Lesson One

Kaiser Remington

Upon the rising of the sun, I woke up fully refreshed and ready to train. With my newly acquired knowledge about magic, all I need to know is a school or some kind of facility that trains magic. However, in my small body, it's better to train my way to be ready in the future.

I ate the food from last night and went to the storage room to train for a day.

I started my training by sitting in a meditative form. I closed my eyes, performed deep rhythmic breaths, and concentrated on myself.

While dwelling on my deep blank thought, I recalled every detail that I've acquired yesterday from my encounter with Kaiser.

Focusing more on my meditation process, I started to slowly use God's vision to a point where I can hold it for more time.

After several moments of using God's vision, I can see my mana body starting to appear. There are small white orbs floating around and I can't see my whole mana body which means that it's still undeveloped and the white unorganized orbs will serve as my stepping stone.

My body felt the heat as this is my first time prolonging God's vision. Every time I moved the small orbs to mold it into a body, they all break apart and returned to space itself.

As I was slowly forming and clumping them. I suddenly felt reality pulling me to itself.

I gasped as I was forced to open my eyes as I felt a calming heat in my body seeing that I was shrouded with a thin, white aura. Even though I stopped using God's vision, I can see my small aura which shows my improvement in manipulating my mana. My growth rate is quite fast for a beginner like me.

I felt tired and drowsy so I stopped releasing mana and I took a rest for a bit.

The mana slowly dissipates as I lied down to the ground with my arms extended to the ceiling.

"I can do this." I declared while drenched in my sweat which I got during my meditating state.

I sat up and started to meditate again. Three minutes have passed when I suddenly heard someone opening the door disrupting my meditation, I looked and it was my sister, Flora.

"Flora?" I asked turning my body in her direction.

"Brother? Are you playing alone?" She asked with a gloomy tone.

Oh shit, she'll cry again if I don't give a proper response.

"N-N-No Flora, I'm studying." I hope she doesn't get mad.

"Can I study with you?" Flora asked, still standing on the door holding her teddy bear.

"What are you two doing?" Mother interrupts patting my sister's head.

Mother looks at me and noticed my state. "Oh, when did you learn meditating Kaiser?"

"What?! Meditating?" Father asked peeking on the same door as mother and Flora.

"I-I saw you yesterday meditate outside the backdoor."

"Well, I guess you'll follow the path of your father." He jokingly said as he laughed.

"Oh come on dear. Don't pressure Kaiser, he's still young for that." Mother said.

"You'll only mature your mana when you're past eight of your age son. I think I was 11 years old when I manifested my mana body." He proudly said.

I showed a smile at my father's journey.

"Okay, let's not interrupt your brother's study time." Mother said getting Flora outside.

"How can I be like you, Father?" I asked looking at him.

"Well, I don't recommend you doing that meditation because you're still young and you'll never even see a bit of your mana body." Father replied.

"Okay." I replied with a discouraged face though I can already see small parts of my mana body.

"If you'd like to try and train yourself then you could do try it but I don't recommend that at all." Father said and closed the door.

Even though it seems that it's really impossible, with my unique gift and element. Maybe I could pull this off.

***

One week has passed and I noticed small improvements in my mana body. I could finally see my mana body still forming its core but there's still no sign of my shadow element.

As a result, I'm able to utilize my mana to slightly manipulate and control the objects that I use. However, my lack of knowledge regarding the manifestation of my shadow element made my progress slower because my mana can only do basic things that every mage could do.

I have to endure in maturing my mana body to be able to finally manifest my elemental magic.

I continued my training for months and I'm finally near to completing my mana body. The mana body also looks like a human body but its only difference is it shines in the color of the mana level that you had. For example, having an immature mana body and no element only gives you a white bright shine whenever you looked at your mana body.

The colors of the mana body change over time depending on your progress and improvement in polishing your magic. Since father sometimes has his free time, I always utilized that day in order to train myself in physical training.

"Are you ready, Kaiser?" Father said as he prepares his wooden sword and took an offensive stance.

"Yes, Father." I replied with determined eyes.

Flora and mother always watched us every time we trained because they're either bored or sometimes interested to see my improvement.

Father immediately moves forward with a decent amount of speed for my eyes to see and attempts to strike me with a downward swift motion.

I stepped back because my body wouldn't handle the force if I parried with him. As soon as I step back, I release mana to protect my futile body and launched myself with my wooden sword directed at his stomach.

He noticed my speed and managed to dodge my attack by evading sideways. I went past him and pivoted my foot that landed and meets his sword that's supposed to be his counter-attack.

I could see Flora clenched her fist as she saw as parry both our swords.

We both step back and father looks excited as me.

"Impressive son, I never thought that in your young age, you'll be able to use a small amount of mana." Father said while removing the long sleeve that he used to cover his skin from having dirt.

"I always look up to you father." I said.

I noticed that his atmosphere suddenly changed so I used God's vision and I saw him starting to put a large amount of mana in his sword rather than defending himself. His mana looks like an orange until he released magic in his sword as well. The colors smoothly transition from orange to his brown element color. He used his earth magic to boost the damage of his sword.

I stopped using the gift and closed my eyes for a quick moment to concentrate on tapping into my partially done mana body. As I opened my eyes, I felt a decent amount of increase in power as my white mana shrouded my whole body with my sword. Although this form is not practiced, I have to use this stance. It's my favorite stance during my assassin days in my past life.

"You never ceased to amaze me, Kaiser." Father said with a surprised look in his eyes.

In the first round, he's the one that initiated the first attack but this time, I'll start this with fire.

I run forward with my two hands holding the small sword facing the ground. He smirked and also did the same. As we meet each other in the middle, I quickly jumped and stroke my sword upwards as father stroked his sword downwards. By using his force to counter him, I smoothly swiped both of our swords to my left causing his full body with his sword to move towards my left to stumble.

I used the small opportunity to spin quickly with my left arm then to my right to hit his face but at that moment, I stopped midway through my attack as my mana's drained.

He noticed my state and stabs his sword to the ground making flat rock magic that hits my stomach and threw me to the trees by force. I coughed aggressively and heard their voices growing closer to my weak body.

The darkness swallowed me as I lost my consciousness.

***

I slowly opened my eyes as I regained my consciousness in our room. I looked around and saw my sister around my age sleeping directly beside me. I could see that she cried a lot as I saw her sleeping and puffy eyes.

"Sorry Flora." I softly said.

As soon as she heard my voice, she wakes up and looked at me with teary eyes, again.

"Bro-Brother!" She immediately said as she cries and hugged me. I patted her head while she cries.

I'm surprised that I can't even feel my body weak just like before.

Mother entered the room with father as soon as they heard Flora's cry.

"How do you feel, Kaiser?" Mother asked as he walks towards our bed.

"I'm alright. Did you just feed me with a healing potion?" I asked.

"Mhmm. I healed you with healing magic." She replied.

Wait what? So there's other magic as well? I wonder if their uniqueness comes with the person's elements. I suddenly remembered Kaiser's words as he told me that the shadow's unique ability is to copy other elements.

Mother elbowed father right in the chest as she glares at him.

"Sorry Kaiser. I forgot that you're still a kid hahaha." Father said.

"It's alright father, I felt good because of mother's magic. It looks like I was unscathed." I replied.

"Don't worry I'll treat you tomorrow in the Capital with good food." Father said.

"Hmmm, I want to learn to read properly. Maybe we could get a book tomorrow." I said.

"Deal." Father replied.

***

It's afternoon as I and my father sets off to go to the Capital. Mother also instructed us to buy Flora candies as well as ingredients.

After reaching the Capital, we immediately head to the food stalls to buy food and ingredient for mother and Flora. We also ate food near the Hall where we ate last time. Though it's been a while since I've been here, the atmosphere doesn't change, everyone has a happy and good mood.

We head to the book store and father allowed me to grab two books that I want so I went to the old and used books section to look for books that contain information about magic and history.

I lied to them about having a small knowledge in reading a book to have this golden opportunity. I picked a small pocketbook that says, The Betrayal of God. As I looked for a moment, I could no longer see a good book as my father calls my name. I replied that I'm coming when I suddenly noticed another book. I grabbed and looked into it, the black book is large with a rough texture. I tried opening the book but it won't even budge which made my curiosity grew.

I took the two books that pique my interest and went to the receptionist where father is waiting.

"You sure 'bout this kid? This belongs to the used scrappy books. The other one can only be opened with mana but as you can see, it's already destroyed." The cashier asked with a tired voice.

I nodded at him as he rolled his eye in disappointment and puts them in a paper bag.

As we arrived at our home, I rushed inside the other room where I trained my mana body and took the two books out.

I was so excited at the mana-sealed book so I used God's vision to look through it. With human's normal eyes, the book looks like a useless book colored with the matte black outside but with my gift, I could clearly see it. It's a good thing that I remembered to use my gift during our time in the Capital.

Scanning the book with my vision, I noticed its cover with unlit symbols that seem unfamiliar. In the middle of it, there are three small boxes. The one has white color in it while the other two have no color.

'Hmmm, with this color, I could assume that it's really related to the color of my mana body. Maybe I can open this book after lighting up every unlit figure.' I thought to myself

Along with the two unlit boxes, there are seven figures that are unlit as well, they're all lined up on the bottom and the seventh figure is on the top of them as if it's not belonged to the group. If the boxes earlier represent the mana level, then I could say that these seven figures represent the elements and the element on top is, shadow element?