"Haha, you thought Lord Alexander won't make a proper arrangement for your training? He's obsessed with you!"
I'm looking at a large burly man with tan skin and brown hair, he's laughing heartily, he's the perfect example of how one would describe an extroverted social butterfly. Another shocking thing is that– he's my... Personal trainer.
After the lesson I had today in class two, which I didn't understand anything at all. I was about to leave the training center with my head low when this Man approached me, the way he approached me almost made me run away, he startled me on purpose, laughing at me and claiming it was a prank. And his towering height didn't do much to ease my fright.
He introduced himself as Klaus Rodron, a flame mage of the Flameworths household. The Patriarch considered my lacking knowledge in the basics of mana which I was supposed to learn and get familiar with in class one. So he sent this Man as my personal trainer to teach me the basics that I lacked.
"You should have seen the wide smile he had on his face when he ordered me to become your trainer! It was scary enough to make a grown man sleepless at night!! Hahahahaha,"
He's so loud it's almost maddening, and what he's saying is true because I've experienced the horror of that smiling face of his myself.
"It was the first time I've ever seen his cold and gloomy face happy or even excited about something, he's been like that ever since..." He goes silent. " Anyway! We're gonna be having a lot of fun, me and you."
A wide, eery grin stretching ear to ear forms on his face.
And he was talking about The Patriarch's...
With a wave of his hand, he gestures at me to follow him.
I follow behind him as we walk.
An unpleasant, stuffy taste lingers in my mouth.
I have a feeling that my time with this guy is gonna be rough...
I recognize the direction we're headed to. It's a training ground. Though not as big as the one where the affinity detection was held, its size is still impressive, it's used by the training center for class 3 trainees upwards, they are the classes that engage in physical training. The one where the mana detection was held is used by the family's official and apprentice mages to train.
We arrive at the training grounds and make our way inside the sand-filled area. There... In the middle of the training grounds, on the sand-filled ground, he suddenly decides to sit down.
"..."
I tilt my head, confused by his sudden action.
"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean 'what are you doing?' ?"
He has a broad smile on his face.
"I mean why the hell are you sitting on the ground in the middle of the training grounds?"
"You didn't think you came here to train or anything did you?" He gives me a questioning look. "Wait. You did, didn't you?"
He bursts out into laughter, wiping glistening tears off the edge of his eyes.
"Kid kid kid." His tone is playful when all of a sudden it becomes more serious. "Do you know the principles of mana? Do you have any idea what it is and how to feel it? You can't start training without knowing any of those."
My eyes widen as I hear his words. I'm standing over him, my arms folded and I think to myself:
Don't I have a better idea of how mana is? I mean I can see it while others can't, I'm the only person in the world who has this ability... I think, I can even see six rings of red mana around him, they're like a ring of light revolving around him from his neck to his knee. And I can see it everywhere in the air and on things that aren't human, they are not rings, they're just floating lights. While on humans, the light either has a white, moonlight ring that signifies no affinity with any element and the mana in their body is nothing but pure mana or they have colored rings.
But seeing it doesn't mean I can feel it. I can't even touch the ones floating in the air, even if I try to, my hand passes through the light like it's a hologram of sorts. This is a good chance that Alexander has made for me to learn more about this, and I'm going to use it wisely.
"No. I have no idea about any of that, I only know that mana is the building block of life, can you please teach me more on what I should know?"
I ask politely, my tone is warm and filled with sincerity.
A satisfied smile forms on his face.
"Hahaha, very good, I knew you were a smart child but I didn't know you were polite too. Very very good." He kept on laughing.
"Alright. Sit down here." He tapped the ground at the spot right in front of him.
I sigh, and I sit down on the ground like him, right in front of him and we're looking at each other face to face.
He grins and looks down at my leg.
"Tsk tsk." He shakes his head. "No no no this won't do. You have to cross your legs. Like this." He points to his legs, he's sitting in a lotus position, the position one would sit to meditate.
"Is it really necessary?"
His brows move up. "Oho? Look at this kid. Of course, it's necessary, it's the only way your mana pathways can be free from the blood in your blood vessels that are running through it like it's a blood vessel too."
I have no idea what he's talking about.
"You look confused. Don't worry, you'll know all of these soon. Just cross your legs like this."
"Okay."
I cross my legs in a lotus position.
"In class one, they teach the children there about the concept of Mana because many of them didn't even know what it was before their detection test. And they teach them the basics which I assume you already know, the fact that it's invisible, the fact that it's everywhere in the world and makes up everything and then they teach them how to feel it. Children who successfully learn how to feel and sense the mana around them are qualified to enter the next class after a year. The ones that don't..."
He uses his hands to swipe his neck, an expression that means slaughter.
I shudder at the sight of his expression.
They kill them?
Seeing my shocked expression, he bursts into laughter.
"They are cut off from the class. They don't get to enter class two and are deemed unworthy of even learning mana gathering. After all, the class one kids are plenty, having the same amount enter class two would be..."
He's shaking his head rapidly, I wonder how it's not falling out of his neck.
"So... I'm gonna teach you. Young Master Charles."
He writes something on the sand-filled ground.
I read it, and it says;
"How to feel mana."