"Honestly- I believe that it's something you'll understand and get better overtime. You must have had training in martial arts but you haven't fought with powerful people- which again is a thing that'll come with time I guess. Your reaction speed is good but your hits lack force" Magnus said calmly
"Heh...You wouldn't know. Anyways- I am injured. Internally. I accidentally drank a powerful poison once which caused my mana veins and internal domain to be harmed. The injuries have been slowly healing because of my healing abilities but that does cause my physical abilities to stale"
Magnus' eyes widened in surprise before he squinted them
'That's not...It's probably not an injury that's too serious. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense on how he is able to contend even a little bit with anyone that's good enough. It's impressive even so."
"I see. If that's the case- I've been underestimating you. Hahahaha- it reminds me of the things I read..." Magnus looked up and laughed a little.
Nier furrowed his brows and asked curiously-
"What?"
Being the chitter-chatter type he was- Magnus answered
"You see. I read that some famous archeologist from Leomarch found some ruins with nearly wiped out archives containing knowledge of the era before the golden age- no, before the age of magic. The first era. After years of deciphering from the Leomartians, it was discovered that there might have existed an energy different from mana. Elements weren't used but intead different limitless concept that weren't bound to elements. The energy's name wasn't really given in the records maybe because they were incomplete but the archaelogist and his team decided to name it Rune Force."
"Eh...Why?" Nier still didn't know how the information was relevant but he listened on hoping to soak in all the knowledge.
"Because the name of the energy wasn't given but a figure's title was given- someone called 'Rune King' who existed in that era. That's all the information that was extracted" Magnus said.
"How does that connect?"
"I just remembered about it so I told you but what I had actually thought about was the ancient way of magic."
'So he went on a monologue just to tell me this piece of information which isn't even what he thought of initially? Is this guy braindead? Over maybe his brain is over-lively'
"It's really a funny thing- we humans can't really get physically stronger but advance our magic. We can only work out or take meds to achieve peak human physic but when compared to other beings out there- physical strength of that level doesn't really matter at all.
There are people out there that can destroy mountains with magic but would die if they fell from five hundred meters or get shot in the brain undefended. It's funny really. In the golden age- there was a way of using magic that's lost now- exchange magic."
Nier's eyes widened as he felt he could understand a little bit.
"From written stories that were found- it was deciphered that people back then could say- give up eyesight, become blind for years so when their 'contract' ended- their eyes would gain abilities beyond what they could do before. That also means that people could increase physical strength that way. Such a method unfortunately has been lost after the Invasion war"
Nier digested everything he learned and took a little of time to understand all the implications.
"How can you be so sure that it wasn't mana but 'Rune Force'?" Nier asked
"I don't know. It wasn't mentioned in the book I read but probably because of all dissimilarities? Who knows what they found."
"Is this knowledge supposed to be some secret? Isn't this groundbreaking? Something other than what's known? That would mean that life had powers even before mana came in existence? And what if it still exist and someone gets the ability to use that? Are you just that naïve?"
Magnus ignored the rudeness and replied
"Heh, You really think so? Do you think that the researchers would have published what they did if they had the way to connect to it? They couldn't really find a way written to connect to it but yeah it's groundbreaking honestly. I mean- anything that's new and adds to history can be considered groundbreaking. Especially considering that even now there are different sources of power other than just mana. Take the Leomars Empire, The Demons or even the Seers from Geminus
Is it meant to be a secret? Not necessarily. A lot of people know about it and when one digs enough- they can find the knowledge because it's not really meant to be kept a secret. People just don't bring it up I guess because they have the shadow of doubts like 'what if it becomes important' or 'I should just keep this to myself so maybe I can become stronger than everybody' even when they don't know anything type of mentality.
We don't know the state of life before 3000 years ago which makes it impossible to know if people had powers or not.
In the end of the day- we don't have knowledge about everything. The history of humans and all species since those records were wiped out during the invasion war. It's really wierd that we had two events when the history of life was wiped out in less than 3000 years knowing that Zelrun existed for millions of years. It feels like life came to existence only recently."
Nier didn't say anything further but-
"The second thing that I mentioned- is however much more important because that uses mana rather than some unknown force. The way is still being sought upon by many sorcerers but it's also opposed. They think that it's not worth the risk. Anyways, that was just some trivia I remembered. Being a royal gives me access to a wider array of information than the averages person but I do like to spread that. It feels like everyone is on the same page and understanding." Magnus said with a gentle smile and-
*Swish.
Nier suddenly jumped back as
*Boom
Magnus' punch connected to the vase of the pillar destroying it.
'Tch. That would've killed me if it connected. Though he probably has mana control good enough to decrease the output'
"Oh, Sneak attacking me when I was thinking- aren't you so vicious?" Nier asked with a maniacal grin.
"Does it matter? It didn't work anyways" Magnus coolly replied-
"This time we'll fight without taking a break. I'll point out weaknesses while you try and overcome them as much as you can"
...
'In the end- he didn't even use his technique or element'
Nier laid exhausted on the ground taking in loads of air. His chest waved up and down as he closed his eyes
It was a long session consisting only of close quarters combat. There wasn't really much room for tricks or strategy when facing an opponent like the prince.
The Nail gun as Nier named it was in it's cooldown period. In the first place- it was because of Nier's anti-mana that it worked stronger than average other wise Loy's arm wouldn't have blown off.
'It would take 3-4 weeks for that to get going again. I should get a better one'
Magnus who had went out to get a coffee returned to the training room
"You wanna continue?"
'I'll murder you bastard' Nier thought
"Yes" Nier said
...
Back to the library
Nier and Magnus stood before a table. On the table stood a house of cards.
"When training mental energy, one could focus on two things. Raw strength or skill. What I mean is that you can focus on trying to lift heavier objects or multiple objects. Offcourse you can do both but it's better to focus on one aspect at a time considering our schedule. There are many ways for a sorcerer to fight and set their skill set- some use mental energy as offence in conjunction with mana or some try to get good in mental defense while they fight with mana. But that's not all. Nowadays people forget but mental energy can be used for mind attacks. Skill development helps in that regard and that's what we are going to do.
-you are someone who focuses only on physical battles so using mental energy isn't a bad support but It's better for you to learn to prevent others from using mental energy on you since you are going to have the option of focusing on physical fights while preventing others from using mental energy which can used from a distance"
-What we are going to to is that I'll remove a card from the base and you have to prevent the whole palace from falling with mental energy and keep it in place.
Slowly I'll remove the whole base when you can carry all the cards in their respective places. The cards are light and easy to lift individually but it's the ability to split your attention that's tough considering there are more than 30 cards"
Nier listened to everything and didn't say anything.
"After that- we'll do practical training. Honestly- mind invasion isn't really something that anyone can do and even than it's used only when you are interrogating someone or stuff like that. The chances of that happening in battle are miniscule unless you were fighting 'him' but that's impossible so I'll just use intent during our training battles from now on."
'Intent? He can use it?' Nier thought but he wasn't much surprised considering how Magnus was known as a genius
Magnus seemingly understood Nier's expression replied-
"Hah. Indeed I can, even Jan uses it. You have a high amount of raw mental energy but it's not really solid or skillful. You have to use your hands as a guide which is really not good. So try not to do that in training"
After that Nier looked at the cards as Magnus suddenly removed a card from the base. Nier had made a plan already- he didn't need to hold the whole palace but only the cards that were needed to prevent the palace from falling.
Magnus had removed the side most card so it wasn't really that tough but not using hands to guide was-
...
After the mental energy training- Nier was sitting on a chair in the library...suffering from a headache. It was an unfortunate drawback of using mental energy too long and too much.
Magnus gave him a chocolate while eating some snacks. The prince was apparently a foodie.
It was already past sunset and Magnus had left the basement several times while leaving someone else to monitor and remove the base cards when needed.
Magnus looked at the youth whose mask was still on as he leaned on the chair looking up. Nier was awake.
"I know it's rude but what's your actual birthplace?" Magnus asked while chewing.
Nier was shocked at first but didn't say anything.
Nier did look like a foreigner in the Mayaricorn kingdom even if his upper face was covered.
Magnus didn't ask any further and continued chewing.
Magnus felt that Nier had some sort of past that he didn't wish to explain. He concluded this based on various things he picked on.
While he remained silent for a lot of time. He was very repulsive. He came close to people only when fighting and gave acidic remarks to everyone that talked to him as if wanted to piss people on purpose. His mental energy was really high for someone of his age. Considering mental energy increased as people faced life changing experiences, it wasn't a stretch to think Nier did too.
'Oh right. He mentioned something about the poison...maybe that has some hand in it, or it could be a lie...who knows' Magnus silently thought.
His thoughts went on to other things in his life as he got a moment to contemplate.
As his dragon scale chips finished. He was a little unhappy but he lifted the coffee mug near him and started sipping.
Licking off the remnants after the sip. Magnus sat straight and said-
"It's about time I gave you the details of the mission"