Training

Kye was panting hard. he had just finished his day's exercise regime that his second mother Rose put together for him. Kye was eight years old and his body was very physically weak from being bedridden for many years.

As Kye had come to discover over the past week of training, his second mother was quite the taskmaster and hadn't taken it easy on him. Kye both hated this and deeply appreciated it. His muscles screamed at him to stop and rest and he was so fatigued that he had no energy to do anything else for the day. He had shown to his parents that he was willing to put in the hard work the get physically fitter and despite resistance from Alicia, his biological mother, they had all agreed to let Rose handle his training until he was at a point where he could take his father's weapon's training.

His other mothers had insisted on teaching him other things as well. Alicia was an expert mage and taught him all about magic circles of different elements so that when he reached 15 and gained his crest, he could be adept in all elements should he get a magic crest. His father wanted to train Kye in the spear as it was Frey's signature weapon. Layla was his third mother and she was a skilled governor. She was often away on diplomatic missions for the Runewalker territory but when she was back, she taught Kye the machinations of politics and how those of nobility should conduct themselves in polite society. His fourth mother, Kyla was originally a blacksmith who made equipment for his father when he was younger. She was adamant about having Kye smith with her as he had demonstrated a natural talent for the art due to his past life's experiences.

With this many mothers, it was not unnatural that Kye had several siblings as well. Though he had two brothers, Signus and Evan, they both despised Kye as his awakening shunted them down the line for inheriting the title of Archduke. Signus was the eldest brother and was currently fourteen years old while Evan was twelve. Because Kye was the only male born to the first wife, despite being the youngest brother, his position in the line of succession shot to the front.

He also had four sisters. Elena who was sixteen, Mary who was fifteen, Poppy who was thirteen, and Iris who was twelve. All of his sisters loved Kye dearly and often helped the servants take care of him when he was disabled. Elena and Mary also had crests already which meant that they were often busy with academic lessons or apprenticeships. Elena had received the crest of major alchemy so she was currently learning at the alchemist's guild while Mary had the crest of major smithing so she was working with mother Kyla at her forge. Kyla was happy that her daughter had gotten the same crest as her. Rose, however, was somewhat disappointed that her daughter had received an academic profession while she remained captain of the territory's knights. Though she recognized her profession after she helped heal several knights after a bad monster hunt and was nothing but supportive of her endeavours.

After taking a few minutes to catch his breath, Kye made his way to the mansion so that he could meet up with Layla and they would continue his lessons with her. Layla was a short woman standing around 159cm with long pale blonde hair. She wore a well-fitting dress with a few frills around the short sleeves and at the hem of the skirt. Seeing Kye she smiled and brought him a glass of water.

"Good work out there Kye. Do you feel good enough to do our lesson?"

Kye nodded and gulped down the glass of water in one go. Layla and Kye walked up to the fourth floor of the Runewalker mansion and entered a large library in the right-wing. Taking their places at the table, Kye was given lessons on governance and how the territory was managed by Layla for a few hours before it was time for dinner with the family. Kye sat down across from his mother at the large dinner table in their grand hall. Both of his brothers were sitting at the other end of the table while his sisters sat closer to Kye. Frey had a smile on his face as the servants brought in the food and looked to Kye as he cut a piece of meat from his plate.

"So Kye, how have you been feeling these past few days?"

"Constantly tired but I've never felt better."

"Good. That's good to hear."

All the mothers smiled at his response while Elena patted Kye's shoulder. Signus scoffed and continued eating but Frey wasn't one to let something like that go.

"You have something to contribute to the conversation Signus?"

"Not really, I just don't know why you're even bothering with that cripple."

Frey slammed the table with his fist.

"You will NOT talk about your brother like that Signus. He is part of this family and you WILL learn to like it."

Rose shook her head in disappointment at her son's callous remarks while Alicia looked like she was ready to tear the brat's head from his body. The truth was that both of Kye's brothers were not very well-liked in the family as they were very arrogant and often refused to compromise on anything. Signus was often causing trouble at youth parties by hitting on women of influential families and being generally inappropriate towards them. The Runewalker family had received numerous complaints about Signus since he started attending parties at the age of twelve.

Evan was a lot more serious than his brother and put in a lot of work into his affairs but was also full of ambition for more. Given half a chance, he would declare war with other Archdukes in an attempt to claim their territory for his own. Though ambition was a fine enough thing to have, Evan lacked the foresight to govern efficiently and relied heavily on his friends for support in his lacking areas. While this was fine on its own, his friends were very much like him, full of ambition. He had already been betrayed by one of his supposed friends a year back and was now super paranoid about everyone, even his own family.

Frey had given up on Signus as the child was incorrigible and refused to listen to him even when he was kinder than he was now about their misgivings. Evan was still able to be healed but it would take a lot of work to break his paranoia and Kye's subsequent recovery was not helping things as he had convinced himself that Kye was faking the mental disability his entire life and was now enacting some grand plan against him.

Kye just finished eating his meal quickly and excused himself from the table. He made his way back to his room quickly and sat down at the large desk he had asked his father for along with some pocket money. Kye planned to simply slowly accrue parts that he would use to make tools so that he could build his magic essence condenser but Frey gave Kye a sack of 50 silver coins and said that if he ever needed more that he could just ask. Kye held the most amount of money he had ever seen in his lives as an eight-year-old child. Buying all the materials he needed proved to be easier said than done as many parts of the casing had to be made to order. Kye was drafting up plans for his new condenser before he heard a knock on the door.

"Come in."

Kye's four mothers all entered the room with apologetic expressions on their faces. They knew that Kye would never get along with his brothers and that it would make living at home hard sometimes knowing that people in a place you were supposed to relax hated your very existence. Alicia was the one who spoke up first and drew Kye into a hug.

"I'm sorry about your brothers. We've tried so very hard to set them on the right course but it seems like they're hellbent on ruining their head start on other kids. Thankfully your sisters are all very nice and well-educated people. If your brothers ever harass you tell us immediately and we'll take care of it okay?"

To be honest, his brother's hating him hardly affected Kye at all. As someone with a mature mental age, having some childish hate directed his way was nothing to get worked up over but it was clear that his mothers were concerned to so assuage their concerns, Kye hugged his mother.

"Okay, mother. I will let you know if they do anything."

Alicia smiled and gently brushed Kye's pale blonde hair. Kyla was distracted by the blueprints on Kye's desk and she flicked through them excitedly.

"What are these Kye?"

"Oh."

'Shit,' Kye thought 'this could get weird if I don't have a good excuse'

"Those are just some concepts for a mana condenser I had. I was intrigued by the light crystals in the sconces so I looked into them in my spare time."

Even though Kye had only been awake for a week, he had been very busy and his mothers didn't question his newfound interest in worldly objects as he had lacked a normal childhood. They saw his boundless curiosity as a good sign of normal development.

"Well, is this what you've been spendin' the money ya father gave ya?"

Kyla slipped into a rough speech pattern she adopted when she was excited about a project. Kye nodded and started to try and explain how he thought that there were contradictions in the books about mana he had read and that through a new device, a more powerful magical energy might be extracted. This was, of course, Kye's proven theory from his previous life but he had to play it off as if this was something he was unsure of. Kyla took the blueprints and rolled them up neatly.

"I can make these for ya son. I like ya ideas and I'd like ta help out."

Rose shook her head as she believed that Kye was better off using his spare time to work out instead of reading but she held her tongue as she wanted to help foster Kye down the path he chose. Layla was happy that Kye took such an interest in reading and Alicia liked that Kye had the intelligence to cross-reference books and point out inconsistencies. Though she desperately wanted her son to inherit her supreme sorcerer crest, she would always love her son no matter what he pursued in life. Though if he started to stray from the path of decency like Signus she would surely be the first to give him a clip on the ear and set him straight.

Amidst all his mothers, Kye had to wonder if familial love always felt this warm and comfortable. He found himself giving a small natural smile at the scene of his mothers chatting happily about his device and thought to himself.

'Well, maybe I owe Alayah more than I thought. This life isn't so bad.'