...

Place: Private Training hall, Leonandra Estate

Time: Shortly after creating the mess in Alexander's mansion (Entrance Hall)

Inside the private training hall, Alexander was dragged immediately after his little accident and now had second thoughts about how he acted when conducting his experiments.

'I think writing an apology will not work.'

Alexander stood before his Mother, who gave a strange and unsettling pressure. Her whole presence made him imagine her as a wild beast embracing him, showing it could crush every bone of his body.

"Alex, do you know why I don't treat you like Sarah, disciplining you properly?"

Her voice was solemn but amicable, with a tinge of a claw slowly patting his neck. Little to say, Alexander didn't like it, trying to act as cute as possible, hoping that nobody would crash adorable puppies.

Alexander smiled, posing, "Because I am so..."

The pressure increased, making the whole hall rumble, with him stopping his little act. When the building was about to get crushed from her aura alone, it meant shit hit the fan, which was one of his Mother's signages that she was really pissed.

When she emitted her invisible aura, which gave off no emotion, it was an excellent time to stop acting like an adorable goofball and hope the cold-blooded beast before him wouldn't shred him into many tiny pieces.

"Think seriously about it. I don't need one of your jokes."

Fortunately, the pressure decreased again, and Alexander became serious, knowing he fucked up. He indeed vandalized his entrance hall with a semi-functioning enchantment engine.

After the first successful test and the subsequent minor hiccup, everyone woke up and ran toward him—servants, guards, or his siblings. When they saw that he wasn't injured, the screaming and reprimanding began for apparent reasons.

'They were worried, though.'

It did not feel great to make them worried, but it was a great success, and Alexander was okay with it. He built an engine as an enchantment from a material that wouldn't deteriorate, which meant he had revolutionized the whole field.

However, after apologizing to everyone, he was drained and wanted to sleep, but his Mother dragged him to her private training hall. He now recognized his dismissive attitude after almost being pressured into a pancake.

'I should really think about others.'

Alexander honestly felt terrible, but saying this didn't seem possible anymore since his Mother was wearing her special linen and leather training clothes, which her energy couldn't destroy—a bad sign.

Regardless, Alexander tried to understand her questioning and answer truthfully, "I honestly... don't know, but I guess that Sarah was endangering the family while I only endangered myself?"

His Mother nodded, walking elegantly toward him. Every step felt magnanimous, even though no footprints were left behind, and her constitution appeared increasingly shadowing the closer she came.

"That's true. You both have too much energy. Sarah reminds me of Brutus, who is aloof, eccentric, and determined in his craft, like a simple-minded fool..."

She suddenly smiled, making him shiver as the pressure dissipated. She looked less like a wild beast and more like her happy self, probably her previous usual self, before bringing dumbasses like him into this world.

"You are much more like Eli, with someone having so many interests and talent that you would never have a single moment of calm, always trying to prove yourself with a heart out of gold, but I obviously don't want to embarrass you with the comparison. I just find it cute."

Alexander needed a moment to notice what his Mother meant, only to blush slightly. His letters weren't private, which meant it wasn't a secret that he told Emma and Patricia that he was in love with his aunt—a good lie, in his opinion.

However, while he expected others to have him sit down and try to dissuade his feelings, everyone liked it. It was a reaction Alexander didn't expect but should've. Everyone thought more or less they were made for each other, with even some trying to tell him much more about her and what she liked.

'Well, nothing will come of it with her being married and probably crazy from breaking down.'

Alexander came out of his thoughts when his Mother stopped before him. Her smile slowly receded, and she stared at him. She was almost the same height but still had the golden eyes he didn't fear but respected, making him stay straight when she had a specific look.

"Enough talk about Eli, but don't you worry. We will make sure that you meet her at some point..." Her smile was entirely gone, and her aura was back while she still talked casually about romance, "...and while she has a husband, it doesn't mean you couldn't become her first one, but until then, you need to stay alive."

As Alexander wanted to talk about how he didn't want to be a part of a harem, slowly opening his mouth, the pressure returned and became even heavier, making him feel dread and forget those silly romantic problems. Staring into his Mother's eyes, she felt like a giant staying over him, and every word of hers almost stopped his heart.

"You see, Alex, puppies who usually get nature's break are quite the bundle of energy. However, while we did everything we could to put Sarah through rows of teachers and training regimes, she ultimately wanted to have the kick of experiencing a fight against other sapients, not even monsters."

She told the truth and was probably too soft in her approach to stop her acting out. Sarah had a dozen teachers, and she tried to escape all of them, especially the ones who wanted to teach her administration. Yet, when it came to combat, she grasped the initial skills and didn't want to train anymore, as it was no fun for her.

Sarah was the epitome of learning by doing. She would most likely feel the happiest as a mercenary on a battlefield, fighting for her life and sharpening her skills while doing so.

However, because she was nobility, it was impossible. They had a certain conduct to uphold, and sending her out as a sellsword when she hadn't even reached her first mating season was mental and would get her a giant target on her back.

Even though it was okay when she did it later, it was not like Sarah embraced patience as one of her core traits, with him doubting that she had even the skill at all.

Commoners didn't have such a problem. Their families would even expect them to find a job directly after their legacy and care for themselves as best as possible.

Alexander gulped, expecting the worst when she mentioned Sarah. He comforted her often when she was undergoing punishment for months, which made her a nerve wreck, becoming frightened by the slightest sound.

"I... see."

"However..." Her stare intensified, bringing him almost to his knees, "...you are different, Alex, far too different."

As sweat ran down his Temple, he couldn't look into her eyes anymore but felt the glare. Two giant golden eyes stared him down, making him expect now the worst.

"Is... am I now getting the same treatment as Sarah?"

Alexander wasn't sympathetic toward disciplining puppies in this way, but it was more common than not. Honestly, for the society he was living in, his parents were far more progressive than others, only using such punishment in extreme cases.

As such, he wasn't too sad, knowing it was just a fragment of the time that had nothing to do with their love. While he didn't like to use the excuse of ignorance, it wasn't like they had well-established educational sciences in this world.

"No, Sarah ignored my orders entirely, not even trying to trick me and was wholly shameless in her approach. Me punishing her was a lesson to not act like that anymore as the next time, maybe not I, but someone else will have her head for such unruly behavior."

He felt a slight smile but still didn't dare to look up. It was enough to imagine her fangs showing, to make him frightened.

"You, however, follow all the rules and try to circumvent them as much as possible, always on edge, with a half-step outside the boundaries of what is barely acceptable and excusable..." Her smile widened, "...so, how can I actually punish you then? It will make no sense as it was my fault for giving you faulty rules you successfully circumvented."

"I am sorry..."

He felt his Mother's hand patting him, which was far from pleasant. The smile was gone, and her tone became saddened with a hint of anger. All his instincts were ringing, yelling, and screaming for him to run as death was imminent.

"Alex, you made an outstanding achievement, which I will not deny or reduce the significance of even though I do not have the same vision and creativity when it comes to those specialties..."

"So..."

She pressed her hand a little harder, scratching behind his ear, making him feel now panic instead of the usual joy.

"After you talked with Noriken and explained yourself, I also believe you. You didn't expect that your little experiment would have such a severe reaction, and you even thought that Lili was there for protection, this much I believe, and will not give out punishment for you following my orders, evaluating truthfully and rigorously the risk an experiment would bring."

"So..."

She didn't let him talk after Alexander tried again, softly patting his cheeks. He was still unable to look into her eyes, with her sadness and anger slowly transforming into pride and firmness.

"When I took over the fief, I never was stubborn or too focused on unreasonable goals. All I wanted to do was find the most appropriate solutions for any problem..." Her pressure slowly transformed into a wobbly mess, making him have difficulty breathing, "...what do you think your problem is?"

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"I am... too... energetic..."

She smiled again, her voice full of expectation and pride, contrasting the aura that made him suffocate with the golden eyes and fangs he imagined she showed that made him feel an ingrained, almost feral fear as if it were natural.

"Indeed you are, and while I can only trust Lili to some extent to look after you, I need to tire you out, using the liveliness you have to do something good."

"You... scaring me a little."

Her tone was expressive, much more than usual, making Alexander's tail tucked between his legs.

"I thought about giving you some other responsibilities again, but you are too clever for this. After you start something, you always get new retainers and order them around to handle things to your liking, leaving you free to do nonsense again."

Alexander delegated most of his work to others, knowing the power of specializations and that he couldn't do everything himself. Even if his subordinates did the work less good than him, it was always fine as long as they would grow.

"As such, I thought for a long time, knowing you would do something reckless again when nobody would be around you, and concluded that it was time to teach you something more profound, something which you wouldn't and couldn't just learn in an afternoon."

"And what exactly?"

She looked at her hand, frowning, "Technique 25, Wrapping Claws, should be fine as a first example."

Without any forewarning, Alexander felt death surrounding him, as if he was about to be ripped apart. Looking up, he saw his Mother's hand wrapped with demonic energy, and those were moving from all sides toward him, like a giant monster about to grab him with its claws and rip him to pieces.

'Death.'

However, before it surrounded him, it disappeared as quickly, and the aura lessened, with him not knowing what had happened. His Mother's golden eyes were calm, like a wolf about to teach him how to hunt.

"The most appropriate solution to control your behavior is to move forward your training for the Leonandrian Martial Arts and keep you occupied for the next years this way."

"The what..."

Alexander stopped himself as he sensed mana coming from his Mother, surrounding her in bizarre ways. What was really weird, making him open his eyes in disbelief, was that she did it seemingly clumsily, but if one looked at what she had constructed, it was on purpose, which meant that her control was probably twice as good as his.

"Let's start with you repeating an easy technique; it was the 31st, if I remember correctly, knife hand, and now avoid and learn."

"Learn... avoid?!"

The mana swirled around her forearm, and a big chunk solidified, creating an immensely thick but not overly dense construct. It was like a fluid with another rubberlike mass of mana wobbling around her upper arm, which Alexander barely deciphered as it was far from what he would do when creating a construct.

He and everyone else who wrote about it recommended fine but dense connections to increase the efficacy, but not her. It was as if she just focused on something specific.

'I swear I know what she is doing, but wha...' He immediately sidestepped, sensing that her attack was incoming, "Shit!"

Alexander's instinct was correct. After chopping down casually with her hand, she created a wind blade with immense pressure and strength that flew past him.

BOOM!

Hitting the wall behind him, he could now compare the strength, which made him curious, almost ecstatic, 'It is double or triple for the same mana I would use.'

It was a combination spell he created using the same method Merlin used. Instead of using one 3D construct, he used three 2D, making it stronger. In the middle was a windball conjured, with two pressure spells on opposite sides, replicating the spell windblade that was twice as costly but now also had 3/4 of its strength. Overall, it was a much more efficient construct.

"When I learned those mana skills, I immediately leveled every one of them to the intermediate tier since they were too similar to energy..." She looked at him, smirking slightly and about to knife chop horizontally, "...dodge again and try to analyze what I do, but don't jump when you don't know any air movement techniques."

Fortunately, she wasn't too keen on splitting him into two parts since she used the technique relatively fast but still slow enough for him to analyze it and dodge it on time.

Regardless, Alexander needed every moment to understand what was happening since her way of building a construct was still too unconventional for him.

When she used it, the mana appeared far heavier than it was, creating inertia and trying to break it by creating momentum, which would the unmovable and unresponsive mass of mana, which would transform into a spell, fly toward him with much more power.

"Weight..." He mumbled and jumped up, avoiding her windblade, while trying to use his [Mana Sense] on the spell and his Mother, contemplating how it could react as if it had mass, '...I need to see it again.'

She smiled at him when he was in mid-air and used another windblade, but a much weaker and slower version. This was enough to understand the technique as he strained all his [Mana Sense] to the breaking point, wanting to see what the mana did to create this power.

When she did the chop motion, the mana reacted like a whip, following it lazily, but something happened halfway through, 'Acceleration... movement... I see... it's not mass.'

Alexander comprehended it, having an epiphany. When his Mother built the mana into the construct, it was barely moving, with her using a great deal of force through [Mana Manipulation] to make it stand still, like he did when building contraptions by forcing physical particles.

Halfway through the chopping motion, the mana accelerated violently, with the particles starting to react as she stopped holding them in place, becoming much more vibrant and creating more potency through the sudden reaction with each other.

All she did afterward was lead the destructive mess of mana along with her physical motion and the construct that almost broke apart, wanting to get free.

'She is using the violent shaking of the mana particles to make the spell more volatile and destructive.'

The mana almost exploded when her chop motion finished, and the construct barely held together, but it didn't matter anymore when she let go. The spell completed and appeared as a violent but precise mess called windblade flew toward him.

Not wanting to be split in half, Alexander quickly used a propulsion spell on his soles, making him double jump and avoid the flying Guillotine.

'Concentrate...'

However, instead of landing immediately, he felt very cocky while in mid-air, trying to recreate what his Mother showed. Around Alexander's arm, the mana started to collect with him, trying to replicate the thick but rubberlike mess of a mana built around the construct.

'I got it...'

With a sloppy motion, he chopped it toward his Mother, with her smiling widely and easily deflecting it as if it was nothing, which was true. He used the technique, but it was still a mess and needed a lot of training and repetition to make it usable.

'Yes!'

Landing on his feet, she came closer, now without emitting any pressure. She also clapped, making him smile widely while his tail moved like a propeller.

"Rough but well done. Since I could control mana quite well and have excellent energy control, I decided to recreate every Leonandrian martial arts technique with the spells you wrote down, which also was a wonderful way to train myself on how to use mana, energy, and spells together."

"Yeah, you are honestly a genius."

She shook her head, becoming more casual. She wanted to talk first, obviously, giving him some needed minutes to calm down since he still felt too excited.

"It's experience, Alex. Should you get our demonic energy, which is very likely, you will see that it is just the opposite of mana, making you almost immediately grasp it as you simply need to do the opposite to control it."

"Opposite? What does it mean?"

She sighed, shrugging, "It's really something you need to sense to understand, but if I tried to compare, I would say our demonic energy is heavy and fluid, almost like melted steel, but mana is light, almost without any weight to it when controlling."

Alexander raised an eyebrow, remembering the first technique she used with apparently melted steel-like energy, "How could you even use those with such an energy like the demonic one?"

She smirked, appearing a little prideful, "Demonic energy needs to be broken down while we use our martial arts techniques to create a forceful effect, with some differences obviously depending on the technique, but mana must first be amassed and then made more violently. It's quite an interesting phenomenon."

Alexander nodded, with her smile suddenly gone, "Enough chit-chat."

Before he could think further about all the implications of his discovery, his instinct was already screaming at him, which made him stretch his body to avoid a kick flying toward his head from the side.

Next, she turned casually around and kicked again, followed by punches and more kicks. All these attacks were predictable, but Alexander had no choice but to avoid them, as they all forced him to bend and stretch his body in bizarre ways, almost breaking his back.

After giving his best, at some point, it didn't work anymore, and he got hit and flew away, landing in the dirt and wheezing, barely able to catch his breath. Sadly, what he heard next wasn't praise but what he could expect for the following years.

"Our household, or rather, every one of your ancestors, loved to develop various martial arts techniques, which required great energy control and a lot of body transformations, with us also being the one Guard Household who has the best relations toward the Temple and nature-dwellers in general who are healing us as we go through a horrendous training regime to use those techniques..." He could hear a more joyful hint of a tone, "...being able to learn the easier techniques this fast is already a feat worth praise, but is it enough, though?"

Alexander slowly stood up, dusting himself off, and saw how she analyzed his body, every inch, obviously trying to evaluate if he was ready for whatever she planned.

"Sarah and Lori learned them almost instantly after getting their legacy, too, right?"

His Mother chuckled, holding a hand before her mouth, "Not at all..." She showed three fingers, "...they need Energy control, a robust and flexible body, and a great mental state. If one didn't have all three of them, they would have problems learning the more complex techniques, and this is why..." Her smile widened, "...it is quite refreshing to teach those techniques to my puppy at last, even though I thought I would have to wait for another ten to twenty years, which would be the more normal course of events."

Alexander agreed with her. The technique he learned was great, but it also required immense control of mana or energy. The mental state was self-explanatory, but he didn't understand one thing she said.

"Flexibility? I get that those are martial arts skills, and a robust and vital body can support those techniques much better, but how does flexibility help?"

His Mother rolled her eyes, "Attack me, and I show you."

Alexander shrugged and flashed toward her, throwing a simple punch, but she didn't evade to the left or right, but swirled around his arm like a snake, with him unable to comprehend what happened, only coming out of his daze until she flicked his forehead.

When he looked at her, she stood straight again, but he had no idea how she did it since it felt almost impossible. Then, he suddenly realized what she meant by flexibility and what had to be done to him.

"What you saw was a more advanced movement technique, which requires much flexibility..." Looking at his body more closely, she frowned, "...It was always tricky for men to learn those. Women usually have much more flexibility and can use the basic ones much faster, but it is also unfair since we also developed most of them."

"So, Sarah doesn't have the flexibility, which is why..." He suddenly became confused, "...why are you teaching me, though? I have it neither."

She sighed, looking slightly annoyed, shaking her head, "Even if you don't believe me, every one of my puppies except Janina has the body to learn our martial arts techniques, but..." She tapped her head, "...the training is brutal, and I don't like to stop halfway through."

Alexander raised an eyebrow, confused, "What do you mean with brutal? We already get beat up when training. What's the big difference here?"

His Mother smiled at him, and he started to get a horrible suspicion, precisely knowing what he could expect after he said it.

"Women and men have fundamentally different bone and muscle structures, which makes the techniques of the opposite sex harder to learn, but it doesn't mean we don't do it..." She looked more intensely at him, "...So, what could we do to correct for our weaknesses?"

"Ehm... respect one's given body and look for strengths instead of weaknesses? We are all unique little snowflakes?"

She laughed loudly, making him shiver, 'Not good.'

"Haha! How cute, but seeing you trying to joke around, you know the answer already..." She slowly walked toward him, "...we change our body through violent modifications and intensive training...." The pressure increased again, "...all the cute things you wrote in those Fairy Tales are well meant for commoners, but we are better and need to strive to do so with all we have, understood?"

Looking at his Mother, he now understood what a Knight was. She looked down on everyone unapologetically, with an almost immense amount of pride and honor oozing out of her every pore. Worse, she expected the same from him when he looked into her eyes.

'I am so fucked.'

"Indeed, you are."

"Huh? Woah!"

Beginning with a punch he barely avoided, the following hours became pure Outer Circle. After bringing Ipe into the training hall, the actual training started with him understanding that body modification before was just simple strengthening, while this was him trying to break his body for the techniques he attempted to replicate and make his own.

Tendons and muscles ripped, bones broke, and even his spine was crushed, with him becoming paralyzed for a minute. No part of his body would survive this training, with him slowly understanding why they were the strongest and having many creative ways to use martial arts and their energy.