Bria assessed me like some sort of specimen, but caught herself doing so halfway. The look in her eyes gave me a chill, but I didn’t dare let her notice.

“Well then, let’s continue with our lessons.” She forced a smile, but a hint of that curious glint remained.

I groaned. “Can’t I skip tonight’s lessons? I swear Shiki was going for the kill.” I wasn’t lying. Every inch of my body really did hurt. Even the slightest movement was enough to make me curse.

“Shiki? Kill you? Pffft! Believe me, Kaito. He wasn’t even trying. He probably even exhausted himself making sure not to hit you.” Bria held her stomach as she tried to stifle her laughter.

Irritated, I roared, “But he was attacking me with that… that demonic whip! I literally had to run for my life!”

“Oh, did you, now?” she said, feigning amusement. “Someone as strong as Shiki couldn’t even kill a level one like you, Kaito? Oh, wait. It’s level two now, isn’t it?”

That caught me off guard. She made a valid point. Somehow, I instinctively looked above her head. There floats her name, but something I hadn’t noticed before caught my attention. Something barely visible was hanging below her name. In fact, it was more appropriate to call it a distortion in the air.

I squinted to focus my vision. After a few straining seconds, I finally recognized the characters.

[Silver Witch]

[Lvl. 60]

My heart sunk. Are they really that strong?

“Is… is Shiki the same level as you?” I asked, my head low.

“Hmmm pretty much, yes. But Shiki focuses more on fighting, so he’s a lot stronger than me in terms of attack power.”

“Oh, is that so…” My voice trailed off.

Bria loudly slapped my back. The sharp pain broke me out of my thoughts and blood rushed to my head. I shot Bria a sharp glare, but didn’t say anything.

“That’s more like it. Now drink this and let’s start the lesson.” Bria handed me a vial filled with green liquid. “That should ease your pain.”

True enough, my body immediately felt lighter as soon as I swallowed a mouthful of the liquid.

“Let’s start!” That mischievous smile appeared again.

***

Half a month passed by just like that. Shiki would train me until I was a step away from death, while Bria would fill my brain with lessons about magic, spells, and theories. I only had two hours of sleep at most each day. But thanks to Bria’s very potent potions -- which were more of a curse than a blessing -- I managed to keep on going.

Even though Bria kept talking and lecturing until Shiki cut her off, my brain didn’t magically absorb the knowledge like a sponge. Although I wish I did, reality wasn’t that kind. I only learned a few things about magic theory. About how mana reserves, affinity, and even usage varied from one individual after another. There were those so-called loved by mana and either had huge mana reserves or even the strongest of spells only cost them a bit of mana.

Even warriors like Shiki apparently also had plenty of uses for mana. Even though warriors often relied on strength, speed, and technique, there were many skills that combined skills with mana usage. A quick test determined that my talent for mana was so-so. That meant that I could effectively use mana, but without any quirks. On the bright side, that at least meant I wasn’t unlucky enough to be avoided by mana.

Despite my mana skills, or lack thereof, Bria didn’t stop grinding every bit of knowledge she had on me. During the first few days, she drilled the theories of casting basic elemental spells to me. In her own words, “One does not merely become the Silver Witch in a single night. One must start from the very basics.”

Although I had no idea who that One is, I tried my best to understand what she was teaching me. After all, who in their right mind wouldn’t get excited when it came to magic? However, my so-sop-ness proved to be a rather difficult hurdle. After a week of theories, Bria finally accepted that I was in no way near her talent, knowledge, or amazingness. She, then, made me choose between the basic elements: fire, water, earth, and wind.

She did assure me that we would eventually tackle all elements, but we should only focus on one for now due to obvious reasons. Knowing that, I mindlessly chose wind. Bria then focused on teaching me the very basic wind spell, Wind Cutter.

According to Bria, using a Wind Cutter is pretty simple. I must only form my mana into that of a wind blade, then expel it. As simple as she made it sound to be, I only managed to finally form a blade made of wind after four days. And now had I only managed to expel it with enough force to deal damage that could at least make the spell be considered as an attack.

Looking at the foot tall bisected stone, a glint of joy flashed across Bria’s eyes, and a gleeful smile crept on her lips. Even though I knew that wasn’t really anything to be happy about, seeing her show such emotion warmed me up.

My training with Shiki, on the other hand, was nowhere as considerate as Bria’s. For the past two weeks, he had me run till my legs gave up and swing a gradually getting heavy wooden sword till my arms gave up. That was without any regard of how much I was breaking down or freaking out. There were even moments that my mind completely shut off and my body went on full autopilot.

Two weeks of that, and my level had reached level 10.

I closed my eyes and used my will to summon my character window. The past half a month gave me enough time to familiarize myself with this system, but I still need a second of concentration to view the windows at will.

My character sheet popped up in front of me.

Name: Kaito Title: --- Age: 16 Class: -- Level: 10 Race: Human (Demon) MP: 50 Strength: 23 + 31 Intelligence: 25 + 28 Agility: 22 + 29 Wisdom: 23

The stats I received after leveling simply added to my base stats. I assumed that the number in green beside me were the ones I gained from training. All in all, I had more than 50 points in strength.

I looked at the faceless Shiki and nodded.

“Well then, my liege. The time to witness the fruit of your training has come. Go ahead whenever you are ready.”

A stood there for a full minute, my hands firmly holding the silver hilt. All the while, I was repeatedly inhaling and exhaling in a futile attempt to calm my racing heart. Finally, I had the courage to look down. I stared at my intertwined fingers and took a final deep breath. With every fiber of my being, I put all strength to pulling the black blade. To my joy and surprise, the blade slowly cut through the ground and eventually loosened as it got free bit by bit. With a crisp swoosh, the sun’s rays hit the shiny flat of the blade.

Shiki walked towards me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Very well done, my liege. That blade is Kiriwan, the half of my twin blades. I shall lend it to you until you find your own weapon, my liege.”

“Thank you, Shiki.” I tried to sound as grateful as I could. Even though the training was absolutely hellish, I still felt thankful towards Shiki and Bria for helping me achieve this level.

“It’s my pleasure, my liege. Now that you have enough strength to wield Kiriwan, you should face live foes,” Shiki stated as if it was obvious.

I looked at Bria with great confusion. I just hoped that she understood my plea and not the other way around.

“It is true that the Hatchery is a place where monsters, demons, and different beasts lay eggs or leave their young. But in order to ensure that each young is strong enough to carry their own weight outside, they battle it out and level up. Only around a tenth of the young actually make it outside.”

I immediately took back my gratitude. At the end of the day, these guys were demons. They knew not about compassion nor pity. They only knew suffering and grief. Wide eyed, I simply stared at the both of them.

“Don’t worry, Kaito. If worse comes to worst, we’ll come and save you!” Bria flashed her now-signature mischievous smile.

Literally left without a choice, I simply nodded.

***

We wandered through the thick forest for half an hour hoping to find my ‘foe.’ Shiki led the three of us in the guise of being more knowledgeable about the place, but I didn’t buy it. For all I knew, he only wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t chance upon meeting a helpless youngling.

Eventually, Shiki motioned for us to stop. There was an angry growl coming in front of Shiki. Curious, I strided beside him. Three purple scaled vipers were surrounding a black wolf with streaks of gray. My eyes instinctively glided above the creatures’ heads.

First, I scanned the vipers.

[Three-fanged Viper]

[Lvl. 6] [Lvl. 7] [Lvl. 6]

Then, towards the wolf.

[Nighthowl]

[Lvl. 8]

With a quick succession of bites, the vipers broke the stalemate. The one in the middle slid straight into the wolf, then shot like an arrow when it came in range. The Nighthowl continued to growl and jumped backwards. However, another viper shot from his right. It quickly snapped it’s jaws and attempted to sink all three of its fangs on the wolf's back, but it only hit the Nighthowl’s fur as it used the tree behind it to jump towards the other viper lunging on his left.

With a quick slash from it’s razor sharp claws, four deep gashes appeared on the viper’s purple scales, blood cascading to the ground. The viper fell with a thud. The other two didn’t even slowed down. Both of them simultaneously shot towards the Nighthowl. The Nighthowl agilely dodged the first one and chomped the other one’s head, leaving its body to lifelessly fall to the ground. The final viper had just landed from his attack, but when it saw its companion’s corpses, it immediately slithered away.

The Nighthowl proceeded to eat its prey, but suddenly growled. It had sensed our presence.

Shiki turned towards me. With his usual monotonous husky voice, he said, “We’ve found your foe, my liege.”