When Damien opened his eyes, he found himself standing in a realm of utter gray. More a small island than an actual realm, but still. The moment his eyes opened, Damien instantly recognized where he was: his soul space.

  Beneath his feet was a small tumultuous sea of twisting, curling gray fog, which he knew represented his soul well. The sea covered a distance of ten miles—Damien knew— where its edges vanished in an impenetrable mist that stretched endlessly upwards, rising into a distant ceiling reminiscent of the gray sea he stood upon.

  Looming over it all, in the distance, like a gargantuan titan, was Damien's astral image.

  The mountainous essence-made manifestation sat in a cross-leg position, with its compressed muscled arms folded over its bare chest, exuding an air of strength and regality, while two orbs of thick metallic grey glared down over the entire foggy landscape like a displeased god.

  "Well, this meeting was sure long overdue," a sudden voice from behind said, jolting Damien to turn around sharply. Inwardly, he wondered why everyone nowadays could sneak up on him without his knowledge. However, that thought instantly vanished into the wind the moment he saw who stood before him.

  Damien had at many times, taken the chance to admire his good features in every reflective surface he came across— Who wouldn't?—And while he'd say he wasn't as handsome as Keilan—who resembled a very detailed sculpture made by some artisan with a disturbingly imaginative mind—he knew how much attractive he was.

  Looking at the person before him, Damien felt like he was once again looking into a well-made mirror, or a fresh flowing reflective stream or pond. Except this time, the image that stared back at him was too realistic for his liking. Extremely so.

  Looking back at his replica, Damien could only admire, too shocked to do anything else. The sharp angular face, defined jawlines, and strong cheekbones birthed an exquisite feature that had seen no small amount of interest from both genders and even a certain winter elf at one point, despite their very conservative mentality.

  Damien didn't want to say he leered, but yeah, that was what he did. The body wasn't much different from the head: strong shoulders holding two strong, corded muscular arms, more built for sharp dexterity than strength, framed a slim athletic body, which looked like it'd been built for extreme speed. However, despite all outward appearances, Damien knew intimately the amount of power contained inside those thinly framed muscles. After all, it was the same—

  "When you're done leering, let me know," the amused voice of his replica smoothly cut through Damien's very attentive scrutinization.

  Sharply, Damien's head snapped up, cut short from what he was doing. The first thing he felt when he met the devilishly amused grey eyes of his replica was embarrassment. Damien felt his cheeks redden just as his lips pressed into a grimace.

  With a shake of his head, he brought back his thoughts to the present, and his emotions too, and then he did the thing he should have done at the beginning.

  "Hello, Daimen," Damien said. "We need to talk."

  Normally, a fight would have been warranted in response to the uninvited presence of another being in his soul space, but given that Damien had been aware, deeply, that the replica had begun dwelling in this expanse of grey fog for as far as his meeting with Merak, the need for a battle was then discarded in place of a more serious discussion, a feeling which he was sure, judging by the anticipatory tone earlier in the replica's voice, was also mirrored.

  Amusement slid off of the replica's face in an instant, replaced with an irritated scowl. "If you keep calling me that, both of us are going to have a more physical discussion."

  Damien's eyes widened, joined alongside with a quick step back, like that would have done anything. With wary eyes, he regarded his mirror image while he sought ways to block out his thoughts from being read.

  "Do not bother," the mirror snorted. "That would be as much impossible as stopping yourself from breathing."

  "Why's that?" Damien said with narrowed eyes. He was beginning to regret coming here.

  "Because we're the same," the second Damien smiled, unleashing two rows of perfectly white teeth. "Your thoughts are my thoughts, which means they echo into my mind about as much as a word spoken out loud."

  Damien grunted. Instinctively, he knew what had just been said was the truth, but still, his mind was his alone, he didn't want another person having a secret pass into it.

  "Suit yourself," the mirror shrugged. "We have better things to discuss, anyway, and I reckon you don't have much time to spare, Keilan soon to wake and whatnot."

  Again, Damien's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that? And don't tell me it's from my thoughts because we both know that I have little idea of when he'll awake."

  "How useless can a Minder be?" The second shook his head with clear irritation on his perfect features. "This is something you should have been able to detect right at the beginning of Spirit lord. After all, you both are soul-bonded."

  "Soul what?" Damien frowned.

  "Soul bonded," Daimen repeated with an eye roll. "You have spent so much time together, more than most couples perhaps, that your soul has become linked. You should be able to vaguely detect when something's wrong with him, and he likewise."

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  Like a bout of Deja Vu, Damien's mind went back to the ambush where Shadow Hall had attempted to stall him. He remembered the feeling of panic that had rushed over him at the thought of something bad happening to Keilan. Funnily enough, it had been that panic that had unleashed Daimen from wherever the being had formerly resided.

  "Now you see," the other being said. "I guess I owe him a thank you. But still, without my intervention, you would still be but a common wielder, if a bit better than the more common ones."

  "Common wielder?" Damien snorted. "I might have felt a bit inadequate at that moment, but even I recognized the contradiction in that statement. I wield a great element, Daimen. What is lesser in that?"

  "Ahhh, and that's where the crossroad begins, doesn't it?" The other man shook his head. "You are like a village soldier who wields weapons of the stone age and then calls them mighty, having never encountered steel before. The weapon might be mighty in your perspective, but that doesn't mean it isn't worthless to those who wield steel."

  "There are woods stronger than steel," Damien pointed out.

  "Don't be obtuse, Damien," his second a said with an eye roll. "You know what I meant."

  Damien grunted at that with an inward sigh of agreement. Still, while he understood what Daimen had been getting at, questions rang in Damien's mind.

  "Explain."

  With narrowed eyes and a subtle smile, the second did as bidden. "The fact that we wield two great elements—discounting Destruction—doesn't make us unique. There are beings out there with more than one great element at their disposal. Those are the people you should aim to compete with, not some boy with an early summoning and two children from a non-notable civilization in the butt of the Galaxy."

  Damien snorted, purposely ignoring the insult to Keilan, gentle as it might be. Though he did let his displeasure pass through whatever link connected them, which the other must have surely detected loud and clear, because he returned to Damien a conceding nod.

  "In case you weren't aware," Damien finally said. "I can't seem to touch those elements, unlike you," he mumbled. "The last time I tried, I got the pain of my life in response."

  "That is not surprising. What we are, what we will become, needs a greater soul strength than what you currently have to fully bloom."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "We aren't normal humans, Daimen." The pride when the mirror said that was so thick Damien could have used it as a coat. "We are something more, something greater." He spread both his arms wide. "Damien, we are the First."

  "Self-aggrandizement aside," Damien said when he was certain the other was done. "Can you explain like a normal person because I do not understand one bit of what you've just said?"

  Daimen sighed and his hands flapped down onto his lap with an audible slap. "I can't even blame the Minder for this, because this was a knowledge that wasn't given to it."

  "Why?"

  "Not all knowledge is meant to be known beforehand," Damien's second said and then sighed. "Okay, to explain. The First, or more commonly, the Progenitors—you know what a progenitor is, correct?"

  Damien nodded. He hadn't had much time to go into the topic, but he understood that a progenitor was the ancestor of a line—an originator, if he was getting it right.

  Daimen nodded. "You are correct," he said, and Damien had to curse himself for forgetting that the other being could casually read his thoughts.

  "But your definition doesn't cover the scope of what we are. We are not only the Progenitor of a line, as every father is, we are more than that, we are the First of our race."

  Damien stared at his second for a few moments, and when he was sure the joke wasn't coming, he tried to confirm. "You must be joking, right? Because, as far as I'm aware, I'm still human, and definitely not the first human to have ever existed. Moreover, I am certain, so are you and the few other people in my life recently, that I have a father. How can I then be a progenitor?"

  "That," Daimen grimaced. "Is something I do not have an explanation for. Knowledge of our birth is one of the few things I have zero knowledge about, right alongside the identity of our father. The few things I know deep down, that I am very certain of, is that we are who I say we are."

  "Self-aggrandizing much?" Damien raised an eyebrow.

  "No," Daimen shook his head. "I am simply stating a fact."

  "Let's say I believe you, what does this have to with my affinity problem."

  "Nothing, and everything." Daimen smiled. "Progenitors are the few beings certainly strong enough to wield more than one great element, alongside some other rare oddities. We are born with souls greater than the average being, alongside some other benefits which I'm sure will reveal themselves to you when you finally tap fully into your true affinities. But unlike everyone else, we need a greater soul strength to be able to maintain that power. A sharp sword without a good sheath is likely to harm the wielder as much as any other person."

  It was going to take a while for Damien to digest this because, Frankly, he struggled to believe one bit of it, most especially the progenitor part. Despite how much sincerity he could detect in Daimen's speech, Damien still failed to quantify all that he'd just said. He reckoned he could only believe when he saw evidence or someone else corroborated Daimen's story.

  "So all I have to do to wield the Life and Soul essence is to further grow my soul?" Damien asked. "My soul is stronger that Keilan's, yet he managed to summon an Ascended art while I cannot. Why's that?"

  "Because you have a higher bar than him. Forgive me if any insult was implied, but Keilan wields a weak element. Great to other people, perhaps, but weak to me, weak to us. The Primal Celestials are just a bunch of second-rate entities who have nothing but jealousy for the Grands. They try to spread their influence as much as the Grands in an attempt to become just as powerful, but what they don't seem to be getting is that: no matter how strong concrete becomes, it'll only take a powerful wave to break it apart."

  The other man took a deep breath, despite air not existing in this place. They were all here in the Spirit, anyway.

  "What I'm trying to imply is that—"Daimen continued, "—no matter how much a fire can burn, or the air can destroy, all it takes is the removal of the concept of destruction from their makeup and then they suddenly become useless."

  This, Damien instantly knew, wasn't any form of exaggeration. He knew that because he'd done it before—Daimen had done it.

  "You did that against the battle with Solaris," Damien said, remembering the way the concept of destruction in those elements had been removed. It was definitely a sight Damien was sure never to forget.

  "Yes," Daimen agreed. "The wind may be powerful, or even the Air, but they pale before the might of a Grand element. Only a fool loses to a primal element wielder while wielding a grand element."

  Damien coughed, fully realizing that he was definitely guilty of that. He opened his mouth to speak but his mirror simply rolled over him.

  "As much as I'd like to continue this conversation, I'm afraid it has drawn to its close. Keilan will soon awaken and you also have another bag of information to digest," the man said just as his form began to unravel.

  "Fight Damien. Fight like your life depends on it because surely, it does. You need a great deal of potential to avoid losing to the first real opponent that comes for you."

  "Wait!" Damien called back. "You haven't explained what I need to do."

  "I don't need to. Deep down, you know the answer."