chapter 2 : mana core

Finally, starting today was my magic combat training with my sister began and the one who was training my sister till now was my grandfather nian ginha { he was the father of my mother} he always felt a bit distant to me which I don't know the reason for so I don't know him that well but according to my sister he is very sweet, I left to the training ground in our palace where I will be training for the next 2 years. when I opened the door to the training grounds I saw it , it looked a gladiator stadium more than training grounds and in the middle of it was my sister with grandfather waiting for me, this training grounds didn't have any roof it was protected by the barrier around palace. As soon as my sister saw me she waved happily signally me to come over faster so I did as quick as I could. " you are so late, even after I woke u up"

"hehe..' I said smiling and scratching my head. " ok, lets start the training now" my grandfather said with an authoritive voice , my grandfather told my sister to distance herself from me and to launch the ice-spear spell she was working on to the human sized target at the right end of the training ground.

my sister who was a feet taller than I was standing at 3.5ft took her stance and raised her right arm to the front to her shoulder level facing the target, and said just one word " ice spear" and a stick shaped spear with spiral coating of ice surrounding it like thorns was formed, so as to avoid anyone from even catching , if anybody attempted to catch it would slice their arms, my sister launched her spear, for a 5yo her ice spear was pretty fast, and hit it the target and struck like an arrow right through its head. I was impressed " wow " I said " now zel why don't you try imitating your sister" my grandfather said " grandpa even though he is about to breakthrough to silver core without training it only means his mana storage is high, he has never had any training"

" its okay sis, I wanted to try anyway" I said with a smile of assurance towards her" but..."

I took my stance where my sister was standing imitated her every action perfectly to raising my arm to my shoulder height in front of me and raised it a bit higher to the height of the targets head and said the word " ice-spear" it took the exact shape my sister had created it in but it was thinner like a needle with spiral coating and the length was about the same. I launched the spell towards the target and it just pierced my sister's ice spear and struck it like an arrow not piercing through it it just was stuck to the ice spear.

" That's my brother, but I feel sad that my brother is growing up so fast" "huh.. but even u are gonna grow up" I said, " but grandpa said that your eyes symbolize war , doesn't that mean you will have hard life" she said looking down with a sad " that's why I want to be the strongest to keep you safe"

I just walked towards her and hugged her , well I did have my doubts about my eye and how overprotective my mother but I guess its fine , this time I have people around me who wants me.

" just being around you makes me feel safe, and about your strength , you will be the strongest "

" I know" she said with a smirk, " ok now zel I want u to do one thing, that is land a punch on your sister" my grandfather said " well she can only defend, so she wont attack you, so you have an advantage try landing a hit on her"

" Don't think its gonna be easy brother , hehe" she said rubbing her index finger on her face with a grin.

" we will see about that" I said " you are just one" she replied with a sarcastic smile

" take your stance" my grandfather said and we took our fighting stance , even though I was able to walk and run at this point but still I was not fast nor did I have any control over my steps, my brain knew what to do but my body was still getting used to me walking, and running at a slow pace .

then we started, before I could even blink bel was right in front me as if she just appeared," try to hit" she said and I threw a punch to her face which she dodged easily slipping to the side," you have to do a lot better than that to even make me block your punch " I threw another punch which she dodged again , even though she was right in front of me I couldn't even catch her moreover it looked like she wasn't even trying, she was just playing around and kept throwing punch after punch.. hours passed by I was sweating dreadfully and my sister hadn't even broken a sweat, she didn't even have to block one punch, she was fast enough to dodge it without even trying.

I stood tired, with my hands placed on my knees, when my sister said " even though you are different than others, this time that I spent with u today made me happy that you are just a baby trying to walk" she said " rest up zel you did great" my hand slipped and I fell forward only to be caught by my sister on her shoulder , with me on her shoulder she looked at grandfather" okay go rest , you are done for today" ," thanks grandpa" my sister said with a smile and then she took me to our room surprisingly enough my mother was waiting for us in our room.

" don't give that worried look mother, he is just tired" my sister said to which my mother nodded saying " I know" my sister laid me down on the bed and my mother sat next to me running her fingers though my hair " how was your training?" " it was fun, well I couldn't land a punch on sister so a little disappointing" I said, " you are a few years too early for that my dear brother, one day okay?"

" yeah" I replied to my sister's words, " I will be joining you from tomorrow to oversee your training, I told you didn't i?, you need to convince me to allow you outside after you finish 2 years of training here" ," I know mother, I will convince you" I replied to my mother's words, she gave me her goodnight kiss before leaving the room saying she will see me at the training grounds the next morning.

" were you even trying ?" I asked my sister " no" she said with a smile and hugged me like how she always does " but I guess one day I wont be able to catch you even I try, everyone keeps saying how you are destined to be the strongest and that you will have to overcome hell since your power is that great. you know why I keep trying so hard to be strong right after you were born?, cause grandpa said you will have a lonely road ahead with that eyes, but I am gonna change it , I will never leave you alone, I will get stronger , stronger than everyone , stronger than mother and father"

" thank you" I said, and we went to sleep.

the next day at the training grounds," should I start my training of trying to land a hit on bella ?"

" no" my grandpa replied " you are gonna run 500laps around this ground?" ,"500!!" I said " yes 500 go.. start running" and I did as per my grandpa's instruction I had to finish it by the end of the day, a round of the ground is 1 mile so I had to run 500miles by the end of the day, I started running trying to imbue mana in my legs as my grandfather had suggested, but I didn't succeed in doing so while running but I kept trying while running and after a few laps I was able to do it, by this time my legs were already worn out but I didn't give in, I started running with imbuing more and more mana into my legs, with time I got faster, with my mind occupied with counting the number of laps I hadn't paid attention to anything, after completing all the laps around the ground except one, I looked around trying to find my sister and I saw her sparring with mother, I guess I had forgotten how strong my mother is since she had always look so gentle and being worried about me didn't help it for her. my sister condensed her mana into an ice spear but was immediately melted into water by my mother and a cyclone of water erupted around my sister soon after it turned into ice and trapped my sister from all around except the top, my sister jumped high taking a few quick steps on the ice around her she jumped higher than the ice cyclone only to be met by my mother with flick on her forehead my sister was sent flying to the ground and was knocked out from the impact.

my mother flew down to the ground from mid-air, " did u complete your 500 laps?" my mother asked " no" and I started running the last lap after seeing that I got excited and adrenaline was rushing through my body I guess I am still a fight maniac, I picked up speed and was almost at the end of finishing the lap when I felt a chill run through my body and my core started aching, I was about to breakthrough. energy surged through me, I was encircled by mana and was lifted to the air.

LIA AIRSTROM

" wait what's going on?" I asked my father, "calm down, he is just breaking through", wait that's not how people usually breakthrough, is it related to his eyes?, why? why did it have to be my son ? i wondered with worry about how much difficulties does he face for that eye, " don't worry too much Lia, your son is born to be strong, its not that eyes symbolize war, it symbolize change and power"

war is inevitable , even if he didn't have those we would still go to war in another 10-15years we both know that but since he is born with those eyes that might be delayed" my father said that to comfort me but the only thing that did is make me worry even more," I guess its fine since the eyes only represent the power in the mage but the eyes themselves are mere eyes, they don't hold any power"

" I guess that's true since the eyes of the Edward{the mage 2000 years ago} didn't hold any power even though he was capable of manipulating all the four elements" " yeah" we kept looking at zel who was just floating in the air his entire body glowing in silver, it returned to normal and he suddenly faced us in the air floating but it looked like he was flying with his foot facing the ground and his eyes open, but at that moment I couldn't see my little boy, those eyes usually filled with love looked dead , for a second his body changed and returned to normal, I saw a reptilian right eye and cold black eye, they were not colorful like they were before, just one look for a sec and my body was trembling" father"

I looked at my father and in that split second my father was sweating and was in aww and fear at the same time, I had never seen my father in that state. "dragon eye" my father said " what?" I asked, then he told me that for a split second zel right eye had been that of a dragon. dragons are considered gods , the beast gods which rule above all the mana beasts and can become true gods. But those were only legends nobody had seen a dragon clan ever and only ones who came close to dragons were the reptilian clan who were the clan of people who could transform themselves into dragons but of the lowest kind and that was 2000 years ago in the war, the leader of that clan was a dragon-kin of higher dragon than the lowly reptilian clan mages.

" was it really a dragon eye?" I asked " I am not sure but it looked reptilian didn't it?" my father said in response, " it did" then zel returned to normal and slowly landed on the ground, he had broken through to silver core. bella came running towards zel as soon as she woke up, "what happened?, why is he unconscious?", " he broke through" I replied to her question, " that was fast" she said with a saddened face, " don't feel down bella, you have to be strong to be side to side with your brother"

" I will!! mother", she said with an expression that was filled with confidence.

then we took him to his room and let him rest.

kids usually breakthrough to silver core at the age of 10 and later, cores may not represent the fighting capacity of a mage but it does tell the mana storage capacity and the strength of the spell, since they have more condensed mana and better control over mana. but for both of them to break through to silver core at the age of 1 and 4, it was amazing , I should have been proud but I was worried that they wont lead a life filled with peace.

THE NEXT DAY

it was my day of rest since I broke through to silver core the previous day, but I couldn't rest so I said I will at least watch my sister train, surprisingly enough even my father was present at the training grounds, he was training with grandfather and mother while sister fighting was with 3ice-clones of mother. my sister had improved much more in these 2days since I had started training, her growth rate was on par with me. I just carefully watched all of them. one side my father was fighting 1 on 2 against my mother and grandpa, dad was really strongest I guess its no joke to be strongest in all of four kingdoms. my mother and grandpa dashed towards father and my grandpa attacked head on while mother just leaped to the air and coated ice around her ship and spin kicked father was from the air, father blocked grandpa's straight with his bare arm and and created a spiral of air on top of his head to block the kick from mother and he just sent both of them flying to a distance with a blast of wind." have you both been secretly training heh?" my father asked with a smirk, " shut up" my grandpa filled with fury and jumped straight to him, coating his fist with ice and and creating few spikes of ice on random places which he used to step on to attack my father and step back to. it looked like grandpa was dancing on ice spikes, he attacked and generated ice spear wherever he landed and jumped off it as it flew to air whenever he jumped of it, my father had noticed what grandfather was trying to do, all the spears that flew into air had been combining to form a bigger spear one at the size of a comet.

finally it was time grandpa jumped off after attacking which had all been blocked my father but neither of them had landed a significant strike, I was wondering where mother was but I couldn't see her, grandpa launched the ice spear towards father and he did the same thing he did to block my mother's attack earlier he created a whirlwind of air till it reached the ice spear which was at a certain height in the sky, my grandpa is not much of a schemer I thought, that was when the ice spear just melted and combined with the whirlwind forming a whirlpool, thinking that it might have been father , I looked at him only to see him shocked it was mother she froze the whirlpool into an ice spear in an instant since the whirlwind was straight connected to father's palm facing the sky now the ice spear was also near his palm and it just struck him in a speed he couldn't react, the spear just struck through the ground and fog erupted from the collision, the weather was chilly from the impact. when the fog cleared I could see the fire wall surrounding my father in the middle of the huge crater. in that instant he had lifted slabs of land and rubbed it against each other at such speed it ignited and let my father to control the ignition through air and using wind he controlled the flame and manipulated it to create a wall of fire. components related to air was present in everything, it was not a physical component like the others, it was the weakest element if u don't understand but father's understanding of his powers were high.

he brushed off the fire wall" was that your trick to use my spell against me" ," well not like you didn't expect the spear" grandpa said" well lets keep going" father said and they started blasting spells after spells at each other in a short time after that clothes were torn and bodies were covered with bruises. seeing them using the basic spells at such level, I thought would it flatten fiore if they fought all out with high level spells.

I finished thinking that and I was just blown into the wall which was just a feet away from me, my sister was in the ground in the same line and side I was was blown straight next to me where I caught air before she could crash into the wall, the ice-clones she was fighting shattered.

there were several whirlwinds surrounding mother and grandpa and with the power of wind alone father had moved the clouds to form thunder and lightning and used the lightning to cover one of the whirlwind , that whirlwind looked like whirl of thunder, never could have I imagined to use just the wind magic to such extent. it was already night they had been fighting the whole day, father had used the water from the clouds to create and whirlpool and whirl of half condensed water. it had the strength and solidity close to ice but was still in a state of thick water. the other whirl was completely froze into a spear.

my mother and grandpa were stuck in the middle of this monstrous spells of all these elements. then my mother raised her hand to the sky and froze the air controlling the three whirls, one of water and other was the condensed version of it while the last was whirl shaped ice.

she was able to take control of all the whirls except the whirl of lightning, father immediately broke the whirl of lighting into hundreds of lightning spears and launched it, all of them were exhausted by utilizing so much mana grandpa could barely stand "he is done " mother shouted my father stopped the lightning spears in the air and dissipated it but one went through and was about to strike grandpa that's when my sister was in front of grandpa with an ice spear and striked the lightning spear and the collision blew both of them away but they were safe. my mother who was controlling the three whirls couldn't last much longer, my father just lunged and was immediately in front of mother , that was his last bit of energy used to jump to where mother was seeing that she will lose control of it. mother lost consciousness and fell into his arms, the whirls just sucked up everything and was headed to my parents, my father struggled and tried to dissipate the spell but he didn't have enough mana. ALL of them were down, nobody could a muscle except but how could I carry all of them out, all the workers and maids are on the other side, I don't have time to call any of them, there is little time, that was when the earth opened like a mouth and swallowed the whirl of ice whole and closed again. I turned back it was Sofie, that was powerful spell, if she used another one of it then she would not have enough mana to move. " go help bella and grandpa" i shouted " yeah " she ran and picked bella on her shoulder and helped grandpa get up it was too late the other whirls were about to strike the pressure of whirls was so much that even with full power even moving in the training grounds was difficult, since Sofie was an earth mage she created a frictionless path from bella and grandpa to the entrance and just slid through to the entrance.

if I could only stop time like before, I said everything froze in place, time hadn't been stopped but it had been slowed down, I tried the spell Sofie had used and made the earth like a slide and my parents slid down right outside the training grounds, to manipulate earth to that extent I used up all my mana, it had not been even stabilized.

everything became a blur, I was about to be unconscious again that's when I chanted " erase" and I saw the two whirl just get erased into thin air.

Sofie:

those few seconds after bella being blown away to the king and queen collapsing felt like minutes but even felt slower, after I saved bella and sir nian, I looked at zel, it looked as if time had been slowed down he used the spell I had just used but to use on someone far away from you other than under your feet, it was just beautiful, the king and queen were out of the training grounds, but I looked at zel and he was falling to the ground and while in the midst of falling he chanted "erase" which echoed through the sky, for a second his hair turned pitch black and grew till his shoulder and turned back to normal again, in that instant the two whirls were erased without a trace and zel fell onto the ground slowly as if being placed, I didn't know since when had the time been slowed down but it turned back to normal. even though the slowing of time didn't affect us, it affected the surroundings and as the maids and servants I had called to come help came running now, but it had been minutes since I had heard the commotion of that huge spell that the king chanted and called them to rush in if I signal them.

" what took you so long?" I asked " long? miss Sofie it hasn't been even a minute after you called us" one of the servants replied, " what?" so the time slowed down the moment the lightning spell went out of control, but how did it get slower with each passing second to the point even a second felt long,

was it because of zel? I asked to myself but I couldn't be sure so we picked everyone up to there rooms and treated them and left them to rest "is zel okay?" the queen asked " yes ma'am, he is just tired" worrying about her kid even when she is in worse condition, " he saved us" the king just smiled, he never lost his consciousness, but he couldn't move, so I guess he did see what zel did.

I left the room to let them rest and headed to zel's room to take a look at him. he was awake just looking at his sister," you are up".