Two years have passed since Greg's arrival at Dernov's residence. Two years of in-depth studies in the world of magic and hand-to-hand combat. The boy was practically the fifth child of Elluani and Yorvin, the old man then basically considered him his new grandson. The troubled brothers enjoyed the boy's company. Leona was always the person who was most enthusiastic about the presence of her new friend. Wassygot loved teasing his sister by saying she liked Greg, making her always blush and her face go completely red. The Dernov family was not much different from the Hovir family, always with their good humor and family togetherness. Well, except that Greg and his parents are extremely poor and the Dernovs are extremely rich.
The huge mansion had its own training room. Greg and Leona trained intensively every day, afternoon and night. Leona started training magic a year ago when she finally awakened her mana control, which usually occurs during the eight year old mark after a training focused on it. In the girl's view, her best friend was someone beyond her, unreachable. Over the past two years, Gregorios has changed ten professors graduated from the best academies in the kingdom for being so stubborn and persistent in his claims. None of them could stand training someone so young, but as old as they were. One of the teachers even ran out the door screaming that the boy was a demon in disguise, due to his total indiscipline.
Like everyone in the house except Yorvin, Leona controlled the fire elemental magic. When she told Greg, the boy feigned surprise. No matter how hard you look at her, she has a pyromaniac look, which is to be expected.
The old man decided to train the two children himself, his angelic face and kindness were put aside, starting a demon in the shell of an old man who forced them to train at the adult level. This was a clear tease for Greg, who didn't act like an eight year old boy, Leona started to imitate the boy using difficult words from the dictionary, which was definitively not for her. Gregorios wanted to learn the earth elemental magic, but it was incredibly difficult. It didn't help either, the person who trained him only mastered the fire and air spells. The boy was looking for more control over his mana so he could figure out if it was possible for him to use four or more spells. Some people like Leona and her family had very high mana control but stagnated at a point where it was no longer possible to evolve to use a second spell.
When not training as a prisoner on a day of sunbathing, Greg spent the remaining hours before his rest reading. He didn't read ten books, or a hundred, let alone two or three. It was always the same book, a blue one with a shabby cover. It was thick as wood and heavy as a rock. When he first saw the book, he didn't think that everything written there would change his life in an unprecedented way. Notes on different gods the author supposedly had contact with, magical creatures and their strengths and weaknesses, forbidden spells in the realm and how to perform them, spells he had never heard of and probably shouldn't, state secrets kept under lock from the population, forgotten war heroes, and a strong and extensive knowledge of minor spells.
Minor spells. Any type of spell that does not involve elemental spells and their variations. Healing spells, food spells, cloth spells, invisibility spells, strength boosting spells, expansion spells and even draconic spells and much more. There was an entire chapter in the book, over two thousand pages long, devoted exclusively to these spells. Altogether, there were more than eighty thousand pages compressed into a powerful expansion spell that made it appear to be at most six hundred pages long. How did Greg find this out? He simply jumped to the last page in a pile of thousand-year-old yellow paper.
To Greg's surprise, there was a lot more than just six primary elements, or at least the book's author, Pitavius Blake, thought there was more. Gregorios asked Tharmin about the man who replied that he had never heard of anyone by that name in the history of magic. When Greg asked how and where he got that book, the old man simply replied that he only ordered piles of books about magic to fill his shelves and that's probably how that book got there. Sometimes visitors also gave him books as a gift of thanks and courtesy. Once, Tharmin picked up the book to read to himself what was so interesting, since the boy had been reading it for years, only to find an empty book full of scribbles. Greg sensed that this was some kind of magic, whatever it was, as a protective measure to protect all that important content. But why could he, of all people, see all this knowledge clearly?
Fire, air, water, earth, gravity and lightning. These were the six elemental spells described in each of Vigiland books, but for Pitavius there were three more: Light, Dark and Universal. The gods were the living representation of each of the elements. Sayron was the god of fire, Vaygon the god of air, Felvis the god of water, Tophan the god of earth, Lettus the god of gravity and Ariadne the goddess of lightning. All religions in the kingdom were based on some of the gods present in mythologies. But there were three other gods in the wizard's writings, they being Runan the god of light, Eunaty the goddess of darkness and the one of unknown name who created all the gods and everything that existed in the universe, the only being who theoretically used universal magic, able to control everything that existed. In fact, Greg had never heard of any Runan or Eunaty in his father's books. They may be inventions of the author of the book or perhaps they actually exist alongside each of the gods mentioned.
It was too much for Greg's head, which at the moment just wanted to sleep. He put the book under his pillow and curled up on the huge bed, sleeping. The next day, Greg woke up early due to Tharmin's training. They were there to train their mana controls. Mana control has five levels: copper, the lowest of all considered one star, bronze considered two stars, silver considered three stars, gold considered four stars, and platinum considered five stars. Generally single mages were one or two star mages, doubles and triples were two, three and four star mages, and quadruples and enablers were four or five star mages. It wasn't common for a one star mage to become a five star mage, but it wasn't impossible, the most that would happen would be to increase his mana flow and the power of his spell. In Pitavius' book, he said that there were two more levels, reached only by enablers. Diamond considered six stars and emerald considered seven stars.
Mana control is a type of cultivation. You must first relax your muscles and focus on your magical flow. Talking is easy, but practical is harder than it sounds. At Greg and Leona's age, they were able to hit copper without collateral damage with a lot of training. Greg's goal was to become a silver mage at age ten. For that, he would train his body mentally and physically for two entire years, every day with minimal breaks.
Greg was sitting in the training room with his legs crossed and his hands clasped in front of his chest. Like blood, the heart pumps mana through the bodies of living beings, like a third blood vessel filling the interior and exterior of that person or animal, allowing it to use magic. He heard moans of pain beside him that made his head instinctively move to the side without opening his eyes. Leona was also sitting on the floor with her legs crossed and eyes closed, the pain caused by stagnant mana patches on her body gradually lessening as she advanced into her magical control.
The boy began to sweat frantically. Pains started to appear in his shoulders due to the mana having stagnated, but he didn't stop the concentration, his teeth clenched expressed everything he felt at that moment. Pain after pain, he released the flow of mana trapped in his body until he couldn't feel them anymore. He started using Pitavius Blake's hints once more. He needed to feel his heart pounding, think of a small waterfall as if mana was water falling off a cliff of sharp rocks and stay that way for at least another two hours. Greg was so wet with sweat it was like he'd just come out of a shower.
Leona had finished her strenuous training and was dripping salt water, all she wanted at that moment was some cold water to drink for her dry throat. She failed to become a user of copper magic at that time. Her grandfather handed her a small bottle of water which she gripped tightly and drank the liquid like there was no tomorrow. After quenching the overwhelming thirst, she and her grandfather watched as Gregorios still continued to control his mana. The old man was approaching the boy little by little, an hour had already passed, it was too much for someone so young and inexperienced, but suddenly he stopped. If he dared to interrupt the boy, it was certain death, he could feel it. Turns out Greg had a mana stagnation in his heart, it was the last thing he needed to achieve copper mana control.
"80, 84, 87, 89, 90." Greg counted his heartbeats every minute, on average an eight year old had ninety beats per minute, whenever he reached the mark he repeated the count, over and over again. The stagnation was trapped near one of his arteries, he had to be careful or he could die. With extreme concentration, the boy forced all the unblocked mana into the blocked artery and then he felt a twinge in his chest, a pain similar to a heart attack that even his left arm went numb. He finally got it. He became a copper mage.
When Greg opened his eyes, he could feel that he was able to manipulate even more mana in his body. The boy got up completely exhausted and fired a simple variation of Ignis, the distance covered was more than twenty meters. The flames came out with a more reddish color than normal, it was an evolution due to the higher amount of mana. Then Ventus and Aqua, all together, more than a hundred feet apart. He turned to the old man, nodding that he has achieved it. The old man knew and couldn't help but smile. Greg turned his brown eyes to Leona and smiled, giving a high five. The girl did the same and smiled revealing her sharp teeth.
"Amazing! Just wonderful!" The old man said as he clapped. Leona followed him.
"Yeah… yeah…" Greg could barely stand, he was exhausted.
"You better get some rest. We have a lot to do tomorrow. "
"Are we going somewhere, old man?" Greg asked mocking Tharmin.
"You brat… Yeah, we're heading to the capital, forty-five kilometers from here. Now that I remember, you never visited any major city, did you? "
"I never had the opportunity to do that." He said in a nice way.
"It will be good for you to meet new people. See if this time you don't scare people away, you have a talent for that you brat!" Tharmin laughed.
"It's going to be fun, Greg! There are many places you will like to visit!" Leona said with a gleam in her eyes. She was excited about the visit to the capital.
Greg was just interested in buying some materials to train his potion-making skills. A cauldron, some glass jars and herbs was all he wanted. Perhaps something else could caught his eye when he visited the capital.
Gregorios walked to the Dernovs' huge personal sauna and entered the men's side. It was empty, perfect. Greg never liked company when he wanted to rest in the sauna. He looked up at the ornate ceiling, covered in steam. He wondered what kind of person Pitavius Blake was. What kind of mage he was and how he discovered all the things noted in that book. Was his name really Pitavius Blake? Did he really exist in some period of that world? Greg had more questions than answers and he hated suspense.
He left the sauna and dressed, heading to his room. He would have a busy day tomorrow.