“Okay class, today will be entirely given to the Demigod studies group, don’t expect it to be a usual thing though. It only happens one Friday a month.” Jake listened to mister Rook with some awkwardness, considering everyone in the class likely knew this already, it was just being said for Jake’s benefit.

It had been two weeks since his first day of classes at Alexandria, and Jake was finding the classes tiring but fun.

Most of the classes were slightly above what he was used to, some even more so, meaning he had to study to catch up. Luckily for him he was good at memorizing things, which helped him a lot.

He still wasn’t at a position where he would be comfortable in the class, but he was getting there, and that was progress.

As for team Charlie, they met up at least once a day during the Demigod Studies class, though occasionally they ran into each other during the day.

Mary was the only one who seemed unsure how to deal with her fellow Demigods, and Jake didn’t go out of his way to give her special treatment, only to remind her that he didn’t really care that she was practically half-dragon.

Their team was one made to attack from a range predominantly, with Mary and Derek attacking upfront, Jake and Charlie from the rear with Mark and Terri as support.

They hadn’t seen Charlie since that first meeting though, instead being given a note from the person in charge of maintaining the large room they trained in saying what they had to do each day.

If they didn’t, they’d find that they’d have bad-luck until the next class, apparently simply reading the notes given counted as applying a curse on them.

Terri and Derek tried to get out of it when they found out that Charlie literally applied a bad-luck curse to activate if they didn’t do their training, but Mark was quick to warn them that Charlie was much better magically than they were.

So with that, training was now done so as to not be humiliated by tripping over shoelaces, having a chair you sit on break, or having someone drop food on you by accident.

There were many different ways bad-luck could appear.

Though given how long the training would be on this day, about four hours, Charlie would have to appear.

They trained anywhere between an hour to two hours, and the notes always had something that could be achieved in that time frame, such as Jake aiming further and further away with his bow, or firing at a fast speed.

Jake’s limit for training inside the large warehouse like structure was fast approaching though, because at some point he’d need more and more space to aim longer shots, space the warehouse just wouldn’t have.

As they stepped into the warehouse they found Charlie in front of them with a large yawn, then he noticed them.

“Ah, you’re here. Come on, we’re not training in here.” Charlie said, getting them to follow him as he stepped out of the warehouse, dragging them towards the nearby forest.

“Most of the things we have here at Alexandria were provided by other Demigods, like a Demigod of Medeina grew these trees here to form the forest we use now.” Charlie offered, and Jake went through the growing encyclopaedic knowledge on Gods in his head.

The major known ones were the Greek, the Romans (who were practically the Greeks under different names), the Egyptians and the Norse.

Beyond those groups, many Gods and Goddesses were falling into obscurity, meaning that those obscure Gods were the main ones to learn about.

Jake unfortunately didn’t recognize the name, until he got a poke in the shoulder from Mary.

“Baltic area, Lithuanian goddess of forests, trees and animals… basically nature.” Mary offered, and Jake thanked her for the information, repeating it to remember it.

It wasn’t outright stated, but it was common for Demigods to be called in to provide information on their own parent should said Deity appear in the world.

Only some would actually fight their own parent, but still.

“Before we start training, I actually promised Jake some information, so I’ll have my little storytelling moment, and then we can get to training.” Charlie said, snapping his fingers as ice sculpture chairs appeared around the group.

Surprisingly, for being ice, they weren’t cold or wet at all…

“Okay, this is just a general description about the births of Demigods and what it means to have siblings.” Charlie said as they all made themselves comfortable.

“Firstly, it’s kind of obvious at this point, but you know how every Demigod is an orphan? But you don’t know why, do you?” Jake’s shake of the head admitted that he didn’t know the reason why…

Most of what he knew about Demigods before becoming one was found off of the internet after all.

“It’s because the nature of a Demigod’s birth is a sacrifice. The God parent decides to have a kid, and finds a suitable vessel for his power. The vessel is the human parent.”

Charlie looked a bit reluctant at the last bit before he sighed, figuring that, like a bandage, it was better to remove it all at once.

“By sacrificing the vessel and repurposing the human body into a suitable dwelling for divine power, an empty shell is born, and then filled with the divine power of a God, at which point a Demigod is born.” Jake felt his face going pale at those words…

No doubt every Demigod disliked this topic… to know that one of your parents was literally sacrificed to give birth to you from their own body…

“So this works regardless of gender?” Jake managed to ask after a few moments of wrapping his head around that insanity.

“Well obviously the Gods have their own preferences when it comes to vessels, so commonly the vessels they pick would be of the opposite gender. No doubt there are Gods that pick vessels of the same gender though, as gender isn’t as important to them as it is to us.” Charlie admitted with a sigh…

“So that’s why every Demigod doesn’t have any living parent…” Jake murmured to himself, getting poked by Mary once Charlie wanted to continue talking but Jake was getting lost in thought.

“That was something you would have learnt at some point, so I figured I’d tell you as soon as possible. But that wasn’t the main thing I was supposed to tell you.” Charlie said, taking a moment to stretch, clearly tired.

“What I said last time was that I was going to tell you why Demigods had differing levels of base talent, and I was going to explain why that is.” Jake recalled it and nodded, waiting for the explanation.

“It has to do with the amount of children a God has and can have. It isn’t always like this, but think about nature, and childbirth. The stronger and bigger animals have few children, while the smaller and weaker ones have many.” Mark looked a bit irritated at the words, but didn’t refute it.

“So wait… the more siblings you have, the less talent you all have collectively?” Jake’s question showed his confusion and Charlie smirked at it.

“That is a rule of thumb, but clearly it’s not always true. The stronger Gods have stronger children, but can only have a small amount. The Gods with less strength can have more children, but they will generally be weaker than the others.” Charlie added once more, letting Jake think about it.

“But if that’s the case, than wouldn’t Mark’s brother, Shane, be incapable of being as strong as he is?” Jake’s question got a snap of the fingers from Charlie.

“Exactly what I was trying to get at. It’s a general rule, not a constant. With training and effort, it is possible to go beyond what your birth determines.” Charlie then looked to the three other children of Greek Gods.

“Of course, it also means that they need to put in more effort to match what you can achieve with less. You have a better effort to result ratio than they do on basis of having no known siblings.” Jake blinked at that…

Charlie’s words implied that it was possible to have a sibling or two that he didn’t know about…

Maybe he did? Jake wouldn’t be able to tell though, if even Aegis never found said brother or sister.

“It’s also why I give them tougher training. It’s not to pick on you three, but because I know what you would need to do to match Demigods like Mary, Jake or myself. I know because I got my ass handed to me by Shane more than once.” Charlie offered, making Mark raise his eyebrows.

“You’re friends with my brother? Not a lot of people get a chance to meet the Council, let alone more than one member…” Mark asked, and Charlie shrugged, unwilling to explain his situation to them.

“I’ve got friends in high places suffice to say. I’m not as well-known as Edgar, the little lady (Rose) or even Samuel, but I’ve met and fought alongside them more than once.” Charlie admitted, hinting at his strength very slightly.

They already knew that he had sparred with Samuel once or twice in a boxing ring, but still, exactly who Charlie was, was still a mystery.

Those Demigods, the top three, were much more powerful than every other Demigod, and their only competition were the four other Council members, one of which was Shane Bismarck, Mark’s brother.

“But hey, we’re here to train you five, not to talk about my past. You three, I’ll be training you three directly now, as I will be doing every time we have these long classes.” Charlie admitted, getting serious stares from the three Demigods, Mark, Derek and Terri.

“As for Mary and Jake, you two will be training together… or more like Mary will be trying to teach you magic Jake. Your bow is coming along nicely, it’s being made by one of Mark’s elder sisters, so there’s that.” Mark seemed to know who it would be as he smirked at Jake.

Must mean that the bow would be good… all the bows Jake used kept breaking after converting them into Solaris Ignus. This was fine because Aegis was insanely rich, and any bow could be turned into the Divine Weapon.

It was something Derek explained to Jake during the Demigod Studies class, but Demigods whose parents were related to a weapon allowed them to convert mundane versions of those weapons into Divine Weaponry.

Unfortunately, there had to be a focus on only one or two types of weapons or it was impossible, as Derek was a son of Ares, and Ares didn’t have any singular weapon he used, so Derek couldn’t turn his halberd into a Divine Weapon.

Which also let them know that Charlie’s God parent likely had power over winter and ranged weaponry, as no God was a God of Guns due to them being a relatively new addition to the world.

To have a Divine Weapon was one thing though, but the base used to create it had to be powerful, or else afterwards… well, there were more than a few cases of Jake having to sweep up the ash the bows turned into after dispelling Solaris Ignus.

This meant that the revolver Charlie used was in fact extremely well made and possibly magical even before it was converted into Winter Bane.

“So today you won’t be doing any ranged training except at the end of the day, I’ll talk with you then. Until that point, you’ll have Mary teach you how to use magic.” Mary looked determined, which worried Jake.

Jake, over the past two weeks had determined Mary to not be a stereotypical airhead… but she wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed when it came to human interaction.

When it came to knowledge, Mary was extremely smart, but again, human interactions were her weak point, and Jake really didn’t want to call her out on it.

So seeing the fire in her eyes, Jake had to worry about how she would interpret Charlie’s request/order.

Everyone split up quickly and Jake was dragged to a small clearing where Mary turned to look at him.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“…” She said nothing, instead staring at him intently as Jake felt a bit awkward about being stared at like this, especially by someone as good looking as Mary.

“I don’t know how to teach.” Mary finally spoke, and what she said had Jake worried for his prospects when it came to magic…

Given his relation to fire, learning magic in a forest was not good, but luckily there was a nearby lake… or maybe Mary actually made that decision on purpose?

“Uh, how did you learn Mary?” Jake asked, hoping that it would offer a hint for her to teach him…

“Miss Cora kept sending spells at me until I learnt how to cancel them.” Okay, that was a no go… and wasn’t Miss Cora the second-in-command of Aegis?

It didn’t make sense for the greatest magic user of Aegis to teach in such a haphazard manner…

“Maybe we should do so?” Mary offered, a fire appearing in her palms as Jake was quick to shake his head in refusal.

“No, no, that sounds insane! Okay, new plan… How do you do magic?” Jake asked, trying to go for a different approach.

“I feel the energy in my core, and I make it do what I want.” Mary offered, and Jake had the feeling that Mary could possibly take the role of those legendary characters…

You know the ones… they are amazing when it comes to learning through instinct, but ask them to explain how they do what they do and they draw up a blank or start explaining using sound effects.

Theoretically amazing people to have on your side, but being taught by one when you aren’t such a person was horrible, Jake could now say this with the added words of: I speak from experience.

“…But what about things like that rune for storage, or more complicated stuff?” Jake’s question was met with a huff of air and a fist to the sky from Mary.

“If you believe, you can achieve.” …

If Mary were to have been a man instead, Jake would have slapped the person by now.

Jake and Mary were attempting to communicate in the same language, while Charlie and the other three Demigods of team Charlie were in another clearing a while away.

“Uh… are you really okay with leaving those two together?” Derek asked with a bit of confusion as Charlie shrugged in response.

“Mary would kill Jake by accident with their current power difference if he tried something, so that’s not the real worry. The real worry is that Mary has no clue how to teach someone, and Jake is someone that works on logic.” Charlie admitted, getting a few odd looks.

“Uh… so aren’t they going to get nothing done?” Terri offered and Charlie nodded, fully expecting Jake to have learnt nothing, and Mary to be confused on why Jake couldn’t do what she ‘explained’.

“Probably… but if they get something done, I’d be glad. Jake is a skater and an archer, the first especially isn’t something that is entirely broken down by logic.” Charlie offered and no one else got what he meant.

Well, Charlie had tried skating before… it made no sense to him and he had fallen more than once before giving up.

He had no clue how an ‘ollie’ could occur, so how could he be expected to do any other tricks? How the hell did pushing down on something result in going up?

Ignoring Charlie and his confusion on skating, which could actually be explained, what Charlie was trying to get at was that using magic was something best ‘felt’ instead of being thought through.

After getting the feeling, then finesse could come in.

Mary was unfortunately only taught in one way by Rose Cora, the result of which was that Mary could do magic based on the free-form style, which Mary was suited for.

Jake’s suitability for different branches of magic was not clear just yet, but Rose had mentioned that as a child of Apollo Jake should be capable of using divination magic as well as fire based magic.

Many people mistook divination as seeing the future or something like that, but that was only a single part of it.

The divination branch of magic was focused on information gathering, seeing the future, knowing the location of something, finding the weaknesses of an enemy, those were what divination was meant to do in general.

Apollo was also a God of Oracles, and they were considered the greatest at divination.

One of Edward’s and Charlie’s greatest rivals, another Demigod, was really good at divination… it’s why they had never caught the guy even if they beat him.

Just thinking of that man had Charlie feeling the urge to freeze over the ocean.

“Anyway, Jake’s issues aren’t yours.” Charlie’s statement got them focused as they realized the change in topic for what it was.

“Let’s talk about the roles you three have in this team. Starting with you Mark, I’ve called in your brother, he’ll be stopping by Alexandria for a month, and he’s agreed to train you.” Mark nodded while feeling conflicted on getting the help of his eldest brother.

“Terri, there aren’t many children of Hermes, but the majority are healers and communicators. I don’t know if you’ve done any of the latter, so we’ll be working on using communication based magic.” Terri nodded with an understanding that her role in team Charlie was to heal and assist in smooth communication between the members.

“And finally Derek, you’ll be co-ordinating with Mary as our front-line fighters… quite frankly, the two of you have the greatest chance of dying when we face a God. Mary is very difficult to hurt due to her dragon scales, but you are quite a bit fleshier.” Derek winced at the admittance, but he nodded nonetheless.

“I want you three to understand something. Team Charlie is, admittedly, made around the team up between myself and Jake, with Mary joining due to having prior claim to joining any team I do.” Charlie’s statement was met with frowns.

“But despite that, a machine can only work well if every part works correctly. Just because the car looks good doesn’t mean the inside can be hollow.” Charlie’s words had the following meaning:

It’s pointless if we’re out there and we don’t have you to support us.

It was exactly what the three were there for, and there wasn’t anything strange about it, team Alpha was based around the son of Zeus, a Council member.

He had five teammates though, but many didn’t register their existence… yet if one were to ask the leader, he would immediately extol the helpfulness of his teammates.

A star player is nothing without the support of a team, and Demigods had their own star players as well, thus they needed their team.

With a bit of renewed drive, the three began to work, finally having some hands-on training with Charlie.

They immediately regretted it…

The strength of Charlie was repeatedly hinted and he seemed to be an extremely high rank Demigod, especially considering he called the second-in-command, Rose Cora, by the nickname of ‘little lady’.

Now, actually facing him in any context, they realized how monstrous a top-ranking Demigod was.

The three were being trained simultaneously in different things all at once, a condensed learning program that would inevitably lead to losing some of the lessons imparted, but more than likely some hints would slip through.

Firstly, all three were sparring with Charlie. This was non-debateable as all Demigods had some manner of combat ability, and so they fought.

The rules were separate for each of them, designed to boost their ability overall.

For Derek, he was not allowed to stumble or be knocked back from an attack, he and Mary were the shields of the rest of the team, a flimsy shield would be broken on the battlefield.

For Terri, after being taught the sub-divination spell on sharing thoughts, had to maintain the spell constantly throughout the fight between all four people in the clearing, while making certain that any private communication between the three students was kept out of Charlie’s mind.

And then for Mark, he was not allowed to do anything beyond moving if he didn’t have a device to assist with the action before doing so.

If he was to attack, he needed a weapon, if he was going to defend, he needed a shield.

With the ability of a Demigod of Hephaestus, it was possible to ‘actualize’ the imagination of the Demigod in question, as long as a working blueprint existed in his mind, as well as the availability of the parts.

Basically, they skipped the production process, changing it into a simple ‘insert materials, obtain item’ situation.

Shane Bismarck, the eldest son of Hephaestus, notably did not use this ability often because the item created would only be ‘average’ instead of amazing.

That didn’t stop Shane from reaching a point where he could build or create almost anything small within a minute or so… which made sense, Shane had a really long time to get that good.

So by utilizing the storage rune every Demigod was inevitably taught, Mark would remove materials, Actualize an item into existence, and use it until Charlie destroyed it or took it away from Mark.

Also, the fight started off with no weapons at all, and Mark had to build and provide weaponry to be used for his teammates, and Charlie would not use any.

They had sparred for barely five minutes before they were each knocked out, and once they woke up they got back to it.

Charlie was a practical juggernaut in relation to them, when he punched the ground it shook, when he waved his hand air pressure formed, and his magic was accurate and powerful…

And yet he was at his weakest in a close-up fight, he was a long range specialist.

This really had Derek and his two partners worried on their future prospects.

One time they got knocked out, when they woke up, Charlie didn’t immediately restart the spar, instead reminding them again of the age difference between him and the other modern Demigods, as well as reminding them that the three weren’t chosen for what they were currently.

They were chosen for the potential they possessed. Aegis played the long game when it came to forming teams, partnering up Ancient and Century Demigods with modern Demigods so the latter would have someone to guide them and teach them.

It was a rule of thumb that older Demigods would always win, but it wasn’t set in stone, Edgar was actually relatively young amongst some of the stronger Demigods, and Rose was even younger.

And yet the two of them held the position of strongest and second strongest respectively.

There were other factors to strength, and instead of trying to strengthen the already powerful older Demigods, the members of Aegis were trying to elevate the weakest group, the modern Demigods, to the point where they would be capable of fighting next to older Demigods.

The three ‘less talented’ Demigods would only be able to catch up to Demigods like Jake and Mary, whose Godly parents could only have one or possibly two children if they worked hard.

Another example for the talent a Demigod could have in a ratio of children to talent would be to have a number like one hundred ‘talent’ per God.

Their children, to inherit their power, would need a minimum number of ‘talent’ to be born, with stronger Gods having children with higher ‘talent’ requirements.

Gods like Hephaestus, his children would get something like one each.

Gods like Zeus or Odin on the other hand would be required to give the full one hundred to their children to allow their birth, and until that child died, they wouldn’t have any more to give.

This was how it was explained to Charlie at one point at least, and he understood it pretty easily after it was told to him.

They also used visual aids in the form of one hundred plastic blocks, but he got the idea.

There was also that saying, one hundred per cent of success is made through ninety nine per cent talent and one per cent hard work.

That one per cent could be the difference between victory and defeat, so if they wanted to fight, Derek, Terri and Mark had to have that one per cent on their side from the beginning.

After a solid three hours of sparring, reviving, getting healed by Terri and continuing, they finally stopped, too sore and exhausted to continue.

By normal mortal standards, they were unnatural to still be able to move, but by Demigod standards, it just showed they were growing.

Demigods had the most adaptable bodies amongst the supernatural beings in existence, and this showed in that a Demigod could gain resistance to just about anything harmful through prolonged exposure.

Edgar was actually resistant to fire and cold, as well as poison being something he was nigh-immune to, the only thing that could poison Edgar at this point would be if the God was related to poison in some way.

What Charlie was doing by beating up the Demigods was an attempt to artificially cause their bodies to adapt to the strain, becoming stronger, faster, and more durable.

It worked for every Demigod, but only if they carried through with it.

“Okay, I’m done with you three for the day. Also, for the next month or two, after school you’ll come to this clearing and find a sparring partner waiting for you. Most of the time it will be me, but if not, I’ll get someone else to fight you.” Charlie’s words brought down morale slightly, but Derek, Terri and Mark were determined to get stronger.

The four Demigods moved over towards the clearing in which Jake and Mary were, only to find Mary in her semi-dragon form attempting to choke Jake, and Jake attempting to set her on fire.

Well, considering he had no weapon and was creating the fire out of his hands, Jake had succeeded in doing magic…

Charlie just wasn’t sure on the method…

“What the hell happened here?” Ignoring the alliteration, Charlie’s question was viable and the two separated shortly, and each began to try and talk over one another.

Unfortunately for Mary, Charlie knew her personality better and immediately realized that Jake was the one telling the truth between the two of them.

Basically following Jake’s story:

Mary’s explanation was vague and difficult to understand, starting off slightly sensible and progressively getting more and more strange, to the point where it started to include sound effects such as ‘the energy will go boom and then you channel it with a swish’ and so on.

Jake eventually couldn’t take it anymore and decried Mary as a bad teacher because he couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying.

Mary didn’t take this well, and began to teach Jake as she was taught, which involved being attacked by a superior opponent without any method to fight back except magic.

After three hours, it seems Jake was finally too tired to escape her grasp, but also after three hours Jake had managed to will magic into existence.

It was… not quite a victory, and not quite a loss? Mixed results sounded better.

The goal was for Mary to learn how to teach and if not, how to handle rejection. The other goal was for Jake to tap into his instincts and use some of the magical energy all Demigods had.

Jake did end up succeeding in his part, but only because Mary failed in hers, as what she did wasn’t really teaching…

Maybe Charlie accidentally set up a mutually exclusive situation by accident, as when he explained this to the two, Jake simply sighed tiredly while Mary looked like someone kicked her puppy.

She idolized Charlie since he adopted her, and ‘failing’ hurt, despite the fact that her failure allowed her to succeed in something else.

The only reason Rose taught Mary in the way the second-in-command did was because Mary couldn’t understand the lesson and drove Rose to attacking the younger Demigod.

Every other Demigod taught magic by Rose claimed that she had an amazing knowledge of magic and that it was easy to understand, but Mary just didn’t get it.

“Well, the end result of all this insanity is that Mary accidentally taught Jake how to channel his magic, and obviously he has skill in Fire. We’ll test your other affinities just to be sure though.” Charlie said, snapping his fingers, causing the rune for storage to appear.

“By the way, just so I can say I verbally taught you something, some magic users do an action to prepare themselves mentally for the magic they are doing, snapping my fingers is my one, and I know that Edgar’s trigger is clenching a fist.” The looks Charlie got clearly stated that Edgar’s trigger made little sense.

“Oh his one is actually better than mine, considering Edgar is a weapon specialist, he normally has a sword or other weapon in hand. By grasping it, is his fist not clenched?” Charlie asked, and the realized the honesty of the statement.

If it had to be a conscious action, lifting something was a conscious action, no matter how used to the weight you were, you would know it was there.

So Edgar could activate any magic he had as long as he had a weapon in hand, though without a weapon his clenching of a fist would be a bit more obvious.

It was his skill with a weapon and his sheer power when wielding them that earned Edgar the title of Red King.

Rather… one particular incident resulted in that, but Charlie was hoping that the teens would never need to know about that incident.

“Okay, so we have about an hour left together here, so what we’re going to do is understand formations.” Charlie said, and thus they got to work on their last bit of training for the day…

Standing in a certain position relative to the other members of the team… was such a mundane training type.

“Gods usually hit many people at once so these aren’t as important in the fight, but this general shape should be held. Okay, everyone can leave, Mary, you can wait at the car. Jake, I want to see the furthest shot you can make currently with a standard bow.” Charlie dismissed four of the five modern Demigods, leaving Jake who was nodding.

After being handed another bow, and converting it into Solaris Ignus, Jake took his stance, squared feet and his body perpendicular to the target Charlie set up over three hundred metres away.

After a moment of stabilizing himself, the arrow created as a spear of fire.

A block of ice was destroyed, and two smiles were formed.