2 Chapter 2

In a small field behind the Sacred Ember clan's headquarters, Lance stood with his sword in hand as he swung it in a chain of strikes in the air. He was wearing some leather type armor that allowed him to keep his maximum speed while still allowing him to block very basic attacks against those of his skill level.

With his short spiked hair and his blue eyes, Lance looked like a very cute child who had the potential to grow up and look very handsome. Beads of sweat continued to form on his face as he continued swinging his sword.

Earlier in the morning, Lance began his brutal training daily regiment by running two kilometers with several ten pound weights covering his body. For a child so young, it was unexpected for even those who loved training to go through with this level of difficulty just to warm up.

Even with having more strength than the local peers of his in the area, Lance still chose to practice with not just a much heavier sword, but a lighter one as well. He would practice with both a heavy and light sword, so that his speed and abilities would continue to increase regardless of what type of weapon he had in his possession.

This way, if he found himself in a pinch where he could only use one of the two, the potential disadvantage would be smaller. Even the army trained soldiers in different weapons so that as a unit, they could outmatch their opponents.

Sitting on a comfortable chair was his combat instructor who Lance begged his mother and father to hire for him. Not many people in the village knew who this instructor was, but to Lance, he was the absolute strongest expert that he had ever met besides his own father who was the Patriarch of the Sacred Ember clan.

Lance would normally receive a small allowance every month, but he chose to exchange this allowance in order to convince his parents that he wanted to become a strong warrior. He told them that this was so that he could lead the family down the right path in the future. Hearing his determination, his parents supported this fully.

Originally, his father felt that he should have been the one to guide his son Lance down this path of the warrior, however, because he was the Patriarch of the entire clan, he barely had enough time to eat and sleep while handling all of the major affairs of the Sacred Ember clan, and even other things in Granite Town when he could.

Since Lance was still too young when he approached his parents about this, he was only able to receive training in swordsmanship and building up his physical strength. To Lance, if he were to become a mystic, it would be possible for other powers to treat him a little more respectfully instead of him walking down the warrior path.

It was unfortunate, but Lance could only be tested after he turned ten years old to see if he had what it took in order to become a mystic and to learn powerful elemental techniques that could possibly allow him to overtake warriors of the same rank who lacked enough experience.

Since he wanted to become stronger before he could even test his elemental affinity, Lance had no choice but to follow the path as a warrior. There were several cases of individuals who excelled at both the mystic and warrior paths, but it was clear that eventually, one would fall short of the other over time.

These individuals were considered to be dual masters, but unless one were to reach the 3rd rank of both a mystic and as a warrior, they wouldn't be classified as such. This reason was because over time, if someone were to pursue both paths, mystics would need to be able to utilize nature to continue increasing their elemental power, while warriors would need to be able to utilize the qi in their bodies to continue increasing their physical power.

However, by the 3rd ranks, the difficulty of building both at the same time made it so that unless completely necessary, those with the ability to pursue both paths, would choose to only pursue one. In this way, whether it would be as a mystic or as a warrior, the individual would find it easier to excel at one and would be able to achieve greater heights in a much smaller amount of time.

Knowing all of this, still made Lance choose to start pursuing the path as a warrior because he realized there would still be benefits even if he were to eventually switch over to pursuing the mystic path. Many mystics would rarely work on increasing their physical strength, and because of this, they were unable to truly be on the front lines of a battle. However, if Lance were able to take a hit, it would allow him to potentially flourish as a mystic with some physical ability.

This couldn't be helped because the path of a warrior and the path of a mystic had two different types of training methods. Therefore, if a mystic wanted to reach the highest possible heights for themselves, they would normally disregard working on their physical strength just so that they could keep up with their peers.

Over these four years, Lance worked on his swordsmanship because it was one of the more widely available types of weapons. Coming from a noble family that was still struggling to stay afloat financially, Lance understood that if he needed to purchase newer weapons in case of an emergency, at least he could pick up a sword for fairly cheap compared to more specialized weapons.

The wonderful positive of specializing in using a sword, was that there were many more techniques available to those on the path of the warrior who had this specialization. It couldn't be helped, because it was usually the most common of weapons distributed which held the most amount of techniques.

This did not bother him because whether his path would lead him to a top rated organization, the Church of Light, or even the Sun Dynasty's military, said powers would try to train him in using many different types of fighting styles, techniques, and weapons even to the point of covering the bills to equip himself properly.

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Knowing all of this, all Lance wanted was to be able to learn the basics of wielding a weapon and his teacher taught him other types of techniques such as footwork among others. For a ten year old child, Lance was well above the average warrior and almost reaching the 1st rank as one. Usually unless a child was considered extremely talented, it would take until the age of twelve to reach the 1st rank as a warrior.