-Back to Zeref's POV-
"Hey stupid, get up!" I was woken up by a sharp punch to my ribs. My eyes opened straight away and my body writhed in pain. What the hell? I looked to my left, where the cute, little girl was standing next to me, Malia. Her hair was out and her curls were shoulder length with light brown highlights in them. "You changed your hair?" I questioned while sitting up and rubbing the sleepiness out of my eyes.
"You noticed?" she smirked. "I change it a lot. I get bored quickly" she answered. I stared blankly at her.
"Do you want me to use mana next time? Get up before I make you." she spoke sternly.
"Geez man, relax." I immediately got out of bed and rushed for the bathroom, not looking back at the little baby monster still eyeing me down.
I had quickly washed myself and got into a nice attire that was already in my wardrobe when I first arrived, then headed for the dining table.
"Good morning son, how was your sleep?" my mother asked, placing the breakfast on the table, she made sausages. Great!
"Mmh! Yeah it was good to be honest." I replied, sitting down at the table and grabbing a sausage.
"Kiddo, hurry up and eat, today is your big day you're going to meet your masters today and show them your skills, so eat up, I don't want any excuses." Gramps spoke, stuffing his mouth. I simply nodded at him and continued to eat.
We had finished eating and I followed the old man outside to the field, to be welcomed by a plain green field, with 3 people, roughly in their mid 30's to 40's standing side by side. Were they my masters?
The male furthest to the right looked average except the bags around his eyes stood out so much, it was as if he hadn't slept for days, his hair was messy and long. He had a hunched posture and wore an ice white coat, with white fur protruding out around the tips.
The person next in line was surprisingly a woman, except she had her eyes closed, she had golden yellow hair and a beautiful white face. She carried a long sword on her waist and was decked out in elegantly designed silver armour, from neck all the way down to her toes; she was protected by armour.
Finally the man furthest to the left, was that man who critiqued me at the party; his head was turned elsewhere, not glancing at me, arms crossed, this man looked like a noble, wearing a maroon coated armour set, matching perfectly with his short red hair and beard. I could tell he was powerful.
"Okay kiddo, these are your masters that will be helping me to train you, but before we begin let's get all the formalities out of the way. That ignorant man on the left is Leywin Stronghold, he specialises in fire magic." Leywin nodded at me, his eyebrows tightened into a worn out frown.
"The beautiful woman in the middle is Elena, she specialises in hand to hand combat, even though she can't use magic, be wary of her, she's already surpassed the regular human by far, she'll cut your head off before you can even blink." grandpa continued.
Elena peered down at me. Her eyes filled with curiosity, she spoke soothingly "Hello child." she shook my hand.
"The skinny man on the right is Xanxus, he specialises in ice magic and assassination. So be a bit careful." gramps chuckled and slapped my shoulder with his heavy hands playfully.
"SKINNY?!" Xanxus gasped in disbelief and Elena chuckled at his reaction.
"Xanxus the shrimp." she laughed.
"And finally you have me, I specialise in gravity magic, Earth Magic and Beast magic. Now that that's done, follow Miss Elena, she will determine what elements you have an affinity to."
"Okay," I replied, still trying to take in all the information. I did as the old man said and followed Elena, the other three men followed silently behind me. After walking straight on for 5 minutes, we were already far away from our house, then she clicked her fingers and a small cottage appeared. I thought she couldn't do magic.
I shrugged and followed her inside. The interior was extremely simple with only a small kitchen to the right and a bed to the left, in the middle was a round table with 6 seats with a large crystal orb of some sort in the middle of it.
"Sit." she ordered in a subtle voice, sitting down herself. We all copied her and sat down.
"Listen Zeref, I want you to input as much mana into this orb as possible. Is that fine?" Elena asked facing her head towards me, her eyes still closed.
"Yeah sure." I replied, as she shoved the orb towards me. My body was still small compared to theirs so my chest was still at the table's height. I was probably about 4ft 2. I did as she ordered and I placed both my hands on the orb and closed my eyes concentrating.
Nothing happened for a while until my mana started getting drained at an alarming rate. What was this thing, all my mana was being pulled out of me. A sweat fell down my face as I struggled to control my mana output. I could feel the adult's gaze on me as I struggled, but I couldn't see their reactions. There was no time for that.
[MP is being lost at an alarming rate, MP loss will be capped at 10/100]
That was good, at least my Mana wouldn't be completely drained. After about 20 seconds my mana had plummeted to 10, and the feeling of my soul being sucked out of me retracted from my body. I removed my hands from the weird orb and opened my eyes, to see all adults looking at me wide eyed. What happened? I then looked at the orb. It was shaking. Did that mean something bad?
Then suddenly, 4 spheres popped up on top of the crystal ball, each with their own colour. One was dark blue, with bolts of lightning sparking out of it, the next was completely engulfed by flames, the third was frozen by ice and the last one was purple, but emitted a powerful feeling. Did these represent the elements that I had an affinity for? Actually this came up in my normal data, in my affinity/ perks section.
"Unbelievable! That thing is broken. How can he have 4 elements! That's absurd. What's the meaning of this. Who is this boy?! I demand an answer now." the red headed man got up and slammed his large fists on the table. I was clearly an anomaly by the looks of it.
"I'm just as shocked as you are, stop throwing a fit. I knew he would wield the lightning element but having 3 other rare elements, I've never heard of something like this either." gramps responded to the shocked and enraged man, "And lower your voice, lately I think you've forgotten who I am." Gramps widened his eyes and a sharp pressure affected the atmosphere. Was he using his gravity magic? The red headed man fell to his knees under the great pressure. Cool!
"Okay Zeref that's enough, I don't think we were gathered here by you to get a beating, let's move on to the next stage of the boy's tests." Elena insisted, "Follow me boy, we will now test your combat prowess at this moment." She already started to head out and the assassin followed, then later on gramps and the red headed man also following behind. Again we were out on the field.
"For the next stage, who wants to spar with the boy?" Gramps spoke questioning the group. I stood nervously, I had to fight one of these monsters.
The hunched assassin raised his hand, Oh no! I'm definitely dying today.
"I don't think I can spar the kid, I'd end up killing him and i don't want that" the hunched assassin spoke. Thank god!
Then the red headed man spoke, "I wanna test this boy out and see why you rate him so highly."
"Mmh," Gramps stroked his beard in thought, "Okay go ahead, just don't kill the boy or go too far, he's still only 4." he warned.
Gramps made both of us face each other at 3 metres from each other. My foe got into his fighting position, he stood normally except raising both his hands face up, Is he a caster? A caster was a magician who only relied on mana spells, while I was both a caster and a striker, a striker being a magician using mana to augment their bodies for close combat.
I copied his gesture and got into my kickboxing stance and activated my Lightning aura. That buzzing feeling of electricity flowing through my body rushed through my veins and arteries. My walnut hair stood up due to the electricity. I cracked my knuckles and neck to loosen up. Now I am ready.
Just before the fight, a notification popped up in front of me.
[Lightning aura has failed to cause intimidation, mana from the atmosphere is being absorbed]
I smirked. I forgot about what grandpa had told me. Mana is like oxygen. It's everywhere: in the air, in the water, in the plants but it is rare for people to be able to absorb it while moving.
"Now that both fighters are ready, the fight will now commence, you have exactly 5 minutes till the fight will be halted, 3... 2...1, Begin!" Gramps shouted.
Immediately the caster in front of me conjured two fireballs the size of boulders, in each palm and threw them at me like dodgeballs. I infused lightning mana into the sole of my feet and sprinted a circle around him, the fireballs were too slow. I knew he was just testing me out, so I had to keep my guard up. I still didn't have any offensive spells, which annoyed me.
I engulfed my fist in lightning mana, and covered the short distance between me and the red headed man in 2 steps, I jumped up and threw a straight punch to the man's jaw.
His body tumbled backwards under the force, he then wiped the blood off his mouth and conjured two flame spears, I knew he would throw them, so instinctively I maneuvered around him throwing a Brazilian kick to his head, making his centre of gravity shift the left.
Before he turned around to see what hit him I got him into a choke hold with my skinny arms and wrapped both my legs around his torso.
I infused more Mana into my arms to prevent him trying to get loose from my grip. He grabbed my skinny arms in an attempt to break free, but I tightened my grip instead. He started to choke, this was good, I needed him to tap out. My mana wasn't going to keep up.
[MP levels have reached 52/100]
"Now I'm going to get a bit more serious," the red headed man croaked. A weird burning sensation was enveloping my body. Was it me or one of his spells? The burning was becoming more intense.
"I suggest you let go before I stop being nice and burn you to ashes." he spoke calmly. The atmosphere changed, I quickly withdrew my arms and hopped back a couple metres backwards to safety.
"2 minutes left." Gramps spoke.
"Boy how about we finish this?" the red headed man spoke for the first time smiling, "Come at me with your strongest spell."
What spell! I had no offensive spells. Maybe I could make one. That reminded me, in my past life I had a spell which shaped like a spear around my hand, I used it to concentrate damage to a small surface area.
This technique was good against foes with a strong defence, as it pierced defence well. Something like that could really help right now. I knew my normal punches or kicks wouldn't do any damage to his body being protected by flames.
Well, let's give it a shot.
I started by condensing the mana around me into my hand, I kept my hands together like a spear, after a couple seconds the lightning mana started to cackle and vibrate, it still wasn't enough. My concentration faltered as I stopped imagining the imagery of my past wind syphoned spear. I had to try again.
"You seem like you're struggling boy," the red headed man spoke, condensing his fireball in his palm. It kind of looked like an attack from a show I used to watch in my old life.
This time I'd get it right, I had a total of 25 years of experience, I can do this! Again I imagined a lightning spear being wrapped around my palm in lightning mana. It was working! The lightning mana was slowly being formed into a blade shaping round the tips of my fingers. I had used more than half of my MP already. I glanced at my MP, it was at 24/100. Come on, I'm so close!
[Congratulations!]
[You have discovered a new skill! What would you like to name it?]
Mmh. How about 'Indra's Spear'.
[New skill: Indra's Spear (Level 1)]
Now I am ready! Looking at my eyes filled with satisfaction, the red headed man charged at me, I also charged bracing my right hand with my left to make sure I could pierce through his flame armour with precision, he thrusted his arm, with the condensed fireball straight towards my chest, I dodged under and like an uppercut, I struck my hand engulfed by lightning towards his flame armour.
I could see another shadow above my head; what the hell?! I looked up instinctively and took a short glimpse before my lightning reflexes helped me to dodge the second red headed man's fist. There were two of them? How? Just before I could resume attacking, I was stopped. The hunched assassin stood in front of me facing the two red headed men.
"Lower your killing intent. I thought you were told not to hurt the boy, thank god he has amazing combat prowess otherwise he'd be dead and you know the repercussions right if he actually did die; I'd wipe your whole bloodline out for hurting my student." he spoke coldly, still hunched. Who was this guy? Another important person?
"My apologies, I forgot I was fighting a mere kid, I should've held back sir and Zeref, I apologise to you too." The red headed man bowed in distaste and the two red headed men became one again. So the other guy was a clone? I could tell the red headed man was definitely a noble, his arrogance always bothered me, but that just meant my masters were of a higher calibre than him.
Now both Elena and gramps walked up to me and patted me on the back.
"Good job kiddo! That skill looked amazing! You never used that on me, how come?" gramps chuckled.
"I created the skill just now." I replied.
"Wait what did he just say? He created a skill! Even seasoned masters find it hard to -"the red headed man was cut off.
"Mmh, I like you kid, Ima make a fine assassin out of you." the hunched assassin spoke up.
"Assassin!? I'm going to make him a well respected soldier." Miss Elena shot back and the two started to argue. It was actually amusing to watch.
"Pfft! A soldier?! That's way below his true potential!"
"Yeah well it's better than being an assassin. Running around like a bimbo in a dark suit and nun chucks." Miss Elena retorted.
The hunched assassin's face twisted into a growl. "For the last time! We don't do that! Besides, you could catch me wearing a dress before I ever use nun chucks! Flipping soldiers… they can kiss my a-"
I laughed as Miss Elena towered over Xanxus. "You better not say it or i will snatch off the tiny patch of hair you have left and bury it next to your old wife Martha." she stuck her index finger in his face. Everyone's mouth dropped including Xanxus.
Miss Elena smirked and the man was about to slap her right in the face before she held his shoulders and looked down at him. "Shh, sh. Hold still. I'm trying to imagine you with personality." she said.
"Oh go kill yourself, you flat board." he rolled his eyes.
"Keep rolling your eyes. You might find a brain back there. Oh and FYI, if I wanted to kill myself, I'd climb up your ego and jump down to your IQ level. It has a 100% success rate." she plastered a forced smile onto her lips, knowing she won.
"B*tch-" he grabbed her hair and yanked her head down to his eye level.
"Arrrrghhhh" she slapped his nearly bald head while kicking her feet back like a bull.
"Stoppp-ah! Hey- you cu--!" They were both tangled in each other's fists and I couldn't contain my laugh. They seemed so calm and composed when we first met. I looked around to see everyone else's reactions but they seemed unbothered.
Instead, they were ignoring them. I guess their fighting was a normal thing around here. That was a surprise, they looked so professional and mature when I first met them.
"Okay kiddo, well done for passing this test, now we move on to the next stage. Let's go home first." Gramps spoke putting his arm on my shoulder. What was this next stage? To be honest I was drained of MP and my stamina was almost done too, whatever the next stage it better be an aptitude test.
We arrived home to be welcomed by the joyous smell of roast beef, grilled chicken, steak, Rice, a feast, in simple terms!
"Rosaline, what's the occasion?" Gramps asked.
"Nothing father, it's just that it was Zeref's first day of his training and I wanted to throw a big feast for him, off course I won't always do this." she replied, sweetly smiling at me.
"Thank you mum!" I hugged her tightly, being grateful for being blessed with the experience of knowing having a mother.
We all sat down including my masters and we all feasted. I scanned around for Malia but she was nowhere to be seen; I decided not to ask as it would come out as weird.
The feast finished and after we all helped clean up, we sat around the dining table to carry on with the next test. What could it be?
"Listen Zeref, this will be your final test, okay. This test is more of an academic test to determine how intelligent you are academically," gramps spoke, then stopped to whisper in my ear," They don't know your real mental age but I do, so I made up some story so by acing this test, you could skip going to school at the age of 5 and join school when you're 11."
That was a nice gesture from him, I wouldn't have to suffer in a primary school, learning what shapes are. In my old life I was fairly smart, I had lots of knowledge in physics, maths and other topics. Due to boredom I was cooped up in my library when I was free. How hard could their questions be?
Gramps handed me three test papers, all of them faced upside down so the back was facing towards me.
"On the count of three, you can turn your papers round and answer the questions, you will have 2.5 hours to finish the papers ," Gramps spoke, I nodded showing my comprehension.
"3...2...1... You may begin."
When was the last time I was actually in an exam? This whole event amused me. I turned around all the papers and glanced at the names of the papers. There was a problem…
I couldn't read! The letters and words were in a completely different language to my old world! Before the texts would just translate themselves automatically because of the system, but why when I'm in the middle of a test, it doesn't! How helpful!
Maybe the system was joking with me. How was I meant to pass these tests if I couldn't read what the questions were. My face went pale as I realised I'd have to go to a primary school to learn about shapes with little kids. I will never let that happen!
Then an idea popped into my head. What if I cast my inspection skill? Would it translate the letters? I cast my inspection skill and the hue of my eyes changed to blue once again.
[You have activated Inspect, you will lose 1 MP every 5 seconds]
Then another notification popped into view after this one.
[You have encountered a foreign language. Do you want to translate it?]
[Yes/ No]
Thank God! This system was going to save me but with a cost, I chose 'yes' and all the words got translated, I grabbed the language paper first and started flying through the questions before my 8 minutes and 20 seconds of my inspecting skill was over. Surprisingly the questions were easy and I had already finished a 1/3rd of the test paper. 2 minutes went by.
I didn't really worry about the 2 maths papers as they were just normal numeracy questions that I could understand. Thank god! I reached the last page and was met with horror. I had to write a 20 mark essay. What the f*ck!
I scratched my head, how was I meant to answer this? I should be able to still pass this test anyways without the essay. I folded the test paper and moved it to the side, I hated language exams.
I grabbed the numeracy paper nearest to me and opened up the first page. Now this was the language I was used to. These questions were easier than breathing. I flew through the questions and the first paper was done.
It consisted of simple questions such as word problems, addition and subtraction etc. The second paper was a bit different, it had more complex questions probably at my world's high school level questions. Were they preparing for me to skip high school too?
Anyhow, I was now done and I had only used 30 min of my 2h 30minutes. I handed my papers to Gramps.
"You only spent 30 minutes. How many questions did you skip?" He asked, stroking his grey beard.
"Only the essay in the language paper, everything else I answered." I replied truthfully.
"Okay then let me mark his papers now, our little game here is also over." Miss Elena got up from the sofa and I could see the hunched assassin cursing to himself, as he had just lost to her in a chess game for the fifth time.
Gramps handed Miss Elena the papers and just then someone knocked at the door. Who could it be at this time in the afternoon? Everyone ignored it and sat down at the sofas. Gramps hinted for me to go answer it. I approached the door and twisted the handle, then pulled it open. To my surprise it was Malia.
"Hey! How's everything?!" She spoke in glee as she held out her hands to give me a hug. I gave her a plain glare and the room fell silent. Miss Elena chuckled.
"What the hell! That wasn't very nice." she swung her hands back to her sides. Damn! Had she grown?! She was at least a head taller than me, how? I literally just realised and her aura, it was different, had she been training?
"So what brings you here, I thought you had to go to school and learn about your shapes." I spoke, giving her a mocking smile.
"You shut up, okay! It wasn't my choice anyways, I was forced to go. All nobles have to go, plus my brother's been training with me in the chrono chamber. Do you wanna spar?" She spoke hastily.
Before I could ask her any questions or even reply, she grabbed my hand and yanked me outside into the green field. It hadn't even been 5 minutes and this girl was doing whatever she wanted.
"Guess, I can be the referee of this sparring match, since I have nothing to do anyways." The hunched assassin spoke, following us both outside with Gramps by his side, intrigued to watch.
"The rules are as follows, the match will last 5 minutes, the match will stop when one of you surrenders or when one of you is unable to fight any longer. Kids I want a clean fight, I will step in if there's something wrong. Any questions?"
"No." Malia and I replied in unison. I knew there was no going back now. This whole day was full of sparring and tests, I didn't even know if I had the energy to fight her.
"I am so gonna get back at you for dodging me." Malia smirked. Her facial expression sent chills down my back.
"You scare me." I cringed.
"Ready to die?" she replied cockily.
"Okay, Begin!" The hunched assassin declared raising his arm.