Chapter 11 The Struggle [2] - Talentless

It had been around three years since Syra had awakened, yet not much had happened since then.

Silas didn't have any major breakthroughs in his magic practice. Well, actually, there were three minor things that did happen.

Firstly, Silas had reached the garnet core by the time he reached the age of 2, and quickly reached the solid garnet at the age of three.

While many of the books he read said that it would take several years to break through to the garnet stage, Silas assumed that his lower amount of impurities was the cause of his cultivation speed. Since he was just a child, the impurities hadn't fully built up in his core, making it much easier to get rid of them while they were new. This also meant that the impurities that came out of his body were much less than those that came out of Syra the day she awakened.

Talking about Syra, a month after she awakened, Keira had called in a favor from a wind mage she knew and asked him to be Syra's instructor.

His name was Arlen Specter, a man with a silver neck, long hair, and silver eyes. While the color of one's eyes didn't always indicate which affinity they were going to have, an example being Rhea, who has amber eyes but is a diviner, it did show that in most people, the color of their eyes indicated that they did have a certain affinity toward an element.

Keira's amber eyes indicated that she had an affinity with the fire element, while Syra's silver eyes indicated that she had an affinity with the wind element.

On the other hand, there was Arlen's hair color, silver, but only the top. The rest was jet-black, making it look like he dyed it that way.

However, that was not the case.

Rhea also had flame-orange streaks in her hair, yet due to her being blonde, they tended to blend well with her hair, making Silas think that it was the reflection of the light on her hair that made it seem that way.

Anyway, Silas' second minor breakthrough was in the use of magic.

By quickly switching between runes while creating a magic circle, Silas found a way to not only make the magic circles a little more efficient, but it was also a way to have better control over his spells.

The runes were the control panels of the magic circles, so even though more runes meant more mana being used, more runes also meant that one would have better control over their spell, from everything from the size of the spell being created to the speed it was being shot at.

He was also starting his journey of figuring out a way to not have to use magic circles anymore since they tended to be quite limiting in many aspects; however, that was something that would take many years, and possibly even decades, to achieve...

Or at least that would be the case for anyone who wasn't Silas. He changed all of humanity in less than a decade to the point that it looked almost like a completely new planet from the one a decade earlier. A little magic couldn't stump him. Right?

The final minor breakthrough was Silas's discovery of elemental resonance or elemental fusion, whichever glove fit best.

It was quite simple, but Silas assumed that the reason it wasn't being used was because no one had the same anatomy as him.

Silas simply coursed mana through his body like he usually did. After adding a spark of one of the elements to the mana, he is capable of fusing an element with his body, giving him varying effects, but that was something for another time.

Right now, he was looking up at his father, who was lecturing him on what it means to be a warrior. Most of it came in through one ear and left through the other, but there were a few things about honor and pride that stuck in Silas' mind.

They didn't stick because Silas cared about them. They stuck because Silas was trying his hardest not to scoff.

What was a warrior's pride and honor on a battlefield? To sacrifice one's own life for others? To fight with dignity and hold your ground?

What was the need for such dignity if death was the only thing that came from it?

Silas had nothing to protect...

Well, he had his sister, but he was certain that she would be more than capable of destroying entire towns with a single spell in a few years, so he doubted that he would need to protect her.

On the battlefield, it was to kill or to be killed. There was no in-between, and Silas valued his life far too much to sacrifice it for something as stupid and irrelevant to him as the kingdom or his warrior's pride.

"-is that understood?" Lochras asked after finishing his little speech.

"Yes sir." Silas replied. He didn't speak much at home because he didn't like his new voice, but now that he was being forced to speak, he had to suck it up and do as he was told.

"Okay, first, let me explain to you what toki is." Lochra stabbed his wooden sword into the ground before sitting cross-legged in front of his son.

Lochras was wearing a normal, yet slightly dirty-looking garments. He wore a grey shirt made of cloth and black pants made of a material Silas couldn't really recognize.

He didn't wear any of his light or heavy armor, and since it was hot outside, he was on the brink of throwing his shirt away too.

His black hair was short and messy. However, it didn't look too bad on him. However, it was his muscular figure that would have caught the attention of many women, the same way it probably caught the attention of Rhea so many years ago.

"First, let me explain to you what toki is." Lochra placed his hands on his knees.

Silas also sat down. However, even his father could see the glint of anticipation in Silas' eyes.

There was nothing on controlling toki in the books, so he had to learn from watching his father train in the front yard. Now that he had the chance to learn how toki really worked, maybe there was a chance he'd be able to use it and even improve it in the near future.

'He sure does love to learn.' Lochras sighed.

"Toki is an energy created through constant practice. Every time you fight, whether it is you or your enemy who is defeated, your toki improves. You've probably seen this in the books you've been reading, but toki is said to be a spiritual power.

It had been first discovered by the mad emperor of Delaer before his death and was given out to the public to make up for a portion of his sins.

Anyway, what you need to do first is to tap into toki, and that's what I'm going to help you with for the next few months." Lochras explained.

Silas frowned slightly.

"How did you tap into your toki?" Silas asked.

"Oh... Heh. Well, you see, your father is considered quite the genius among his fellow knights." Lochras rubbed his finger under his nose as a prideful smile appeared on his face.

'Did he just brag to a child?' Silas sighed.

"But that's not the point. Everyone has their trigger, whether it's while they're training or when its when they're in a dire moment where lives are at stake.

My job is to train you for when that moment comes, and when you finally tap into your toki, you'll instantly understand its functions and capabilities!" Lochras continued.

"Can I use a different weapon?" Silas looked down at the wooden sword in his hand. Sure, swords were cool, but they were a little too generic. A little too basic. He wanted to use something like a bow and arrow, a spear, or even a staff that could be used for both close combat and magic casting.

'To be fair, staff combat always looked pretty cool in the movies. I wonder if I can use it in a similar and efficient fashion.' Silas thought.

"Nope... You're learning how to use the sword. End of argument." Lochras didn't even give Silas time to make an argument. It was a hard rejection without a single second to think about it.

Standing up, Lochras jumped back and landed several meters away.

'I guess I can be an all-rounder. I'm pretty young, so I'm learning things a lot faster than I did when I did when I reached adulthood.

How cool would it be if I ran across the battlefield, picking up random weapons and using them on the enemies with a mastery that puts their skills to shame.

Mhm, mhm, that's exactly what I want... Or at least that's what I want until I create guns. Then these medieval weapons won't be necessary.' Silas nodded to himself and also stood up.

"Attack me." Lochras spoke.

"Really?" Silas asked with a sparkle in his eyes.

"W-Wait... Why do you look happy?" Lochras felt a vein bulge on his forehead.

"I do?" Silas grinned as innocently as he could. Lochras had interrupted his cultivation sessions far too many times in the past three years just to make random terrifying faces at him.

Crouching down, Silas ran at Lochras as fast as he could without infusing his body with mana.

However, despite being a master at many things, from astrophysics to magic, one thing Silas wasn't good at was the use of the sword.

After all, it was a lost art with no modern use for it.

*Tuck*

The sound of wood knocking against wood entered Silas' ears. He could instantly tell that not only was his movement sloppy, but they were also incredibly wasteful.

Plus, his small body had no way of actually doing any damage to his father.

His father didn't even need to use toki to block the attack. Hell, he didn't even use his muscles to block the hit.

He simply held the sword before Silas' wooden blade and watched it bounce off.

Silas could feel a vibration go through his body and made him lose his balance. it felt like his bones were rattling his muscles were turning into jelly.

It was only then that Silas realized how weak he was when he didn't infuse his body with mana.

"..."

His father was speechless.

"..."

"..."

Rhea and Keira, who were both watching through the window, were speechless.

"..."

Arlen, who had just arrived at the house gates, was speechless.

"Mom..."

"Yes Rhea," Keira replied.

"Is my son talentless?"

"Probably." Keira sighed and walked away from the window.

'Huh?' Silas looked at his father, Arlen, and the rest of his family, watching through the window.

'Why am I being looked at like I'm some freak of nature.' Silas narrowed his eyes before he realized...

'These bastard...' Silas cursed while silently vowing to prove them wrong.

Silas left his training session that day, having taken a huge blow to his pride...

For once, he had zero talent in a field he was entering.

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