“Name the four different empires in order of their military power!”

Barth shouted while leisurely swinging his sword around. Eagle hurriedly translated for me while shielding us from Marden’s magical onslaught.

“Foreil, Lavir, Trill and… “

The name of the last one escaped me, gifting me a powerful jab from the wooden claymore. Not even a second had passed as Barth charged towards Eagle whose focus was elsewhere and I was down. I gritted my teeth and jumped to intercept Barth, initiating a new round of strikes, dodges, parries and blocks.

“The last is Alluaire, what is its and Lavir’s specialty?”

Once more, Eagle translated for me, at the same time deflecting hundreds of frozen projectiles. Meanwhile, Barth and I were locked in a flurry of attacks, our hands long transformed into a blur. I started shouting the answers,

“Lavir is known for its unique breed of lavender that has exceptional uses in both medicine and poison. Alongside the plethora of other herbs growing in the vicinity the country also established the most pronounced hospitals. Also the alleged Rejected Grave’s headquarters are said to be in Lavir.

As I strained my brain to recall the hastily taught information Barth did not relent his assault.

I stopped talking and focused on throwing some of my own attacks into the mix instead of solely defending, giving Eagle an opportunity to translate. The best I could manage were several light taps on the knight’s arms and legs and in return received bruises all over my body from his claymore.

The brutal training went on until both Eagle and I had completely exhausted our essence, bruised, battered and on the ground panting. Although it took only a minute.

Completely drained we lay on the dirt as Barth and Marden had a one-sided conversation with Eagle, leaving what I presumed to be pieces of advice before leaving.

I knew Eagle would translate it for me later, but first we had to catch our breath and regain the strength to stand.

“That’s some workout, huh?”

Eagle complained while sitting cross-legged, leaning back on his hands.

“It’s only the fifth day but the intensity surpassed even the organisation’s bootcamps.”

I replied, sprawled in a star formation on the ground.

“Whatever, how much longer do you think we will have to put up with this?” I asked,

“No clue, I can tell that they are excited about our progress, despite saying otherwise. It’s just that I don’t feel right. Ever since I started using this essence I relied on whether something felt right or wrong to improve. But at the same time, something keeps nagging at the back of my head, telling me it's all wrong.”

Eagle rested enough to get into a cross legged position. I decided to follow suit and sat up.

“Sorry man, I’m not one for science, much less magic but the only thing I can ask is, why is your flame so… yellow? I thought the best ones were blue or something.”

“Well, yea. No matter what I try, I can’t improve the flame at all, more power, less power, it doesn’t change. Marden said it takes years for people to even achieve a blue tint, and decades to achieve three quarters blue. Something to do with control and visualisation. But none of it made sense.”

Eagle created a tiny wisp above his palm.

“Why don’t you try it the same way as on Earth? I’m sure it has to do with the ratio of air and fuel, have you tried that?”

I asked Eagle a simple question.

“Hah, first of all, its oxygen, second of a-”

Eagle went wide-eyed, the little wisp in his hand turned completely blue for a fraction of a second.

“There you go, not so hard now was it?”

I chuckled to myself. However, Eagle was still frozen and wide eyed, staring at his palm.

“Hey, what’s the problem?”

Perhaps an illusion but I swear there is steam coming out of the guy’s ears.

“Hello?”

Very slowly Eagle turned his head towards me.

“What the fuck? DUDE! Do you have any idea what this means!?”

Eagle was borderline shouting from happiness.

“I was so caught up in the fantasy of magic that I forgot to check the most basic things!”

“Calm down and explain. What happened?” I asked Eagle.

“As you suggested I tried lowering the oxygen levels around the flame, but I lacked the control to allow just oxygen to pass through, so I let the entire atmosphere in and, and it worked! The essence allows me, us, to directly control matter and the atoms!”

Eagle leapt to his feet.

“Still too fast, allow the atmosphere where? And are atoms those little spherical things that make up everything?”

I never had the opportunity to attend a school, so most of my knowledge is random pieces of information I would grasp from the occasional conversation.

“That’s right! Atoms make up everything, and with essence, I was working with them directly this entire time! But how? Just what is this essence?”

Eagle stopped with his fists clenched.

“And like a blind sheep I followed the advice without doubting it…”

Eagle’s voice trailed off, the spark in his eyes flickered for a moment.

“As for allowing air in and out, a rough explanation is that when you cast a fireball, one must use their essence to create an invisible zone within which they have complete control. Before that I was told to block everything out, and only create from within.”

He took a second to catch his breath and calm down.

“With this, there are no boundaries for me! With the knowledge of science and this essence, I could literally do whatever I want. The inhabitants of this world completely neglected research in the natural and most likely have no idea what exactly they are doing… That would explain why it takes so long for them to make progress if at all.”

“Well, glad I could help.”

I replied with a dry tone, ticked that Eagle received a major increase in power while I am stuck with spreading essence through my body.

“Hold on Cato, how did you say you empower yourself?”

Eagle asked, his pupils literally turning into question marks.

“I don’t get it myself too well, instead of projecting the essence outside like you, I spread it through my entire body. I imagine all of it in my stomach and with each breath it spreads in streams all over.”

I focused the little amount I had recovered while we rested.

“Can you focus in just one area? Say, just your index finger?”

Eagle had his hand clasped around my finger now.

“I could try, but it’s extremely difficult, it’s something is blocking its path and I am forcefully pushing it through.”

Nevertheless, I did my best to extort a measly amount of essence to my right index finger.

“Hmm, I see. Let’s try something that could potentially empower you to the same degree as I did. Although… this will require some book time…”

Eagle’s voice trailed off again.

“You said the energy comes from your stomach right? That’s similar to my own. Instead of picturing just your finger. We’ll keep it simple and imagine a stream slowly heading up your stomach, up until it reaches the point where your clavicles, err, collarbones meet.”

Eagle pointed to the various body parts as he called them out.

I followed his lead and despite feeling silly, it was working. I could control the stream of essence to a much higher degree, it didn’t feel like being pushed somewhere it didn’t want to go.

“Now down from your shoulder, down your biceps and triceps, elbow, forearms, wrist, palm and finger. Well, how did that feel?”

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Eagle asked expectantly.

“Not bad, instead of forcefully pushing it through my body it was a like a river that I controlled. Far more efficient. Yet, I still feel like a large portion of it was still lost.”

I replied both excited and worried.

“Well, from what I can tell that is natural. In order for us to guide this essence, we must posses a strong understanding of where it goes and what it must do. In your case, you have to guide it from body part to body part, organ to organ. You will need an intricate and thorough understanding of your entire body. What I told you was a simplified path from stomach to finger, and perhaps not the most efficient.”

Eagle sighed, glad that he could help me out as I did.

Regardless my mood had been severely crippled.

‘I just can’t stand studying, sitting in one spot just bothers me too much’.

“I suppose that means I just got another subject dropped onto me to learn?”

I asked dejectedly, the enthusiasm of the previous discoveries completely gone.

“You bet. Just one thing, how much should we reveal to the other two? While your effects might take a while to appear, mine will be immediate and obvious.

“Just do your freaking best. They have seen what we can do so far and did nothing about it. Should we impress them more, then their desire to keep us safe will only grow. After all, why would they just suddenly stop?”

As I talked I was already practising moving the essence around my body. Only this time I did my best to name and visualize the various muscles and organs.

“I was hoping you would say that. Anyway, why don’t we head back to the cabin and resume your studies, after all, you don’t have any excuses to complain.”

A mischievous smile formed on Eagle, and I mentally prepared myself for the lessons that are to come. 

********

[Barth’s Perspective]

‘It’s been five days and Cato has shown baffling amount of potential as a warrior. Every single move he made seemed to be refined over the course of decades, his ability to anticipate an attack matching, if not surpassing my own.’ I thought to myself, overlooking the clearing.

‘The brats were sprawled on the dirt recovering in complete silence. Their progress far surpassed anything imagined possible, even the word prodigy would be inadequate to describe either of them. The only problem we couldn’t solve was Cato.

His essence was one of a kind and showed affinity with a warrior, and his skill truly demonstrates that. When tested for a magician he failed. Marden decided that it left two possibilities, either he could utilize both warrior and telekinetic abilities or his affinity as a warrior completely unprecedented.

It was how we agreed to always watch over Cato, in case something happened that would give us a glimpse of his true power.

‘Oh? They are able to sit up already? Well, there goes the previous record.

Sigh

There’s just no stopping them. It won’t even take a year at their progress to break into the top ten percent of the people at the guild. Heck they're probably at mid gold level as things stand. I spotted Eagle creating a feeble flame above his palm, a clear yellow.

‘I wonder how much longer until he hits the blue phase-’

There it was. For a brief moment the entire flame turned a pale blue. Forget the blue phase, the kid skipped it entirely and broke through into the pale process! A stage unobtainable by most!

‘If Eagle made a breakthrough, just what were they talking about?’.

I didn’t see anything drastic happen…

I focused my essence in my eyes to inspect Cato’s essence,

‘good thing we haven’t taught them to conceal themselves’.

After seeing Eagle’s sudden improvement I feared that Cato would be left behind, but although rough, a clear trickle of essence can be seen moving through his body. It was headed towards the index finger, that amount of control takes no less time to learn than Eagle’s feat.

‘Just what did they say to each other to improve by such leaps and bounds??’

I was torn between the desire to let Marden know of what has just happened  and keeping watch.

‘No, I need to remain here in case something else happens.’

Just to think that after a week of collective training our pupils have come so far. It was staggering to say the least. ‘Perhaps we should take them to the guild in a month or so, give them a taste of the real world, heh. Now won’t that be an eye opener for them?’

I quit my musings and started to move out of Eagle’s line of sight as both Marden and I learned that the kid will pinpoint your location within minutes, or seconds if he caught moving.

A shiver ran down my spine as I circled around them and imagined him enhancing his sight with essence, ‘would he spot me with his eyes closed?’ Will there even be a blind spot in his vision?’

After several more minutes the brats got up and headed for the cabin. Despite their breakthroughs, Cato’s face was twisted in a bittersweet smile while Eagle was grinning ear to ear - last time he did that a barrage composed of half a dozen elemental attacks nearly made it past Marden’s defences. The only thing that saved us was Eagle’s subsequent fainting due to complete exhaustion of his essence.

Not much happened once they entered the cabin, and for a while all was quiet. Yet soon enough an occasional smack and groan came from inside their room.

‘Just what is going on in there?’

********

It’s been a whole week. I stood in the clearing, tapping a finger with my hands crossed. Those damn kids holed up inside their room for the entire, god damn week! How could they completely ignore us? At last, sweet, sweet revenge shall come as their time, and our patience ran out. When the room they occupied got blasted to smithereens, it was clear that the kids had too much free time.

Now that it came to this, Marden and I are about to beat a week’s worth of training into them for what they’ve done.

“Barth, I still cannot be anything but skeptical of what you told me. For Eagle to achieve that stage of fire control, and Cato learning to manipulate inner essence, my expectations of them are rather high now.”

Marden sat cross-legged, a pace or two away from me

“If only I could understand their language better, we could have had some luck eavesdropping. But their structure is too irregular and the lack of gender nouns only worsens it.”

Marden continued to ramble on about something.

“Why does it matter? They’re going to be here within minutes. After we’re done we can ask them all day long.”

No sooner than I had said that, Eagle and Cato came into the clearing. While physically nothing changed, there was a certain air around them.

Their demeanor no longer that of a child but someone intimate with death. Just looking in their eyes I could tell, there would be no more joking. I raised the practise claymore and looked sideways at Marden. To my surprise he was placing several defencive barriers around both of us, the curious look in his eyes gone.

“You know, by placing these barriers you’re making me feel like we’re actually in danger, hah.”

I let a low chuckle escaped me before facing the kids once more. Cato was holding out his hand, slowly curling each of his fingers,

‘A countdown huh? Intere-’

Cato completely sailed past me, with speed several times faster than the last time we fought. His target was Marden, but why? I took a single step forward and sensed numerous objects flying towards me.

Not even a moment was spared as I kicked myself into overdrive. Spreading essence through my eyes and arms in order to deflect the incoming projectiles. The first second was a breeze as I blocked no less than twenty of the ice fragments, but after that I was forced into an uncomfortable position.   

The projectiles became more and more numerous until they came at me from all sides. There was no way to block all of them so I dashed forward, creating a path of escape by force. Having avoided most of the attack, I planned to breakthrough the remaining ice darts but the ground gave way and I slipped.

‘When did he- ?’

I had no time to recover and the barrier flashed under Eagle’s bombardment.

‘Damn, thank god Marden placed it in advance.’

I rolled forward before breaking into a charge, straight for Eagle. Except he was no longer there. Instead, I felt my instincts screaming of danger behind me. I turned around in time to catch Cato swinging at me. It was fast, but it seemed like he was holding back. I casually flicked my sword to counter his.

Only too late did I catch a brief flash of essence coating his sword at the moment of impact. He cleanly sliced through the wood and impacted the barrier. Once more it flashed from the impact only this time it completely gave way.

Regardless, it bought me enough time to hop backwards and look over at Marden. Eagle was violently throwing kicks and punches while at the same time casting countless fireballs and other projectiles from point blank range.

‘Just what have they been doing for the past week? What kind of mage engages in melee?!’

I refocused, this time not holding back and rushed at Cato. Instead of bracing himself he stood there, in the same spot. A smug grin formed on my face as I realized my speed was too much for him to track.

I lowered my half-sword for an attack, with enough force to send him flying. Moments away from the impact Cato exploded in a blur of movement appearing a bit to my side, aiming a jab at my guts. I twisted my body and deflected his attack. I forgot to tone down the essence and sent Cato spiralling backwards.

Fury burned in his eyes. As he finished half of his backflip, he kicked off of… air?

‘What the fuck?’

I didn’t have time to process what just happened and could only side step as Cato flew past me once more. Killing his momentum with a roll, he stood up and looked at his feet in confusion.

‘Doesn’t seem like he know how he did that!’

I roared aloud to shake up the brat and dashed forward once more, this time examining his essence control by augmenting my eyes. I was shocked to see him covered in a thin, but highly dense aura that not only gave him overall protection and enhancement, but masked his interior essence.

‘Very commendable for a child, but he needs a lot more practise to hide from me.’

There were gaps and holes all over that I could look through,

‘Wha-?’.

Instead of encasing himself with the essence, there were small bursts all over. As Cato dashed forward I could see it better, he strategically applied essence in spherical bursts in the parts of his body that needed it most.

‘Interesting, extremely unorthodox.’

He swung his sword down, but something was odd. I covered my claymore with the same amount of essence as Cato, his eyes weren’t those of worry, but pity. As our swords were about to collide Cato surged all of his essence into his strike,

‘Hah, novice mistake!’

I enhanced my half-sword even further and put more power behind the strike until I saw it. At once all of the essence surged from Cato’s sword into his legs and hands, abandoning even his body’s defence.

Despite this there was not enough time for me to redirect my attack, or for Cato to avoid the collision,

‘Just what is he up to?’

Cato let go of the sword completely and jumped at me, everything focused on his feet for a split second before being surged into his hands. He started spiraling through the air and grabbed my wrist, twisting it inwards.

‘Martial arts??’

The damn kid did well to bait my attack, despite surging a plethora of essence into my arm, the damage has been dealt as the wrist got locked inwards and my arm violently twisted behind my back. He got me into a powerful lock that would restrain me if not for the large disparity in the amount of essence between us.

I was forced to use nearly half of my reserves to brute force my way out and not have anything in my arm shattered or broken. Despite sending Cato flying across the clearing with that movement, it was clear who the winner was.

‘The brat came a long way, if he were to enter the adventurer’s guild, a low diamond rank is practically guaranteed.’

I threw my sword to the side and looked at the battle between Marden and Eagle. The other kid was on the ground panting,

‘Must have ran out of essence just like his friend.’

Still, Marden’s outfit had countless tears and scorch marks and even a slight trickle of blood from his cheek. Something that I’d have to go full out to accomplish. Meanwhile Eagle didn’t have a single speck of dirt on him.

“So Marden, what do you think?”

He smiled at me smugly,

“I told you it was a good idea to take them in.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit, we truly raised a pair of monsters.

“What do you think about them getting a job and paying for the repairs?”

I asked while walking towards Cato, giving him a hand to stand up.

“I believe it is time for us to have a taste of the real world, and with that, our duty shall be finished.”

Marden outstretched his hand and started to heal Cato, the poor kid had next to no essence to shield himself from that impact.

I looked at the toppled tree that Cato had hit while he was sent flying. It was completely uprooted, a feat only achievable with an enormous force.

‘What did he had to go through to not even shout in pain from such an impact?’