Once back at the house, we went straight to the back yard. It was time to begin my training. The yard was pretty big, over a couple acres. the grass was healthy and cut short. There were training dummies and other training equipment spread throughout the lawn. My parents stood in the middle of the lawn facing me who was 10 feet away.
Dad: "Okay, before we begin, you said that you had stuff to tell or show us?
Me: "Yeah. Several things. So, last night, before I went to sleep, I went through everything about my ability again. It turned out that my ability gave me a couple different gifts sort of. First I got a skill called mana manipulation. This allows me to create any active skill every 5 levels including 1 while I am at level 1. I am also able to create up to two sub-skills per skill, one very level. The second thing I got was a cultivation technique. With this, i can cultivate any element to strengthen my self as well as use that element. The details of that skill is a bit difficult and long to explain so I will just show it to you."
I pulled up the elemental skill that I mentioned and allowed them to read it's description. 30 seconds later their eye's were wide as saucers. It was a minute before they could utter any sort of respond.
Mom: "You are gonna learn lightning first. No objections!"
Mom glared at my dad, daring him to object. He held up his hands.
Dad: "No objections, however, I do have a question. Can you cultivate the elements from any source or does it have to be from a natural one? The answer to this can affect how you cultivate. For example, your mother and I can only absorb our elements from nature or from natural objects that have our elements in them naturally. We cannot absorb elements from objects that had their elements forcefully imbued into them. If this is the case with this skill, then you will not be able to use her to help cultivate lightning. You'll have to wait until their is a thunderstorm or lightning in the area."
Me: "I d not know. I assume it's the same for me, but I can try. Mom, activate your lightning element. I will try and cultivate it."
She nodded and I sat down, closing my eyes to try and focus on sensing lightning. A second later, she activated her element and had lightning crackling all over her body. I spread my awareness to my surroundings, and looked for the lightning. I saw specks of white for light, red for fire, green for wind, and brown for earth. I even saw other trace amounts of elements, but no golden yellow that represented lightning. I let out a sigh. I guess there were no shortcuts. But, no matter, there were plenty of other elements here right now that I could cultivate. Lightning could wait few days. I opened my eyes and stood up. My mother stopped using her lightning.
Me: "As you thought, It's the same for me. I can only cultivate them from natural sources. It's alright. it will storm sooner or later. I can cultivate it then. There are other elements I can cultivate until then."
Dad: "Okay. It is better we figured that out now instead of wasting our time later. Now, is there anything else? If not, we will get to training."
Me: "There is one other thing. he system gave me daily missions to complete. Each time I complete one, I will get rewarded with increased attributes. If i fail to complete them in 24 hours, my attributes will decrease.
Dad: "Hmm. What missions did you get? What do you have to do?"
Instead of reading them out to him, I just pulled up the missions and showed it to him.
Daily Mission I:
1. Complete 10 pushups
2. Complete 1 minute of planks
3. Run 1 mile
Reward: +1 Strength, Stamina, and Agility
Note: completing extra of each exercise will increase reward by a certain amount.
Dad was silent for a bit after reading it. He rubbed his chin thinking before speaking.
Dad: "Those mission requirements are a bit low for my taste. Hmm. You will twice that amount at the minimum everyday. I do not want you slacking. After completing those, you will undergo combat and technique training with me and then your mother for a half hour each. After that, you will cultivate for an hour your self to work on your elements. During that time cultivate as much as you can. We will do this every other day. In between those days, we will go to F-rank dungeons so you can put our training to use and gain real experience and so you can level up. we will do this for a month or until we feel that you are safe enough to go into dungeons yourself or with another party other than us. If we feel that you are slacking or not good enough, we will increase the training intensity. Do you understand?"
I nodded and he grinned.
Dad: "Good. Now get started on those missions. Remember, do at least twice the required amount. You will have two hours. If you have not completed them within that time, I will increase the requirement again to three time the amount for a week. Go!"
I immediately got started. I took off and started running around the edge of the yard. I already figured out how I was going to do them. I would run until I got tired, then do push ups and planks. I would repeat until done. I managed to complete just over a mile in a bit less than 8 minutes. I stopped took a coupe breaths and worked on the push ups and planks. I got the pushups done easily as well as the planks. I got up, adjusted my breathing and started running again. By the time I ran out of breath I ran for over 2.1 miles. With that my mission my dad gave me was done. However I was not satisfied, so I repeated this process until 2 hours was almost up. at that time I stopped and looked at the mission screen.
Daily mission I: Complete
1. Complete 10 pushups (80)
2. Complete 1 minute of planks (8)
3. Run 1 mile (10.3)
Reward: +4 Strength, stamina, +5 agility
Satisfied with the results I went back to my parents who were watching.
Dad: "Good, you went above and beyond my requirements. If you had just done the bare minimum I would have increased the training even more. Now, time to learn from us. I am first. This way."
I followed him to an area where there were training dummies lined up in a row. For te next half hour, he went over how to punch and kick correctly, as well as how to block. The last 10 minutes was us sparring. He thoroughly beat my ass of course. next, I trained with my mother. She went over how to read an opponents moves and how to avoid an attack with the least amount of energy. Same as the last 10 minutes with dad, we sparred, with her attacking and me trying to evade. I got hit every time. They both also showed me some of their skills so that I could draw inspiration from it when I created my skills. That was fine, I just started today. I will get better. By the time training was over for the day, I was thoroughly exhausted.
Dad: "OK. Nice job. Tonight before sleep, tomorrow before we leave, cultivate for an hour, as well as try and come up with a skill so you can fight a bit better during the dungeon run. But for now, we eat!"