Chapter 17 Findings

The baron, Havi was sitting in his chair surrounded by his son, Venion and Liam. On the desk lay a single piece of paper with a bunch of unrecognizable symbols.

"Hello there Lucas, this is the life contract I wanted you to sign. It took me some time to acquire one, but I finally got my hands on it. The seller said that this contract was made with the power to bind souls to a certain condition. So, please, follow the instructions that Venion will give you."

'Shit, running away now would be suicide.' Venion could kill him with a single spell, he didn't have much of a choice. Talking his way out of this contract was also too difficult to do. He had to sign it.

'Don't worry about that, we agreed on signing this in the beginning, it's unfortunate, but as long as a dumb pig stays a dumb pig, we have a chance.'

Venion gave a few instructions on how to activate the contract, "Lucas, this contract will exist as long as my bloodline does, so I welcome you to our family as our household guardian. I'll make sure to train you to make sure that you become powerful enough to fight for us.".

The contract disappeared into thin air and a ball of energy flew inside of Lucas' head. He felt his entire being getting chained down like he was in quicksand slowly sinking. Suddenly that feeling vanished, the ball of energy went to his core before getting swallowed up by the black speck that covered the core. 'Is the contract still active?', Lucas thought, hoping that he was actually free. But his hopes were quickly dashed when the baron asked how he felt and Lucas felt forced to answer. He couldn't go against what the baron asked. "Hahahaha, perfect Lucas, you'll become a great guardian, I can tell, my first task for you is to clear out all of the mines with my son. But that is for later, you both still need a lot of training before you can help out, you're too weak right now."

"Yes, sir, I'll complete the task without fail." Lucas said without wanting to. The baron gave a few more details over which mines, how much time he had, and a lot of remarks about how his son had to be completely unscathed when they returned. All the information was stuck in his mind like he was a robot that had to follow certain orders.

Days went by like normal with the combat training and studying his tome, Lucas grew even more. The combat training changed to practice with actual swords to get used to the weight. Aside from a few scratches here and there, the training stayed the same. Liam was still using a single hand and Lucas had to start over with the difference in weight.

Where there was some change was the study of runes. There was information about the different monsters and magical beasts. Lucas was fascinated by the drawings and the information about the different kinds of lifeforms on the planet. Just like with the runes of darkness, it seemed that this information was already known, merely forgotten. He knew this didn't make any sense, but played it off as a gift from that mysterious being.

'Knowledge is power I guess'

'What? No, knowledge is potential power'

'I mean I guess, there's no reason to say that though, or do you just need to criticize everything I do or say? Or are you just so bitter?'

'Both'

Still, he tried his best to remember the runes from the other elements as well, even if the progress was a lot slower compared to his two core elements. There were some basic spells in the tome, like a small healing spell or a small fireball that could be launched. These were fantastic to try out but took way too long to be useful in actual combat. Lucas knew that in the time it took to form a spell with just words he could be sliced up by any monster close enough. He didn't have too many problems with the pronunciation, it took a few tries, but he achieved it pretty fast compared to the average mage.

Like Venion said during his lessons, you could use hand signs to replace certain words but that required a lot of concentration. During a fight his concentration could break, ruining the spell. It was not all bad though, he finally figured out what the different runes on his heart meant. Comparing the signs from the circle around his heart and the referencing it with the ones in his textbook didn't take too long.

'The only thing left is to destroy them in the perfect order so that it won't activate.' The only problem was that he didn't know how to destroy them in the first place, nor did he know the order. If he tried to inject mana into the rune the contract would activate. 'At least I know which things need to be removed now, all I need now is a method.'

Lucas' plan was to destroy certain runes that would make the contract void. After figuring out what each rune did he found a few that he could touch. If he dared to touch the runes of the conditions or the consequences of breaking those they would automatically activate.

'Luckily there is a simple loophole, I can't change the conditions, nor the consequence, but the link between them isn't secured all that well, a few runes gone and the contract would still be active, but it wouldn't be capable of doing anything.'

'We still have to watch out though, there are a few runes that we don't know anything of, they aren't in the tome'

'Should we just take the risk and break them as well?'

'Hmm, we should wait a bit longer and see if we can somehow figure out what they mean later.'

Since it was inscribed on his heart, he thought that one of Venion's potions would be capable of destroying it. The replacement process of the muscles was too slow for it to be effective so he needed a better way to change it.

The next lesson came up so he went to the same room as last time. Once again, he was the second one arriving, not that he was late, he was right on time. Robert just wanted to show how a good example, things were definitely strange since he looked like he achieved greatness. "Ow, you came back, I thought you would be too stupid to even use the simplest of spells. I'll have you know that I have already reached the second pair of runes and created my first fire spear today." While he was talking he raised his head, even more, trying to symbolize his standing. 'I know he's an ass, but we gotta stay polite'

'It's okay, I'll just imagine him getting killed.'

'Do you have to go to such extremes right away?'

'What? That makes it a lot more fun.'

'sigh'

"Good job, I'm impressed."

Robert scoffed, "Like I need your respect, your opinion is as much worth as a cow's dung." Lucas was already ignoring him to the fullest of his abilities. Even if he was focusing on his own plans, he still had to think about what Robert said. 'He already got to the second pair of his core elements?' In a week's time, that progress was actually impressive for a child of his age. 'Looks like we can't just brush him aside if he's going to be a problem.'

'Reaching the second pair even with all the other training he's receiving is indeed talented, but he might be useful later on, so we shouldn't get rid of him.'

'Says you, how are we going to get him on our side? Show of power?'

'I don't know yet, I have an idea or two, but that's for later'

Lucas wasn't scared that now that the baron had a talented son he would be tossed aside, which meant execution. Nevertheless, it could become a bigger thorn in his side later on. He didn't have to think about it anymore because Venion entered the room. "Alright, for today I want to see your progress through a spar and explain the power system in this world. Let's start with the latter, shall we?"

"The world of magic is still filled with mysteries, even I don't know a everything about the entire structure. I can only tell you what I have been given by my own teacher. The way for mages to grow even more powerful is by inscribing circles of runes into their core, this process happens naturally. Don't ever try to do it yourself or you'll most likely break your own core. When your mind can create its own mental sphere and your core has experienced a multitude of circulations and access to enough magicules in the air it can create its first circle of runes.

For each level there are certain restrictions, I myself am a first circle mage, still, I could defeat 10 of you without any problems. A mage with a higher level in circles will always beat the lower-ranking ones. There are no exceptions to this rule. As far as the maximum circles you can have, it is assumed that Rank 8 is the highest level mankind has reached so far, there are only a few people in legends that have achieved this. For you two, I would be impressed if you can reach the second level because even I only have a few clues on how to reach that state."

After a while, Robert and Lucas knew the ins and outs of the power system, not that it changed much. After all, how does one create a 'mental sphere' without any explanation of how circulations even worked? Venion didn't want to give away too much precious information.

Next up was the spar, Robert looked very excited to teach Lucas a lesson, even if he hadn't ever fought. They were brought to the training grounds that were very familiar to Lucas. He was half expecting Liam to be there waiting for him. "Are you ready for getting a beating? I'll teach you the difference between nobility and commoners!" Robert was itching to start the fight while Lucas glanced toward Venion.

"The rules will be the following, you can use anything you want, but we'll start with a simple form of sparring. Each one of you can form a spell to shoot at the other, while the other defends. Let's see whose ingenuity and response time is better.", even if they had access to the same runes, their combinations could be different. There were spells that had a fixed form, but the runes could always be swapped with another, giving every mage a chance to create their unique spells.

With the rules now clear, Lucas' brain quickly saw something that he could take advantage of. "Sir Venion, if I can use anything, can I use the wooden training sword?"

"Hahaha, look at this bum, you think a wooden sword is going to stop the majestic power of magic?" Robert laughed at Lucas for even trying to resist.

'Please tell me we're going to demolish him?'

'Weren't we just discussing how to get him on our side this morning? Are kidding me?'

'What? He deserves it'

'We need to show him we're strong, but we can't plant a seed of jealousy or anger in his heart or we won't get anywhere.'

"Of course, if you think it can help you, go ahead." Venion seemed interested in what Lucas was planning, Robert didn't like the fact that his beloved master wasn't paying him more attention. 'I'll prove to you that you're inferior.'