The sun peeked through the mountains surrounding the city of Rine, and a man stood on the roof of castle white.
He was Raghav Suryanshi.
His gaze pierced the sun itself as he watched it rise. Once the sun was in full view. He began his ritual of offering it water from his copper globular water pot, held over his head and away from his body.
To not let the water fall on his bare feet. Water drops escaped his damp hair, falling on his shoulder and chest.
Once he was done, he stepped back, careful not to untie the towel tied at his waist. "Good morning, Mr. Exter."
He turned around, and there stood Eldrain. "Good morning, I see you shaved your chest and stomach hair, why today of all days?"
"I cut hair only on Wednesday and Friday, it is auspicious on these days. Did you sleep well?"
Click
He clicked his tongue. "I was too excited about training that I could not sleep, so I spent some time in the castle, which is a lovely place. But what about you? You came to the castle at around 2:30 last night and woke up before the sun rose. Did you even sleep?"
Nodding, he moved towards the stairs. "I did, it was a good sleep. Sorry to disappoint, but you will have to wait a few hours. I would like to involve Vonreid in our training sessions as well."
"I can wait. I also wanted to tell you, Olda will be joining us as well. I thought I could clear some misconceptions about Grand Masters this way."
"Hmmm," Raghav responded as he went down the stairs.
.
.
.
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Three hours later.
Vonreid ran onto the training grounds, dressed in a practice uniform meant for the young prince.
Followed by the slow walking King Belreid, beside him were Head Mage Olda and Reinhardt.
After them were the Exter couple and lastly Raghav and Aurelia.
He wore a white linen shirt and brown pants with his brown shoes.
"Are you sure you want to include Vonreid? He seems too eager."
Observing Vonreid jump and turn around in the air to look back at the adults, Raghav's lips curled upwards slightly. "He is a twelve year old kid with the mind of an eight year old. He is eager to learn and prove himself. The more we delay it, the more there's a chance he tries something risky on his own."
"I don't know, but I trust your judgement."
"Thank you. Alright, everyone, take your seats. Mr. Exter and I will begin."
Vonreid pouted as he walked under the shade with the others, and Eldrain and Raghav took the centre of the training ground.
Standing with his hand behind his back, Raghav looked at the royal siblings. "Aurelia, you have years of training and are already a Knight rank warrior, so our focus now is to help you advance to the master rank. Vonreid, you received some years of training before you were sedated. I know you received some lessons from King Belreid and General Temis, but we will catch you up to speed once more before we teach you the advanced mechanics."
Eldrain crossed his arms, pointing at Aurelia. "Explain the basics to Vonreid. This will let us know the gaps in your knowledge and help us figure out what we can do to improve your performance."
The siblings looked at one another and nodded.
They made their way forward and stood before each other as Aurelia towered over her younger brother. "Firstly. Can you even use Mana?"
He nodded as his hand was engulfed by a yellow Aura. "I can, and it's just like Fathers."
A faint but warm smile appeared on her face. "That's good. Now Mana is a very flexible source of power; it runs through the entirety of Paneria, through all living beings and non-living objects; some of those beings and objects can control it, to bring it forth in tangible form."
Just like Vonreid, her body was engulfed by a glow, the only difference being that her glow was golden.
"It can be used for physical and mental enhancements. By harnessing the energy within the body cells and pumping the cells with this energy, making them stronger and sturdier. Each person has their limits to how much enhancement they can handle before they begin tearing themselves apart. This allows us to move faster, hit and get hit harder. It also allows us to strengthen our weapons, clothes and other items, protecting them from getting damaged even when attacked with fire. It enables us to lift large objects without them falling apart by holding them together with Mana."
A gust of wind struck Vonreid as he turned around, and his sister was there. "The mental enhancement comes from boosting the energy into the brain, making it process information faster. Allowing you to hear, think and perceive things at an extraordinary pace. You can also increase your senses to see without the eyes and read the Mana of others to know when it fluctuates, and use it to know when your opponent will act. This is important if you want to move at super speeds. The second thing to consider with speed is the effects on your surroundings. Shockwaves and structural damage."
His eyes followed her finger and saw a crack in the marble where she was before.
"Not to fear, that is where magic comes into the picture."
He quickly looked back at her. "There are two types of magic. Chant based and ritual based magic. Chant based magic is simple and non-complex. Such as duplication of items, conjuring water, fire, ice, light and wind currents, and even conjuring some items such as the rotting chains. Illusions, healing, restoring, and other spells like manipulation of existing elements in the surrounding come under this. Of course, the results vary depending on the person's Mana reserves and how much Mana is consumed by these spells. A person can summon a small cube of ice while another can freeze a battlefield."
To demonstrate, she conjured a fireball in her hand the size of Vonreid's head.
The boy watched the fireball closely, reaching out for it, only for him to pull his hand back as he felt the heat burn his hand. She wiped out the fire and sighed. "These conjured elements and items only remain as long as a direct supply of Mana is maintained to them; otherwise, they return to nature in the form of energy. But their traces remain and can be used to locate the user because the Mana of different people feels different."
"On the other hand, ritual magic is exhausting. They require chanting, items to tie the spells together, symbols and catalysts like blood, leaves, and bones to complete it. Such as teleportation, summoning, tracking through blood or items. Foresight, fortune telling, weapon enchantments, potion making, and alchemy. Mutations and lastly crafting, imbuing items with curses and blessings."
"They also drain a large amount of Mana, which is why there is the Mage sect for people who specialise in this form of Mana usage. Someone who performs ritual based magic can easily do chant based magic and also utilise Mana in both physical and metaphysical fields."
Turning her attention towards Mage Olda, she continued. "Take Master Rank Mage Olda, for example; he can perform everything our Father or Reinhardt can and more. But he is not considered a warrior like them because he chooses to pursue knowledge and perfection of his craft rather than use it in battle."
Moving back, she unsheathed her sword and threw it at Vonreid, who instinctively drew his sword and swung it in hopes of deflecting the oncoming blade.
His sword missed, and her sword stopped inches away from his throat. 'I swear I hit it.'
He looked down, and the sword was floating in the air before returning to Aurelia. "Next up is the application of Mana in its basic form. Using it to stand and walk on walls, water. Telekinesis, Mana barriers, Mana constructs, Mana attacks, voice enhancements which allow your voice to reach longer distances without being loud for those nearby, it can also be used for verbal communication by cutting the sound off from reaching others. Sight enhancements allow the person to see extremely distant objects clearly or extremely small objects nearby."
Eldrain clapped his hands as he looked at Aurelia. "Good explanation. Let Raghav take over now."
Raghav walked forward and handed Vonreid a book. "I made these notes for you. There's too much information to take in all at once, so you will need multiple readings to fully digest it. There are extra details and explanations which I will be going over now."
Vonreid took the book and looked at the detailed and interconnected notes. "You wrote this for me?"
He closed his eyes as Raghav ruffled his hair. "Of course, kiddo. You're my brother as well. Now watch as I make everything clearer."
Backing up, Raghav smiled as his body was engulfed in a blue aura.
Everyone was wide eyed as they stared at him. "How?" Belreid was the first to voice what they all were too shocked to speak. "How can you use Mana? Sage Amla told us that you do not possess the ability to use it."
Turning towards Aurelia, he tilted his head. "I turned Omniurja into Mana."
"You can do that?" Sending a nod towards Eldrain Raghav, spread his arms.
"Two incidents helped me come to this conclusion. First was during that training battle, I won by absorbing their Mana, and I felt energised. Second was yesterday. When you told me that Omniurja is the core energy, the purest form and that all other powers in existence are derived from it. I knew it already, but when you said it out loud. It clicked in my mind."
"Is this the dangerous solution you mentioned yesterday, the one you wanted to train with?"
"You are spot on, Sir Reinhardt. I needed to overcome my drawback, because the moment I turn my powers off. I become a liability, and if I end up using it for a long time, I have to be gone for a long time as well. If my party gets attacked, I will be unable to help. But with Mana, it won't be that way. At most, it will strain the body, and the body will feel the pain, but I will be fine. Even after I stop using it. I can move around."
"Are you not the body?" Raghav looked at Mage Olda and shook his head. "I am not, I am the soul, and the body is merely a conduit that lets me interact with the world. It is meant to do as I say."
He smacked his lips and looked at Vonreid and Aurelia. "We got off track there. Now let us begin the lesson."
The siblings stood attentively as Raghav projected a giant board of Mana and a stick of Mana. He pointed towards the board. "Physical and mental enhancement are, as Aurelia told us, nothing worth adding to that. I will instead focus on what actually separates the warriors or mages in different ranks."
They nodded as Eldrain stood beside them, watching Raghav. 'Is he writing words and drawing diagrams on the board? That's genius.'
"So we know that what separates individuals is not their Mana reserves. A knight such as Aurelia she has four times the Mana of her father, King Belreid, who is a Master Rank. What separates the two is how they control their Mana expenditure; the less you use, the better you are, and that allows you to do more both in terms of quantity and quality. But there is a way to overcome your expenditure problem by focusing on the rejuvenation of your reserves."
Slapping his stomach, Raghav pointed at the board. Mana usually exists in nature as energy, and it exists in everything. You know what happens when someone depletes their Mana reserves. In truth, they actually do not deplete the entire Mana in their body, just the amount they can harness."
He began walking left and right around the board, using his hands to gesture at what he was teaching.
"This makes them hungry, you know why. Because other than waiting till the Mana builds back up naturally, which can take from hours to days, it's different for everyone. The body can use the energy from food and water to create more Mana."
"Like Aurelia has said. It is within everything, living or nonliving. Similarly, one can use the Mana reserved in their fat cells to gain a quick boost in Mana reserves… or you can syphon it from your enemy, allies willing to share or non-living things. You can do it through attacks as well to negate them and rejuvenate."
"Now we talked about rejuvenation. How about you control expenditure? Since I know you both want to be masters. Let me tell you what keeps a person a Knight. Chanting spells from the mouth."
Aurelia raised her hand. "Sir Reinhardt told me about it. He told me to internalise it instead of speaking it out loud because it has the risk of the other person hearing it, even if you whisper."
Raghav pointed at Aurelia as he looked at Vonreid. "Exactly, but I will tell you another reason why you should internalise it. One no Master Rank warrior or mage alive knows. When spells are spoken externally, they extract Mana from your body and become living commands."
"These commands then take more of your mana, and then the action you wanted is performed. That is three steps, and each step depletes Mana; you are consuming three times the mana to do a spell that a Master can do in one. You also run the risk of letting the other person hear exactly what you are going to do next. Not to mention the large fluctuation in your body's internal Mana flow this act causes. They can also be hijacked against you. Someone can infuse their own Mana and use your spells to conjure their magic."
"Unless you are fighting someone who knows nothing or a being way beyond your capabilities. The fights last for some time, and all it takes is one slip-up from either side. Low or depleted Mana reserves and visible fluctuations in the mana flow are often the deciding factor."
"So, to prevent the visible fluctuations and control the depletion, you internalise the spell in the mind. Instead of Mana being drawn out into the command, the command dissolves in the Mana and performs the action you require. That's only one step, and one-third of the Mana is used. This is what a Master does."
He then absorbed the blue Mana board and stick as the glow disappeared, and he took a deep breath. "Master this and you are halfway there as a Master Rank warrior, but most people are unable to do it, because they all begin practising doing it under their breath or inside their mouth, and it becomes a habit they cannot let go of. You have to make sure that your tongue does not move as you speak the chant in your mind."
Silence fell over the training field as Raghav smacked his lips and pulled a bottle of water towards himself, drinking from it.
Once he was done, he sent the water back and looked at the two students. "The door to the rank of Master needs two keys to open."
"Shortening activation time, making it hard to detect your next move and rejuvenating your Mana and controlling its expenditure is half the key. The other half comes from the mindset, how you use what you have. If you are someone who relies on one move or a few moves, you won't make it. You need innovation, better utilization of your resources. You need to be unpredictable, act on the move, use moves that will either give you an advantage or take theirs, use moves that counter the other, while making sure they can't counter you. Talent, hard work, instinct, adaptability and innovation are the second key"
"That is the other key. Power and technique are useless unless you know how to use them. That is why only one among millions reaches this level. Some have one thing, others have another; only a rare few have both. I know both of you have both, like your father."
He bowed down, placing a hand on his chest. "I have taught you how to gain power; now it's up to you to gain it and choose how you use it. Share this book and grow together."
"Ummm."
Standing straight, he looked at Vonreid, who was looking between Raghav and Eldrain. "Yes, Kiddo?"
"How do you become a Grand Master?"
Raghav remained silent while Eldrain laughed uncontrollably. "Aren't you an ambitious boy?"
Vonreid turned around as he looked at An, approaching her. "I just want to know."
An chuckled. "Tell him, Eld. Be careful not to scare him."
"As you wish. A Grand Master can use Mana in all of its applications. He is both a warrior and a Mage. The secret to becoming a Grand Master is to ignore everything you just learned. Fuck it and throw it away. Go Raw. Do not use chants internally or externally to do the magic for you. Use your Mana and shape it yourself. Be in control of each and every drop of power within you. Fuck them spells. Make Mana an extension of yourself, like how you control your hand. Do you need to say move thy hand to move it?"
Without waiting for a response from Vonreid, Eldrain answered his own question. "No, you don't do the same with Mana."
"Eld, no cursing in front of the child."
Raising his hands, Eldrain nodded, turning towards Vonreid. "Sorry, An, I got carried away."
He then coughed. "So, what I meant was stop using spells to do what you want done. Do it yourself; you want fire, do not wait for the spells to do it for you. Do it yourself, like you use Mana to enhance the body or objects. Like you use Mana to use telekinetics, walking on water and walls." "WAIT!"
Mage Olda walked out of the shade and towards Eldrain, nearly stepping on his beard a few times. Followed by Belreid and Reinhardt.
They stopped beside him, and Mage Olda caught his breath. "How is that possible, since the inception of the usage of Mana, it was specified that to perform Magic, one needs spells."
"It is true, Magic was first brought into form by the sages. They wanted to use Mana like the ancient spirits and deities did, and they received the spells that appeared in their mind as they meditated and asked the universe to give them answers. These spells were later distributed, and so began the age of Magic. Elves were the leading power in this era as they held a special aptitude for magic."
Everyone shifted towards Raghav as he explained the origin of magic. "But if this is how the spells originated, then how were the ancient spirits and Deities doing these incredible things? Simple, they were using Mana in its true form, using no catalyst or spells."
He looked up at the sky, watching the birds fly overhead.
"But they were born that way, with these abilities; it's like a bird is born with the knowledge of flight. A Grand Master learns to do it over time, and it is risky. One mishap and you will be dead. Your Mana will go berserk, and you will die. You need to be in complete and utter control over your Mana."
"If you succeed, you can perform both ritual and chant-based magic without needing either. That is what a true Grand master is. Someone who can do magic with a thought, without wasting power or depending on the right spell to do it. You imagine what you want, and your power does it. That makes you a being who can stand toe to toe with these ancient forces."
Eldrain gestured towards Raghav. "Remember when Raghav said he would teach about something no living Master rank warrior knows? This was it. A lot of masters recognised that the spells are a limit rather than a tool. They attempted to discard them, and they all died, but not all are born with the talent to use raw Mana powered magic, which is why the sages were given spells to protect but also to maintain the natural order of the universe. Why else do you think there are only four of us in the world now?"
Click
Raghav clicked his tongue as he shook his head. "Three. Even then, the first one has been alive for more than two and a half thousand years, the second one has been alive for twelve hundred years, and the third one was born with the second, but he died around that time. Mr. Exter is the fourth, and he became one three centuries ago. I, on the other hand, do not deserve the title. I am as strong as they are, and I can do the things that they do. However, it is because I possess Omniurja, it did not require spells; I just had to make it do what I wanted. I was never in the same danger the others faced."
In exchange for these words, he received a look of scepticism from Eldrain. "Do you say everything with such emotion?"
Before Raghav could answer, An stepped in, waving her husband off. "Ignore him. I believe the child has some questions."
Raghav shifted his gaze towards Vonreid, without looking at An. "Yes, Vonreid?"
Vonreid looked around at everyone before taking a deep breath. "Then, is it true that you can create things out of thin air. Control the fundamentals of existence, like Reality, Space, Time, fate, life and death?"
"No! That is another one of those misconceptions about us. Spread by the common folk."
Eldrain cried out loud. "And for your information, we cannot make anything out of thin air. We use replication instead."
"Can you explain that in detail?"
He looked at Mage Olda with a tired expression and exhaled through his nose. "Later. Right now, I want to spar with Raghav."
Turning towards Raghav, he crossed his arms. "You down?"
The two of them maintained eye contact as Raghav nodded. "I am."
"I also want to join." They turned towards Reinhardt as he took off his helmet. He met their eyes, and Eldrain was looking at him questionably while Raghav glanced towards Aurelia. "Master Eldrain, I have been meaning to spar with you like old times. I hope you won't mind."
Eldrain shook his head. "Then you won't mind me joining."
All heads turned towards King Belreid as he took off his royal coat and crown, handing them to Vonreid.
"Father, you cannot fight."
"Why? Because I lost my right arm, it has been two weeks, and the pain is gone. I can fight with one hand. I want to fight. Let me."
Aurelia sighed as she closed her eyes and stepped out of her father's way.
"Alright, gentlemen, how about a free-for-all between the four of us?"
"I have no objections, your grace. But…" Raghav looked at the other two participants. "I left my sword in my room. I will go get it. Please wait till I return."
King Belreid gestured towards the castle as he made way for Raghav. "Please bring my sword too."
Raghav nodded as he walked towards the castle, and they were watching him with curiosity because he was walking towards the wall and not the entrance.
However, their curiosity was soon put to rest as Raghav was surrounded by the blue glow of Mana, and he ran up the wall of the castle, scaling the seventy meter tall building, making his way to the balcony of his room.
In a few moments, he dived out of the balcony, wearing his signature brown jacket with two swords tied on either side of his waist.
As the ground came closer, he flipped in the air and created a giant spear of Mana and inserted it into the ground and sliding down the spear, breaking his fall.
The moment his feet landed softly on the ground, he absorbed the spear back into his body.
He took off King Belreid's sword. The King unsheathed it, and Raghav handed the empty scabbard to Vonreid. 'Why are they handing everything to me?'
In the King's hand was a legendary blade crafted by the greatest smith to have ever lived. Forged in the capital city of Kharundar.
It was called Twilight. It was a great sword, five feet long and one foot wide. It was jet-black with a grey handle. Along the blade ran white vein like lines.
Belreid smirked as he looked at the others. "Shall we?"