Chapter 14

The day after Lucas returned home, he was greeted with early morning physical exercise. It began with Lilya jumping toward him while yelling "Smash!" and hitting his stomach. Without guiltiness, she laughed and told him to wake up for exercise.

His brother, Steven, was waiting in the backyard and looked at him in amusement, probably because he saw how annoyed Lucas looked and how Liliya was.

"Alright, it's been a week. Have you been exercising in there?" Steve asked.

However, instead of Lucas, it was Liliya who responded, saying, "No! He hurriedly had breakfast in the morning before heading to the tower to read!"

Lucas gave a stink eye toward her but later smirked when a thought crossed his mind. "Still better than you, who spent the morning eating and snoozing like a pig.

"Wha—" Liliya looked flabbergasted. "Lies! I didn't sleep like a pig!"

"Ha! You just confessed you didn't exercise either!"

"Lying is bad!"

"Alright! That's enough from both of you!" Steven interfered. While he was amused and not minding his siblings' bickering, he still needed them to focus on the exercise. "It seems you both neglected training while you were away .... That won't do. Warm up, and then we will start running!"

The youngest siblings chose to follow their eldest and began warming up. Once they were done, they started to run, and it wasn't a normal run because Steven was chasing them with a wooden sword, and they had to skillfully dodge his attacks. The purpose behind this?

To enhance their focus while evading a confrontation. The philosophy being, that to win a fight, one must learn the art of strategic retreat because by preserving oneself, the opportunity to fight another day is ensured. For mages, mastering the skill of evading attacks while running was crucial. In cases where their magic might not be enough to block an attack, and if such a scenario happened or when they ran out of mana, relying on their physical agility to evade attacks became essential.

Steven didn't just attack them; he also talked with them, and if they failed to respond, he would strike them without allowing any chance of them dodging it. In fact, even if they attempted to answer him, he would still launch attacks, though these were avoidable, unlike the consequences if they failed to respond to him.

By the end of the run, both siblings were dead tired. Lucas was wheezing heavily while Liliya lay down with eyes closed as if she had lost her consciousness.

"I'll let you guys rest for now," Steven kindly informed them before telling a servant to fetch water for his siblings. "Rest well for fifteen minutes, and then we will start again."

"This—" Lucas wheezed, "—is torture." He finished while gasping for breath.

"Nah, it is far from torture," Steven cheerfully replied. If that wasn't torture, then Lucas didn't want to know what his brother considered as torture.

As his brother promised, they had a fifteen-minute rest before they were forced to do squats, sit-ups, push-ups, and various exercises until their entire bodies ached.

"Now, drink this. It will alleviate your aches." Steven offered them two potions designed to reduce pain and discomfort. After consuming it, Lucas felt the pain subsiding, and the aches became less bothersome. "Now, go bathe, both of you, and we will have breakfast."

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"Father, what's the matter?" Lucas asked upon entering his father's office. Shortly after he finished breakfast, his father told him to meet him in the office without providing any explanation.

"Yes, I heard from your mother that you found Poldansius' item?" He asked straight to the point.

Lucas nodded. "Yes, why?"

"Good, keep it well. Do you wear it?"

Lucas shook his head. He had no reason to wear the bracer all the time since it attracted attention.

"Then bring it here." Lucas eyed his father curiously but didn't voice his thoughts. He nodded and left to retrieve the bracer.

It didn't take long for him to fetch the bracer and return to the office. His father examined the bracer with his usual stoic face that didn't betray any emotion.

"Come." He unfurled a map on the table and then beckoned Lucas to come closer. "You can sense their direction, right? Where are they now?"

Lucas activated EO, gazing in the direction of the remaining stones, and informed his father. The fire and dark stones were to the northwest, the water stone was to the east, the wind stone was to the southwest, and lastly, the light stone was to the west.

"Can you sense how close they are?"

"Fire and dark stones are distant, but the dark stone is much farther. The water stone is slightly farther than the fire stone. The wind stone is more or less the same distance as the others. As for the light stone, it is the closest."

"Hmm …. Assuming none of them are outside of our kingdom, then ...." His father took out a pen and circled possible locations for the stones on the map.

"The light stone is in the Capital?" Lucas looked at the map with widened eyes.

"That, or it is located in the west territory, but since you say it is closer, then it is possibly located in the capital," his father explained. "Can you extract the stone in your bracer?"

Lucas nodded at that and pulled out the Earth stone.

"Then we will try to estimate the distance. One of my men will bring the stone, and your task is to measure the distance. This way, we will obtain a much clearer understanding of the distance and location of the remaining stones."

Lucas nodded. He hadn't expected for his father to be this invested. He supposed that his father also wanted to witness the complete version of the bracer.

"That aside, how much do you know about Poldansius' secret and all?" His father asked as he gestured to him to sit down together.

"Uh, well…. Poldansius had a plan to reach tier 8, but he can't because he is beyond the chance. The first thing he suggested is to create an artificial magic core."

His father hummed. "An artificial magic core…. Had he finished it?"

Lucas shook his head. "It is not complete yet, but he hopes his successor can finish it. Although, even the incomplete formula is already good enough for the improvement of the mana refinement spell."

That made his father's eyes twinkle. "Will you use it?"

"I will draw inspiration from it and make my own improvements. It feels wrong for me to rip it off from Poldansius completely."

His father nodded proudly. "Good, copying is okay, but don't feel too happy about it. If possible, make an improvement on your own."

"I will."

"Then, is there any mention of his family or why his bracer became separated? Nobody knows how Poldansius died or whether he has a family or not."

Lucas went through the record and then replied, "He has a family—a son and a daughter, Julian and Lyanna."

"Hmmm.... They are common names, and I haven't heard of anyone with that name reaching a high magic tier. Unless they changed their names or left the kingdom. How did the bracer end up like that?"

Lucas shook his head. "There is no mention of it."

"That's unfortunate," his father let out a soft sigh. "Lucas, you have been blessed. You have access to what many mages would die for. Use it well and grow. If you need help, then just ask. We will assist you as much as we can."

Lucas felt touched. He knew his family would assist him whenever he asked, but hearing it directly resonated differently. He truly felt blessed to be born into this family. He vowed that he would help his family prosper once he managed to gain a foothold in this world.

"Thank you, Father. Then, would you mind helping me? I will prepare a list of what I need."