"Well that went well for the most part!" Laughed Strom cheerfully as he flicked his sword towards the one lying on the floor beside Kellen.
"How have you gotten that good with a sword at your age? That should be damn near impossible... Well I suppose in your circumstances it might not be..." Muttered Strom as he looked over the kid now with a different light in his eyes, similar to that of a proud older brother.
Kellen clenched his fingers to form a fist and released them multiple times as he slowly felt the extreme shock he had felt coursing through his body finally vanish, and stood up onto his feet.
"How?" Kellen asked as he continued to focus his attention to the sword in Strom's hand.
"Wow! I think I'm even more impressed that you can stand after receiving a shock like that! Most end up passing out or throwing up..." Muttered Strom with even more surprise as he inspected the kid to make sure he hadn't gone crazy or delirious.
"Well that did feel like I got hit with an elephant tranquilizer but how did you do that with your sword? I was watching your sword with my bare eyes the entire time and after thinking about it... There's no way you could have disarmed me with that quick movement... Unless the sword went through mine, but then it would have to be transparent?" Said Kellen questioning as more questions continued to fall out of his mouth the more he thought about the strange collision.
"An elephant? What's that... Anyways your almost correct when you say transparent or even ethereal I suppose. What I used was something we call divinities." Said Strom as the wooden sword's edges flickered in his hands as he waved it about while he spoke.
"I don't understand... What are they?" Questioned Kellen as the more information he received, the more his questions increased.
Strom smiled before creating the usual electricity onto his sword like Kellen had seen before back at the battlefield.
"Divinities are gifts we are either born with or receive from a god. To put it bluntly, they are the special attribute or "magic" some of us possess within ourselves from birth or are earned/gifted. Anyways, this power that I have, as you probably guessed, is of the lightning attribute. However, that doesn't mean all I can do is zap people..." Laughed Strom as he flicked the tip of the sword to point at Kellen's chin again.
This caused Kellen to reflexively put up his guard, since he had already learned there was something wrong with people from this world, and wasn't willing to experience anymore of their sadistic actions.
"So what your saying is we all have special magic powers?" Replied Kellen as he bluntly summed up the information.
"Well... Not everyone has them right from the start... Plus, you need to learn control over them, and once you have the basic control you could be considered a little better than the average soldier. Although, if you wish to be someone who has their name passed down through history, like a legionnaire god, then you must discover the truths of your divinity to progress further.
The original legionnaires have passed down this information to the masses in hope of increasing our nations strength, but if you want to be greater than a regular soldier then the academy is the best option. Which is why we are here today..." Explained Strom as he suddenly rushed forward and attacked Kellen again.
"Wait! You didn't explain how you did that at all! You just changed the subject!" Complained Kellen as he went back to exchanging blades with him.
"Well I did touch on it a little, but the academy can explain it a lot better... So put your focus onto polishing yourself in order to get admittance!"
The blades clashed repeatedly for hours on end with the usual electrical shock ending the many sessions. No matter how he tried to block the strange sword swing that seemed to go straight through his blade, Kellen would still end up getting zapped.
'I don't understand... Is it because of this truth thing with divinities that he mentioned earlier?'
Kellen simply could not grasp the concept as he was repeatedly beaten by the strange power Strom continued to display.
'Hahaha... I like this guy a lot! Are you still sure he's one of those disgusting creations that stupid brat made?' Laughed Osiris while he lounged back in a leather recliner in his mind space and enjoyed the show of his poor inheritor being disciplined.
Kellen could only scoff and frown as he dodged the fierce pattern of electrical strikes arcing towards his body.
'I'm sure your getting a nice laugh out of this bullshit, aren't you! How about instead of being a useless bum and house squatting in my head rent free you help me out a little!' Yelled Kellen internally after getting sick of the repeated shocks.
'Hm... Yes I suppose I could do that but then where will my entertainment come from?' Said Osiris as he smirked and continued to watch the pitiful kid get beaten.
'Stupid... Fucking useless... House squatting god... Of bums...' Mumbled Kellen in frustration as he returned his concentration to the strange ethereal charges of Strom's blade.
Suddenly, before Kellen's blade made contact with his opponent's, he carefully analyzed the changes in the sword and its master.
A strange energetic surge seemed to bubble forth from Strom's whole being before quickly transferring to his sword as if the sword itself held that power originally. This was all accomplished in record time. As if not even in the time span of a person blinking their eyes, faster than light itself, no the same speed of light, the sword and master's energy intertwined, and became one.
This beautiful display of mastery enraptured Kellen and made him lose sight of what was before him. He no longer simply saw a man wielding a sword but the bigger picture behind him.
The looming mountain and cliff he had endlessly scaled during his training appeared in his opponents place. Kellen was lost in this moment as a strange enlightenment overcame him.
Without realizing it, his body seemed to move on its own accord in a natural animation. As if he was still climbing this non-scalable mountain before him.
The two blades collided and rang throughout the training space.
Strom stared in surprise at the two ethereal blades that remained in a deadlock. Neither seeming to budge.
However, Strom knew better. He could feel his electrical energy strangely departing from his sword and disappearing. Almost as if it was being sucked into an endless void. And yet, after closer inspection, he realized that this void seemed to resonated from the kid's sword. It was like a hungry and ravaging beast devouring his energy that would not submit nor back down, but continue to consume.
'What is this unsettling power...' Wondered Strom as he lifted his gaze towards the motionless youth that seemed to be present and yet in a completely different world of his own.
All of a sudden a loud explosion sounded out that shook the whole building followed by frightened screams.
"This..." Muttered Strom anxiously as he quickly sheathed his sword and stared about the room wildly.
The jarring explosion reined Kellen back to his current reality as he thoughtlessly stared at his sword while ignoring the commotion.
"What... What was that?" Said Kellen as his sword's ethereal form quickly returned to normal.
Misinterpreting the kid's meaning, Strom replied, "I'm not sure but it can't be anything good. Let's leave this for now. We gotta go!"
For a moment, Kellen continued to idly stand with the sword in his grasp before tossing it aside and following after the concerned captain.
As Kellen rushed after Strom's silhouette in the streets outside the guild, he noticed the utter change in their appearance.
What used to be a bubbly and flourishing city was now in peril as flames licked away at the surrounding buildings and mothers desperately rushed about to protect their children.
Kellen had not realized the amount of time that had passed while they had been training. Staring above at the dark sky now smothered with smoke, he internally sighed.
'There may never be a time when I can truly rest in this life of mine.'