To Be King

Part 6 - Bedridden Noble

With the passing of days, Jade soon realized that she would not get very far if she could only practice during the day with Solomon and Italo. She stopped sleeping at night after no more vampires came for blood and only used it to practice any type of spell or technique she could get her hands on. Vampires did not need sleep in the first place and could stay awake without feeling tired at all, so Jade didn't feel any backlash from changing her schedule so suddenly.

Having both night and day free, Jade would sneak into the library during the day and 'borrow' any books she could find about spellcasting. Since her Clan was not an authority based House but rather a criminal one, the spellbooks were rudimentary and with little details, but this was what was best for Jade who had a black shaded authority according to Italo. She could cast spells with only the general idea. With the small spellcasting books listing an eclectic variety of small and seemingly useless spells, Jade occasionally found gems during her nightly studies.

With roughly 12 hours more to herself, Jade studied these spells thoroughly and did nothing but practice them. The first of which was a spell to illuse her own vision. It was a simple idea to make something simple look like an entirely different thing. It was pretty useless since it was only an effect on her vision and nothing of the physical nature, but Jade found it cathartic solely for the purpose of changing how her room looked. Less dark, stony or lifeless. She imagined there were vines growing through the window, but they were without definition and only vaguely looking alive since she was not good at the spell. She didn't need to get better at it though, as she had found a far better spell.

It was also a sort of play on vision, but it required good control over one's internal and external authority. The next few days, Jade fervently worked with the two men at the cafe to learn exactly that during the day and when she returned, she would deal with her donees quickly and immediately get to work.

The spell, simple as it looked in the book, was quite hard. The idea was to shroud the Authoritators body in their own authority, hiding the body underneath, then to mix the internal with the external as if melding gold together. Solid and easily manipulated. This part was easy enough once Jade had surpassed the stage of such control. She basically did the same as the breathing exercise, covering herself in her black fog. The hard part was the second phase of the spell. Manipulate the authority within the flesh and blood as if it were one. To change her own solid form as easily as she did her authority. Doing this and blending her authority with the energies already in the air would make her intangible, but her silhouette would be visible. The only drawbacks to this spell were its difficult second phase and the inability to hide the color of one's authority.

In the end, all Jade could do with the skill was shroud herself well. She couldn't dissipate her physical form. By practicing that spell incessantly, Jade had improved her control so much that she could now blend her black authority with surrounding air, mixing together like food dye in water. Like hers was being diluted but not being made weaker. She could do it smoothly and swiftly. That was what made Italo confident enough to tell her more about the election and its proceedings.

As she had already learned, the main criteria were that the candidate must be able to use authority, must have at least one generation in any of the five Houses, and must be beyond the age of human maturity; 21. Jade was all of those things. During the actual election, it worked sort of like a filter and process of elimination. Each House leader would take the votes of their community, choosing who among the candidates they do and do not accept. Under this first trial, a third of the candidates with the least votes would be eliminated. During the next phase, only the House leaders vote on the candidates. Again, the next third portion is eliminated. In this phase, the greatest advantage was managing to convince all the House leaders to vote yes for you since they can vote on each candidate a 'yes' or a 'no'. During the final phase, either the houses' communities vote again, or if there are only two candidates left, they can choose to fight for the win in a guarded and monitored arena. This was the path taken by Ash after he killed his father. He got rid of all but one candidate through blackmail and then fought the last.