Talents

Arriving at the Grand Hall, Cyrus saw his father had returned and was standing beside Oriana in silence while she spoke with another lady.

The lady had blue hair that reminded him of water and the way she dressed seemed to want it that way.

'A water phoenix maybe?'

"Cyrus come here, greet your aunt. This is Darya your mother's sworn sister."

"Good morning auntie."

"Good morning to you too Cyrus, I heard you wanted to test your affinity for the runic arts?"

"Mhmm!" Cyrus nodded at her question.

"Here, take this."

Darya pulled out a translucent orb with a shade of cyan, her ring had flashed as she done so. Cyrus had heard from Oriana about storage rings but seeing it himself was a little jarring.

It basically appeared in her hand in a blink, there was no transition he could make out.

'When I can in the future I should make it so it appears in a showy way, that would be a fun side project.'

Cyrus didn't wait any further and took the orb from Darya, "Drip some blood and insert some Ki into it, can you do that?"

"Yes," Cyrus bit his thumb in a hurry and pressed it on the orb and insert Ki at the same time, "done."

When Cyrus looked up he saw Darya with a small dagger in hand looking at him in amusement.

"Well I didn't think you were in such a hurry," Darya laughed lightly, she stretched out her hand and asked, "can I have it back?"

Cyrus nodded and returned it while avoiding her eyes, he was feeling a little embarrassed after all.

Darya held the orb which now had a red center and a hazy brighter red fog around it.

Cyrus didn't know what it meant, but Darya had an incredulous look on her face.

"*Sigh* He really is your son," Darya passed the orb to his parents, "his affinity is as hard to look at as yours!"

Oriana grabbed the orb from her hand faster than Cyrus could even see the motion.

"Oh my! Honey we have a prodigy on our hands!" Oriana passed the orb to Sol in excitement.

Sol didn't say much, but his expression when he checked the orb of surprise, at least as far as Cyrus could make out.

"So? So? What's my affinity?"

'Is my runic affinity that high?'

"Oh darling!" Oriana hugged Cyrus, with their current height Cyrus was lifted off the ground by the hug.

Sol then spoke up, "This is certainly... worrying..."

"Oh don't say that, it's a good thing!"

"Hey! What's my affinity!"

"Oh right, Sol return the kid his orb. Cyrus just put in some Ki but don't insert it deep into the orb like before, instead skim just below the surface and then have it return into you."

Cyrus did as instructed and soon a small voice entered his ears.

"Sword, Prodigy. Fire, Prodigy. Rune, Genius. Bow, Greater. Metal, Lesser."

"Huh?!"

'Wait where did metal come from? Is it my dad?'

"Kid, you're quite talented. The grades from lowest to highest are Lesser, Greater, Genius, Prodigy and Divine. The fact that you have a single Prodigy grade talent is already amazing much less two, and with a Genius grading in another!"

"Darya's right Cyrus! We have to make plans immediately! The sooner you can start training the better! It's good we found his talent this early, I was going to wait for his 10th birthday..."

"That's just pampering the boy Ori, we still need to ask the kid what he wants to train in. Cyrus do you still want to train in runic arts? Or switch to swords or fire?"

Cyrus didn't even think it over and responded loudly, "All three!"

When Cyrus had heard the evaluation, he could immediately picture himself. A sword wreathed in flames, runes made of fire floating around him.

"That's..." Sol was about to decline when Oriana interrupted him.

"Cyrus dear, even if you have the talent learning all three is still going to be hard. Are you sure?"

"Yes! I want to learn all three!"

"Okay dear, how about this. One year, we will have tutors teach you all three for a year alright? If you at some point no longer wish to learn one of them you have to tell us okay?"

"Okay!"

"Promise?"

"Mhmm! Promise!"

"Alright, you heard him Sol. Let's have you teach him in the way of swords, and I'll take fire. I'll hire a runic teacher for him."

"...Okay." Sol decided not to argue with his wife, still he found it wasteful learn three skills instead of dedicating to one.

"Cyrus you can have today off, mommy needs to find a runic teacher for you." Oriana excused herself and left the hall with Darya.

Cyrus was thinking of returning to the library to read more books when Sol said, "Come, since I'm free now we can just start."

Sol didn't leave any room for arguments and left the hall. Cyrus followed behind as they went to the armory he was in the night before, Sol didn't let him enter though.

He left the armory with two swords in hand, one bigger than the other. Sol passed the smaller one to Cyrus and said, "This will be your training sword from now on, bring it to all our sessions understand?"

"Yes."

At the field, Sol started teaching Cyrus.

"Look carefully, if there is something you don't understand you can ask."

Cyrus nodded and Sol demonstrated a set of sword swings, his body moved with the sword and as Cyrus watched he could feel his skin prick as Sol radiated sharpness.

"Did you remember that?"

"I think so..."

"...Good then, go ahead and demonstrate it."

Cyrus then lifted his sword as he did the set, although he tried to copy Sol's movement it didn't work well.

Cyrus felt mechanical, his body didn't move as he wanted and he recognized the many errors he made.

Without Sol's prompting Cyrus continued to redo the set, fixing his errors. Sol watched his son practice with a hint of satisfaction on his face, he hadn't taught any Prodigy grade talent before but he had tutored a Genius grade one but his son had eclipsed what that Genius talent did in days within minutes.

Cyrus was still improving too, his body and mind was quickly getting used to moving the sword and his movement grew better. Cyrus wasn't satisfied though, he knew it was greedy but he wanted to at least 70% as good as his dad was.

He still felt that he was nowhere near his goal, by the time he finished his 30th set Cyrus had eliminated all the errors he could feel and yet it fell short of what he felt was 30% of his father's example.

Maybe Sol had noticed and said, "relax your body, don't just move the sword, move with it."

'What does that even mean?'

Cyrus thought over Sol's advice as he did his 31st set, though he wasn't sure what Sol had meant he kept his eye on the sword as he thought it over.

'Move with the sword? Is there a feedback from the sword or something?'

Cyrus gripped his sword harder and tried to feel the sensations it sent back to him as he did the set. Instead of getting the feedback he expected however, his movement grew stiffer. Quickly fixing his mistake and softening his grip Cyrus continued to puzzle over what his father said.

Trying again Cyrus softened his grip on the sword even further, holding it loosely but his movement didn't get better.

'Maybe I'm thinking about this wrongly, wait yeah! I'm trying to move with the sword, gripping it tighter is just moving it.'

Cyrus loosened his body a little, bit by bit as he wasn't sure how much was needed. His movement got better and better, inching closer to his goal, but he wasn't able to reach it.

As Cyrus thought it over Sol said, "Good, you've started moving with the sword don't worry about not being able to completely copying my movements. It comes with experience, experience you will earn in the future. I have no worry that you won't reach this level, with your talent it's a matter of time. You're still young and as Phoenixes we have longer lives then others, there's no need to rushy"

Sol then spent the rest of the morning teaching Cyrus the fundamentals of sword fighting, having sandwiches the servants delivered as breakfast.

When lunch came Sol said, "I have things to do in the afternoon and future lessons to prepare, ask your mother if she needs you if not you can have the day off."

After lunch Cyrus looked around for his mother but couldn't find her in the house, the servants had informed him that she left the mansion.

'Should I go out or head for the library...'

As Cyrus thought it over a small bird flew straight at him, before Cyrus could brace for impact it shined a bright light and when it dimmed Lana appeared.

"Cyrus there you are! Master asked me to find you, have you had your lunch?"

"Yeah, is my mother going to teach me now?"

"Well, not yet. Master is still away but she told me to help you control your flames."

"Oh, okay let's go then where to?"

"Master told me about your flames, the indoor hall would probably be best."

"If you say so."

"Race you there!"

"Wai-"

Before Cyrus could stop her Lana changed back into a bird and flew off leaving Cyrus there.

Cyrus heaved a heavy sigh and peeked at the seal on his chest, when he hatched as a phoenix his flames were too strong and his control wasn't enough to rein the flames in his phoenix form. Cyrus grumbled as he jogged for the hall.

"What took you so long? Wait why didn't you transform?"

"I can't mother sealed my phoenix form since I couldn't control my flames."

"Really?! That's great!"

"What? How is that great?!"

"Master didn't tell you? Don't you know Phoenixes are creatures born from the elements? When born Phoenixes are all able to control their element to an extent that many take centuries to reach! To be unable to control your flames, how strong would they be!"

'Is that so?'

"I see... thanks for telling me Lana."

"Hehe, your welcome!"

Lana led Cyrus to sit in the middle of the training hall, it was a wide hall with various weapons leaning by the walls. The hall was bigger than what he had saw outside.

'Spatial arts?'

"Come, conjure a flame so I can see how good your control is."

Cyrus nodded and stretched his arm out with his palm up, as he willed it a raging flame came forth. The fire was a dark crimson with trails of black in it, it was as if the hairs of a paint brush had red and black on each hair forming a flame that mixed red with black.

Lana froze, her eyes wide open.

"Lana? You okay?"

Cyrus dispelled the flames and asked when he saw Lana's state.

"U-uh yeah! Uh... we should just stop here I might be in over my head, don't show your flames to anyone else okay! Your parents are fine but no one you don't trust okay?"

"Right.... okay..."

'So my flames are special...'

Cyrus had already noticed the second day after hatching. When he hatched he was too excited to see the flames so he hadn't noticed but when he was left alone in his room the day after Cyrus conjured some flames still not believing he reincarnated as a Phoenix and found his flame different.

"Go ahead and do what you wanted before I called you, I need to tell master." The last part was said softly and Cyrus hadn't heard her.

"Alright... see you later."

Cyrus bid her goodbye and left for the library, he didn't know if his flames were special or not so he did not actively look for information on his flames.

At the library Cyrus put his hand over the orb that was floating on a pedestal by the entrance.

'Let's see... 'Phoenix flames'? No... hmm... this orb is such a bad search engine. I should make a better one in the future. Anyways lets try 'dark red and black'... no still too broad? Maybe I should try something a little simpler, 'record'? Okay... not that many... still in the hundreds though... just a quick skim then I'll try again.'

After some guesswork Orizo found still found several books that may contain what he wanted, a book titled Record of Fire, World of Flames and Elemental Gradings.

Cyrus skimmed through the first few pages which contained the introduction for the books, Record of Fire was about the history of flames and what they have affected. The rise of humanity was surprisingly written in here, though not in great detail. From what was recorded down the author was unable to observe the humans after the age of steel.

World of Flames was a book containing the many flames that existed in the world and was precisely what Cyrus was looking for, though honestly he had thought it was some kind of religious text at first.

Cyrus put the book aside for a moment and checked Elemental Gradings since it was the book he had the highest hope for, and his hope was right. However reading a little deeper Cyrus found that the book was a very simple grading of the many many types of different elemental variations. From the coldest flames to the hottest ice.

The book didn't go in depth into their capabilities and only gave a simple description of how to distinguish the flames vaguely and how dangerous they were.

Cyrus decided to read the Elemental Gradings first since it would tell him how highly graded his flames were, and if it was not recorded in the book then it simply meant that it was too high. The image of Lana surprised by his flame was still in his mind, if she made such a look at his flames then it should definitely be high ranked.

After skimming the fire section Cyrus found no mention of his flames, the closest descriptor was a pitch black flame that was said to have originated from Hell called hellfire.

Going back to the World of Flames book, Cyrus started skimming through it as well.

The book was an in depth guide to seemingly every flame that existed, Hellfire was described as a flame that damaged only the non-material, it was effective against ghosts and undead and did damage to the soul instead of the body when burned.

The book was thick due to the content, almost the size of Elemental Gradings.

When Cyrus reached four fifths of the book he suddenly discovered he couldn't flip any further, the pages were bound by a seal. The page the seal was on had a warning, it read, "Flames beyond this point are extremely dangerous and require clearance by authority greater than Elders to view."