Ch-7 The Eminence In Shadow Forgets To Hold Back

No One's POV 

Four years had passed since Minoru had died and reincarnated as Cid Kagenou. 

Since then, he had done a LOT of things. 

He learned every language in this world in the forth three years of his life. 

He mastered magic within a month. He upgraded magic series and spells and improved them all. 

He even created his own magic series and spells, even making books about the new magic he's made, but he has not published them, of course. 

Recently, he began to practice swordsmanship, something he started to do after Claire asked him to train with their father. 

Their father was standing on the other side, a few metres away from Cid, both having their wooden swords drawn out. 

"Watch out Cid. I won't go easy on you." Warned his father, taking a fighting stance that left little openings. 

Unfortunately for him, Cid really didn't care. He nodded his head without saying anything. When he took his stance, he eyes hollowed out and his face became void of any emotion. 

As if entering some kind of "battle mode", all the sound around him died out. The second his mother gave them the "go!", he disappeared from his spot and reappeared in front of his father so fast, the dust hadn't even left the ground he was standing on. 

Not bothering to waste time fighting someone much weaker than him, Cid swung his wooden swords at high speeds. He swung at his father's joints and pressure points, before reappearing behind him and slamming the back of the sword behind his head, knocking him out. 

As soon as his feet touched the floor, time seemed to return to normal and his father fell to the ground, unconscious. The maids and all other members of the house stared at the scene in shock, they didn't even see him move! Even Claire was left mesmerized with stars in her eyes. 

A boy gifted with knowledge and magic, who had never picked up a sword in his life, blitzed and beat a trained knight like it was nothing. 

'The only person in this household worth anything right now, is Adelinde. Her talent with the sword is insane and her EP is greatly above the average. Claire, right now is weak, but she has crazy amounts of untapped potential that has yet to be harnessed. And I'll help her tap into all of it.' Though Cid as he walked away with a nonchalant expression on his face, as if he didn't actually care about what he just pulled... Which he didn't. 

Then they put him against Claire... 

Let's just say... she felt a little demotivated after that day for a while. 

But she was quick to recover and her desire for strength increased. Cid, fo course, had his own influence on her. 

He kept telling her the same thing— 

"Power will never come your way. You'll have to take it and again power. People will always come and go, you'll never have people with you all the time. There are times, where you will have to rely on yourself. 

And even when you have people, you might still fail. Fail, because you're too weak. If you're weak, then you can't protect anything. If you can't protect the ones around you, then what's the point. In fact, you'll be unable to defend yourself either! 

You'll be left groveling when faced with those with power. That, you mustn't allow it! 

You should just throw everything away. All your connections. All your worries. All your responsibilities. Just let it all burn to a cinder and focus only on yourself. Be selfish! Only by doing so, will you reach the level of power you need to challenge me. 

That hunger to seize your ideals... that is what you are truly lacking." 

Claire was fairly surprised when she saw how charismatic Cid could be and how much he cared about becoming strong. 

But she was smart enough to understand his reasons for doing so. He didn't want to have to rely on anyone, not wanting to owe a debt to anyone. 

He never trusted anyone but himself. He firmly believed that without power, in a cruel world like this, you were nothing but an ant waiting to be trampled over. And he would not allow himself, or those close to him, to be treated that way.

When everyone began to change their treatment towards Claire and suddenly support her dreams, she was shocked. Her first reaction was looking at her younger brother, who gave her a thumbs up and a little wink. 

He then proceeded to immediately heal the condition she apparently had that Adelinde and her parents were making such a huge fuss about. She wants really sure what any of it actually meant, but she knew it was a big deal. 

And hence, her clinginess towards Cid only increased. 

Every single day, she trained in the art of the sword with Adelinde and Cid. Mostly Adelinde, since Cid preferred to focus on magic at the start, before he slowly started taking an interest in swordsmanship. 

They dueled... and she lost. 

Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over... again... 

There was never an incident that she won. Not when I came to him. 

Claire was praised for being a prodigy of the sword, a woman who would be a great dark knight. 

But Cid was simply better than her at absolutely everything and so much so, that she started learning from him. She wanted to get strong to protect him, but that dream quickly faded away. 

She realised that her brother didn't need any protection, being stronger than anyone could even imagine. 

She can to the realisation that she was getting left behind. And she couldn't stand that thought! She wanted to be there with her brother, fighting with him and helping him out. To be of use to him. To hear him praise her. 

And so, her ideals changed completely. Her hunger for power stemmed from her desire to stand next to her brother and hear him praise her. To be acknowledged as strong by a person she slowly began to view as an unstoppable force of nature. 

Adelinde then gave her a full fledged explanation of the curse, demon possession. And about the suspicions she had towards the church and about the possibility of people manipulating history and the world, behind the scenes. 

Claire, at first, thought this as nonsense. But the more she heard it, the more sense it made. And hearing Cid supporting Adelinde on this case made her feel even more suspicious about these mysterious people. 

Over the next year, Cid noticed many different changes and things about Claire. Almost all of it brought forth by Cid himself. 

The first being her eyes. He could see the hunger she had in them. And he relished it. Glad that his sister would also follow him on his path for power, he couldn't be happier. 

Cid taught Claire a lot of different things. 

He helped her manipulate and master the magic around her a lot earlier than she would have. Even when she was just learning basic swordsmanship, Cid taught her about magic control and quality, to an almost advanced level even. 

He also taught her many tricks and techniques. 

<<Sky-Walking >> is the ability to walk, run and leap through the air at high speeds using magic to reinforce your feet and spreading it in the air around you like a rippling platform. 

<<Flash-Step >> is a technique to greatly improve the speed of your body by vibrating your leg at high speeds to increase its heat and blood flow, supplying more oxygen to refresh your leg muscles. By vibrating then against the ground at high speeds and amplitudes, you can make it seems you your leg is completely still and kick off the ground, releasing all the energy you built up on your leg, specifically your calf muscles, and finally reaching unprocessable speeds. With the use of magic, you can move even faster. 

<<Vibrate >> is the base technique one needs to master before learning Flash-Step. For this technique, all that fast to be done is vibrate your body parts, mainly your arms and legs, at very high speeds. By vibrating your limbs at incomprehensible frequencies, and by using magic, you can literally cause the molecules of your body to move around so fast that the spread farther apart than they must. This will cause a form of intangibility as one's molecules will be split apart, but your hand/leg is still held together by your magic. 

Claire to a VERY long time to learn this one. Even now, it's not that perfect, since she's young and just barely learnt it, just enough to be able to use Flash-Step. 

<<Magic Perception>>, the ability to sense and feel the area around you through the use of magic, using it to feel the different fluctuations and changes that happen in your surroundings. 

<<Teleportation >>, which could be simply down by focusing magicules all around your body and in it, before then doing th exact same at a certain location. Of course, you must also know the exact distance to get there and be precise in the position you want to be in, and then, create a singular magicule wave to make your body suddenly travel through the magicules into the location of choice. 

<<Gate >>, the ability to literally create a hole in space-time using magicules. Cid figured out that magicules were unaffected by gravity, space and even time itself, so he taught Claire to create portals. By focusing the magicules in two different places and following the exact same procedure as <<Teleportation >>, rather than using the magicules to move your body, which is much harder, you could also just make the magicules shift and bend downwards. 

<<Gate >> follows the exact same concept as a Wormhole, established by Ludwig Flam, and expanded later by Albert Einstein and his colleague, Nathan Rosen. From the general theory of relativity, Cid is aware that space-time is like a sheet with can bend and curve and ripple. Using the magicules to force a curve onto the sheet from two different points, you could cause those two points to connect through a tunnel-like structure, called a Wormhole, which is exactly what this spell is. 

<<Telepathy >>, the ability to speak to another person through their minds by collecting a group of magicules with your thoughts in it, and sending it into the target's brain. This is a basic form of telepathy which can only be done when the person you wish to talk to us within range of your sight. 

Cid has yet to properly establish a true telepathic link, which would make it possible to talk to others despite beings extremely far away from each other. But he's certain that he could do it within the next two or three years. And when he does, the first people he'll establish a link to, will be Claire and Adelinde. 

And of course, he taught these skills to Adelinde as well, who helped train them. Adelinde was surprisingly strong, no longer being restricted by her curse. 

Cid was originally surprised when he say how high her EP was in comparison to his parents. Since Adelinde's EP was in the 20,000s. But after her curse was cured, Cid was shocked by her EP count, which had reached 100,000! 

That's more power than he had access to information the first couple months of his new life! 

Claire also, had been steadily growing her EP. As a six year old, Claire's EP was comparable to his own when he was two years old! 

During this time, she also trained her entire body every single day. Both her, and Cid. Despite being literal children, their muscles were very well developed. 

Wake up early in the morning. 

Immediately go train and spar for a few hours. 

Take a shower. 

Eat breakfast. 

Go train for a few more hours. 

Eat lunch. 

Read books. 

Meditate. 

Train. 

Take another shower. 

Eat dinner. 

Practice simple magic quality and control within their bodies. 

Go to bed. 

And repeat. 

This was their routine, if you excluded Cid's nightly adventures.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Cid has reached the age of five, officially. His birthday just passed a few days prior. 

"Hm... Magic is good. But Skills are more useful and have less drawbacks. I wonder, VOTW, can't I turn my magic into skills to store ?" He asked, looking up at the sky randomly. Normal people would think he's lost his mind, talking to himself while staring at the sky. 

It had been a very long time since he's heard anything from the VOTW, so he wasn't really expecting a reply. 

[Cid Kagenou has acquired a unique skill, {Metamorphosis}.] 

[Metamorphosis: A skill that allows the user to transform their magic and innate abilities into respective skills. As a unique skill, it is currently only bound to you and only effects its user's powers.]

"...."

He didn't actually expect a reply from the Voice Of The World. Much less a brand new Unique Skill! 

Sometimes he wondered if the VOTW was biased towards him. 

[...] 

But that only means one thing! Now, all his magic and abilities, have become his skills! Hooray! 

He smirked in satisfaction. 

"I wonder... If that's really the case..." 

Adelinde walked outside the mansion to go and call Cid back for lunch. 

"Cid-sama, it's time to eat your lunch. Please come with me to the dining hall." During this time, Adelinde's belief and faith in Cid has skyrocketed to new heights! Cid didn't know if he had accidentally activated {Belief Manipulation} or not, but he hoped he hadn't. 

"Yeah, just give me a bit. I want to test something." Said Cid, somewhat absent-mindedly. 

This made Adelinde pause in her tracks. 'Oh ? What kind of miracle is he going to make now ?' 

Cid put his arm out and stared at his own palm. With great concentration, he formed a mouth on his hand. Seeing this, he couldn't help but grin victoriously. 

The main reason why he preferred skills over magic, was because magic can still be restricted in some way or form, but his skills cannot. 

With this, be activated {Metamorphosis}, turning this into a skill. 

[Cid Kagenou has acquired {Autonomy}.] 

[Autonomy: The ability to have absolute, unparalleled control over ones own physical body, including their morphological and their anatomical structure, with which even the thought of changing ones own gene pool becomes child play.] 

He grinned. He was able to do this earlier as well, but now, it had become a skill! Which means even more power and control than regular magic. And it couldn't be cancelled easily by Anti-Magic. 

Adelinde was surprised when she noticed the mouth on his hand and immediately went into high alert. 

Her mind immediately reached three possible scenarios–

1. Cid Kagenou has some kind of creature/demon residing inside him, whose power he was capable of harnessing.

Now normally, Adelinde might have believed this, but Cid didn't have the signature of another spiritual being inside of him. As it's already been established that Adelinde can sense spiritual life-forms, she knew this was not the case. 

2. Cid Kagenou was being possessed by an external entity. 

But Adelinde immediately ruled this possibility out. Why ? Because–

1) He's Cid Kagenou. 

2) Adelinde would have been able to see the spirit in question if this was the case. 

So this left the third and final option... 

3. Cid Kagenou found a way to form a mouth on his hand, most likely my controlling his own biology. 

This one was the most absurd one yet, but also the most believable since it's THE Cid Kagenou, who Adelinde was already convinced, was built different. 

With an almost unhealthy smirk on his face, he stretched his hand out and almost instantly, the mana around Cid became dense and dark, forcing Adelinde to freeze in place. 

With both mouths speaking simultaneously, he chanted two different spells. 

<<Tempestas Caelorum>>

<<Ignis Aeternum>>

Literally translating to "Storm of the Heavens" and "Eternal Flame". 

Cid had a habit of naming all his spells in Latin, because they sounded cool. 

The mere sound of these incantations maid Adelinde almost fall over in shock. 

'What the hell is this?!! Unbelievable... A double incantation! And their both advanced spells!! If memory serves, only extremely powerful figures of history have been able to use advanced spells!! And he's using TWO of them... AT THE SAME TIME!!???'

Cid then proceeded to stack these spells on top of each other, using {Dimensionality} to negate his requirement of chanting it every time, allowing him to now stack the spells on a whim. 

This resulted in him stacking each spell on top of each other a hundred times over. 

'Now he's STACKING them?!!! NOW HE'S STACKING THE ALREADY STACKED SPELLS AGAIN?!!!'

Just as she thought this, Cid began to stack these spells on top of each other. Then created another incantation ring beyond this one, and proceeded to stack that one. In the end, he had created a ten layered advanced magical spell, each layer having been stacked on itself over a hundred times over. 

'NOW HE'S COMBINING THEM???!!!!'

Cid then combined the two destructive advanced spells into one massive spell. 

Cid's eyes suddenly widened and he slightly panicked. He overdid it! He greatly underestimated the power such a spell would generate. 

At this point, it had turned into an Anti-Army attack. 

If he was to release these spells right here and now, it would NOT end well. 

So, Cid turned to the heavens, and shot this magic directly up at the sky. 

The overwhelming power of the tempestuous, hurricane-force winds and crackling lightning, combined with the swirling, smoldering, torrential pillar of nigh-eternally burning flames, mixed together after being stacked on each other, 

Shooting into the sky, the light burned through the entire Kingdom. The entirety of Midgar, it's skies had got pure white, shining with pure radiant light. The clouds had vanished from the atmosphere above the kingdom, completely. 

The sheer power of this attack caused the very earth to shake and the entire nation creeked and shook from the power, like some kind of earthquake. The shockwave shot out and wind blew across the kingdom, though luckily, it didn't actually break anything, except maybe blow some things into the air. 

After a few seconds, the light died down and was replaced with a paradoxical darkness. The formerly blue skies had become as dark as the night itself. 

Adelinde was literally on the ground, her whole body white and her brain discombobulated. 

"Wha-wha... What the... He blew a h-hole in the sky... I.. I can see... the stars!" 

Literally, right above the Kagenou Manor, was a massive hole in the earth's atmosphere, revealing the cosmos itself and allowing nothing but darkness and the stars to be shown. But this hole was by no means small. 

In fact... It was so big, the entire city was affected by it! 

Cid, at first, grinned upon seeing the sheer display of power he had accumulated. Without a shred of down, he could annihilate a city with this attack without even so much as sweating. And what's worse. If he felt like it, he could spam this attack! 

Not to mention, he has a lot more advanced spells at his disposal to combine and experiment with. This was merely the first one. 

But then...

He noticed the massive hole he made in the sky and immediately, his face fell. 

'HOLY SHIT!! I DIDN'T MEAN TO DO THAT!!!'

Quickly, he raised his hand and changed another spell. 

<<Contra Nill>>

Just after using this spell, the hole began to reform itself, showing a perfectly normal, cloudless, blue sky. It was like that hole from before never even existed. 

Adelinde, who saw him do this, fainted on the spot, unable to comprehend the sheer enormity of his attack. 

Meanwhile, Cid was rubbing the back of his head. "Man, I hope nobody saw that!" 

....

*SWOOSH*

The breeze began to blow slowly, making him gain a deadpan expression. 

"What am I even saying. I'd be more surprised if such an event, didn't go unnoticed!" 

That spell, now skill, which he used to repair the sky, was called <<Contra Nill>>. 

In simple terms, it was a skill that reduced the effects of previously used magic to zero, effectively nullifying them. It was already insanely powerful to have as a spell, especially in world of magic. But now that <<Contra Nill>> became a skill for him, thanks to {Metamorphosis}, he has literally no restrictions on this skill like he did earlier. 

This by itself, made Cid pretty much invincible in this world. 

He then sighed in relief, seeing that the problem was solved. 

He then looked at Adelinde and widened his eyes in surprise when he saw her unconscious body. 

'Ehe... I suppose that is a normal reaction to seeing a five year old blast a hole in the sky...'