to the four gods. Sighing with fear and anticipation, he cut his finger and let his blood flow freely.

He then used his finger to draw another symbol - the bridge.

He waited patiently for something to happen, but the symbol remained unresponsive. His room was the same, and he could confirm he wasn't trapped in a dream.

That's odd.. Is it safe to assume I was wrong in my assumption, then? His initial response was relief that he wouldn't have to summon four different gods to uncover the mystery of the gem, then confusion in regards to the bridge symbol.

Maybe it represents a place? How am I going to figure out the correct one though?.. There are perhaps thousands of bridges in the Kingdom, and definitely thousands more across the world. Lua swiftly dismissed the notion, deciding to figure out an easier solution than exploring the thousands of bridges.

He went over to the other room and found Arc lazing around on his desk, fiddling with a schematic that was seemingly nonsensical. Of course, Lua understood what he was trying to create - it was an overly complicated pencil sharpener.

Arc looked up at Lua, seemingly understanding what he was trying to say.

Lua smiled and thought, Sharing a soul is too easy..

Lua showed the symbols, allowing Arc to inspect it. Soon after, Arc began to scribble words on a piece of paper with impressive speed.

"Don't take the symbols too literally."

I'm so stupid.. It's so obvious! Heh, he really does complete me. "You're a genius, thank you."

Arc nodded and went back to his schematics.

Going back to his desk, Lua began to ponder about things that could represent a bridge.

Perhaps the "bridge" between classifications through evolutions? That isn't a bad idea, but it doesn't make much sense..

Lua continued to think many ideas, but he ultimately kept coming back to this.

I will try to evolve before I continue to explore this. Perhaps evolving will lead to some change in how I understand the bridge..

Getting up from the desk, he walked to his father's study room on the second floor. Opening the sizable double doors in the room, he was greeted with a library that couldn't be considered too large, nor could it be considered too small. It was just right in size.

Sitting in a large desk across from the door was his father. He had his engineer's goggles on, working on something that looked like a small wrench. Seeing Lua enter, he placed the wrench down and smiled. "What's up?"

Lua hesitated for a moment. Of course, admitting that you knew something you weren't supposed to know was quite terrifying for most people. But Lua knew whatever ramifications this would have paled in comparison to whomever he would explain this to otherwise.

"Father.." He began, still slightly worried. "How can I evolve?"

Daniel's expression didn't change much, to Lua's surprise. It was as if he had been expecting it.

"I suspected as such when you mentioned a mystical gem, but it comes as a surprise that you already know about evolution." He promptly got up from his desk. "Tell me, how did you learn about this?"

Lua's expression froze. He didn't expect him to ask for how he had gotten this information. In a panic, he began to make up a few reasons. "I.. er.. found it on a book."