“Before I leave, I want to see how much I've improved.”

  “You want to train now, my lord?”

  I nodded and the servants putting our things in the carriage, the guards at the gate and Nazir looked at me in surprise.

  “We may be late, and you'll get dirty.”

  “I know, but we're not going to a wedding.”

  Nazir sighed and handed his bag to the servant next to him, “You can get in the car,” I said and I called out to Alwyn and turned to him. He looked at me curiously, his blue hair was long, tied in a bun, and he was wearing his shiny full plate armor and blue cape.

  “Did you call for me, my lord?” he said in surprise and I nodded.

  “I don't think it will take long.” I looked into his eyes and he tilted his head slightly and smiled.

  “Of course, my lord, but you'll have to wait...” he started to take off his armor and I said, ‘Keep your armor.’ and he frowned and looked at me with the same surprise as Nazir.

  "My lord, if you don't misunderstand, to put it simply, with my armor on you have no chance against me.

  Every blow you hit against an opponent like me will increase your chances of winning-”

  “Draw your sword, we won't use the training sticks.” I interrupted him and he was saying, “I'm sorry, my lord, but-” and I interrupted him again, “I didn't ask your opinion, Alwyn, draw your sword and attack me to kill me,” and he took a deep breath and drew his sword.

  ‘Just aim for my face, my lord.’

  Alwyn waited a short time after I drew my dagger from its scabbard, then moved towards me. There was a height difference between us, and even though Alwyn was not as tall as Nazir, he was still tall, which added to my disadvantage. He was armoured on his legs, his chest, his arms - everywhere I had a good chance of hitting him. But what I wanted to find out now was not if I could defeat him, but how long I could dodge his attacks and how successful I could be when I tried to deflect them.

  He swung his sword at me three times, two of them I dodged by simple steps and the third by moving my head, and my eyebrows furrowed. When he swung his sword again, I stepped back, strengthened my chest, shoulder and arm with ki and swung my dagger upwards to deflect his sword and push him back.

  I started to learn ki a little bit last year by reading and guessing by myself, the first and most important step was to feel the mana in your body. Normally it would take years and a great discipline, but I was able to learn this skill in a short time with a painful method. I would cut my finger, direct my mana there and heal my finger, then close my eyes and try to follow the mana left in my body. After trying about 300 times, I started to feel the ki and the rest was very easy to learn. I cheated a little bit by using my racial abilities, but in the end it didn't change the fact that I learnt the ki.

  Everyone around looked at me in amazement as I knocked him back and Alwyn quickly recovered and swung his sword again, but he was still not fighting with all his power. First I dodged his swing from above left, then very briefly he charged me with his shoulder but I managed to dodge that too and he was about to swing his sword at me again when I took two quick steps towards him and grabbed him at the waist of his armour, strengthened my body again with ki and threw him to the left.

  Nazir seemed suspicious at first, but now he realised his guess was right and asked, “My Lord, when did you learn ki?”

  “I'll tell you later,” I answered him and turned to Alywn.

  “My father would not have hired you to guard the house if you were not a truly skilled warrior, may I politely ask you to fight me with all your strength?” As I looked at him with a slight tilt of my head I realised that Alwyn was silent.

  “I apologise, my lord, I underestimated you,” he said and bowed his head slightly as he rose from the floor.

  “If you are ready…”

  When I gripped my dagger tightly, he started running towards me at a fast pace, and, leaning to my right, he came and swung his sword at my waist, As I quickly turned and blocked his sword, all the hairs on my body stood on end and I realised that a wave of water was coming from the opposite direction and I was about to block it with a stone wall when I had a quick change of mind and decided to block it with a wave of water I created. I am glad I made that choice, because it was not difficult to realise that he knew how to adjust the pressure of the water.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  His attacks were at least twice as fast, his sword was always coming from below, at the level of my chest and abdomen, and he was bending down and fighting in fast circles around me. After I deflected his sword 3 times, I felt the magic under my feet and as the stone platform Alywn had created lifted me into the air and disappeared from under my feet, I was able to react quickly and create my own platform and get high enough to get out of his attack range. As soon as I kept my balance, the stone platform under me shattered and I started to fall downwards. I deflected two water attacks coming at me from the left and the right with powerful gusts of wind and threw myself backwards to avoid his sword swing. When I was safely on the ground I raised my dagger and waited for him to come at me again, but Alwyn looked at me for a moment and then sheathed his sword.

  “It is impossible for you to win, my lord, if we continue you will only lose time.

  But I want you to know that despite your unbelievable disadvantages in experience, armour and height, you fought me on almost equal footing, and I don't think I stand a chance against you when you grow up."

  “Thank you,” I said and put my dagger in the scabbard, taking a deep breath.

  3, if I count ki, I had used spells from 4 different elements in a row and still had half my mana, and considering that I didn't have much mana to begin with, I could say that my control over it was pretty good. I could predict the direction of the attacks well, and I never failed to take dodge steps, and most importantly, I was never scared, except when Alwyn surprised me when he got serious. If I had known that Alwyn was a battlemage, perhaps my chances would have been better.

  In this world, there were only two paths for wizards to choose from.

  Long-distance mages, also known as normal mages, usually focused on either defence or offence and could only do one or the other, while battlemages could defend, attack, and swing swords at close range at the same time.

  Since the most important aspect of fighting with magic was the control over the mana spent, becoming a battle mage was very difficult and, as you might expect, very rare. There was barely 1 battle mage out of 1000 mages. And although magic was a tremendous power, it was always safest to keep mana in your body and fight with sword, bow & arrow, and armour.

  “Alt, come here now!”

  As soon as I heard my mother's voice, my whole body shuddered and I slowly turned my head to look at her. She was looking at me with an angry face, I rushed to her and as soon as I was in front of her, she swung her hand and a giant wave of water soaked my whole body.

  “Go change your clothes,” she said, pointing inside with her head, and after wiping the water off my face, I went inside.

  After I quickly changed into new clothes, I jumped into the carriage and we set off for the harbour.

  **

  After spending the whole way explaining to Nazir how I learnt ki, we finally arrived at the harbour, and according to him, it took him three years to learn ki, and another three years to be able to use it properly. I'd be lying if I said my ego wasn't a little inflated.

  From the moment we arrived at the ocean I greeted countless people, I didn't know almost any of their names but they seemed to like me, likewise in the harbour people were walking close to my carriage.

  When I got out of the carriage, a small group of people kept saying things like ‘Welcome, my lord, you will be travelling with us’ and I was nodding to them and I looked for Sergius. And I saw him in front of a big ship talking to someone I recognised. It was Mira. Was she going to come with us?

  As we approached Sergius, he walked swiftly towards us, bent down, took off his black pirate hat and placed it on my head.

  “Feeling better, cousin?”

  I took the hat off my head and looked at Arthur lying in it, and as Sergius looked at it curiously, Arthur said, “That question started to bore me already.”

  “Is he a...?”

  “My pet.”

  Arthur jumped on Sergius' arm and climbed on his shoulder, sniffing his neck. Then he rested his hand on his neck and turned to Mira.

  “Hello Altevia,” Mira said, and when she came over Arthur jumped on top of her and climbed up her tunic.

  “Your pet seems a little too friendly.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said, walking quickly towards him and catching Arthur as he was about to reach into her pocket, I put him on my shoulder.

  “You can't walk on people without their permission.” I stated and Arthur jumped on my head, “You said I was free to do what I wanted.”

  “No, I said you're free to leave whenever you want, as my pet there are behaviours you can and can't do.”

  “Yeah? What are they?”

  “It's actually good that you ask, let's agree on these things before we leave.

  1 - You can't hurt or kill anyone unless I give you permission.

  2 - You cannot climb on people or touch their belongings unless you have my permission.

  3 - You may not damage other people's land or livestock.”

  I realised that Arthur had taken two steps away from my shoulder and was looking at me silently, so I took a hazelnut out of my pocket.

  “Agreed?”

  He jumped into my hand and quickly grabbed the nut, “Agreed.”

  I looked up at Mira while Arthur was eating the nut on my hand, her clothes looked comfortable, she was dressed in a white and blue shirt and black trousers. She really looked like she was travelling with us. Sergius was also dressed in a loose white short-sleeved shirt and black trousers.

  “I suppose you will be travelling with us?” I said looking at Mira and she smiled, “More like you will be travelling with us.”

  “Is this ship leaving for you?”

  Mira nodded, “I've got a little work to do on Xadora, Sergius and a party from Ocean will be accompanying me.”

  I looked at the ship, the men on it didn't look like they were going to a ball, I was about to say something when suddenly Arthur spoke and everyone looked at him,

  'They'll go looking for artifacts while you're with a lord, travelling around the city, hanging around in the manor.

  “A telepathic immigrel?” Sergius tilted his head slightly and I said, “Rule 4 - You cannot read people's minds without permission.” I grabbed Arthur and lifted him up.

  I saw Arthur roll his eyes and I shook my head slightly and put him on top of my head and looked at Sergius and said, “I'm sorry, he is still new.” and Sergius smiled, “No problem, but let's keep this between us, shall we?”

  Was this guy an angel or something?