CHAPTER 4
BETT’S POV
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My name is Bett Lucidea, and I serve as a knight in the kingdom of Instasia. It’s a small, obscure kingdom you likely wouldn’t even find on a map.
I was doing my duties as usual when my sister suddenly showed up.
"Hey Bett" she said
"Umm, hey? What are you doing here" I asked in confusion
My sister smiled and said, "Well, Kael needs a teacher and I thought-who be better than you"
"Kael?"
"Oh, right," she added with a hint of sarcasm. "You only visited for a day and barely saw him sleeping, so of course you wouldn’t know." Her tone suggested I should have stayed longer. She was clearly referring to her child’s birth, which was nearly three years ago. "Well, Kael is my son," she continued, "and I need you to train him. Swordsmanship, archery—whatever works.
"Wait, hold on—you just show up and expect me to leave with you? I need to get permission first."
"Come on, you were a captain once here, weren't you? I'm sure they would give you permission if you ask for it"
She had a point. I may have resigned as captain, and despite my young age I’m still one of the most respected knights in the kingdom, and getting permission wouldn’t be hard.
"Fine, but how long would I be training him?"
"About four or five years, give or take," she answered casually.
Sheesh, if I take this job, the pay will probably be low, but at least I’d get to stay at their place, which is pretty nice.
Well, because there wasn’t any wars and things I needed to do, I accepted. Plus, I also wanted to see my nephew.
Two days later—one spent getting permission and preparing, and the other traveling—we arrived in Rivenwood, which thankfully wasn’t far from the kingdom. As we approached my sister’s house, I spotted a young boy tossing rocks in the yard. It had to be Kael. She had already told me about his ability—Precision Sight, a rare ability that let him pinpoint weak spots with remarkable accuracy. It was intriguing, to say the least, so I assumed he was honing his skills.
Kael Ashford was a cute little kid, with his father’s dark hair and his mother’s bright blue eyes. That evening, I met the rest of the family, and we agreed to begin his combat training the next day. Ela wanted to join the training as well, though I thought she should focus more on learning magic from her father. Still, her curiosity about how people use magic in combat made me reconsider.
The next morning, I prepared three wooden swords—one for Kael, one for Ela, and one for myself. Kael’s sword was short, suitable for his small frame, as he was only four years old.
I planned to teach them the basics of swordsmanship for the first week. After that, I would train them separately. I would teach Kael some basics of combat and change to actual combat when he becomes five years old while I would teach Ela how to fight with magic and a sword. Although Kael was very little to learn actual combat, learning and developing an ability will help the person to be able to master it and use it to its full potential, or so the doctor said.
The first week flew by. We trained for three hours each day, and I was genuinely impressed with Kael's progress. For a 4 year old he was a genius. Although his sister got hang of the basics before him, it was only a difference of some hours.
By the fifth day, they had grasped the basics, so I gave them the rest of the week off to prepare for the next stage of training.
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Today was the start of the second week of training day. My sister had taken Ela to the shop so I was gonna train Kael alone. First I though we should start by testing how his ability would work and how to utilize it. With Gale watching us, I asked him to craft a simple training dummy using earth magic. Then, we tested how many hits it would take for Kael to crack it. At my signal he started attacking the dummy. He was only attacking one place and after five hits the dummy cracked. Although Kael had already achieved the goal, I instructed him to keep attacking the dummy until it completely broke apart. He struck the same spot again, and after two hits, the dummy split cleanly in half.
Stolen novel; please report.
After that we sat down to discuss what happened and maybe understand more about his ability to help us for the training in the coming days.
“So, Kael, tell me what you saw and why you attacked that one spot only” I asked
“Well, when I thought about attacking the dummy, I saw three spots that I thought I should attack. Two of them were glowing yellow while the other one was glowing red. I thought I should attack the red one because it was different than the other two. I did and it broke”
Ah, so that’s why he attacked that one spot, I thought.
With the information he gave me I thought of something. The three spots he saw were probably the weak points of the dummy. They glowed differently according to what an attack would do to them. We tried this with two other dummies and another color emerged: Green. With this, we deduced the meaning of each color.
Red- The most critical point.
Yellow—also critical, but would likely require twice as many hits as the red spots to cause the same damage.
Green- Better than attacking blindly
I told Kael about it and it seemed that he understood. With this new understanding, I concluded the day’s training, feeling satisfied with our progress. Later, Ela and Lora returned, and the day ended uneventfully.
KAEL’S POV
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It has been quite sometime since my aunt became my teacher. It's been a full year of training, and my progress is finally showing. I had become able to use my ability in a flexible manner. I often have slight duels with my aunt and father, as she believed real combat experience would help me grow.
I was also nearing the age of 5 which seemed to be a big deal in this world and so was the age of 10 and 15. Elara, too, was nearing her milestone age of ten. Today was my rest day, and my father asked me to join him at the farm. I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to come along, but I followed him anyway.
The farm was close to our house so we arrived rather quickly. When we arrived, we saw a group of people gathered around one part of the field. My father entered the small crowd, and I followed close behind. They seemed to be discussing something and my father interrupted by saying, “Did it happen again?”
“Yeah, this is the eighth time this happened this week only” one of the farmers said.
I didn’t know what was going so I looked at the ground where everybody was looking at hoping to get some cluesOn the ground, I saw crops that looked as if something had sucked the life out of them. That gave me an idea why my father had brought me here. When I got my ability for the first time, the doctor had said that I could see details that others could miss so, maybe that was why my father had brought me here.
“Kael..” said my father and stopped, Yeah my guess was probably right.
“Sorry, but can you wait outside? I thought we’d spend some time together, but it seems I need to deal with this first.”
Huh? Didn’t he bring me here to ask me to help him. Well guess I wasn’t correct.
Hmm?….What the… I was smiling, although it was faint I was smiling.
It was the first time I felt he genuinely cared for me, not just using me for my abilities.
But still… I should help him, right?
“But dad, I can help.” I said. My father turned around with a puzzled look on his face. “Remember what the doctor said, I can see details that others could miss” I pressed, hoping to persuade him.
My father put his hand on his chin and started thinking as if trying to remember. “Hmm..Okay, but don’t stress yourself okay” he said, kneeling to meet my gaze with worry etched on his features.
Let’s do this right the first time so we can have our bonding time, I thought, determination fueling me.
I turned my attention to the plant, studying it closely, searching for any signs of what could have caused this. I examined the surrounding area for a while, and then something caught my eye near the plant. A weed. I pointed it out, and my father knelt to pull it from the earth.
“What’s this?" he exclaimed with a surprised face "I have never seen a weed like this before!”
It was a large weed, its roots tinged with a deep purple hue, unusual and striking, much like everything else in this world.
“It has mana flowing through it, seems like it is absorbing the mana and minerals from the soil, and it seems to be in an absurd rate seeing how much its grown” said my father in a worried voice.
Hmmm?…. It seems like the soil in this world doesn’t have only minerals but also some mana inside of it. That explains why the fruits and vegetables looked a bit different. It struck me how little I truly knew about this world.
“Alright, everyone, go and pull out every weed you find. We need to solve this problem, and fast. Don’t let any slip by!” ordered my father and the farmers scattered.
He turned around to me and said, “Well thanks Kael, I’m gonna help the farmers and we will have some time together later.” saying that he turned back around and went into the farm. I settled onto a nearby rock, watching him work amidst the sun-warmed fields, feeling a mix of pride and longing. I used to do some farm work to get cash as a soldier so it was oddly refreshing and familiar to see people do farm work. I actually wanted to join in but my body won't probably be strong enough to pull out a lot of weeds.
Overall, it had been a good day. I felt my father's care for me and discovered one of my abilities’ unique attributes—though part of me wondered if someone else would have found the weed eventually.
CHAPTER END