Cecilus stared at the large garden as he approached the main entrance to the manor. He walked up the quartz steps and knocked twice on the main gate. After a few seconds, it opened, and he saw an old butler on the other side of the doorway. Never seen this guy before. Did Mother finally agree to Father's request for more servants, or did something happen to an old butler? Doesn't really matter, as I barely see these servants.
Cecilus walked through the large hallways that stretched on longer than his sight could fathom. He then entered through a door, almost triple his size, and ended up outside. Where he stood was a massive training ground with dummies and tools laid out across a field. Far to the opposite side of the wide stretch of dirt was the son of the Duke, Trey Forwhilst, sharpening his sword against a grindstone.
"Your wolf gave me the message, I'm free to train you for most of the month as my father wants me around to help with the nearby village affairs." Trey's voice shot across the gap between them, yet his eyes did not leave his sword. Despite how quietly Cecilus entered, he had instantly noticed that someone had arrived.
Cecilus had sent a letter using his wolf to ask if Trey would have time to guide him in sword mastery throughout the month. Trey Forwhilst was a very high-ranking sword master who currently serves the council of the ascended continent directly. In terms of fighting prowess, one working for the council would need to have been competing with the top 0.001% of all swordfighters on the continent for the job. Since the sword is the weapon of choice for more than half of all the fighters in the world, this accomplishment is a feat that most learning the sword can never dream of.
Five years ago, Cecilus' father hired Trey to teach his son basic sword combat, and they have continued as master and student ever since.
Cecilus drew his longsword from its sheath on his side, and he started to swing it around as practice as he waited for Trey to finish sharpening his blade.
"What have you done since I last saw you?" Trey asked, still concentrated on his task.
"I fought another rock golem, which was living in a cave deep north in a mountain range. I was able to contract it without killing it. So now I have double the number of golems as before. The fight went smoother compared to the first time I fought one despite the size advantage and the long spear it used."
"Good, your father realized quickly that, unlike most magic, soul-binding magic is incapable of being used as a main source of power. From what I can tell, out of the six most unique magic types, soul-binding magic is the weakest in terms of raw power. A sword will do you more good in the long run." Trey's eyes never moved off his blade while speaking.
I'd better ask him about the fire directly. Cecilus thought as he began his question.
"About your slave, the one that suicided in the fire, do you know exactly what might've brought it to happen?"
Trey didn't seem very deterred from the question and spoke immediately. "It's nothing new, you can blame my pushover father. His life belongs to greed and self-worth instead of his loved ones. Instead of ridding himself of the burden that is his bastard daughter and slave, he held a meaningless attachment. We would've been better off letting them go free and allowing my mother's happiness to flourish. He doesn't even have the slightest bit of backbone to stand against his mother, but he has the gall to keep his old affair and daughter around while also perpetuating their suffering. It's no wonder one went mad!"
Trey finally removed his blade from the grindstone and walked a fair bit away. Cecilus could see a look of disappointment in his eyes. His stance then shifted, positioning his body sideways with a one-handed grip on his longsword. His right hand was tucked against his back.
"Take the first strike, I'll lower the amount of physical output in order to account for your childlike body."
Cecilus nodded and ran towards him with a two-handed grip on his sword, taking the first wide diagonal slash that was easily blocked by a quick deflect.
The sparring continued for a few minutes until Cecilus began to tire and his attacks became slower. He was then disarmed immediately by Trey.
Damn it, he's too fast to keep exerting this much effort constantly! Cecilus watched as his sword fell onto the dirt; his hand was cut slightly due to Trey overreaching during the disarmament. Ouch, curse this small body! Mother said that elves' bodies age very differently from one another. But not once have I seen an elf that's not even five feet tall at the age of 13! Most elves grow to be above six feet; you would think being a half-elf would help my growth!
Trey walked forward to shake his hand, a common custom after a duel, even if it was practice.
"That was fine, but I see minimal improvement from last time. Your stamina is low, and your stance is incapable of launching an attack with enough force. Continue to practice with one thousand strokes daily on the training dummies." Frey commanded as he put his left hand forward, but Cecilus decided against it, walking to the center of the field to begin his strokes. Frey rose an eyebrow, seeming a bit angry but left the area without pushing further.
Cecilus' wolf then manifested itself in front of him; in its mouth was a bandage wrap. Cecilus grabbed the roll and proceeded to wrap it around his hand. Thanks, puppy! You always know when I need you the most. Frey is probably the only sword master who relies on only their sword, and I got stuck with this imbecile as a teacher. I thought magic types accommodate the likes and dislikes of a person, but Frey has the alchemical magic type when he hates studying! To top it all off, he's the worst teacher there is! Shows up for a few minutes, beats me up, then says sorry you're a child, so you lost! Where else am I supposed to get the force to beat him! Go invent a new device or something instead of training your biceps to be larger than my head!
Cecilus had found out his magic type when he was only four years old. Magic types are identified early on without trial and error through an alchemical device called a verification crystal. All that one must do is place their hand on the crystal, and the base spell of the magic type that the person holds is automatically used. The crystal then displays the magic type. There are countless different magic types in the world, with new ones still being discovered, albeit rarely.
When Cecilus was young, one of his private teachers would explain the magic types using a hexagon with magic types that reside closer to the center of the hexagon being more common and broad, while the magic types that sat near the edges of it were more unique and rare. A hexagon was used as the visual due to the nature of magic types and how there are six different types that are considered the rarest, which were represented by the points of a hexagon. These six types include: time, light, dark, spatial, dream, and soul magic. Although they are found less frequently, magic types that are less common come with a major disadvantage: they are unable to learn spells from other categories.
Someone who gained the soul magic type would be unable to learn spells adjacent to that type on a hexagon. However, magic types that resided near the center would have access to the spell pools of many other types closest to them. This is why Cecilus was unable to learn offensive magic and relied solely on his sword and the help of his summons.
His father owned multiple crystals and could have verified the magic type of Cecilus from birth; however, he waited until his son was four, just in case the base spell wasn't something dangerous. When Cecilus turned four years old, he was allowed to find his type and placed his hand on the crystal, despite the glowing text that appeared identifying his type as soul magic; no spell seemed to have been used.
When looking into it later on, Cecilus realized that the base spell for soul mages is summoning. His immediate conclusion following the discovery was that because he had nothing to summon, the spell had still activated without effect.
Well, I'm finally home. Unlike most of the time, I'm staying here for a while because of some things Father had to take care of on his own. I guess I should tell my mother about how I already notified the villagers for her and gave them some help personally. Better get through the 1000 strokes fast. The faster I get through it, the faster I can go see everyone! I bet everyone's going to be so happy to see me!
***
Close by the Crow manor, there resided both an orphanage and a school. Villager children from nearby towns would all use this school as the main source of education due to the lack of educational systems near the border of the continent.
The border of the ascended continent consisted of a giant cliff face covering the entire landmass, separating it and making it sit almost five hundred feet above the surface level. It's said that the first king of the ascended continent lifted it up over three thousand years ago in defense against a horrific creature, but historical texts that have been found do not specify how the king was able to raise the continent and what creature he used it against.
Approaching the school were two young children, both of whom had brown hair and blue eyes. The shorter one was a young girl holding hands with the other tall boy.
The girl looked up at the boy with a curious smile and began to ask a question.
"Big brother, I heard Cecilus is coming home today. He entered the region a while ago, but he had stuff to deal with, apparently. Also, that puppy he sent home with the message was so cute! Do you think he will let me pet him?"
"Realistically, he would probably tell the mutt to bite you. I hope he leaves fast, Father said that after he escorts the guests for their stay here, he will leave again with our older brother. Sadly, I think that will probably be enough time for my own suffering to flourish."
The girl seemed a bit sad after hearing that her dreams of petting the wolf were likely not going to come to fruition.
Seeing his little sister saddened, the boy quickly retracted his statement.
"Well, maybe he's different from last time. I doubt the first thing he will do when he sees us is pull a prank like last time. He's older now; he was only nine when we last saw him! I was only seven, so I might not have remembered him perfectly. You were only four as well, so you barely remember Cecilus, don't you, Zyllee?"
"Yeah, I just remember that he was very short and looked like Father. But I also recall him scaring me all the time!"
"Sounds like him, all right....Well, I shouldn't say that in hopes that he's different."
Immediately after that statement, both siblings felt a tap on their shoulders from behind. Instantly turning their heads and finding nothing, both of them began to form looks of confusion. However, then, out of nowhere, the earth beneath them began to crumble as two giant rocky hands launched out of the dirt and grabbed them!