Here's chapter 10! Exactly 3,800 words dedicated to training. -Wink wink-

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Chapter 10: Electrified

“For our training,” Atira glared viciously at Kai, “I’ll be teaching you how to use your weapons and how to use a knife.”

“Why a dagger?” Kai asked, tilting his side to side.

“What if you lose your weapons and somehow the enemy got in close range of you?”

“I wouldn’t lose my weapons-”

“Fool!” Atira scolded, sending a chop to his head. “In a battle, anything can happen. What if your sisters were behind you, you lost your guns, don’t know how to fight hand-to-hand, and the enemy was closing in? What would you do then?”

“I thought we learned hand-to-hand combat?”

“I only taught you how to punch and kick correctly,” she corrected him.

“Then… what do I do?”

“Here,” she handed him a wooden knife with blunt edges. “Grip it like this,” she moved his fingers around until the knife was pointed blade up and his hands gripped it like a hammer. “This is a type of forward grip… there’s a few other types.”

“Eh? There’s different types of grips?”

“Yes, and I’ll be teaching you all of them,” she nodded. “You will use all of them, but today, we’ll learn the hammer grip.” Atira took away the wooden knife and handed him a stick, around the same size as the knife - perhaps a bit larger.

“Can you guess what the purpose of this grip is by looking at it?”

Kai stared at his hands, before making stabbing motions and finally a slashing motion. “Slashing?”

“Correct.” Atira lead him over to a small dummy with red marks placed in vital areas. “Get into position.” Kai lowered his body and positioned his hands in front of him. “I want you to slash at this dummy.”

“Eh? That’s it?”

“Practice makes perfect,” she smiled.

Kai moved forward and slashed at the dummy - skinning some of the rope off. However, Atira frowned. Kai continuously leaned forward to slash, leaving his back open - that and he was just aiming for random places.

“Are you just randomly hacking away?” she snapped. “Aim for the vital spots - and stop leaning forward so much!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Kai shouted back.

Although it didn’t seem much now, Kai never thought they would continue this. For hours. Until the time overlapped with Brent’s lessons…

Demon! He thought to himself.

…

Meanwhile, with Ezra, Orion, Caelus, and Rhett were sitting on the floor, waiting for Ezra’s instructions.

“I’ll be teaching you how to mix your mana and ki,” Ezra finally said.

“However,” Ezra continued. “This process takes a long time - therefore, we’ll only do it for an hour a day. After that, we’ll learn how to incorporate our mixed energy into our weapons.”

“Mixing your energies is similar to meditating. However, when meditating, one would normally connect with their mana or connect with their ki. The process of mixing them is to connect the two sides together, bringing them together to create something even stronger. We call is spirit essence,” Ezra explained, sitting down in front of the three.

“How do we connect them?” asked Orion, getting comfortable in his sitting position.

“It’s simple - try activating both ki and mana at the same time and holding onto it. The longer you can go, the more mixed it will be. Eventually, over time, both sides will mix with each other, creating spirit essence.”

“Ah, it’s not as simple as it seems,” Rhett sighed.

“What do you mean?” Caelus eyed Rhett.

“I mean, try activating both at the same time,” Rhett urged them to try it.

The boys looked at each other before trying to activate both sides. Orion felt the energy suddenly build up inside of him, before he felt it being released suddenly.

“Huh?” he opened his eyes, looking confused.

Ezra smiled. “Both ki and mana are what you call alphas - they dominate. When you activate the both of them, they’ll push to fill your core. However, due to this, they would exceed your core limit and disperse itself before they destroy their host.”

“Then what do we do?” Caelus frowned.

“Try controlling it. When I taught you how to meditate, I taught you how to let your energy flow into you - not how to control how much energy you receive. To control it, try letting mana and ki in one-by-one.”

Orion exhaled before inhaling and trying to control his energies. It was hard - definitely. Everytime he tried to let it in one-by-one, he would lose grip on either mana or ki.

If he focused on controlling one side more, the other side would lose focus and start filling his core. He felt frustrated, but determined to get stronger. After all, his family called him Captain - he was the leader. How would they see him as if he were to give up now?

Orion divided his attention on controlling the energies. This process took a lot of concentration.

“Well, time’s up!” Ezra clapped his hands, smiling at the two boys with satisfaction. Rhett, on the other hand, already accomplished mixing his energies long ago. He was told to join Atira and Kai with their training while they meditated.

“Ah,” Orion frowned, letting out a sigh. Caelus, too, looked frustrated. Probably the most he’s ever been.

“Get up, I’ll be teaching you how to incorporate this somewhat mixed energy into your weapons.” Ezra told them to use the weapons they received from Atira.

“This time, try activating your mana or ki.”

Orion activated his mana, only to find a small amount of ki mixed in. This time, he activated his ki, to find the same result.

“Now try activating your mixed energy. The reason why mixing the energies take a long time, is due to the human’s core being too incompetent to hold both energies. As a result of this, the mixed energies end up creating a new pocket in the core - one to hold your spirit essence.”

Orion activated the small amount of mixed energy he had - it was easier to activate it now, but he still found it difficult to increase the amount of energy coming in.

“Concentrate that energy onto your weapons.”

Beads of sweat fell off of Orion’s face, his eyebrows twitched as he concentrated on moving the energy to his weapon. The energy slowly traveled from his body into the weapon, until finally, all of it filled the weapon.

He swung his scythe around, feeling no difference. Orion frowned, then what was the point? There must be more than this.

“The reason why balanced elementals are valued is due to their ability to mix their energies. Mixing your energy… well, try swinging your weapon at the ground.”

Orion gripped his scythe tightly before swinging towards the ground. A chunk of the ground blew away due to the blow and dispersed in the air. Coming down as particles of dirt. A small depression was made in the ground.

“W-whoa!” Orion uttered out. It was for weapons induced with mana or ki normal for it to leave a crack in the ground, perhaps even a small depression. However, that was if they were swinging with full strength.

What Orion did was a regular, light swing of his weapon. He wondered what would happen if he mixed all of his energy. What kind of destruction would he do?

“Good, now use this instead,” he handed them a long stick - each according to their weapon size. “Practice concentrating your mixed energy into these.”

…

Brent stared at the children before him - especially the baby. He sighed. He had the most difficult bunch to train. One, there was a baby who couldn't do much activities. Two, he had two arcane ability users.

“What are we doing today, Brent?” asked Eve, tilting her head.

“Since you guys are mana-favored, you’re most definitely going to be either support or long-ranged attackers,” Brent told them. “Except for maybe Eve…” he muttered, eyeing the child who gleefully smiled at him.

He instinctually shuddered.

“Right, what we know about Eve’s power is that she can form a barrier that has rebound and some healing properties, Lilith’s is summoning - oh, that’s right! Have you discovered any other skills?”

“Apparently I inherited some of Rhett’s abilities, but currently, I don’t know any or I’m too weak to use them,” Lilith informed.

“And for Ley, you can use thunder,” Brent ended.

“Uhn,” Ley nodded.

Brent sighed, it seems as if he’s starting to act his age - or he dislikes talking.

“We can’t do much now, so we’ll spend a few more weeks learning about your abilities and increasing them.”

For the rest of the time at Brent’s lessons, they continued to test their abilities and spar for a bit. He told them, the more they used their abilities, the more efficient and stronger they’ll get.

He was looking forward to Eve’s healing abilities and Lilith’s summoning skills. For Lilith, he wondered what skills she inherited from Rhett - the king of the forest… supposedly. As for Ley, he wondered if he could send him to Ezra so he, too, could incorporate his energy into his weapon.

…

Ezra clapped his hands together, “alright, time for the next step!”

Orion and Caelus were gasping for air. Ezra continuously made them use all of their mana and concentration to swing the sticks down. Their arms trembled and their mana was absolutely exhausted. However, to remedy this, Ezra bought a stack of mana regeneration potions.

It was hell for them.

Not only does becoming mana exhausted completely tire out the person, it slowly starts to shut down their body so that the person would sleep to regain more mana. That is, if they didn’t know how to regenerate mana or if they didn’t have potions to remedy it.

However, an exhausted body is ten times harder to work with. Yet they continued to do the same rigorous training. Ezra made them run two miles for every time he thought they were slacking. Though, when they looked over at Kai and Rhett’s training, they felt grateful.

Ezra handed them four bracelets each, “put one on your ankles and wrists.”

“What do these do?” asked Caelus, eyeing the black ringlets.

“Ah, they do this-” Ezra snapped his fingers.

Orion and Caelus fell on their knees promptly.

“These are gravity rings, they’re used to train the body. I set the gravity on low, since this is a new method. Also, I don’t want to destroy your young bodies. Hm.. right, now start swinging again.”

“Ergh..” Orion pushed himself up and grabbed his stick, Caelus followed after him.

“Don’t slack off now,” Ezra smiled. “Or you’ll do three miles.”

“Yes, sir!”

…

It was the end of their “morning” activities. After they ate breakfast, which Atira brought with her, they had lessons with Brent - their usual world-conquering plans coming along nicely.

“If we were to attack a region, which one should we attack first?” asked Eve, eyeing the map in front of them. It was marked with red spots of regal cities - either commercial or strategic.

“Hum, Polymetis would normally be the weakest, but they have the highest technology. Those new weapons are dangerous. Gwydion is too advanced with magic, Eradion is… well, too strong in general. Either Ophir or Nereida,” Lilith analyzed the map.

“Ophir,” Orion finally added in.

“Why?” Ley asked. “Please include a detailed explanation as to why we should attack Ophir rather than Nereida.”

“Let’s see, Nereida, although being the smallest region, is called the waterlands for a reason. They’re surrounded by water. Not only that, but their main forces are made of water elementals. That enough would put us in a disadvantage.”

“Despite your thunder abilities, Nereida has earth users to neutralize them - as seen in report 8, page 2,” Orion continued. “Ophir has a more diverse amount of elementals. However, they’re also known to be one of the weakest in terms of military and fighting power. That, and they’re not as close to water.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“My thunder abilities can run on the ground, too,” Ley objected. “Ophir is also known to produce the strongest heroes, however their military drags them down. These “heroes” are the special force they use against overly powerful enemies.”

“Nereida, too, has a secret force. Although no one has seen them, they’ve been recorded in the history books,” Orion added in. “The Azures.”

The Azures were a specialized force that took care of incoming enemy attacks long ago, they were recorded in the history books, but no one has actually seen them. Everyone believes they’re real.

“Ophir’s military is actually stronger than Polymetis’s,” Lilith said. “This opens us up to Polymetis, too. Every country, by now, has some type of special technology. Although they’re known to be advanced, they’re not too far ahead of everyone else.”

“Let’s choose randomly,” Caelus added in.

“...”

“Alright,” everyone agreed.

They spun a bottle to see which region they should attack. It landed on Ophir.

“Ophir it is,” Orion smiled.

…

After they had dinner, they were to start their last activity - sparring and meditating afterwards.

As they set up their weapons and cleared the area, Ezra walked casually over, a boy next to him.

“Everyone,” Ezra said, catching their attention. “Dillon will now be joining us.”

“Hm?” Kai turned to see a familiar green-haired boy. “Dillon! Long time no see!” It’s actually been several hours, but he ignored that.

“H-hi,” Dillon stuttered, watching the group of children nervously. This would be his new “class.”

“How’d you get Eldrick to agree?” Orion raised an eyebrow.

“Ah, he said it’d be fine, after watching our training regime earlier in the morning,” Ezra smiled.

Who wouldn’t? In fact, shouldn’t he be scared? The kids thought to themselves, keeping a neutral face. Eldrick… so cruel.

“Today Dillon will be joining us in sparring. That reminds me, Dillon, what’s your element and spirit type?” Ezra inquired.

“E-earth,” Dillon stuttered. Ezra informed Dillon of everyone’s elements earlier, of course he’d be nervous of his own. “I’m a ki practitioner.”

“Ooh!” Kai yelled, “can you make a part of the ground move up?”

“Move up?”

“Like, shwaaa!” Kai exclaimed, moving his hands up from the ground to the air.

“Oh, like this?” Dillon lightly stomped on the ground and a small pillar of earth shot up to around 10 feet in the air.

“Wow, so cool!” Kai yelled, shaking Dillon’s shoulders.

“Alright, so we’ll do teams, there’s an even amount of us, since Ley can’t spar yet,” Ezra stared the the children before nodding his head. “On team one, we have Eve, Dillon, and Orion. On team two, we have Caelus, Lilith, and Kai. Ley will act as a part of the area and send random electric waves to the ground.”

“Oh, Dillon, use this,” Ezra handed him a sword - an actual sword. “Everyone will be using their weapons, but since you don’t have one, take this.” Dillon gulped, taking the sword with trembling fingers.

Everyone took their positions on their side of the field. On team one, Orion stood in the front next to Dillon, Eve stood in the back. Her job was to defend the frontlines, and if someone attacked her, she was allowed to do what she wanted. Orion’s job was the main damage dealer - also he was to fend off Caelus. Dillon’s job was to take down Lilith and, if possible, Kai, too.

On team two, Caelus stood in the front with Lilith in the back. Kai stood to the very right of them, his job was to get in, deal damage, and get out. Lilith was to cast spells with Rhett acting as her bodyguard - he was limited to only that much. Caelus was the main offensive, he had the more diverse skills and usage.

“Ready?” Brent asked.

Everyone tensed up. Dillon stared nervously at the opposite side - they looked fierce.

“Hey, shake it off,” Orion smiled gently at him. “We got your back.”

“Right!” Eve smiled.

“T-thanks,” Dillon gave them a weak smile, albeit it made him feel better to have strong teammates, he was worried he couldn’t get the job done.

“Set?”

Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, Dillon trembled nervously.

“Go!” Brent yelled, snapping his fingers. A burst of light signaled the start of the fight.

Orion moved in swiftly, using the shadows to get closer to the frontlines. Dillon launched himself using the earth, he didn’t go very far, so Eve shot him farther away using her rebound barrier.

“Wah!” Dillon shouted in surprise, turning to stare at his teammate. Eve laughed, a glint of mischief in her eyes.

“Turn around,” she mouthed.

Dillon turned around to see a battlefield at work. Orion manipulating the shadows to get behind Caelus and swinging his scythe, only to be blown back by Caelus’s wind. Caelus utilized his sword in ways he’s never seen before - he commanded it to move and attack Orion while using hand-to-hand combat himself.

Lilith, on the other hand, was summoning fire to Eve, who stood in the back, protecting her teammates from Lilith’s oncoming attacks. Eve, of course, materialized her hammer and attacked Lilith herself, despite that being Dillon’s job.

“Eh?” Dillon said aloud, “what do I do then-?”

“HAHA,” a loud laugh echoed in his head. “Did you forget me?” Kai appeared in front of a surprised Dillon and shot him with his gun. Luckily, all weapons were modified, for now, to deal no harm to others. Dillon plummeted to the earth.

He quickly created a soft area in the earth for him to land in.

Once Dillon landed, he looked for Kai, but to no avail. “Ergh,” Dillon paled, he raised the earth where Lilith stood and made her lose balance. “That should be fine, right?”

He was wrong. Rhett came by to attack him. “Wah!” Dillon quickly shot a wall of earth to block Rhett’s punch - to no avail.

Rhett punched through the wall, so Dillon raised the earth below him, successfully dodging the punch.

Eve yelled, “use your sword!” She used her barrier to shoot him out of Rhett’s area of control. After that, she continued to attack Lilith, who controlled her disk-like weapon to block and attack Eve.

Right, my sword! Dillon reached for the sword around his waist. However, before he could unsheathe it, a wave of electricity rolled through the ground, covering the entire arena.

Eve quickly placed a barrier underneath Orion, Dillon, and herself. They bounced up lightly in the air, successfully dodging the wave of electricity.

Caelus, on the other hand, floated casually in the air, attacking Orion who could only send small orbs of darkness at him. Eve used her barrier to shoot Orion towards Caelus.

“Dillon, step!” Orion quickly called.

“R-right!” Dillon shot a pillar of earth for Orion to use as a step.

Orion gracefully landed on it before jumping at Caelus.

Lilith, on the other hand, had Rhett pick her up and jump into the air - a simple strategy, but effective enough. Kai was still nowhere to be seen.

“Again, pay attention,” Kai whispered, kicking Dillon who landed on the electrified ground.

“U-UWAH!” Dillon yelled.

“Oh, crap,” Kai said, that was the last thing Dillon heard.

…

“Hey, he’s waking up,” a feminine voice said.

“Good, I’m getting tired,” another female voice said. “Who knew healing took so much mana?”

“I feel bad,” a childish voice groaned. “I didn’t think he’d faint on contact with Ley’s electricity.

“Or maybe Ley’s electricity is too powerful?” Suggested a cold, lazy voice.

“Enough, look, he’s awake,” a charismatic voice said.

Dillon opened his eyes to see six children surrounding him.

“I fainted?” Dillon blushed.

“Sorry,” Ley apologized. “Electricity was too powerful. I’ll work on controlling it.”

“Hehe,” Kai laughed, “Rhett fainted from the electricity, too.”

“I am the king of the forest,” Rhett muttered.

“Sparring is over,” Lilith smiled, “we’re doing meditation now.

“Do you need some honey?” asked Orion, who stared at him with worried eyes. “It could help.”

“No, no, I’m good,” Dillon’s face turned an even darker shade of red.

“No need to be embarrassed,” Caelus yawned, floating upside down in the air. “You should see the things Rhett and Brent do.”

“Hm… maybe we should end it for today,” Atira suggested.

“No,” Dillon’s face became determined. “Let’s continue.”

“Really?” Ezra asked, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. “Alright then, everyone sit down…”

That day, Dillon became determined to accomplish cool things in life - enough so that this memory would forever be erased from history, or at least from his mind…

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Side Story: Dillon’s Offer

Dillon stared at the older kids who gave him looks of contempt. However, he chose to ignore them. He watched as the more mature kids, who ignored him, swung their swords down. Dillon positioned himself to copy them and swung down his sword the same way.

There’s no way I’ll lose to them, Dillon glared.

He continued like this until lunch, skipping breakfast.

I’m hungry, he sighed. As he went to leave for lunch, he noticed a handsome red-haired man talking with Master Eldrick. Eldrick nodded and pointed to where Dillon stood.

“Eh?” Dillon noticed it was the same man who evaluated him earlier. The cool-looking, handsome man walked up to him.

“Hello,” the red-haired man smiled charmingly at him - he was so brilliant, Dillon couldn’t help but squint his eyes. “My name is Ezra, the master of the those children you were talking to earlier.”

“O-oh, hello!” Dillon bowed.

Ezra stared at him, before saying, “I finished talking to your master about this. Dillon, I’m going to offer you a choice that might change your life.”

A tense silence passed between the two.

“Do you want to become one of my apprentices?”

“Huh?” Dillon’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Of course, my training is ten times harder than what you do here. However, I guarantee you’ll pass your peers.”

“I-I…” Dillon wanted to ask him, why me?

“Dillon, I see in you, hard work, determination, and persistence,” Ezra told him, as if he read Dillon’s mind. “These traits would allow you to become stronger than your peers. Of course, you’ll still attend Clarus, however, you’ll train under me.”

Dillon gulped nervously. “My parents?”

“You can tell them your decision. Also, you don’t have to come with me after we leave here.”

“I- I don’t know.”

“What do you want to do?” asked Ezra.

“I… can I become your apprentice?”

Ezra smiled softly. “Of course.”

That day, Dillon joined a group full of unique people with unique abilities and strengths. However, he never realized that this decision would forever change his life, and he would be a part of something bigger than he, himself, would ever be…

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Thanks for reading, remember to comment/give feedback!

I love, love, love Dillon - he's sooo cute! (Albeit I like the twins more, lol).

So, LOOOOONG chapter about training. Yep, a more detailed description on what they actually do. Every time I think about increasing their difficulty, I remember how old they are, so I tend to limit myself. Trying to make it as realistic AS POSSIBLE. (Although I kind of failed in that aspect).

Is it just me, or do other authors add a word minimum to their chapters? I think, since chapter one, all of my chapters have been more than 2,200 words each.

Looking for people to help proofread, too. Or at least point out any grammatical errors in the comment sections.

THANKS TO SARCZE FOR HELPING CORRECT SOME MISTAKES IN THIS CHAPTER.