‘How am I supposed to find someone qualified enough to teach him?’

Aaron felt troubled. He examined the papers of the people who applied upon the announcement he made.

‘All of them only knows the basics. That won’t do.’

He felt a headache and turned towards the windows behind him to see the kid playing with a wooden katana. Neil was playing in the backyard by himself like always. Well, more than playing, he was trying to learn how to use katana, but he was failing miserably. But, even though he kept failing, he never stopped smiling, and he was enjoying using it. That made Aaron happy.

‘Ahh, how could I say no to that smile. I wish ‘The Demon’ were here.’

Aaron thought to himself. There were few katana users in the empire, and most people preferred long swords since there were so many knights using swords, and finding resources about them was much more accessible. Finally, he chose someone.

‘I’ll just go with him. I don’t even know anymore.’

Aaron was a bit disappointed that his children weren’t interested in the weapon he used. His daughter, Neil’s twin sister, wanted to learn how to use the sword from her mother. Aaron sighed, got up from his seat, and went to Neil to give him the good news. When he reached the backyard, Neil was sitting and breathing heavily on the ground. After hearing footsteps, he turned his head and saw his father.

“Good news, Neil. I found someone to teach you the basics.”

He smiled and raised his thumb. Hearing that made Neil happy enough to forget all his exhaustion, and sparkles appeared in his eyes.

“Thanks, dad!”

He exclaimed in joy and began to run.

“I’m going to tell my friends about this.”

He left his father all alone with a perplexed expression.

‘At least I expected him to hug me. What am I going to do with these kids.’

The usual hangout spot with his friends wasn’t that far from the palace, and of course, it was within reach of the guards. Neil ran excitedly. He could hear his friends’ voices in the corner of the wall. But, he suddenly stopped before turning the corner after what he heard.

“What should we eat today with the money of that gullible prince?”

The kid who was sitting on the boxes asked the one who was standing.

“Pfft, if we asked, he could get anything we want since we are his first and only friends. But how long are we going to act like that? I can’t stand that shithead always smiling and bragging about how everything he wanted was granted every time.”

“Yes, me too, but like I said, if we get on well with him, no one will dare to mess with us, we could ask him to buy us something with his money, and when we grow up, we can get into the academy without any difficulty.”

The standing one started to chuckle.

“Hehe, let’s keep using him.”

Then they both chuckled. Neil was in shock. He felt an indescribable pain in his heart since it was his first time feeling something like this. He felt angry and sad simultaneously, whereas he genuinely thought of them as his friends and did not find the courage to take another step to confront them. While trying to hold back his tears, he turned around and ran back to the palace where he was practicing and picked up the wooden katana on the ground with shaking hands. He wanted to practice and forget about that but couldn’t stop his hands from shaking and sat down. Tears, which he was desperately trying to hold back, began to run down his cheeks slowly.

* * *

“Huff, huff, huff.”

Elius was lying on his back on the ground, panting and exhausted. Wilbert took a look at his son and put on a satisfied smile, but to Elius, it was a horrifying demonic smile.

‘He is a demon, a demon! I thought I was going to die!’

Thanks to Wilbert’s excessive training regime, which was going on for a few weeks now, every muscle on his body was screaming in pain.

“That is it for you today.”

Wilbert said and turned back to his training. After hearing that, Elius put his thumbs up with a weird smile. Even though it was hard for him, he didn’t complain because that was the only thing he could do in this small village. The population in this village was so tiny, maybe not even fifty, and all of them were elderly or elderly disabled people, and all they did was sit inside their houses. It was at the outskirts of the Tedian Kingdom, a small village isolated from the rest of the kingdom, a ghost town. Elius couldn’t understand why his father lived in this place, but he didn’t question much. Therefore, he had nothing to do but study all day. After resting for a few hours, he felt his fatigue fly away.

One of the things he learned about the energy that Julius gave him is that his recovery speed was incredibly fast now. Well, it was fast for all of the inner fighters, but Elius didn’t experience it before. The afternoon sun shone through the trees, creating mysterious shadows, which meant it was the time for personal training. Elius took advantage of the shade under the giant tree on the forest-facing side of his house and began his training. He took out the book ‘Bojutsu’ and his hilt. By pouring some energy, it expanded and turned into a bo staff. At first, he couldn’t keep the staff’s form, but now he could keep it extended for a few hours.

“Let’s see, fundamentals of bo staff techniques, section one, examples of spins.”

He already learned the ‘Basic Spin’ motion in the past few weeks since it was the most basic move. Then he tried to do something called ‘Neck Spin’ but failed and hit himself in the head a few times with the staff. Then he blamed the explanation of the move and decided to leave that for a later time.

“Ohh, ‘Behind the Back Spin.’ That looks cool. Let’s try it.”

There were two drawings of the move. One said vertically, and the other said horizontally. Elius didn’t understand anything about the pictures anyway because they were poorly drawn, so he checked the explanation.

Step 1. Hold the staff in your hand and start with your palm facing you.

Step 2. Drop your hand and bring it behind your back while spinning.

Step 3. Grab it with your other hand, reverse your grip and bring it forward.

Elius was confused again and desperately shook his head. Before trying to learn that, he saw another move, something called ‘Figure Eight Spin.’ The explanation was short and straightforward.

Step 1. Draw an eight-figure by spinning the staff.

Elius facepalmed.

‘Mr. Julius really needs to reevaluate his teachings.’

Then he got up and began to learn the fundamentals of bojutsu.

--

For two years, the same routine continued, and now it was the spring season. The air felt energetic. A golden yellow sun was glowing with renewed passion. The sky was a brilliant blue, and insects were everywhere, particularly bees. There was a tempting smell in the air, the smell of the fresh grass, the scent of the newly blossomed flowers, and the loamy smell of the earth. The birds were singing in harmony. The ground felt soft beneath Elius’ feet. There was no stifling heat, but instead, a chilly breeze gave him goosebumps.

But nothing much changed. The village was dead as always, and Elius was under the same tree reading the grimoire, and Wilbert was training by himself nonstop. There were some visibly physical changes on Elius.

He was taller now, close to 140cm, and his staff was at the same height with him, just like Julius said it was growing with Elius. His body was starting to gain muscle mass, which he was pretty happy with it. The more he trained with the bo staff, the more he became addicted to close combat.

Even though he hadn’t been in a real fight yet, he was training on the trunks of trees, and it was much more fun than throwing spells from afar. His control over bo staff was increased significantly, but sometimes he still failed or dropped it while spinning.

The grimoire had six spells in it now. The most important one was the basic healing spell. It was a spell that had no connection to 4 elements. Hence that made it incredibly hard to learn. Even though it was the basic level, the image of the intertwined lines in Elius’ head was highly complex, and he was trying to separate them for a while now. In the middle of his separation process Wilbert draw him back to reality.

“Elius!”

His body was sweaty from all of that training. Elius opened his eyes and looked at him with curious eyes.

“What happened?”

Wilbert smiled broadly.

“That is enough for basic physical training.”

‘BASIC?’

Elius thought to himself and started to panic.

“It is time for some real training now.”

Then he handed Elius a blindfold.

“Put this on.”

That sent shivers down Elius’ spine. He knew something ridiculous was coming, but he forced himself to put on a weird smile and took the blindfold.

“Alright, let’s see what you prepared.”