“Oh sorry, I interrupted you, what did you want to say?”
“I-I-I just wanted to…” I stammered, not being able to figure out what I should say.
“Are you alright, Caine?” He asked, a concerned expression on his face.
“Yes, sorry, I… was just taken aback. I did not expect you to say that.”
“Of course, I understand. I just don’t want you to be alone, so I’d like you to come stay with me for the time being.”
“Why? Why are you helping me?” I asked.
“You remind me of my nephew. He used to be so angry, he lost himself” he explained. “There was something he wanted to do, something bad, and no matter how much we tried to stop him, he wouldn’t. Then he was killed.”
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Ah it’s alright Caine. And stop calling me Sir. I’m just Oliver.”
“Yes, Sir... I mean... yes, Oliver. Tell me, if I come with you, can you make me strong? I beg you.”
“I… could,” he replied. “But it is going to be difficult, and definitely painful. Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Yes,” I answered, never surer of anything in my life.
“Very well. Just let me think about how to do this.”
And so, we continued to walk in silence, I was a few steps ahead of him as he walked calmy. The suns were high up in the sky, and today had been quite hot. I wondered what mother would have said about the heat.
No… I couldn’t continue thinking about them. I needed to leave it all behind. I just needed to keep moving forward, just stop thinking about them. All that I had left of them now was this necklace, and this would be a reminder of my mistake, of my sin.
I held onto it and began wondering if this was truly the right choice; would mother and father wish for me to live for revenge? A pleasant breeze gently caressed my face, giving a moment to relax.
Suddenly Oliver stopped. I turned around, facing him, and noticed a satisfied expression plastered on his face. He smiled at me, sending a chill down my spine.
“Well, Caine, I more or less figured out how to start your training.”
His grin widened, making me so nervous I instinctively took a step back. He walked towards me, grabbed me by the collar and made me sit with my back leaning on a tree.
“What do you know about magic?” he asked.
“I don’t know much. I was told that people would develop a mana core, a sphere in their chest where they would gather and store mana to then use when they need spells, and then gather more mana when they ran out. The spells one can use also vary depending on their affinity, but the most common ones are water, earth, fire, or air magic.”
“That’s right,” he replied. “But there is a bit more than that. Mana itself does not have an element, it is humans that are able to change it into one of the elements. And there aren’t only four elements, there are twelve that I am aware of, and it is definitely a possibility that in the future there may be more that are discovered.”
I looked at him with a puzzled expression. How can there be twelve elements? And he’s even saying that there may be more than that. The world was much bigger than I expected. Being stuck in Arzamac, I had no sense of how anything truly worked. I realised how hard I would need to work.
“Now, I can see that although you’re pretty young, you already developed a mana core, so that’s good.”
“What? I don’t have a mana core.”
“You should have one, I mean you already used magic.” He explained, looking puzzled by my confusion
What? When did I ever use magic? Whatever he was saying made no sense. I have never used magic in my entire life. I stared at Oliver, feeling confused, and he just stared at me, smiling, as if he was looking at something interesting.
“Caine,” he said “we met in The Forest. That place was extremely dark, a regular kid wouldn’t have been able to see anything, but you could. Did you not stop to think how that was possible? It was magic.”
What he was saying made sense. I looked up and closed my eyes, trying to remember anything about the previous night that would explain me using magic, but nothing came to mind. Well, there was one thing that could explain it.
“Oliver, when I was deep in The Forest, it was the first time I every felt mana, probably because it was dense in there. I was terrified, is it possible that I used it reflexively to just survive? Even when I was running, I don’t remember running for long, but I ran quiet a long distance. Was that also me using mana?”
“Probably. When I saw your memories, I saw that your mother was a healer, which means that she must have had a good understanding of mana. Don’t misunderstand the passing of talent from parent to child. You simply must have been developing your mana core, but by being in a place where the mana was so dense, and the survival instinct kicking in, it must have developed. Actually, let me check.”
A bright white light encompassed his hand, and he placed it on my chest, and just like the night before I began to feel mana, but this time it was more concentrated. It was as if he was guiding it towards my chest, and when it reached it, I began to feel a sphere. My mana core.
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“Oliver” I called out to him “You said you know how to train me. What do I have to do?”
“Oh, we are going to reach some village, somewhere secluded and quiet, and when we’re there, I’m going to destroy your core, and then I’ll fight you every day” he said, his ever present smile becoming scary.
“Wait… you want to destroy my core? Why? You said you would make me strong.” I retorted.
“Oh yeah, I’ll destroy your core, and use the remnants of it to create paths that connect throughout your entire body, intertwining in all your muscles. That way, it’s going to be easier to gather mana, you’ll be able to absorb it instantaneously, although you won’t be able to store it. But because of how quickly you’ll absorb it, it won’t matter. But I’ll also use some remnants to create an outer shell of the core so that you won’t seem any different if someone tries to look at your core.”
He’s saying these things, these ideas as if they were completely normal, but this man must be crazy. I certainly didn’t know a lot about magic and the like, but if such a method was possible it would definitely be more common. I took a deep breath, trying to stop overthinking and just have a rational thought.
Oliver was strong, his strength felt unnatural. When I first saw him, I could barely move, his presence was just so intense, it was overwhelming. His movement must be strengthened through magic, but the magic output was too large, and I can’t imagine someone being able to store so much mana in their core. In that sense, it would make sense if he had a method where he could absorb mana and release it instantly.
“Oliver, don’t you need to be perfectly still to gather and store magic? If I can’t store magic, I would just have to continuously gather magic, and I will not be able to move. How do you do that?” I asked.
“Oh that’s easy, you’ll just gather mana whilst moving” he explained. “Look Caine, you don’t have to follow whatever you have been taught about magic. Just because everyone else can’t absorb mana while moving, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.”
He looked at me with an interested expression. He seemed… intrigued, I wonder what could ever be so enjoyable about teaching someone anything starting from nothing, but he really did look as if he was truly enjoying this, but what I am most curious about how he learnt all of this. His understanding of magic, his application of it, his aura, it was all so strange, and yet I could not help but completely believe in him. If I could be half as strong as this man, then anything that needs to be done would be possible.
Oliver stood up, and held out his hand. I grabbed it and he pulled me up. He brought both of his hands together, a red light shining from his left hand, and from it, a silver dagger emerged, and presented it to me.
“Caine.” He put the dagger into my hand, “this is Shadow.”
It was a beautiful dagger, the hilt was completely black, and no light was reflecting off of it, almost as if it was absorbing it; it seemed sharp, the blade looked as if it was able to cut anything, its light silver colour a complete contrast to the hilt.
I held the dagger in my right hand, and looked up at Oliver. He showed a large smile, and then raised his hand and snapped his fingers: the dagger glowed and began losing its shape, turning almost in a liquid, and flowed into my forearm, a black mark in the shape of a circle appearing.
I was caught off guard, and taking a step back, i found myself with my back pressed to the tree, scratching my arm, trying to get rid of this strange mark, and not matter how hard I rubbed my forearm, the mark would not vanish. In my focus on my arm, I barely noticed Oliver holding his stomach, a hearty laugh coming out of him.
“What’s so funny?!” I shouted, losing my composure. No matter how hard I tried, it just wouldn’t come off.
He laughter diminished, and he took short steps in front of me, until he was in front of me; he grabbed my arm and raised it up.
“Caine,” he said, barely holding his laughter “Just stop squirming like that. Look it’s nothing bad, just take a deep breath.”
I stared into his eyes, still annoyed as his attitude, looking at him laughing like that was strangely infuriating, but despite his laughter, his eyes carried a certain serious demenour. I took a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep my emotions in check.
“Now, just imagine bringing out into your hands. Don’y just think about it, visualise it, make sure that you set a clear goal in your mind.”
I held out my hand, closed my eyes and tried to visualise the dagger appearing into my hands, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing would happen. It was frustrating, but I knew I needed to remain calm, it this dagger is a magical artefact, it will be extremely useful, not to mention how rare these artefacts are supposed to be. #
I took a deep breath, and tried recollecting the feeling of holding the dagger in my hands, the way it looked, the way it felt on my skin, everything, and after a moment, i felt something in my hands, but when I looked, my hand was empty, and yet I was holding something.
“That dagger is a bit special: it can absorb light, so it becomes invisible. To make it visible again, just imagine being able to see it again. Neat, right?”
Woah… giving a magical artefact away so easily, I can’t help but wonder how rich someone needs to be to do that.
“Oliver… thank you,” I said, unable to say anything more than mere words of gratitude.
I tried doing as he said, and imagined the knife being visible, and to my surprise, it became visible instantly. I tried to conjure an image of it going back into my arm, and the dagger turned into a liquid again and went back into my arm, the circular mark appearing once more.
Oliver just turned around, and continued walking, forcing my lightly run to catch with him.
“Caine, when we find someplace where we can live, we’ll start training. It’s going to be difficult for you, you’ll probably want to quit a lot, and I mean a lot, but if you manage to stick with it, you may very well become a force to be reckoned with. Realistically we only have six years, after that, my mind will begin to slip, I won’t be able to move much, and after that, you’ll be on your own, so make sure you learn how to take care of yourself.”
“But Oliver, there has to something we can do, we can still make sure that you live a lot longer.”
It was strange, he was someone I just met, I should not care so much about someone I just met, but I did. I was not sure if it was because he saved me, or maybe because of the way he treated me, but there was something about him that made it easy to trust him. It was comfortable being around him. But soon, he will leave me.
“It’s okay, I actually can’t wait to die. Ah to be released from the shackles of life.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I didn’t have any idea why he was so eager to die, but I couldn’t help but believe that he’ll be okay, even if he dies. If this was what he wanted, then there was nothing I could do. And who knows, maybe he will change his mind, and will try to do his best to live. In the meantime, what I could do was learn as much as I could from him.
“Oliver, I’m ready to start training” i said walking beside him “we should start now.”
“Perfect. Try to stay conscious.”
Huh? What does he mean? Suddenly the atmosphere changed, I felt a strange pressure all around me, and I found myself frozen in place, unable to move. It was the same feeling as when I first saw Oliver, this overwhelming intensity, this… fear, it was all caused by him. I tried looking at him, but my eyes refused to even dare look in his direction. My throat closed up, and I could no longer breath, as though I wasn’t allowed to. It felt as if I was facing Death. After not being able to breath for so long, everything started to become blurry.
“Maybe if you work hard, you’ll be able to do this too.”
My vision darkened, and I hit the ground, passing out.