Master and Apprentice Competition

I understood that releasing mana is much easier than collecting it. But after seeing a wave of shock from my mana threw Aldoh away, and running out of mana can cause symptoms of exhaustion, I start being more careful after the incident.

My daily routine became, physical training, eating, nap, studying, mana practice, eating again, playing games with my parents before going to sleep, and so, a year went by flying…

But hey, guess what? A surprise made me very happy, recently, I found out that I will not be an only child in this life either.

Yeah, mother is pregnant, and man, I'm so happy!

I'm not going to lie to you, I was hoping for this to happen; I'm not sure why, maybe because I still feel horrible about how things ended in my prior life. Whatever the case may be, I'm going to do my best to be a better elder brother in this one.

Mother and father have been busier as usual, so we haven't been playing as much, but I have been busier as well; Aldoh has begun instructing me a few combat skills and has transferred several articles to my Prisma.

One article described a bodily protection technique known as Solid Aura Shell; the idea is to build a thin yet impenetrable layer over anything, similar to a shield. It's more difficult than it appears, but I believe I've grasped it; at the very least, I can utilize it in particular areas of my body, such as my hand or a portion of my leg. However, as the article notes, using it all over my body is still out of the question for the time being.

Another is the article titled "Purify as an AOE"; the article is about the purify skill, but it is also about the possibility of using this skill to create another area skill; Aldoh, mother, and the ME's (Mana Experts) community around the world want to create a barrier to protect cities from radiation using the principle of this skill.

I was able to use the simple one to purify my hand or, at most, my complete skin, but I don't see how this could be applied to a full city; the amount of mana required would be insane.

Speaking of cities, for some reason, many machines and warriors equipped with military weaponry arrived across my city. Even a massive weapon was positioned in one of the buildings farther on, which I could see from my bedroom window; it appears to be a stabilized weapon for self-defense systems.

I checked it up on my Prisma but couldn't find anything specific about it. And now there are a lot of floating cars going along streets that were previously only utilized by pedestrians; I'm not sure why, but this doesn't make me feel good. Or maybe I'm overthinking it...

"Hey kid! Ready for our match?" Aldoh entered my room, while I stared out the window.

Whatever, today is the day I have a sparring match with Aldoh, I should focus in that, otherwise, I might lose to him, and I don't like the idea of losing without trying my best.

You may be wondering if I'll go hand in hand with him. But, regrettably, no (I'd want to practice my fighting abilities, but I might have to wait...), we'll be sparring with mana, which I doubt would be achievable, I thought we'd be unleashing magic talents, spells, and the like, but no, that is not it...

It's a lot better! We're going to use weapons! Hehehe, it's called Pulse Phaser, and the secret is to use the weapon to fire virtual randomly generated targets, the weapon is fueled by mana, and the game has an undetermined time limit, which may range from 30 minutes to 8 hours, so it's a game to test our control over mana and shooting accuracy.

I'm only fighting Aldoh right now because my mana has gotten to the point where he's compelled to accept that I could have a chance.

When we got at the training facility, my mother was waiting for us at the door; she must have heard about it.

"Aldoh, are you sure he can try already?"

"Of course Lynda, this kid has almost as much mana as I do."

"But he's still a little kid, he's not even 6 years old…"

Evidently, my mother was worried about me. I should help Aldoh explain this one.

"Mom, it's okay. I can do it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"...Alright."

The target creating machine (a rectangular contraption with a black globe above it that makes holograms) was then placed in the center of the training room, and we positioned ourselves behind it with a rifle-like weapon.

Except mine was more like a pistol, and I couldn't use the rifle since it was bigger than me, so... Anyway, Aldoh said he'd go first and show me how to fire with a weapon...

"Pay attention Luken, don't position your weapon close to your face like this…"

Aldoh held a handgun near to his face, his elbows bent. It's hard to believe that somebody would genuinely wield a handgun like that, but since I've been in the army for a while, I've seen some precious rarities with a high IQ score accomplish inconceivable things many times.

"Otherwise, the recoil will make it come back and it will hit your face, like this... got it?"

"...Yes, Sir."

"Then, I'll start."

He then pressed a button in the target making machine (I don't know what it's called; I'm using the name Aldoh gave it), and small points appeared in front of us, ranging in size from a basketball to a tennis ball; they moved slowly and had numbers above them, beginning with 3 and decreasing; it was a countdown, and when they reached 0, they disappeared.

Aldoh is hitting a lot of them, but it's 1 shot per 1.5 seconds, all things considered he could hit 3 shots per 1.5 seconds, if it was the guys I worked with they might even get 4 shots per 1.5 seconds.

How? It's all about using your time, body and the environment to your advantage; Let me explain properly, since the targets aren't attacking back, and we aren't moving.

In this circumstance, we can pretty much arrange our bodies in a regular position; legs side by side, distance may vary depending on how far you need to move, a meter is more than adequate in this case, and knees slightly bent.

The upper torso should be slightly curled to the front, arms almost completely extended, and the weapon in the center of his face, both eyes wide, not just one, as Aldoh is doing.

And when pointing his weapon it should always be at the most immediate or relevant target: In this case, he should aim at targets near to each other so he may go from one to the other more quickly.

Without attempting to shift from one target on the left side to another on the right in order to gain a few more points, they are too far away, the turn and shot time is too long, and it is best to hit just the ones that are close.

Lastly, he shouldn't be turning just his arms; aside from the injuries, the lost accuracy is insane; you could simply take a stride or shift your waist. When we are in combat, our waist and footwork might save us not just time but also our lives.

That day is still fresh in my mind…

The first time I fought against an untrained army; Even though the rebels were on higher terrain and in greater numbers, they were defeated in less than four hours by a force of only 12 men.

It's quite tough to become proficient in this subject; far too much training is necessary to make all of these minor, and sometimes complicated, processes become second nature to the point where we don't even have to think about them.

Anyway, Aldoh finished, and now it's my time; I'll attempt to copy Aldoh at first, and then we'll see how things progress.

So I started hitting 1 target every 2 seconds, focusing on regulating my mana rather than striking targets; this small weapon can absorb a lot of mana and shoot with more speed and strength, but it would be preferable to release less mana; I'll reserve it for the real match.

After a brief moment of rest, we began our actual match; each of us stood on one side of the machine, with mother in charge of starting it.

"I'll start at 3… 2… 1!"

Mother moved to the back, since the guns released a small shock wave and sound; Apparently, she was a bit afraid.

As usual at the beginning I should control myself...

"Hey, Luken!"

"??"

"If you win this one, I'll help you with that thing."

"What thing?"

"Prisma."

Oh... I wanted to unlock my Prisma, since it had a limiter put on by my parents, however, I couldn't understand how to do so, at least, not without my parents knowing.

So, I thought, I wouldn't be able to solve this, and ended up mumbling about it, Aldoh heard it, and said he could do it.

Then, of course I asked him, but it was for no use; he only laughed…

Now, here we are, with such an opportunity I can't possibly let it pass.

"Alright, deal."

"Deal?"

"Yeah, don't forget it."

As I got more serious about it, the results arrived; 2 hits per second, max 5 per second (when there were a lot of targets near together), but I kept most of the time at 2 per second; consistency allowed my scores to rise considerably quicker than Aldoh's.

Despite losing earlier, I'm now about 6,000 points ahead of him and increasing.

We stayed there for 2 hours…

Aldoh was more competitive than I thought.

In the end, I collapsed to the ground; the gap was too large for him to reach, so I gave up; I didn't want to waste more mana in this one; I was already at my limit, going full strength with this weapon has absorbed a lot of my mana.

Mother came running as soon as I fell.

"Lu my dear, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, just a bit tired, no need to worry Mom."

Mom, she sat on the floor with me, putting my head above her legs.

Aldoh approached and looked at me from above.

"Hey, kid, what was that?" He asked, he clearly couldn't believe what happened.

"I… winning our match, right?"

Seeing how competitive Aldoh is, it's fun to mess with him a little.

"...alright, you little monster." Aldoh said, before walking away.

"Aldoh! Don't call him that!"

"It's fine Mom. He's just mad that he LOST to a five-year-old."

"I'm not mad!"

"See…"