“Hey Cyclos, wake up, Aunty Caera has finished cooking breakfast and Uncle Roc said he will leave for training in half an hour even if we don’t end up eating breakfast”

It was an unusual morning as instead of my dad, it was Cylix that woke me up today. As unusual as it was, the idea of doing exercise for an unknown amount of time without even eating anything beforehand didn’t seem a good idea so I forced myself awake. As I finished cleaning up, I was just in time to see the sunrise from the horizon.

Moving to the living area of the hut, I sat down on the ground to eat with my plate, mom was ready with a few savoury pancakes and was making them fresh on the iron pan. The savoury pancakes reminded him of something similar he had eaten at a south indian restaurant called a Dosa. However, mom’s version was a bit different in taste maybe it was because of the ingredients and also because it was served along with a sweet and tangy condiment.

“Eat fast, you only have till the sunrise to finish the meal after that we are going to start training.”

Dad ordered impatiently.

“Wait a second! You didn’t even ask Cyclos if he wanted to be a warrior, I am hoping he would be a healer so that he can stay away from any more danger.”

“Well, about that, I was wondering if I could pursue both paths?”

At my interjection, mom looked weirdly at me as if I was an alien, which was probably true because before now I have always been soft-spoken in the family, my newfound confidence must seem alien to her. There was a bit of worry in her eyes as she said

“Really? I don’t think you can handle the stress of two paths baby and nobody has ever succeeded in pursuing both paths before because it is too much stress. You will have no free time to socialise.”

As much as I could see her love in those statements, as a child with memories and experiences of an adult, I was sure I could take on the challenge, so I ended up trying to reassure her to let me do this.

“I am sure mom. It isn’t like I can’t stop mid-way if I find it too difficult. If it turns out that I am unsuitable to become a healer or a warrior I will pursue the other profession fully.”

She struggled for a while before sighing and saying

“Sigh, fine, if you are so sure if thats what you want then it is okay. Roc, bring him home by sundown, we will split the time so that you get the mornings and I will get the evenings.”

Luckily, they had magical fluorescent mushrooms that substituted as light bulbs across the village and in the homes so there was no problem with the lighting and Dad nodded to say that he understood.

“What about you, Cylix? What do you want to be?”

“Well, before this I was training to become a blacksmith, but I would also like to be a warrior. I have a request, is it okay if I learn to read with Cyclos too? Uncle Argos who teaches me blacksmithing said that he once found some books for blacksmithing, I would like to read them if possible.”

Mom’s eyes immediately softened at his gentle request.

“Of course, dear. I will teach you to read and write along with Cyclos”

Cylix immediately had a beaming smile on his face now that his request was accepted.

“Well, now that the plans have been finalised and you guys have finished eating, let's head to the practice grounds.”

Dad nodded to mom as a goodbye and gestured for us to follow him. We exited the house after both me and Cylix got a kiss from mom and some encouraging words to work hard.

As we walked towards the village training grounds, I couldn’t help but try and compare my current life to that of my time as Angelo. The most noticeable part was that lived in was called a fantasy world, which it was compared to a mundane world like the earth without magic. His world, according to the village legends at least, had gone through a zombie apocalypse 200 years ago. The legend went that there was once a great magician named Ian who worked for a great empire. One day the magician Ian made a great discovery about magic however he felt that he didn’t do enough study on the discovery so refused to make it public.

However, the then emperor was greedy and blackmailed Ian with his wife and daughter as hostages. Fearful for his family, Ian shared his discovery with the emperor and managed to get his family back. However, within a week of them returning, his wife and daughter committed suicide. As he grieved over their deaths Ian started investigating the reason for their suicide. In the end. he found out that they had both been horribly violated during their stay as hostages. Now knowing the injustice his family had suffered he started looking for revenge and he divined the person responsible with magic, only to find out that it was the emperor himself.

Betrayed by the emperor and country that he spent his entire life working for, Ian had fallen into madness and had thus decided that a world that was so cruel to his family wasn’t worth existing and started planning to destroy it. First, he created a mild plague that wasn’t lethal but spread very fast. It only took a few months for most of the empire to become infected. At first, nobody noticed the plague as it was similar to common fever however this became the downfall of the empire, as, after that, the apocalypse had come. The prior plague didn’t just die away after the person had recovered but stayed inside the person, at this point Ian’s true sinister plan had come into effect after Ian activated the plague’s true purpose. All the people that had been infected suffered from heavy fevers lasting for 3 days before dying. Unlike before, this time the dead didn’t stay dead and came back to haunt the living.

Other than the people who had resisted the virus for more than 3 days ended up surviving due to their immune system winning, and some other lucky people who hadn’t contracted the infection before had survived. They immediately escaped leaving behind civilization to go into mountains and forests to hide among the magical beasts.Luckily the apocalypse didn’t last long, maybe Ian didn’t want to make it everlasting or it wasn’t achievable. It only took 100 years before the zombies eventually completely rotted away. Since then, there have been multiple efforts to build a bigger civilization by many tribes, however, the apocalypse also caused the loss of the knowledge that humanity had accumulated.

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This was particularly pronounced in subjects with heavy protectionism such as the magic and crafts community which only passed down knowledge to legacy disciples. This legend also explained to me why the tech tree in the village was so crooked, as we had Iron weapons but not steel, we had advanced ploughs and seeders but no wheelbarrows, and other such small things that I had noticed everywhere walking through the village. With the apocalypse out of the way the only other thing I had found weird was the practice of polygamy in the village. Polygamy was actually legal in the village as a man can be married to more than one woman to a maximum of three. Of course, the entire process had to be consensual by all of the wives. I feel that this was probably due to the fact that the current gender dynamic in the village led to there being more women than men.

Thankfully, one of the few important pieces of knowledge that survived the apocalypse was the dangers of inbreeding. These were my thoughts as I walked through this strange village that still lived in mud houses but obviously had the technology to make bricks. My train of thought was however interrupted as we had eventually reached the training grounds. The training ground was similar to any other military ground in the sense that it had a wide-open space with lots of people doing different types of drills. On one part of the grounds, people were spear training practising spear thrusts or throwing them with an atlatl. In another part, people were practising archery in an archery range and finally, the oddest of them all was a balancing beam on one corner of the ground.

Dad took us to a relatively empty area before he started a speech.

“I don’t exactly know both of your reasons to choose the warrior path. You may have chosen this as a way to get adoration from your fellow villagers or to get top resources from the village to live a life of luxury.

Whatever your reason may have been, know that the warrior’s path is full of daily struggles. We are the ones risking our lives daily to protect and hunt prey for the village. We humans may have once been at the top of our planet however we have since lost the position along with most of the previous knowledge that led us there.

This means that we are back to the beginning era where we rely on our bodies to fight our way through mother nature to take back what was once ours. Thankfully there has been some magical knowledge that has been retained through the apocalypse in our village. It is the knowledge of body reinforcement and the knowledge of common potions and spells. As fighters and Hunters, we generally focus on body reinforcement so that we can go toe to toe with some of the magical beasts in the forest.

Know that during the heyday of human civilization these techniques were considered basic techniques and spells. There are even legends of how a magic swordsman once killed a dragon. Now you might wonder why I am telling you this, that is because I want to broaden your horizons! The most important knowledge that survived in my opinion, is the knowledge that our limits are determined by our perceptions and our role model. Now you might be wondering why I am telling you about all this history. That is because I want you both to broaden your horizons!

Your role model should be the dragon slayer, not someone from our village, certainly not me. The higher your vision is, the faster your growth the more you can protect our village and your family. Now with that out of the way, do you have any questions before I start testing your guys on the level of your bodies?”

I had a question that was bothering me from the time we entered the training ground, so I raised my hand.

“Yes?”

I instinctively raised an eyebrow at the strict tone change from the father I usually know. He was acting more professionally than fatherly which was a good attitude to have when teaching.

“What is that Balancing beam for and how will we know about the creatures we face?”

“Very good questions. The balancing beam is to train your sense of balance as it is tantamount to getting a proper foothold anywhere possible to give the maximum power any attack needs.

As for the monsters, we have a few papyrus books we have made throughout the generations about the animals we face in our vicinity. You will be able to browse it after your first reinforcement and would be required to learn it by heart before going on the first hunt. Now, are there any more questions before we start testing?”

Both of us shook our heads to reply negatively.

“Very well, now to reinforce the body you have to first spread the mana completely across your body. Here, let me show you guys an example”

Dad immediately got into at least what looked like to him a battle-ready position, it was something that I didn’t notice before but now seeing it in action, I noticed that I feel and “see” the mana. It wasn’t something I saw with my regular eyes but it was as if I was looking from my forehead, maybe this is what people called the third eye?

I hadn’t noticed the mana before but now that I noticed it, it wasn’t something I could unsee and was saw how it was everywhere, in the air, the ground, and in the people.

Dad was pulling on the mana from his heart had and started spreading it all across the body. As I watched him, I started to instinctively copy him as I too tried pulling the mana with my will and spreading it across my body. I expected a bit more resistance but it was surprisingly easy to do. However, Immediately I noticed something was amiss as I felt my muscles fill with boundless energy but quickly felt as if my muscles were being bloated. Shit! at this rate, I am about to blow up.

“Now as you can see, while it looks like nothing has changed, I can probably lift this boulder easily. Don’t worry about not being able to feel mana as we can always teach mana sensing within a few yea- Wait! Cyclos what are you doing, immediately stop pulling any more mana!”

The incredibly loud voice in my ears had stopped me from any further panicking and pulled my focus back to my body. I followed his orders and immediately stopped supplying the mana, luckily that made it much more manageable, as the energy slowly started disappearing. He still felt that his cells were all a bit bloated but he didn’t feel that impending sense of doom anymore.

“Phew! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING! Do you know how dangerous what you did was? You could have exploded from inside from overloading your body. Seriously, how can you already sense mana? It takes years for one to sense the mana, the fastest one to sense mana in our village has only been in 4 years”

“Well, I was trying to imitate you, I thought the excess mana will just bleed off into the surroundings, not make me explode! As for the mana sensing, ever since I woke up yesterday, I have been able to do so.”

“Sigh, thankfully nothing happened. In the future try not to imitate until I have fully explained the intricacies of the technique. With that out of the way, it is very weird that you are able to sense mana already, maybe it was due to the magical snake bite?”

It was either that or maybe it is due to having the memories of living in a magicless world, whatever it was, it looks like I have been given a boon for stopping myself from being a retard