As most of the population at the time consisted of people without the ability to manifest a Shakti, there existed a variety of weaponry to help them cope with the inhuman strength of Shakti practitioners. Apart from the majority of the humans, almost every living and non-living thing were blessed with Urja, though weapons made out of metals scarce in Urja wouldn't last against the power of a Shakti, they had to be made with the metals whose ores were rich in Urja, these ores were very hard to mine, making the weapons made out of them super expensive. The weapons were named "Shastra" and the only way a commoner could get access to one would be by enrolling in the army.
Yet here was Chase, who now, had access to almost every type of Shastras.
"The chosen generation heir of the main family does not possess any Shakti other than enchantment, which is not exactly something one could use in battle for a long duration, but a Vulcan with a weapon, that's a whole different story. An enchanted weapon possesses strength that one couldn't even imagine and that's the reason why the chosen heir of the main family trains in the skill of weaponry- mastery over weapons. I believe the power you hold comes pretty close to enchantment, I originally wanted you to have mastery over every weapon but we only have a year, just learning your way around a weapon will take a lot of time let alone mastering it. During the entirety of this year, I will teach you how to channel pure Urja into three weapons- Knives, Blades, and Swords, respectively." said Lucas.
Chase's hands were shaking, not because he was nervous but because of excitement, after he defeated the strongest underground fighter Chase found himself in a shell, the only way to get stronger was to defeat stronger opponents, for a commoner like him, he would have to join the army to find stronger opponents and that would defeat the entire purpose of his dream, he wanted to end the wars not become a part of them. His encounter with Lucas broke him out of that shell,
"Oi Chase! Get a hold of yourself damn it, I'm surprised you can blackout while I'm going out of my way to teach you personally!" said Lucas as he shook him out of his daze.
"Wait wait, I'm listening properly god damn it! Am I not even allowed to have thoughts of my own?"
Channeling Urja into a big weapon like a sword right off the bat would be impossible for Chase, he had to improve his control over Urja first, but pure Urja by itself was too strong for the human body and couldn't be controlled for a longer duration of time, hence, Chase's poor defense. However, by learning to channel it into a weapon, Chase could better his control over its time without risking injury in doing so. He could manipulate it better, honing and sharpening it to make it even more powerful.
So, he started it with the smallest thing that resembles a sword, a Knife. The way to use a knife however was very different from swordsmanship, a sword had more surface area, hence making it easier to defend with. A knife was smaller making it lighter than a sword and easier to swing around, movement-wise, fighting with a knife was pretty close to fighting bare-handed, apart from that a knife could be thrown at targets, making it a projectile weapon as well.
"Let's lose these unnecessarily big muscles first, muscles this big not only give the opponent more area to target, but they also slow you down, you should always be faster than your opponent, lean and well-defined muscles will make you faster and stronger," said Lucas.
Fighting underground with huge muscles, even if it only made a small effect, the damage he took was lower, so Chase had to maintain this buff form of his all year around. Now with a proper diet and training curated just for him, Chase started his cut, learning how to carry himself better and also learning his way around knives side by side.
Chase who had learned martial arts from Greg didn't have a hard time handling a knife, the only problem was channeling Urja in it. Initially, every time Chase tried it, it would destroy his fingers, he had to do it fast and cloak the entire thing, half-ass channeling didn't work.
He spent day and night learning this process alone, he'd get up earlier than everyone, and only after finishing his usual workout would he touch the knife. The kids of the branched families started to notice this behavior, especially the ones with a Shakti, the noble family of Vulcan also had members without Shakti, most of them were more into bureaucracy than fighting and only a few often trained, the rest were spoiled brats wasting their life away on the fortune of the family.
Any other member suddenly showed this level of discipline and it would've been fine with them, but a child without the Vulcan blood being trained by none other than Lucas himself wasn't sitting right with them, the other family heads were also starting to act up. Accepting a commoner into a noble family was something unheard of, they even criticized Elder Claudia for her negligence on this matter. Upon receiving a negative response from her, they questioned Lucas who wasn't very happy with their remarks about Chase, and were shut down by a menacing glare. The only thing left to do now was to confront the man himself, but a bunch of adults, more precisely, family heads, ganging up on a child would be unbecoming of them, so they sent their children to do the job for them.
The first one to confront Chase was Rupert, a Shakti practitioner 2 years elder than Chase. What he did was request a duel, in noble families, members often fought duels to establish their place, as much as Chase wanted to find out who was stronger, he had no time to test himself, he had made little to no progress in his training and that was way a more important issue at hand than this, so he rejected it without having the knowledge that turning down a duel was considered very rude, now it wasn't just a job assigned by his parents but more of a personal vendetta, Rupert announced this to every one of his cousins.
The fair challenge didn't work and so began the harassment, they did everything in their power to make trouble for Chase, from mixing laxatives in his food to robbing him of his weapons, Chase took on everything without complaining, requesting more food and knives every time this happened, Lucas had warned him and his personal maids to expect this, although the time wasted on procuring these things time and again was ticking him off, he didn't act on it.
Witnessing his imperturbable attitude and being taunted by their parents for not being able to scare down a 14-year-old was starting to get on their nerves.
On a rainy day, while Chase was focused on his training trying to get the imbuing right a small rock hit his head followed with, "Go back to where you came from." Soon countless rocks were being thrown at him, with the people who were throwing the same thing again and again. Something inside of him told him that if he holds it in now, it will stop eventually, and it will also spare Lucas the trouble of going against their parents but something just snapped, he had to live his entire life as a commoner, if he allowed this behavior for a year, he'd allow it for the rest of his life, it he didn't put them in their place right here and now it'd be no worse than spitting on himself, the cycle of humiliation would continue.
Chase tightened his hold on the knife and was ready to finally let loose. In the instant he moved his body, they saw him vanish in the rain.
"He's fast." they thought.
But before anyone could react he'd already taken out a part of their group.
"Slackers like you who don't train for shit are no worthy opponents for me," he said.
Even though they charged at Chase with Shastras, Chase could see through their sloppy movements, however, making sure not to kill them was also a priority. After taking out a majority of them, the rest lost confidence in their ability to take him down and ran, leaving the only one to remain standing to be Rupert.
Something wasn't sitting right with Chase, Rupert who had seen his cousins get beaten up with ease didn't show any sign of retreating, instead had a smile on his face.
"You're quite fast, judging by your movements you know some powerful martial arts-"
Without letting him finish, Chase leaped towards him, cutting him with his knife.
"As I thought, commoners don't really have any manners do they, interrupting me while I was still not finished talking," said Rupert.
Chase looked at his knife, and to his shock, it was destroyed completely.
"Shastras are able to hold their own against Shakti…pfft, what a joke," said Rupert, revealing his hand to Chase.
"My Shakti, Steel, renders every Shastra useless."