'I don't have to worry about dangers of consuming high rank meat, as even if the energy inside is too much for my body, anything excess will be converted, before causing any damage. But I'm also not sure how far does Rank 0 Iron Ghoul let me go, is it only Rank 0 meat that I can absorb, I have to look into this.'
'Alice, on the other hand would never let me get my hands on anything that would be dangerous.'
'Ahh, in these years I probably earned a room full of Oscars, it's been pretty hard, pretending to be normal.'
Lucien didn't waste his time, finding Alice enjoying the sunshine.
"Mommy"
Alice turned with a smile on her face, looking into the beautiful crimson eyes of her son.
"What is it, sweety?"
"I want to train, I want to be strong just like dad."
The smile on his mothers face disappeared.
"But you are just 3 years old and you might get hurt. Even your eldest brother started when he was 5."
"I don't want to wait, mom."
"I want to be stronger than my eldest brother."
Lucien didn't worry about showing too much ambition, nobody would care about a child wishing to be stronger than another child. As long as just enough talent was shown, not too much and not too little, nobody would bother him for a couple while.
Even through Lucien was not sure what happened to the previous emperor. Since a Rank 4 could like at least 1500 year it didn't make sense that he would only have 3 sons. It probably meant his father was a new young emperor, and the previous emperors situation was unknown.
'There is probably something happening in the background, that runs deeper than what I can see right now.'
'In the books it was only mentioned that the previous emperor abdicated, and his children fought over the throne, leaving only my father behind. Nothing about the emperors before that was mentioned.'
Alice smiled at the ambition her son had.
'If I take his choice away from him, it would probably harm his future.'
'And it's not like it's impossible to start with some light training at 3, it's more related to the willpower. Can he stick to it?'
"Ok, sweety. Then what do you want to train in?"
Lucien had to look thoughtful for a minute at least, looking like he forgot to consider this.
"I want to train in the spear. It's looks awesome, when the guards are training."
Alice looked at him for a moment, much more serious than before, as she didn't think this would be his choice.
'Is this fate, even through the reason seem ridiculous?'
"Are you sure, son? After all changing later would waste all your training and early start.'
"Yes. I'm sure."
Lucien noticed her change, and though that maybe her birth family is somehow related to the spear. And that was right on point.
"Ok, wait a couple of days, I'll get you an instructor from your maternal family."
"We were once pretty famous in the empire. Their family name is DawnStar."
"The founder changed the family name to the cornerstone manual of the family DawnStar."
"It was invented by himself. It also had really basic stages, that can be trained as a child."
"You don't have to understand all I'm saying, take your time learning to control your body with the family manual."
"Ok Mom, I want to learn the DawnStar spear manual."
"Mommy is very happy with your diligence, now look at what time it is, go have your lunch already."
After throwing one last smile at his mother, Lucien left exhausted from all the acting.
'Let's see if it leads to a path or is it just foundation manual.'
'I have no idea if they are going to let me see the whole manual even if it has a part leading to the Spear Path. It's a middle path after all.'
'They might be worried about the reaction of the emperor, as it would look like they are trying to win my favor by giving me precious manual while I'm still young.'
It took a couple of days for the instructor to arrive, as apparently the main branch of the family was not in the capital.
On the third day, Lucien was guided to a private training field by a maid.
There he saw him. He was build like a tank, log like arms, pure blue eyes, blonde hair, on his face there was a straight nose, and symmetric bone structure. He was a pretty handsome bear.
"So you must be the reason I had to come all the way here. I'm Jack DawnStar."
He looked a bit annoyed, by all this. It was a direct order by the family head, so no choice there.
"Lucien BloodMoon."
Lucien didn't feel pretending to be nice to this person judging by his attitude, he clearly just muscle brain. This was clearly an opportunity for his family to rise, by stepping on Luciens shoulders, but this person was annoyed about it.
'He won't do anything to harm me, because he knows the consequences even with that bird brain of his.'
'So I shouldn't be too worried about his training regime. I hope he let's me look at the manual directly.'
"Let's start then, kid."
Lucien just decided to ignore any remarks, just like when a dog barks at you, you don't bark back.
"Sure."
"For now we will focus on the basics, by basics I mean the one mentioned in the DawnStar manual."
"You can read everything up to peak Rank 0, in the manual."
"I will decide when you are done with the basics. As the basics are pretty much the commoner part of the manual, I don't think you would be finished with them anytime soon."
"I will supervise you, so you don't destroy yourself."
"Good enough?"
"When I get to peak Rank 0, can I read more of the manual?"
Lucien decided to test the waters.
"That will be decided by the family head, when you get there."
'Hmmmm, so they are not throwing everything they have in the mix. Wait and see attitude. It's going to be along the lines of "He has enough talent for our support, give him more, but not everything, so he relies on us" or "Just forget it, he won't get anywhere, let him down gently."'
'I should see if the manual is really worth it, if not I'll just pickup some manual from the imperial library, but Alice wouldn't mislead me, she probably already considered this and decided it was still worth the trouble.'
'Now I'm starting to look forward to what it has to offer.'
'If it actually has any hints of leading to the Spear Path, I can always get it by force.'