"I'm glad you two are getting along nicely."

My father spoke once we began our ride back home.

"I don't see why we wouldn't. He's got quite a knack for sports too."

"Well you've hardly even spoken to Fred before, I can't read everyone's mind."

This was another typical thing about my family. We all don't mind each other's company, but it's not easy to distinguish if it's out of acceptance for each other or indifference to one another's existence.

"Yeah that game sounded exciting from what I heard. Is it worth it to practice a little in it Kray?"

Darvy seemed much more energized after his time at the inn. He didn't look as groggy as he had when we arrived in the city.

"It's different from rope ball, but I'm not too sure how much you really care to focus on a sport over magic."

"Obviously, I'll put magic over anything if I have to. But a little fun once in a while isn't too bad. I mean you already got involved in this kid's game yourself today. Speaking of which, are we even getting any practice today Father?"

"No, I've still got to handle some preparation for Fred, he's going to join us for morning lessons."

"Seriously?"

I was surprised to hear Barrett speak up. It reminded me of the time Vanilla reacted similarly.

"Yes, he's been ahead of your other brothers and sisters for some time, and I don't think it's right to have them base themselves off his progress."

"So it's okay if he's around to compare himself to us? That doesn't make any sense. We have years of practice, he's barely had one. Don't you think it'll be too much for him to go through for his age?"

Barrett wasn't saying this to prevent me from being lumped in with her like Vanilla, but out of concern that I might not be ready yet to learn with them. It was a nice thought, but I was certain I could train alongside them.

"He agreed to transfer over. If he tells me he can't take it anymore I'll respect his decision."

"Sounds fair to me."

"Likewise."

Kraimer and Darvy were in agreement with father. Barrett remained silent after this.

I had the rest of the day to do as I pleased. Father had to continue the lessons for everyone else that had stayed.

I was feeling the mood to lay down a bit after exerting myself today at the field. It was also a surprise to me that I managed to utilize the fear style's techniques without even holding a sword.

Maybe I shouldn't have been too surprising given that the second, third and fifth techniques didn't exclusively require a blade to perform. Though the expectation was there given that they were a 'sword' style.

In the end I decided that I would go to my room to read on about the Ruling Gods. The pieces of this world's lore were starting to come together in my mind. The first Zen God was the man who had established a sword academy in the empire. He was considered the savior of humanity for his role in ending a genocidal war.

The calendar was then modeled in his honor. He was the Zen God because he had mastered almost every sword style. This played into the sort of Zodiac sign 'Year cycle' we had. It was based on the six base emotions: Joy, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, Surprise, and Fear.

I did remember hearing about the constant argument of six base or three base or whatever number base emotions, no one knew for certain even in my lifetime. I moved on from the thought to refocus.

Fear was the only style that the Zen God didn't know. Well, more accurately this is argued in the footnotes of the book I read. Either he knew the style and hadn't mastered it or he didn't know even a single technique from it.

Was there more to the Fear style than I had realized? This thought occurred to me.

I was reminded that Teresa mentioned the manual came from the dream realm.

All of this would sound insane, if I hadn't already lived in this world for half a decade, mostly unconscious, without my memories to contrast with the common sense I acquired about this world.

Regardless not everything was entirely clear to me, and my mind, although sharp, still needed time to process it all.

I continued where I had left off the other morning. The Father God and his son left the seven sphere world. In the power vacuum that was left, the race gods, those first seated by their status as champions of their race, began a war. The Central Sphere would be the battleground of the first war between the Ruling Gods.

There was little on the specifics of what went down, and the book was after all only what could be salvaged from other texts on the matter.

When the dust settled, the original champions of each race, the first gods to be seated, were all killed.

The volume, intensity and impact of the magic used by the disciples of the Father God left the spheres with several lasting oddities. These became known as the happenings, an odd choice that was quickly explained in the next paragraph.

The happenings were combination of events and features that became permanent following the war of the Ruling Gods.

An example given by the book was the Cavern of Damian, it's described as a crater in the middle of the Bivansia Ocean. The crater actually lies below sea level but never floods. Water, rather, any liquid that manages to seep inside begins to slide towards the closest edge and right back towards the ocean.

The second example given was the Linili Crossing Zone. It had a far more terrifying effect. Everyday at around the time of sunset, those within the zone are reported to have walked several miles without recalling and the time seemed to have never passed. It was only at the time of this book's writing that the full range of the zone's influence was discovered. It encapsulated the whole of the Cindercobalt continent's peninsula. It wasn't densely populated which was why the mystery had few truly invested mages to research it.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Both of the example happenings I read were in the Central Sphere.

The book moved on to the surviving Ruling Gods. The war must've lasted at least a whole generation. The fact that the newer Ruling Gods were descended from the disciples of the Father God, not the remaining disciples now claiming glory in the ashes, proved that fact.

There was a truce called between the absolute strongest of the Ruling Gods that was put in place to rebuild society after the war.

The book mentioned yet another happening that would find prominence in the next age, the reincarnates.

These individuals were thought to be manifestation of past sorrows and long held grudges within contemporary bodies. There were a select few that gained fame and fortune. Although none of them seemed to have lasting legends like the Ruling Gods, and the others that kept a low profile, their stories were lost to the passage of time.

In the Church of the Ruling Gods, reincarnates would go on to be interpreted as the incarnation of the principles the Ruling Gods wished to bring to the world. The appearance of reincarnates only occurred when gods of a certain level clashed. Their existence was proof that the Ruling Gods' will could influence the type of people entering the world from birth.

This distinction of levels between the rankings of the Ruling Gods was eventually established by the god who held the first seat of the Ruling Gods after the war. The thirty seats would be split between three rankings, mortal at the lowest, astral in the middle, and ethereal at the top.

Despite there being only thirty seats, there were also the unruly gods, those who had the power of a god but no seat. The church deemed them as imposters or at best unworthy gods.

The reason the unruly gods held such poor reputation was because normally if someone decided to call themselves a god, it meant they wanted to challenge one of the seated gods.

However, unruly gods would either avoid challenging a seated god, or hide their power. Even if they wanted to hide their power to keep their lives peaceful and isolated, the unruly gods were causing an imbalance in the world simply by existing in that state of obscurity.

There was an exception to this tenet of the church. If the unruly god challenged a seated god and lost, they became an inheritor god if they survived.

Inheritor gods would then fill in a seat if a god was killed by a fellow god and thereby moved up the rankings by leaving a seat unfilled.

But as long as they lived outside of their role, the unruly gods had no hope of dying from natural causes. They would often be found and killed by much more powerful gods. The Ruling Gods didn't like the idea of having meddlers around, least of all those whose ideals clashed with the ones the Ruling Gods were setting forth.

The reasoning behind the three rankings of Ruling Gods was their gap in power and the difference between magic and pure technique.

I had thought it before but I found it in print now. Magic in this world is both convenient and the route to the highest purity of power anyone can hope to achieve in this world.

No 'style' god was noted to have reached beyond the ranking of Mortal God. This was the classification of seats twenty-one to thirty.

They were naturally the weakest gods, saint rank magicians with exceptional mana pools could be said to be on par with them if they sacrificed their entire reserve of mana.

Only within these seats of the Ruling Gods could a person reach and expect to die in bed from old age.

The next stage, the Astral Gods, classified the seats eleven to twenty. This was where everything changed. The reason a mere style wasn't enough to get through the Mortal God rank, magic was busted.

The Astral Gods could destroy an entire continent alone if given enough time and preparation. The magic they conjured didn't just have heavy impact it was able to target people from half way across the world.

The mere thought of some sharp metal stick swinger trying to compete with that kind of power was laughable. Just declaring the intent to challenge an Astral God might have instantly ended their life. Some of the Astral Gods literally did this to prevent anyone from merely boasting about their intent.

Unfortunately, for Astral Gods it was a career for life and retirement wasn't really an option. Astral Gods were virtually immortal, but even they had limits, or they would've been in the same tier as the next set of seats.

Ethereal God was the rank of the top ten seats, their existence dictated the flow of the world.

If a war happens, it was because they allowed it to happen.

If a sphere was destroyed it was them that destroyed it.

Their magic didn't stray and leave a happening, it became the new nature of the world.

I wondered what kind of magic made the manual of the Fear style, was there dream magic in this world? It wasn't mentioned in any of the material regarding magic and its origins. Does Teresa know anything more about her own disposition?

Why does the manual of the Fear style call it the one that dominated the world, how could it possibly compete with magic?

I thought about this deeply as I closed the tome for the day. I had regained enough of my energy to head over to the dojo and practice some more.

Today at the training pit I found the important application of Craven's Gaze, it was a targeting technique that exceled in sharpening the focus of my eyes and mind to spot even in a haze of distractions.

I had used it before in combination with the previous techniques but this only led me to passively apply the pathing to attack the dummy. I wanted to intentionally create a path to the dummy, that hopefully didn't end with me taking a fast moving cloth pellet to the gut.

Activating the fifth technique, I discovered something that didn't quite click the first times I used it. The focus I was given didn't blur the surroundings but instead based it off the information I had on the terrain. I hardly looked at where I landed when I performed the third technique.

On the ground however, I had already scanned it into my mind. The pellets began assaulting me, but I was beginning to force my path to the dummy.

The fourth technique allowed me to defend against the pellets as I made my way toward the dummy. It wasn't a quick pace, but it at least allowed me to build up the habit of choosing my own path rather than rely on instinct that could get me into trouble if I let loose.

Eventually I reached the dummy and performed a combo of the fourth technique and the first technique, the dummy was left with large gashes across its body.

I was definitely getting stronger, an average six-year-old could hardly pitch a ball let alone cleave through a wooden dummy, and with a wooden sword at that. I tried punching the dummy before without the technique but it only left me with a hurt fist. Jumping around like I did with the maneuvering techniques without applying them resulted in similar distance covered but I couldn't keep my balance and fell several times as a result. I was careful not to try it on the more dangerous landing spots.

"Excellent performance young master."

Hilly stood and applauded. I still found her amusement at watching me quite odd. She never stood in the central training room's pit.

"Do you ever get hit by the pellets the dummy is shooting?"

"Hmm? No they always stop on the edge of the pit. Then it's like the ground goes shwoop. And then they're gone. If only the dust around the castle could do the same."

"Huh, I guess the dummy does need to replenish its appendages that it fires off too."

"Are you going to continue?"

"Nah, I've already accomplished what I wanted today, besides I sorta tired my self out when I played with the kids at the city today."

"Ah, I see. Would you like a refreshment or a baked treat?"

"No, but thanks for offering."

I was getting used to the convenience of having maids do the busywork. It wasn't a luxury I ever came close to having in my old life, and I also didn't want my wife to do any more than she had to.

As I headed to my room, I was suddenly tackled. Luca ambushed me, I was able to free myself quickly from his initial grasp. Luckily, I had already left the abandoned wing.

"Thought I'd get ya before you could even struggle. You've gotten quicker."

"Oh yeah? It's not gonna be like the other times Luca."

"Show me then."

Luca shot for my left foot, he missed wildly when I used the second technique of the fear style. I was beginning to get fond of the versatile nature of these techniques.

I put all my weight and laid on Luca as he ended up on the floor from the failed grapple.

Luca tried to spin around and grab at my neck but I leg locked him from behind and had my tiny arms around his armpit and head.

"Woah, alright you got me."

"Haha, I am getting bigger after all."

"Yeah, yeah."

This kind of setting was the best part of my new life. In between all the training and learning I got to spend time with my family that treats me like I belong.