The Childhood of a Young Master

I am not sure how detailed I could be for the next few years. I grew up as the young Master of the Nature Tower. My story only gets truly interesting when I start attending the academy.

After the Nature Tower was founded the time I could spend with Hilda was reduced to a pitiful small frame. Building an Organization wasn't childsplay. The Orphanage was rebuilt, but only kids that were too young for the academy were present. Everyone older joined the Nature Tower.

As a new Organization manpower was needed for everything. I took the time to have fun. Who am I kidding? I continued as if nothing happened, only with more gusto and more effort.

I tempered my body endlessly, studied what the visions showed me and did everything I could to become as strong as Jeremy inside my head. And I gained another time consuming hobby, Tutors.

Being rich is awesome, you get tutors that teach you everything they know as long as you pay them. In a sense I ate my tutors alive… No, I am not Aktun Rafal the second. I asked them so many questions until I was satisfied.

My record is the tutor that was tasked to teach me math. I made him quit his job in under an hour. so he was unable to demand any pay. Unfortunately that wasn't so easy with the other ones.

It took me three years to waste enough tutors that I was on a level that was required for the academy. But none of them taught me anything about magic. The reason was the 7th Imperial decree of the first Emperor of humanity. "Children below the age of 14 aren't allowed to be schooled in the art of magic. The strain on their body and mind is counterproductive to their growth and the mana circulation system."

I just turned 8 at that time and had 5 years of body tempering and I wanted to learn magic. But no one taught me, not even Hilda. All books about Magic were kept unavailable. It was frustrating.

The 8th Imperial degree of the first emperor of Humanity was equally boring. It forbids children below the age of 10 to get serious combat instructions.

So I did nothing productive for 2 Years except torture myself to alleviate my boredom.

But once it was time and I finally became 10 years old Hilda hired two personal combat instructors for me. They trained me in a wide variety of weapons and drilled hand to hand combat into my skull. Soon it was clear that the torture I put myself trough was nothing short of insignificant in comparison to what they forced me trough.

I may have provoked my instructors a little bit too much. After self subjected body tempering, both internal and external, the introduction exercise was far too easy. So I asked if that was everything that they could come up with.

In the end all three of us were sweating blood and tears. It was fun until Hilda found out what kind of hellish training camp they were subjecting me to and her mother's heart couldn't take it. Despite being far away, she scolded all three of us. Me for my recklessness and the instructors for getting played by a 10 year old.

It didn't stop us because someone kept paying them. The lightning brothers joined us after 2 Years of my training. They were lacking, but we, the instructors and I, whipped them into shape. I know that this sounds condescending and arrogant, but they started to collapse by the exercises I deemed as warm up.

I know that I was a monster but outperforming war veterans in their mid-twenties as a 12 year old was too much for their pride to take so they put in the effort. This training continued for 4 Years until I was able to enter the academy and learn magic.

This was my life until I was 14 years old. But some things should be explained and noticed.

By the time I was 7 The Huntsman Kingdom declared War at the Hesmaton Kingdom. They tried to conquer us by attacking the North Gate. For those that forgot it is the only entrance into the peninsula where the Hesmaton Kingdom reigns. Humans will be humans everywhere. Even with common enemies they still fight each other.

The King was desperate and ordered every capable man onto the frontline. Most of the Students and ex-students of the Academy marched Northwards to fend off the invading kingdom.

The nature Tower became deserted, only a few people stayed behind to take care of day to day business.

The only truth of war is that there can be no victor. You can only lose a war. The side with fewer casualties will be crowned the winner. A war provokes battles, battles cause death. The death of soldiers in the battles of an useless and unnecessary war creates orphans.

It wasn't an instant effect. But after I finished my studies at the age of 8 the orphanage was bustling with new faces. The orphanage was now a part of the Nature Tower. And the caretaker and tutors that had nothing to do took care of the children.

The Nature tower takes in everyone, but it has one major rule that can not be circumvented. The stronger you are, the more responsibility you need to take.

I took this opportunity and created my own faction inside the Nature Tower. I started by recruiting everyone at the same age as me. I also recruited the younger ones but only pro former. I told them that I will evaluate them at the age of 18 and decide then if they can become full members of my faction or not.

In the beginning I gathered 40 boys that were 8 years old. I also included the girls but most of them left after a few days. I only made an effort to keep the ones with a magic glow, as for the rest of them they would most likely join the Nature Tower anyway.

After 3 years the nature Tower had transformed into the best perspective for the orphans. Access to knowledge that they would need to slave away for years in another organization.

The freedom of choice. The Nature Tower needed tailors and blacksmiths as much as they needed warriors, merchants and bureaucrats

I am sure you once heard the phrase boys will be boys.

After founding my faction and pulling together the ideas of the smartest 8 years old in all of history… we pulled several pranks. Stuff any kid would do if they got the chance. Being unsupervised was both blessing and curse at the same time.

We caused chaos and mayhem in the Dueckish district. Some adults got seriously angry after being the target of our mischievous action. They scolded us for our reckless and insensitive behavior, but there was always at least one person that abolished the scolding one and told them that they should let kids be kids.

We didn't commit any crimes, at least no serious ones.

Our two most famous Pranks were the cursed Vegan and the haunted bakery.

The vegan, as she called herself, tried to convince everyone to stop the concussion of meat. We laughed at her, she was crazy. Why should we stop consuming meat, it is the best food there is after cake.

We were so cruel to her that the commander of the Guard had to personally intervene to stop us. He was too late, by the time he told us to stop everything was already in motion and impossible to stop.

After terrifying her mentally we splashed blood from the slaughterhouse on her walls. After fainting and fleeing the City in panic a shady hunter was given the job to scare her away for good.

The hunter laid bear bait in the camp of the woman, you can guess the rest.

The moral of the story is don't convince shady hunters to scare away vegans. They do their job but the vegan won't survive.

The haunted bakery is also a good one. It was demolished after the war to restore peace to the restless spirits. It all started because the backer refused Bill's money.

He said: "I don't take a thief's money."

First we spread rumors that his bakery was haunted by ghosts. Then we sneaked inside and destroyed all his goods, after eating as much cake as we could.

We did this again and again, until the backer himself was convinced that ghosts were haunting his place. His last mistake was to stay up at night to protect his goods. That night 30 boys raided his bakery and destroyed almost everything.

He fled the City by enlisting into the army, and after he came back he rebuilt his bakery.

The last one I want to mention is the biggest fail in the history of pranks. Bill and Jerry tried to fill the boots of the guard commander with horse shit. The plan went well, they successfully sneaked into the house and found the boots of the guard commander. The big problem was that the boots were only a few steps away from the commander himself who was in a very intimate situation with his wife…

Two guards brought them back, after the commander had beaten them black and blue. He hadn't held back despite dealing with kids. Bill had multiple broken bones and Jerry had lost most of his teeth that day.

We took this lesson seriously and decided to stop making pranks of that magnitude.