The pain of an empty stomach woke Gaius up, and to make matters worse his parents were feasting on breakfast in front of him. With pleading eyes, Gaius stared at his parents only met with a smile, just a smile—no food. After finishing their meal, Tulia said “I’ll teach you how to fish today, how does that sound?”

Gaius was too dispirited and hungry to muster up his regular enthusiasm. “At least Gen was saved from having to watch mom and dad eat,” he thought to himself as he saw his sleeping brother next to him.

“Grab your training weapon. C’mon, let’s go,” Tulia said as she made her way to the deck with Gaius in tow. She took his training spear into her left hand and in another pulled out her knife. Seeing his mother bore a hole at the end of his training spear, Gaius realized what she was doing, regardless he watched her in silence. She then quickly threaded a piece of rope into the now makeshift harpoon. Tulia turned to look at her son and smiled and edge closer to the rail of the boat. She held the harpoon at the ready with one hand and peered within the crystal clear water.

Tulia looked at her son and said, “Don’t miss it.” She launched the spear gracefully and it hardly made a sound as it pierced the crystal clear lake. Gaius keenly observed what she did, how his mother gripped the spear and her form. He also made a mental note that he couldn’t detect any aura. From the tenseness in her shoulders to the angle of her elbow, he watched. The rope tied to the end of the spear slithered into the waters.

Tulia held the end of the rope and with a quick tug it became taut. Gaius noticed the erratic movement of the rope as his mother started to pull the fish out of the water. Tulia easily reeled a steelteeth the size of her forearm out of the water with a big splash. Gaius’s training spear pierced directly through the steelteeth’s scales like it was paper. She smiled at her son and tore the fish from the weapon. “Your turn,” she said with a smile as she tossed him the harpoon. Tulia turned to the captain beside her and handed him the fish, “This is for letting us borrow your rope.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you,” the captain responded meekly while taking his prize.

Gaius was a bit disheartened when he saw his mother give his potential breakfast to the captain, so he started to focus on the task at hand. He stared at the makeshift harpoon within his hands trying to replay the movements of his mother within his mind. “Her shoulders were tense and coiled, ready to explode with power. Her elbow was like this . . .” he thought to himself as he would shift and twist his body ever so slightly to imitate her posture. “Sling the harpoon over my shoulder and grip it around here?” he continued to think, “Hmm, which leg did she lean on? Guess I’ll have to just try one.”

He mimicked his mother’s stance as closely as he could recall, putting most of his weight on his front leg and ready to throw his harpoon until he realized, “How did she get her harpoon to go so far down? The steelteeth must be at least two dozen meters below!”

Though the steelteeth were abundant, they mostly stayed within 20 meters of the surface of the lake. Any lower and they may be preyed upon by bigger fish, and any higher made them susceptible to the fisherman of Lake Bant. They eventually evolved to acclimate to the pressure and temperature at 20 meters.

Without thinking any further, Gaius threw the harpoon as hard as he could. He almost tripped over the railing as it sailed through his grip and splashed into the waters barely going deeper than 4 meters. He saw the strength of his throw diminish quickly as his harpoon started to sink instead of swim to his next meal.

“Place your weight on your back leg, shift your momentum forward as you throw. That’s a basic fighting stance,” Tulia instructed.

“Ah right, sorry mo--- Ma’am,” Gaius said. “Right, this is no different than throwing a spear in a fight. Just gotta focus on the target,” he thought to himself.

“Oh right, also try to aim closer to you. Else you’ll be aiming at ghost fish,” she cryptically warned.

“Ghost fish?” he thought to himself a bit confused.

Tulia gave Gaius a stern look, playing the part of a strict and indifferent bodyguard, and then slowly walked back into her cabin.

“Okay, shift my weight, just like throwing a normal spear. Only this time if I fail I die from starvation,” he thought. Throw after throw, the harpoon barely exceeded 6 meters before it lost all of its force and started to float back up. Because the training spear was entirely made from wood, it would eventually float atop the water. Gaius had to repeatedly retract the wet and heavy harpoon. Finally, after an hour of trial-and-error he gave up and sat on the deck. He breathed laboriously. “This is a lot harder than I thought,” as he was thinking this, his brother started to emerge from the cabin with a sleepy expression on his face. “Gen! Come here,” he instructed.

“Ah, mo—Captain Wyn woke me up and said that I was supposed to help you with something? What are you doing?”

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“Trying to catch us breakfast. Come help me.”

At the mention of food, Gen’s face became sour as he realized just how hungry he was. After combating the pain of hunger, he walked towards his brother with hope of an easy meal but was disappointed when his brother spoke to him.

“I’ve been at it for an hour, I can’t get this harpoon to go farther than 6 meters. The steelteeth are at least 20 meters,” he said solemnly.

Not caring what his next meal would be called, Gen asked “Why not just aim for fish that are closer to the surface?”

“I tried that. Every time I see a sizeable fish near the surface, one of the steelteeth would swim up quickly and eat it and jump out of the water. It’s really scary, they almost bit my hand off. And then, by the time I throw the harpoon, the forsaken thing would be 10 or so meters down.”

“Here, let me try it,” Gen said with an outstretched hand.

He quickly positioned and stood at the ready. Gaius was surprised at this brother’s form as it was almost identical to their mothers. “Ah, I see he hasn’t been slacking in his training. He looks like a natural,” Gaius quietly thought to himself.

Gen quickly threw the harpoon and it barely made a splash, though not as quiet as their mother’s but definitely better than Gaius’s. The harpoon pierced the waters for 15 meters before it lost its power and started to float back up. Gaius noticed the drastic difference between his throw and his brother’s immediately and was shocked. “Ah! That’s why their throws are so much stronger than mine.”

“Ah, it wasn’t strong enough,” Gen said sadly, “I gave that one my all. Let me try a few more times.”

“Gen, did you condense your aura around the harpoon?”

“Yeah, why? I thought you were able to sense auras from kilometers away?” Gen asked.

Gaius scoffed, “Not kilometers, just a few dozen meters. But I couldn’t detect any aura just now. What did you do?”

“Hmm, I guess I didn’t technically condense an aura,” Gen said as he thought about it.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, mom has been training me to do different things with my aura,” he whispered to his brother. “Some of the times she makes me condense them and have it wrap around my weapons, and other times she makes me directly infuse my aura to the weapon.”

“Why? What is the difference between the two?”

“Hmm, she said ‘One will allow you to attack at a distance, while the other will strengthen your weapon and direct attacks’ is what she told me when I asked,” Gen recited his mother.

As if struck by lightning, Gaius realized what exactly happened. “That’s wonderful! Now we won’t go hungry. Gen, you just need to control your aura and make sure that you keep infusing it. If you let it dissipate then it won’t go far enough.”

“Yeah, but after 10 meters, I was losing control and could only infuse the harpoon up to 15 meters,” he said in defeat.

“It’s okay, just keep practicing. I cannot believe that in a couple of hours, you won’t be able to reach 20 meters!” Gaius cheered his brother on.

“Okay!”

 The next couple of hours were filled with a mixture of disappointment and happiness. Gen was finally able to pierce the harpoon down to 20 meters, but to the boys’ chagrin the steelteeth would just swim a bit farther down. Gen finally collapsed down onto the deck covered in thick sweat as he labored for each breath. “I can’t do it anymore brother. I’m so tired,” he barely whispered.

“It’s okay, take a rest. We’ve been at it for a couple of hours now. I wish I could help you,” Gaius said as he stared at his exhausted brother.

“Only if you could condense your own aura,” Gen said quietly. Realizing he said something taboo, Gen quickly looked at his brother to apologize, “Ah sorry, I said something I shouldn’t have. Gaius?”

Gen looked at his brother’s unfocused eyes as he apologized and realized that his brother was concentrating on something, so he decided to not say anymore.

“Hey Gen,” he said after a few minutes, “can you condense an aura and let it dissipate?”

“Uh, sure.” Soon a small orb of bright white light formed above Gen’s open palm and just as quickly started to lose its shape. To Gen’s surprise, as soon as it let go of his aura and it started to dissipate the ball of white light started to reform again.

Between the both of them and huddled away from the sight of others, an orb of bright white light stood. Gen’s eyes were wide and round while Gaius had a smile of delight. “You can condense an aura?” Gen asked quietly, “no wait. That aura feels like it’s mine, how are you doing that?”

“I don’t know, I just kind of grabbed it and formed it,” Gaius replied absentmindedly as he stared at the orb in front of him. He slowly grabbed the harpoon from his brother’s grip, fearful that any sudden movements might dissipate the orb in front of him. Although he feels like his grip around the orb is firm and sturdy, he was still cautious.

Gen watched as his brother slowly guided the orb, it began by flattening and twisting into a cylinder, and eventually perfectly shaped into the training spear. Gen watched as his brother slowly merged the aura into the spear. As if it was the Heaven’s way of letting Gaius know he did something right, Gaius felt a slight tremor within the spear and then it calmed down.

Gaius didn’t know why but he felt like the harpoon within his hands was different, something was bothering him but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Gen was amazed as he stood beside his brother, he could feel his aura within the harpoon, yet it wasn’t his anymore. He couldn’t control this familiar aura within the harpoon anymore. “How did you do infuse my aura so easily? It took me several weeks to learn how to do it, and mom said I was fast,” Gen asked in shock.

“Is that what it is? Why does the spear feel different than when you did it?” Gaius asked his brother

“I can inject my aura into my weapons, which took me a couple of weeks to do. But I was far from perfection. Mom said that true infusion only happens when the aura and the weapon resonate with each other. And I think that’s what you did.”

“Resonate with each other? Is that why the spear trembled a bit?”

“You felt it shake? Then there’s no doubt about it. That’s what mom said would happen when you reach perfect infusion. But how did you infuse the spear with MY aura? I’ve never heard of anyone doing that.”

“I think it’s because of what dad called me. Something about being an antimage. I don’t know, but it’s really easy for me to control natural aura. I can’t control someone else’s unless they let go of it,” Gaius thought aloud.

“Well, it doesn’t matter how. Let’s just get some breakfast!” Gen shouted.