Liam breathed heavily as he ran, nearly falling when he looked behind. He stopped to rest, grabbing his knees as he panted, trying to get his breathing under control.
"When I said I wanted to get better, this was not what I had in mind." He mumbled as he once again started running towards his destination. The scene kinda reminded him of a horror movie he saw, where the girl was running from the ghost in the forest.
-------------
This all started when Liam who was beside himself with joy after shifting was reminded by Demyx that he had a big mission and should start training to get stronger. If he doesn't want to get killed later due to being weak. Liam remembered what happened in the book and freaked out a little. So, he went to Lucien asking him to train him. Lucien was known as the best teacher in the Clan, also as the devil but Lucien unfortunately missed that.
Lucien was a little surprised at first but quickly agreed. And that's why Liam was now running like his life was on the line in the middle of a forest.
Lucien was like devil instructor. It's been a month since they started training and Liam was tired as hell. Morning they had breakfast, exercised then he was thrown into this simulation machine by Lucien. It simulated different situations and Liam was asked to handle them.
If he failed, Lucien would make him wear a big heavy vest and run around the clan until Lucien was satisfied. It might sound easy but Lucien was never satisfied, Ethan had to come and stop him.
Ethan did try to stop them from doing this in the first place but Liam told him no I can do this. He had fun the month after he came here but he wasn't here to have fun. This was what he had wanted for himself so, he should get serious. Besides he could see that the training was taking effect. He could tell he was getting better.
Anyways that's how it all started, right now Liam was running from some assassins. Sounds crazy right. That's what he thought, he could have never imagined that there would be a day when he would run from literal assassin. Maybe not literal since they were just a simulation?
Liam slowed down as he glanced behind himself then hid beside a tree. A man covered in black appeared before him, he was standing right where Liam was a second ago. As the man tried to find him, a white fog appeared in the surroundings, making it impossible for people to see.
Liam came out, he walked easily like the fog wasn't there stopping people from looking. If someone were to look at his feet they would realize they weren't touching the ground, he was floating. He appeared soundlessly behind the assassin. The man turned around but there was nothing behind him. Realizing that something was wrong he tried to leave the fog but fainted before he could.
"The third one today, I'm getting really good huh."
Liam appeared again as the fog disappeared. The corpse was gone, they disappeared from the simulation after dying. These were the skills Liam was able to use currently. Floating, Fog Manipulation and a little bit of Air Manipulation. Fog manipulation was considered weak by other creatures because while it was amazing for hiding and stealth, it didn't have any attack power.
Liam however decided to experiment with it. Fog is made of water vapors so, what he is technically manipulating is water. He thought if he could turn water into fog what about other type of liquids? What if he turns poison into poisonous fog and controls it. Unfortunately turning poison into fog took much more effort so, right now Liam was only able to turn a little bit into fog and then control it in front of someone's nose and mouth to poison them.
He couldn't be too far away to do that requiring him to be close to the person he attacks, but it was only till he grew up. His control would get better and he would be able to do a lot more. This way of thinking meant that he could control the water element too. He wasn't as good as the water sorcerers who could do anything with water but it was still another element he was somewhat able to control.
Which made him think whether water sorcerers were able to make fog. He asked Lucien who told him that they should be however no one thought like him and tried to do it. And even if they could do it, like Liam was way worse then a water sorcerer at controlling water they would be the same. They might be able to make fog but they wouldn't be able to see in it and would be just as restricted as the opponent. And if the opponent was a dragon of Liam's race, it would be like they were serving themselves on a platter.
Liam was actually really pleased with how he was doing. His skills made him mostly a long range attacker, but because he was a dragon he was a natural at close combat. He could turn anywhere on his body he wanted to dragon scales. Giving him strong defense and he should be able to turn his hands into claws allowing him to attack. Which was kinda weird since his dragon form didn't have claws, Lucien said that he might not be able to turn his hands into claws due to that. But that was a talk for the future. Right now he could barely shift fully, much less partial shift which required a lot of control over your dragon and human form.
Floating was another one of his skills he loved. This was special to the Cloud Dragons, all other dragons required wings to fly. But his kind could float really easily and they were really good at it too. It barely required any magic power, Liam could do it for hours without stopping.
It was one of the abilities the Cloud Dragon Clan was famous for, another was the ability to turn yourself into fog. It made you invincible to all attacks. One of the best escape techniques other then teleportation. Teleportation could be risky as well because if there was someone with the space element you would be in danger. However people with space element were really rare so, it was still considered the best.
The downside to this technique was that only pure Cloud Dragons could do it. In their whole Clan only five people were able to do it. Unsurprisingly Liam's grandpa and uncle were both included. They were after all from the leader's family, their bloodline was really pure. He was looking forward to doing all that, when he finally awakens his elements and is able to use more skills.
Liam dodged an arrow from behind him and quickly started running. (He had started daydreaming again or maybe night dreaming since it was nighttime here.) He could kill them when they were alone but he couldn't kill them in groups. So the best thing to do in this situation was run. Fortunately after a month of training if there was one thing he has gotten good at it would be running.
Liam manipulated the air element to make himself a little faster. After a while when he could no longer see the assassins he stopped again. He looked around trying to confirm something, after that he covered his surroundings in fog and started running towards the right.
He quickly left the assassins behind. He needed to reach his destination soon. Because this was a simulation and the system would send the assassins after him again, he could only fool them for a while.
This was one of the easier simulations for him because there were so many trees around and it was night time. The best place to use his fog, otherwise he wouldn't be able to escape so easily.
Liam saw the light in front and released a sigh of relief, he had reached the checkpoint. He walked into the light and the simulation ended. He was transferring out.
[Transferring back]
[Marks Obtained] [A]
He looked at the transparent screen in front of him. "A is good. I can't believe I finally completed a simulation. I don't need to run around the clan today." Liam cheered, although it has been a month, this was the first simulation he has cleared. He was really happy.
________
He opened his eyes and blinked. He looked around slowly before getting out of the simulation chamber and stretching.
"Go and eat, I made dinner. You can sleep afterwards if you want." Lucien smiled at him and ruffled his hair.
Liam grinned at him and ran to the kitchen. Simulation didn't really tire him physically but it was a little taxing mentally. It made his reaction speed better but he still had to exercise in real life. The running he did in simulation, didn't increase his stamina or anything since his body was just laying there in reality.
Liam picked up the tray with his food and sat on the table, wolfing it down. He was in the simulation for hours, and he was famished.
"This hungry. Lucien are you sure you are not torturing the kid?" Ethan said as he patted Liam's head. Liam grinned at him with food in his mouth, then continued eating.
"This is nothing dear, I still toned it down because he is young." Lucien answered as he picked up Demyx and put his food in front of him. He then guided Ethan towards his chair.
"Still don't overwork him." Ethan grumbled and started eating his food.
"Yes! mister grumpy." Lucien said as he and Liam chortled at the nickname. It was given to Ethan by Liam's grandpa when Ethan kept telling him be careful with handling Liam. It was kinda lame but the contrast between the name and Ethan's face always made Liam laugh.
"Yeah! Yeah! Keep laughing and you will have to sleep with Liam tonight." Ethan said but he was smiling himself.
"By the way Liam, your Grandpa was going to the City, he wanted to take you with him. Do you want to?" Lucien asked as he looked at him, Ethan visibly tensed at the question but didn't say anything when Lucien looked at him pointedly. He went back to eating, way slower then before.
"I would love to! Can I bring Demyx with me?" Liam said he had missed everything around him as he excitedly picked up Demyx. Demyx struggled to get out of his hands but failed and resigned to his fate.
"Sure, why not? Finish your food." Lucien smiled and said the last sentence to Ethan, who nodded slowly and started shoving the food in his mouth.
Liam looked at his Uncle and raised his eyebrows, Lucien just smiled and shook his head. He looked at the two of them then shrugged and ran upstairs still holding Demyx.
"I'm going to the City~ la-la ~"
Lucien heard him singing and smiled as he looked towards Ethan. He looked a little lost as he saw Liam's happiness. Lucien sat down beside him and hugged him with one arm, squeezing his shoulders.
"You need to let go, Ethan" Ethan just made a face at him and continued shoving the food down his throat. Lucien looked at him helplessly.
"I'm going to the City~ la-la la la-la~" They could still here Liam's singing now joined with Demyx's growling voice. He was probably done with Liam and was trying to escape.