We made it halfway to the palace before our legs started shivering.
We made it half a foot more before our legs started violently shivering.
After that... Well, there is no after that.
Because we didn't get to move an inch.
An inch under our power, that is. All because of the aura.
What aura, you might ask?
Why the aura that the very angry-looking man with long hair tied up in a bun who had snatched us up and was currently moving like a literal hurricane into the palace grounds was exuding.
He didn't stop until he reached a small field that was deserted. A field that made Alessia's face, which was already pale, even paler.
Thud.
Dropped like an insignificant sack of potatoes with no dignity, we both kissed the ground hard.
We didn't make a sound, though.
This was the first time I had seen the man so angry.
Normally, he looked like a scholar - hair pinned up, fair countenance unmarred by any facial hair, and curved eyebrows and eyes hinting at humor.
Right now, humor was the last thing that you would associate with him.
For Sir Leonidas was furious.
Meekly, we both stared at our feet
Time passed agonizingly
I darted a look at the man, only to be petrified when I saw his eyes were but an inch away from my own.
I almost jumped back instantly, but my iron will held me to the spot.
Yes, definitely my iron will.
Nothing to do with my shaking legs that were threatening to clench together underneath that sharp gaze.
His lips moved and dazedly, after a minute, I understood what he had spat out.
Because he said "good."
I blinked twice to make sure that I wasn't dreaming, but no; the word was still floating in my head.
"Good."
"As for you Alessia," He continued, "we shall work extra hard the next few days, hmm?."
Shuddering, she said, "Yes Teacher."
Then he strode out of the door and vanished out of sight.
Bewildered - I looked at her, only to see her shaking her head urgently as though to say "Stay Put!"
So I stood. I stood till my vision was spotted, and the walls seemed to be twisting and weaving.
We stood there from morning till night.
Then from night to... whatever god-forsaken time that it was when Sir Leonidas came walking back with his hands clasped behind his back.
"Good."
I heard that word again.
It felt good to hear it.
"Good," he repeated.
"Now Alessia, since you're the senior one - why don't you explain to your fellow disciple what went wrong today."
I gaped at the two. Since when did I become a fellow disciple and what did that even mean?
Unfortunately, that question was not meant to be answered as Sia launched into speech almost instantly, despite sounding so parched that even sandpaper would have cheered in appreciation.
"I was agitated. I lost my cool and fought with emotions, not calmness. I overextended multiple times and showed many openings, such as the beginning where I allowed myself to be surrounded."
"And?"
"And I... I gave up," she said dejectedly
Looking at her piercingly, Leonidas said carefully and softly, "I know why you gave up. But don't give up again. You have many reasons why not to and they have just been reaffirmed today, haven't they?"
Blushing, she looked down and nodded.
Following the conversation intelligently, I looked at both of them before nodding my head and saying, "I'm utterly lost right now."
Tilting his head to look at the young befuddled Faustus, Leonidas unclasped his hands and raised his index finger on one hand.
"You have one minute. Ask what you want."
"Why did Alessia lose? She's a squire, Harold is a page, and his goons aren't even pages!"
"Why did Alessia not use her sword?"
"Why did Alessia get hurt? She's awakened and obviously better than Harold!"
"Why are emotions bad? I beat them all because I was angry, right?"
Sucking a deep breath in, I patted my chest somewhat dis-satisfied that my breath had failed me, and then opened my mouth again to fire off a few more questions, only for Leonidas to hold up his palm as if to say "stop, stop."
Obediently falling silent, I waited for him to speak.
Leonidas took a few moments to collect himself before speaking in a slow, measured voice.
"First. Never look down on your opponents. Even a child like you has a chance of beating me. Do you believe that young Faustus?"
"No," I bluntly replied, "because you're a gold-ranked knight and I'm not even awakened."
Wryly smiling, Leonidas spoke, "I am made of flesh and bones just like you, you know. If you put a blade in me, I will bleed as easily as you would."
"But you have your gold-ranked powers! The blade wouldn't hit you in the first place," I argued.
Looking at me solemnly, he said "I am going to touch your right hand, try stopping me."
Warily nodding, I gave him the go-ahead.
He reached out at lightning speed and touched my left hand before I could even raise it to block it.
I gasped at his speed before realizing that he had gotten my hands confused.
Gleefully, I was going to point it out, but yet again, he beat me to the punch.
"Your defenses were concentrated on your right hand, yet you failed to guard it. But I touched your left hand, which was completely defenseless. If this was a battle, then that touch on your right hand was a feint and the genuine attack was on your left hand all along. Do you understand?"
Crestfallen, I nodded.
"Now, even if you saw through my feint and tried to defend your left hand. Do you think you'll be able to block it? Even if you could match my speed?"
"I guess not. I'll be slower than you since you started first. I can only defend if I am faster than you, right?"
Approvingly, he nodded his head in affirmation.
"You are as smart as Alessia said. You are right. If you were equal to me in speed, you could not defend no matter what you did."
"Now another question for you."
"What is warforce?"
"Warforce is the power in our bloodline that is activated by circulating it in certain routes that trigger the potential buried inside us for a brief period," I replied.
"Correct. A textbook definition. Tell me, what's the most important thing in that definition?" Leonidas asked, with a serious look on his face.
"The routes of circulation. The more complex, the better the manual is and the better the quality and quantity of the warforce generated," I said, without hesitation.
"Wrong!"
"The most important thing is not the routes of circulation but…," He paused, and then heavily said, "Circulation itself!"
"If your circulation is faster, the warforce is generated faster! Speed means that your chances of defending your left hand are suddenly higher than before because you have the chance of exceeding my speed by redirecting the warforce circulation to your left hand!"
"Speed beats everything. Speed is supreme!"
"Drill that into your head and if you ever forget it, I will remind you in the most brutal manner possible," Leonidas proclaimed, with a severe look on his face.
Gulping, I still asked, "But you're still a gold-ranked knight!"
"Exactly because I am a gold-ranked knight - I am more at a disadvantage than you." He paused - before continuing to say - "If I was an ordinary man, that is."
Shaking his head, He relaxed himself before gesturing the two of us to sit down on the ground.
Gratefully collapsing ungracefully to the ground, I let out a groan of satisfaction.
Indulging in the feeling for a long minute, I finally asked him what he meant by his last statement.
Staring at me solemnly, He said, "These are secrets that are not told to anyone before they reach knighthood. But you deserve a right to know why and don't ask me why you deserve it - I won't answer it right now,"
"A knight is thought to cover himself entirely with his warforce, both externally and internally when he goes into a combat stance."
"But if you think of warforce as a suit of armor and have an understanding of how cumbersome it is to wear armor, then you'll understand that using warforce has a delay."
"The delay is relatively small at lower ranks and stars. That is because your circulation route is shallow and pitifully few in the number of nodes. This means you can direct your warforce to only a few major areas and the circulation route is like a highway! It is like putting on one piece of armor only! Which means you can put it on quick."
"Once you reach gold rank though, your circulation routes are not dependent on only highways! Instead, you will use the countless tiny ancillary routes in addition to the highways."
"Thus, the difficulty increases tenfold! Along with that, you need to make the best decisions at every moment since one's warforce is limited! But the most important part is that even if I could use those routes, it means nothing if I can't even circulate my warforce. There are many other reasons too."
"But those are for later."
"Alessia told us the reasons she lost against that boy and his friends. Do you agree with her?"
Frowning, I nodded before shaking my head.
"According to what you said, Alessia is just at the awakened rank. So she should have had an easier time to fight Harold off, right?"
Smashing a fist into my palm, I exclaimed.
"Unless her emotions disturbed her circulation path!"
A rare look of gratification appeared on Leonidas' face.
"Indeed! Because her circulation was interrupted, she was no better than an ordinary person."
Pondering, I asked doubtfully, "I understand that now, but she should still have been able to put up a good fight, even if her circulation was interrupted. But they took her out in the first minute…"
Shooting an apologetic look at Alessia, who was wincing at the remark, I continued, "You said it was because of her emotions and because she gave up."
"So that means there's a relation between warforce and emotions, but what is that relation teacher?"
Smiling delightfully at the usage of the word teacher, my teacher, Sir Leonidas, leaned forward and raised one finger and said one word, "enhancement"
"Enhancement?"
"Look back at your fight. What drove you?"
".... Anger. Lots of anger that turned into rage."
"Exactly. That anger unleashed the power of your warforce."
"Wait, does that mean I've awakened?" I said, jumping up excitedly.
"Mwahahaha, I knew it. I am a super genius, just like you said, Sia. Hahahahahahahahaha."
"No, you're not awakened," said Leonidas while stroking his chin.
"Hahahahaha- hmmm, say what teacher?" I asked, bulging my eyes at him.
"You are not awakened."
Furiously digging my ears, I asked him to repeat what he said.
"You are not awakened."
Collapsing like my spine had been removed, I flopped onto the ground and stared at the dirty black ceiling filled with scratches.
I should have known.
There's no way something like that could have happened to me.
I raised my hand towards the ceiling as if to grab it in one hand when Leonidas continued to say, "You are not awakened but you could trigger warforce. That makes you unique or at the very least, I believe you are one of a handful in the whole of the Kingdom of Leon."
I sat up straight again.
"You mean to say?"
"Yes. This is the reason I told you all the information that I did."
Getting up himself, Leonidas began pacing around before turning around and shooting a question.
"Why do we awaken our warforce at 10?"
Waving his hand, he answered his own question. "It's because by 10 our body has mostly matured. We are long-lived, us Proteans, but short-lived too. We were born to war, and that's why our potential power is called as warforce."
"In ancient times, we lived in a time of great wars. Wars which led to the great collapse. After the great collapse, our warforce was weak, but the beasts that roamed the land were still many - whether they be human-shaped or actual beasts. But we fought!"
Proudly, Leonidas stood ramrod straight and stared at us.
"We fought, and we survived. We fought, and we grew. Our lands stretched far and wide. Other races faded into oblivion, but we prospered!"
"The foundation of our victories is warforce but our understanding of it is pitifully less."
"One thing we understand though is the sooner the warforce awakens, the greater the potential."
Bitterly, I looked at my feet. "That means…"
Cutting me off, He continued, "But what no one knows is that sometimes, later the warforce awakens, the more explosive it is. The more powerful the warrior is."
"But those warriors... They often find it much harder to train because their warforce is more explosive."
"And I am one of those people," Leonidas said softly, staring at his hands.
"Teacher?"
"I am one of them and I am a gold-ranked Knight."
Even softer than before, "And one day, I will be a weaponmaster," he said, as he clenched his fists.
I felt my blood boil. Jumping up with Alessia, both of us shouted out, "You definitely will, teacher!"
Looking at me and Alessia with fire burning in his eyes, Leonidas said resolutely, "I will, but I believe you will surpass me. Weaponmaster is too low for you two to set as your target."
"Teacher?"
"I want you both to aim for becoming a wargod." He said, saying each word at a time.
We sucked in our breath. "A wargod."
"Yes, a wargod!"
Alessia and I looked at each other before nodding and turning to face Leonidas and knelt heavily on the ground.
"Yes, Teacher! Please guide us!"
Smiling, Leonidas Raised us up only to almost fall himself when I scratched my head and asked him, "I understand everything you said teacher and I get that I'm unique but what's the guarantee that I won't awaken when I'm 10?"
Coughing profusely, Leonidas responded with a red face, "I have no guarantee."
"Huh… You must be joking, right Teacher?"
Looking me in the eye, He shook his head, "I'm serious. I have no guarantee at all."
"Then what makes you think I can be a wargod teacher?'' I cried out.
He looked at me seriously and said, "It's because you could use warforce without awakening."
"But how do you know I haven't awakened?"
"When I touched your left hand, I suppressed my abilities to that of the awakened rank. Even if you were tired, you would still have been able to move slightly because awakening fortifies our body significantly once we awaken."
"Thus, I can conclude that you haven't awakened."
Speechless, I looked at him.
Serenely, he looked back and said, "Do you still want to train under me?"
"Well," I scratched my head and said, "I…"
"Too late. You've already called me Teacher. You are now my second disciple!" moving like a gust of wind, he rushed through the door and left behind the last message, "Meet me here at 04:00 a.m today!"
Eyelids twitching violently, I turned around to Alessia and mouthed, "04:00...a.m...today?"
"Today?!"