------- 4 years later
'Our first day in mana and combat training and he is already making us fight.'
"Clay are you chickening out." said Cera in a mocking voice
"When did I say I am not going fight you."
"Okay then, both of you agree so lets start this duel." said our teacher
"Both of you stand in this circle" he said that and drew a circle with mana with a 7 metre diameter
"Both of you bow to each other, remember bowing to the oponent is a sign of respect and comradery. If you dont bow then it means you dont consider this a duel, instead a gruesome fight, its a sign of disrespect." we bowed while we were feets away from each other
"This duel will be to see your physical attributes and your mana attributes so fight with everything you have but remember not to give serious injuries. Lets start when both of you are ready."
we nodded
"okay, start"
Right when he said start Cera swinged her arm to punch my face
I dodged the jab and caught her arm
and turned my back on her
her arm was over my shoulder
so with my full strength I flew her into the air and slammed her on the ground.
She had all the air knocked out of her lungs.
"Stop" he had a surprised look on his face probably because I picked a human and swinged her 180 degrees in air while I looked so thin and weak.
'My body is very thin, its not comparable to the obese body that I had. I had gone thin because walking 8 kilometres everyday burned a lot of fat'
I gave my hands to Cera to help her up from the ground "You okay Cera"
She was still gasping for air "That hurt"
'The teacher had got to know that we were very untrained.'
"From now onwards you both will have to handle a lot of pain." he said
"Now show me your mana attributes, lets start from Clay." he added when Cera had just recovered
'In the past me and Cera would frequently practice mana channeling, mana expulsion and mana solidifying so we were very good with handling mana.
I got to know that my mana affinity is wind and earth. Cera's mana affinity is fire.
Coming back to the classes
I am still rusty in earth magic so lets do something with wind.
I solidified air into a sword, the sword was transparent but we could see it because the sword was denser than the surrounding air so the sword kinda looked like a glass.'
"Good, shall we move to Cera."
'Cera was very good with expulsion magic.
In a matter of seconds Cera rose a 10 metre tall red and orange fire just from her palms.
The teacher was really impressed by her.'
"Really good Cera, your mana core seems to be enormous." he said being surprised
"Thank you"
"Before I tell you your strengths and weaknesses, show me on what level are your mana channeling, mana expulsion and mana solidifying at."
'He already knew I was good at mana solidifying and Cera was good at mana expulsion.
So he asked us to things that we werent good at. After we showed him all that he checked our mana cores.
My mana core was at brown stage and Cera's was at light-brown stage.
There are a total of 14 mana core stages
1- Black
2- Purple
3- Dark brown
4- Brown
5- Light Brown
6- Dark green
7- Green
8- Light green
9- Dark blue
10- Blue
11- Light blue
12- Yellow
13- Silver
14- White
After your core evolves, the mana capacity and purity greatly increases. You can feel that your core has evolved but after you reach the dark-green stage.
Meaning we didnt feel our core change because we were below the dark-green stage.'
"Now that I have checked all your weaknesses and strengths, let me tell you what you will be doing this whole week.
Clay you will be working on mana expulsion and mana channeling.
Cera you will be working on mana solidifying and mana channeling.
and at the end of the week you will doing another duel." he instructed
----
"That was a long class" said Cera while panting
"Yeah it was really long" I agreed, sweat running down my cheeks
"Listen up brats the classes will be from 7 am to 6 pm, so you should be prepared mentally for all the hellish training that you will be recieving." our teacher said
"I am okay as long as there is a lot food" I said laughingly
"By the way teacher you didnt tell us your name." Cera asked
"Oh yeah! I forgot about the introductions, my name's Cliford but you can call me Cliff."
"Okay sir Cliff" me and Cera said together
"You know I am very curious, how do you guys have such refined core when nobody thought you how to refine your cores, especially you Cera you have a light-brown core!"
"Well, we thought ourselves from reading all the books that were in the mansion" Cera replied
"Its just astonishing that you guys broke into these stages without a teacher. I broke into the dark-brown stage when I was 13 but you guys are only 7 and have already surpassed that stage.
I am now 35 years old and in the green stage, I wonder how will it take you kids."
"Come on sir Cliff dont be jealous of 7 year olds." Cera said
"I am not jealous!! I am just amazed."
"Well whatever I am going to the mansion, I am really tired." I said and started walking
"Wait for me I am coming too." Cera yelled
Cera caught up to me and asked "What are you going to do today."
"I will go bathe, eat and sleep." I said being exhausted
"Wha.... you are just gonna do that, I wanted to go to the village today." she frowned
"Arent you tired, lets go to the village when there is a holiday."
"Okay" her face looked dissapointed
"Why do you even want to go to the village, there is nothing there except for a bar and a couple of wheat farms. Dont tell me you want to drink alcohol at this age." I said to tease her
She started blushing and said "No its not like that." and hit me in the gut
"Okay okay" I said while wailing in pain
Our attentions averted to the sky
We both looked at the pink sky
"This place has the best sunsets and sunrises." Cera said
'I turned my gaze from the sky to Cera's face, her white hairs which reached her shoulders glistened with the pink colour of the sky and her crear black eyes, just like my eyes made her so very beautiful that it made my heart skip a beat.'
"Have I ever told you that your hairs are really beautiful"
'Cera looked at me and took a few seconds to realise what I said'
"Th.. th.. thank you, e.. even you have beautiful hairs." her face turned the same colour as the sky when she replied
'bruh did I just flirt with a 7 year old girl and did I just find a 7 year old girl attractive even though I am supposed to be 17 years mentally, whats happening to me? it must be a sign of puberty.'
Cera was still blushing when I said "Lets have a race to the mansion."
She stopped blushing "You dont even have to race because I will be the winner either way."
"Oh yeah, lets see"
'We ran straight for 30 minutes and as always Cera was the first at mansion'
Panting very heavily "Didnt I say I would win"
"Yeah but I was close this time" I said while still catching my breath
'I went to my room and took a bath.
I then went to the kitchen to get my dinner, Cera still hadnt come to take her meal so I took her dinner too and made my way to her room.
We would always have dinner together in her room because her room was way bigger than mine.
We had dinner together and talked a bit then I went to my room to get a good nights sleep, it was probably around 8 pm.
I would sleep at 8 pm and wake up at 5 am.
I had decided to exercise for half an hour in the mornings.'
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'It has been a week since our mana and combat training started, me and Cera have made a significant improvement in the week.
We just practiced our weaknesses the whole week. Sir Cliff didnt make us do anything else, he was sleeping most of the time while we were training.'
"Clay today is our rematch, this time I will defeat you."
"We will see who wins in a few minutes" I said
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Some unexplained things
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The area where Clay and Cera are training is the military camp of the Sian family.
There are a total of 13 buildings here and 9 of them are the rooms of the soldiers, 3 buildings are for weaponary and 1 more is for meetings and any other stuff.
Clay and Cera had their theory classes here.
Each building has only 2 floors.
There is a training camp near the buildings, Cera and Clay are training here. The soldiers also train here.
The buildings looked like they were made of clay but they were made of a material called manice, manice is similiar to concrete.
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Mana Expulsion - mana expulsion is of 2 types, element controlling and element creation. The names itself tell what they are.
Element controlling means to control normal element.
Element creating means to create an element with mana.
Mana Solidifying - condensing an element to become very hard or solid. ex: using water to make a condensed wall
Mana channeling - transporting pure mana into or out of your body.
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Clay's room is 10 feet wide and 15 feet long. His room has a bed, a closet, a small window and a fixed ladder.
Cera's room is 20 feet wide and 35 feet long. Her room has a really big bed, a huge closet, no trapdoor or a ladder, bookshelves, books, plants, balcony etc