Wesley simply walked through the dark hallways of the palace towards his room. The royal palace naturally always had its hallways well lit and bright, but with every step Wesley took towards the lamps, they would start to dim and when he was close enough to them they would completely die out. If someone saw this spectacle they would not notice Wesley, rather they would only see darkness steadily creeping towards them.

Wesley soon reached his room. Walking in he made sure to have locked the door this time so as to avoid a similar situation to the debacle with the servant earlier. Having locked the door, Wesley simply sat cross legged on his bed and then reached muttered something under his breath causing a small shadow to appear in front him. He reached into the shadow and pulled out the five or so books he received from Rale.

The first thing he noticed was that three of the books had dark covers and gave of an dark aura and each of them had fifteen or so pages, the other three simply had brown covers and were significantly larger than the other three but not by too much. He opened the first of the dark books, which was titled [Refining Darkness], it outlined specific refining methods for those who use dark magic to refine mana. The second dark book was titled [Embracing Darkness] and seemed to have contained numerous techniques. The last of the three dark books was simply titled [History of Darkness].

Wesley then turned his attention to the three brown books. They all seemed to be technique books and were titled [The Silent Sword], [The Silent Dagger] and the [The Silent Step]. Wesley instantly understood why rale gave him these books that had nothing to do with magic: it was because they are very compatible with Darkness but also served to hide his magic capabilities.

Having understood the things he received from his master, Wesley immediately started reading the [Refining Darkness] book. This book outlined the most suitable refining method for a dark mage. The first method called for the use of Dark Globe. This Dark Globe does not have to have a range of two hundred meters like Wesley did earlier, rather it is only supposed to cover the body of the person, then the person is supposed to start refining while maintaining the Dark Globe around them. This causes the person to deplete their mana, however, because they are also refining at the same time they won't completely run out of mana. This balances enables one's mana pool to grow since it is being depleted and refilled constantly, and as the mana pool grows the range of the dark globe grows as well.

Next, he started reading [Embracing Darkness]. The techniques outlined in this book were advanced versions of Dark Globe; Dark Warp, the technique Wesley used to teleport from places; and Dark Dimension, the technique of storing items in darkness which Rale and Wesley used to store the books. These techniques were a little too advanced for Wesley to grasp alone, so he decided to visit Rale often to learn them there. As for the three Silent techniques, he would simply need to practice them often.

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For the next three years, Wesley's life was nothing but constant practice and training. He would spend one third of the night sleeping, the other two thirds will be spent refining according to the [Refining Darkness] method. During the day, Wesley would spend three hours practicing his Silent techniques, a few hours reading his [History of Darkness] and other books, spending some time with little Delan, then he would spend sometime listening to lectures from various tutors and finally every evening, he would go to the West Tower to learn the advanced Darkness techniques from old man Rale. These last three years of constant training caused his understanding of Darkness and his mana pool to increase tremendously, his physical training also progressed smoothly.

His hectic life of training was hardly ever interrupted. Since Wesley was the second prince he was not required to attend too many meeting or parties, especially since Edmund wanted to avoid a repeat of the embarrassment when Wesley was confused for the crown prince, as well as the fact that he thought Wesley was simply too lacking to force him to train or study.

Despite only being ten years old, Wesley was now around a head taller than kids his own age because of his physical training with the Silent techniques, however, because the Silent techniques were more agility type techniques his body was slender and thin. Also, because he spent most of his time inside the castle his skin was pale causing his blue hair and jade green eyes to be exceedingly bright.

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This afternoon Wesley was in the library listening to a lecture from one of his tutors about tactics and strategy. Although he was never interested in such things, he was nonetheless required to attend because he was the second prince. And even though he had no interest in war or similar things, he still paid adequate attention to the lectures to gain a general understanding of them.

After the lecture, Wesley went to his room to read something before heading to the West Tower to meet Rale. Reaching his room, Wesley immediately locked his room, a habit after being barged in by a servant once, and invoked Dark Dimension to pull out his [History of Darkness] book. This book, unlike the other two books didn’t contain any techniques of methods, however it contained a lot of information about famous dark mages, myths about dark magic throughout the ages, and a lot of miscellaneous information about darkness.

After three hours of reading, Wesley decided to put away his book, then decided to head over to the West Tower. Wesley simply muttered some words and the shadow on the wall got darker, then he simply step into it only to reemerge inside Rale's room a few seconds later. The distance between Wesley's room and the West tower was at least four hundred feet apart, but after three years of practice, his Dark Warp was enough to take him at most five hundred feet away, but it cost him a third of his mana so he rarely used it.

Rale's room was engulfed in darkness like always, but this did not bother Wesley as he simply bowed and said respectfully:

"Master"

"You have come. Good, Good"

Rale who was sitting in a small chair spoke without even looking up from the book he was reading. Wesley's Dark Warp did not surprise him in the least because since he himself practiced the dark arts, his immediately perceived that someone invoke Dark Warp somewhere near him, and since Dark mages were a very existence, the only other Dark mage in his vicinity was Wesley.

Closing his book, Rale looked up at Wesley with a look of laughter clearly visible in his eyes, this surprised Wesley a little since his teacher hardly ever showed any reaction, but he still maintained his stoic face and waited for his master to speak.

"You just turned ten a while ago, correct?"

"Yes Master"

"Good, Good. It seems you will receive some news from the king soon"

Rale voice had a hint of ridicule and laughter as spoke which ignited Wesley's curiosity, but before he could ask what, Rale continued talking:

"Either way, you will learn of that soon, for now return those three Dark books to me, you can keep the other three"

"Yes Master"

Wesley knew that he would have to return the books eventually since he already grasped everything they had to offer, so he simply invoked his Dark Dimension and pulled the three books out, then he respectfully handed them to Rale who promptly stored them in his own Dark Dimension.

"Good. Now I have a few things for you as well"

Rale then reached into his Dark Dimension and pulled out a few things, the first was a thin long black Sword, a short black dagger and a book. After handing the things over to Wesley who was looking at them curiously, Rale spoke:

"Now, go back to your room and start refining, you should hear from the king soon, Oh, and also, there is no need for you to come here for the next few weeks, simply continue refining until after your meeting with the king"

Wesley was somewhat puzzled, he didn’t understand why the old man will tell him to not come over, but he was more interested in this meeting with the king that so amused the otherwise stoic Rale. However, he didn’t question Rale, and after simply storing the things he received from him into his Dark Dimension, he bowed politely, then said:

"Understood Master"

Receiving a nod from Rale who went back to his reading, Wesley immediately invoked his Dark Warp and reappeared in his room.

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