Chapter 3

  Cadun, the biggest city fortress in the kingdom and at the same time the capital of the Caleogon kingdom. The city was surrounded by three layers of walls. This three layers of walls broke the city into three different regions. The region behind the first wall was the poorest and the citizens that lived there were as well the poorest. They were mostly country people that came to the capital hoping that they will find a better life here.

The second region was the place where wealthy people lived and where most of the shops and workshops existed. This region was home of the biggest mage academy, The Royal Training school, that was as old as the kingdom itself.

The third region was the place where the Royal palace was placed and where the nobles that lived in the capital could be found. In this region the only people allowed were those with status, as for normal citizens, they could only dream to even visit this place.

Right now, outside the city, a young boy was heading towards the nearby forest. His appearance was a little frightening for the common folk. He had silver long hair and eyes dyed red which gave the impression of a demon with human shape. This boy was Arkad.

In the past two months, since he entered the Royal training school, he keep cultivating and recently broke into the eighth rank of the earth realm. One must know that being a rank eight of the earth realm at the age of fifteen was unheard of. Usually someone reaches this level of power around twenty or twenty one years old. Even geniuses with huge talent for magic would reach eight rank at seventeen or eighteen years old. Yet Arkad was special. His body started to absorb natural energy at the age of fourteen, one year earlier than normal people. In only one month he reached rank three then rank four in another one month, rank five in two months, rank six in 3 months and by the time he was fifteen, he reached seventh rank and made a lot of progress towards rank eight. Now, after two months, he managed to reach rank eight. If he would tell someone about this, they think that he is crazy.

Right now, he left the city for a while in order to train and get some battle experience. In a fight the power isn’t everything, if one doesn’t have fighting experience, they will be at a disadvantage even in front of a weaker opponent.

In front of him was the Cadun Southern Forest which span on five hundred square miles. This forest is full with savage beasts and only powerful characters dared to enter it. Arkad choose this forest in order to test his strength and because it was the closest isolated place from the capital.

As he entered the forest he noticed that the light is blocked by the tall trees and the visibility dropped a lot. This forest was the perfect place for savage beasts to lunch a sneak attack. He continued to walk inside the forest and search for a good place to establish a small camp.

‘ This place is pretty good. I should be able to cultivate here without being disturbed.’ Thought Arkad

The place in front of him was a quite, small glade. It was maybe fifteen feet radius and if one listened closely, in the distance he could hear the roars of savage beasts, but as it was in the distance, Arkad didn’t paid attention to them.

He sat down and took out from his backpack one crystal. This was the ‘Saint Body’ cultivation method. He closed his eyes and slipped some natural energy in the crystal. The information started to pour in his head. Apparently there were 7 initial stages within the first layer and twenty one within the second layer. As for the third layer and beyond, he didn’t have the necessary strength to access the information.

The first stage was cultivating the bones. The second was cultivating the muscles. The third, cultivating the internal organs. The forth was cultivating the skin. The sixth was cultivating the marrow and the seventh one was cultivating the blood. Every stage would increase the strength and quality of each tissue of the body. As for the second layer; there was the twenty one gates of hell. Each opened gate would increase the overall strength of the body very much.

This cultivation method was specific for martial mages, which would use martial skills and needed a much stronger body then arcane mages. Actually the stronger the martial mage’s body was, the stronger his skills were.

Arkad, put back the crystal and took another two crystals out. One was a martial skill named ‘Iron fist’ and the other one was an arcane spell named ‘Thunder spear’. One week after he entered the academy, he passed the test for martial mage affinity so he could practice martial skills. As for the spell that he took form the academy’s library. He had a vague feeling that he could use arcane magic too, and not only martial magic. Normally, he would take the test for arcane affinity either and if he passed him, that meant that he had dual affinity. A person with dual affinity was very rar and he being one would attract too much attention which will slow down his practice, so he choose to test it in private by trying to learn a spell.

He took the first crystal, Iron fist, and put his natural energy within. The information entered his head and he started to process it.

This skill was a rank five skill and only a rank five martial mage would have enough energy to use is once. Usually a person would learn a skill with two or three ranks bellow him in order to preserve it’s natural energy. If someone learned a skill on the same rank, then with one use he would be left defenseless with no natural energy. If his enemy wouldn’t be taken out with that skill then that would be bad.

Arkad was a rank eight earth realm and his natural energy was more abundant and pure then a normal eight rank. Actually his natural energy was equal with that of a tenth rank earth ream, so he could use a rank five skill and still have around ninety five percent natural energy left.

Iron fist was a very basic fifth rank skill. Channeling one’s natural energy in his fist and spin it faster around his fist would make one’s fist stronger then iron. But that was only in the perfect stage. Martial skills and arcane spells had three different type of stages. For example, the first stage of the iron fist was to channel one’s energy in his fist and keep it there. If one’s energy stayed there then the first stage would be achieved. The second was moving the energy in the fist and the third stage would be achieved by spinning very fast the natural energy within the fist.

‘This skill truly is a basic one, is I meditate on it, in a few hours I will be able to comprehend it.’

He concentrated on his fist and started to channel his natural energy in it. The energy started to move from his heart to the fist at a slow rate.

Actually this was really a very basic skill and every one that was over fifth rank and wasn’t an idiot, was already used with channeling his natural energy and could achieve the first stage of the iron fist in a few minutes.

Almost instantly, Arkad’s fist started to glow with a faint of brown light. He achieved the first stage.

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He got up and went in front of a tree. He took a deep breath and lunched the fist into the tree’s trunk.

PUUHH!

The trunk shacked and few leaves started to fall. In the place where his fist stroke there was a big fist print about five inches deep.

‘WOW!’ Exclaimed Arkad. ‘This is pretty powerful, and it’s only the first stage. When I reach the last stage, how powerful would it be?’

Of course to a rank fifth mage, the strike wouldn’t be this powerful, but Arkad, who was a rank eight had a much more pure natural energy. The more pure the natural energy of a mage was the more powerful the skills and spells would be.

He sat down and started to move the energy in his fist. This it was much harder than simply gathering energy in his fist and it required much more concentration. The good part was that learning this skill will help him get a better control over his natural energy.

After half an hour, the energy in his fist was moving pretty easy. He finally achieved the second stage.

He went to another tree and stroke his fist at the trunk.

PUUUH!

The hole in the trunk was now eight inches deep.

‘Good!’ Admitted Arkad.

He began to meditate on the third stage and after three hours, the energy in his fist was spinning at a very high speed. He got up and again stroke at a tree.

BOOOM!

The noise echoed into the forest. The tree’s trunk was seventy percent obliterated and he was brought down to the ground.

‘This skill, even if it’s a basic one, if very powerful. If a defenseless mage wouldn’t have protection on his body or a skill that increases his defence, he would be killed on the spot. As for the normal peoples, only a very powerful fighter would survive, but even he would suffer some injuries.

Satisfied by the result, he sat down and took away the second crystal, ‘Thunder spear’.

This was an arcane spell, and he wasn’t fully confident that he would be able to learn it.

This spell was a rank six. The first stage was to gather his natural energy in his palm. The second was to project the energy out of his body and the third stage was to project the energy at a very high speed while collapsing the energy within herself. This was the way that the energy would transform into thunder.

Every attribute had a different way of being created from natural energy.

It took Arkad’s only a few seconds to condense the energy in his palm. But when he tried to project out of his body, he learned that it was much more difficult than just spinning in his fist.

After half a day of trying to project the energy, the energy finally started to rush out of his body, and as a breeze of wind, his energy shoot forward hitting a tree nearby. The rush of natural energy left a few scratches on the tree but nothing more. Without an attribute attached, the attack contained only natural energy and the damage wasn’t much.

Actually, at the ranks of earth realm and the lower ranks of spirit realm, the martial skills would have more destruction power then arcane spells, and normally martial mages would have a little advantage over arcane mages. But from the sixth rank of the spirit realm, the wheel would turn and spells would become a lot more potent and destructive the skills.

‘This should be enough for today. I should eat and go to sleep so that tomorrow I will be at my peak.’

The sun started to go down and Arkad took out some dry meat from his backpack. With how much food he brought, he should be fine for a week or so. After that he would need to start hunting in order to fill his belly.

After finishing the meal, he went to sleep in a well hidden place.

The next day after the sun started to rise, Arkad waked up and started to practice the Thunder spear.

With every try the energy started to rush out of his body quicker and quicker. Then when the energy gained a decent speed, he started to crash strings of energy with themselves and when the energy strings collided, they made a few sparks. Of course this was only the beginning. He needed to collide all the strings of energy that were rushing out of his body in order to release the full capabilities of the spell.

‘So I was right, I actually can use arcane magic’ Said Arkad to himself with a smirk on his face.

Arkad was happy that his effort wasn’t worthless. He was convinced that he could use the arcane magic since he managed to release natural energy out of his body. But he still needed the confirmation that he can transform the energy into an attribute. One should know that releasing energy out of the body was something that martial mages were incapable of achieving. They could only use it inside of their body in order to enhance it.

Later that day he finally managed to finish the third layer of the Thunder spear spell. A rush of natural energy rushed out of his body, and after it travelled a few inches, the energy fused into a thunder and struck at a tree. A quarter of the trunk was blown away in the place where the thunder stroke the tree started to burn.

‘This is not as powerful as the iron fist’ Thought Arkad a little disappointed. This spell took a lot more time to learn then the martial skill, but it wasn’t even half as powerful.

“ Well, with a lot more practice it should become more powerful.”

He comforted with the idea that in time the spell power will increase. He took out the Saint Body Cultivation technique and started to cultivate the first layer.

Cultivating the bones.

‘To practice this first layer I need a better control over my natural energy. I can easily hurt my bones if I don’t have enough control. Then I need to slowly insert the energy into the bones and temper them.’

For the next six days, Arkad kept practicing the Saint body cultivation method and achieve the early stage of bones strengthening. Not only that but, he practiced the Thunder spear and Iron fist as well and became a lot more experimented in them. If at the beginning it would take him one minute to use the Iron fist’s third layer, now it would take him only ten second or so. As for the Thunder spear he would need only thirty seconds to finish the move.

His bones were also a lot more resistant after finishing the first stage. If before, falling from six feet would break his legs, now he could jump from fifteen feet and still be ok. This was the power of a body strengthening technique.

‘Right now, I’m pretty pleased with the training, if I continue like this I will be able to finish the bone stage in only a month. I wander, how much stronger will my bones be then?’ Thought Arkad.

‘I want to continue but right now I’m out of dry meat. I need to go hunt for food, and maybe put to use the things that I learned. ‘

For a mage, the spells and skills were very important, but if one doesn’t know how to use them in a fight, they will be pretty much useless.

Arkad got up and started to go deeper into the forest. In the forest the light was very faint, and the wind was almost none existent. The only sound that one could hear was the roars of savage beasts in the distance.

Arkad followed the sounds of a howl, and now, in front of him was a blue wolf about two feet high and five wide. He was eating a bloodied rabbit.

Before coming to the forest Arkad studied all about what kind of beasts were living in this forest. He didn’t want to go to a place with very powerful beasts and die before he even had time to step onto the mage path.

In the Cadun Southern Forest there were living different types of beast. From the first rank of the earth realm to the first rank of the spirit realm. If Arkad would encounter a beast of the tenth rank of the spirit realm, he had the confidence that he could escape alive or even win the battle. But in front of a beast in the spirit realm, he wouldn’t have a chance to survive. There is a big gap between tenth rank of the earth realm and the first rank of the spirit realm. But these kind of beasts were territorial and would not leave their territory. So as long as he kept away of those beast territories, he would be fine.

In front of him was a Blue Southern Wolf. A sixth rank earth realm beast.

When Arkad arrived closer, the wolf turned around and howled. He was angry that someone was interrupting his meal. He took a step closer and analyzed Arkad. When he thought that boy was not a treat, he started to run towards Arkad in hopes that he would have a bigger meal then the rabbit.

Arkad was condensing the natural energy in his fist since the moment he saw the wolf. When the beast arrived before him, with the intention of biting his neck, Arkad struck his iron fist into the wolf’s chin. The next moment, the wolf’s head exploded spreading blood on Arkad and all over the place. His lifeless body fell on the ground while blood was flowing out of his neck, dying the ground read.

“Haa, This skill is very powerful against opponents. I didn’t expected to be this useful.”

“You wanted to break my neck, but instead, I broke yours.” Said Arkad while he got on his knees and took out a knife to butcher the beast form meat and different materials . The meat would be kept by him while the pelt and bones would be sold to make some money. Even if his grandfather left him some money, it was not very much and in only two months, he spent over half of them. He needed to make his own money from now on.