Max was now nearing his second birthday, a few months away, and he had increased his physical capabilities tremendously, maybe even too much.

Max had seldom been a problem child with behavior, but the moment he was agile enough to have freedom in his movement...

He would run nearly anywhere in the house, getting caught in random places like a curious cat.

Not only that but his freakish strength uncharacteristic of a baby meant he was destroying things left and right, just by simply manhandling them with an uncontrolled amount of strength.

"I feel like I've been saying oh my gods so much that I have to use something else! The little brute has to undergo some control training!"

Althea was at her wits end, and then some. She had given up on teaching him how to use his strength in a controlled manner, so she passed the task to the professional.

"Leonhardt!" Althea shouted it out, and Leonhardt appeared with haste. "I've had it up to here with Max breaking things! You're the only one who knows how to teach him to control his strength, that little brute already broke 3 forks in half!"

"I got it, I got it. Let me take the guy away and see how far he needs to hold back."

As one knows, small children, even ones like Max, had little control over their strength, resulting in them being oddly strong all the time, even though it was simply because that was all the strength their little bodies could hold.

"Alright. Max, grab my finger."

Max obliged and was able to hold himself in the air with one hand on Leonhardt.

'Wow, his grip is strong for a baby!' Leonhardt was slowly catching on.

"Can you pull yourself up?"

Leonhardt forgot to ask him to use both hands, yet, only using one hand, Max got himself up.

"Oh, gods, why are some favored so much..."

Leonhardt had just now realized, Max was going to need a lot of work to get to a normal level of strength.

Aether control and strength control were vital parts of training for swordsmen.

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Controlling your strength to a perfect level during your swing could help a surprising amount, yet that wasn't the goal.

The goal was the make Max less of a menace towards anything he could chew on, as Max had a habit of just... biting things.

The hungry child rarely ceased the habit, so that whenever he found something new, his go-to-test, was to bite it.

Now, Leonhardt would address this issue first, but he also wanted to solve the underlying problem, which was that Max was too strong for his age.

"Hmm. Maybe his aether is too high quality. He probably uses some on his body all the time, that's a factor."

Leonhardt was thinking of possible ways to mitigate or solve the problem.

"It could also be quantity. Even low-level aether is strong if it's going to the body in full."

'Let's do a test.'

Leonhardt emitted some of his aether, and sent it to his eyes, in a precise way to not risk keeping it there.

He then asked Max to just do some things that would require strength, meaning he would either give out a bit of high-level aether or look saturated with low-level aether.

"Oh. That's honestly surprising with how it's been going lately."

Max... had average aether. In large amounts as a side effect of his mana, yes, but still average for that. The quality was ok, but it seemed that the aether from the beam didn't do anything for his quality.

"Well. You have gotta start refining your aether instead of using it all immediately."

Sadly for Leonhardt, this was the harder option, as this required Max to focus on condensing his aether and have an image of how it could be bettered.

And Leonhardt had to let him do it himself. All he could do was show him the way, then he had to watch.

"Alright. Max, sit down, cross your legs, get comfortable. Lean your back against a wall if you want."

Max got to doing everything asked of him, one by one.

"Okay. What's next?"

"Alright. Close your eyes, and relax. can you remember the mana control training?"

"Yeah. I can do it again."

"Don't be impatient. Try and do the same thing with Aether. Then let all this aether being produced by your nexus core run through it, again and again."

Leonhardt let Max go, though he had a slow start.

"Don't worry. Just keep on trying, but again, be patient. Get full control over it first, don't rush things."

As a result of his fast sense of time, Max had a habit of getting over things fast, and having a "quick" attention span, despite it being normal.

Eventually, though, he got in control of the aether, letting it span in an infinity through his nexus core, a standard choice.

"Now, Max, here's the hard part. You have to be able to keep at least some of your aether in that cycle indefinitely. Do you know what that means? Indefinitely means it can stay forever until you change it."

Leonhardt messed up remembering Max was still just a kid often, so lessons like this were almost practiced.

And while it took hours for Max to slowly add up the pieces of aether, they eventually turned into a continual trickle.

"Okay, Max we're gonna need to do every few days until you can do this with all the aether"

"All of it!?" Max, like any gifted child, wasn't used to having a difficult time yet.

"Yep. You are at 10 percent now. 10. Percent. Sometimes you need effort Max, it's natural. And don't worry, you get breaks. And your progress adds."

"Oh. It won't go away. I didn't know that!"

Max was happy now, and Leonhardt had to figure out what the kid didn't understand about indefinitely.