"VALUN!!!" A boy who looked no less than 8 years old, ran into my room with 2 other people following behind requesting him to stop, and also not to cause a ruckus, and that kid is none other than, Kaiser, he wanted to see me for hours, and was denied a meeting with me as the physician said I had to recover and recuperate, and now he barged in without any care having both my Butler and my maid to look at the guy with "given up" looks, while raising their arms together in unison.
Butler Raven had a concerned, looked at me for a second and turned back to Kaiser, "You cannot just barge into the Young Master's room like that, Mr. Kaiser, Young Master has yet to recover fully, let him rest first.", I just wanted some peace and quiet to think about my current situation, but I guess it's not possible for now. "You don't have to worry brother, I am doing fine, I just need to rest for few hours, and I should be as good as new." with the biggest smile I could muster with my small face.
"It's fine you don't have to push yourself; I will wait until you recover totally so we can train and play, but do you remember what happened or how you were injured?", Kaiser's question was also the same thought I had in my mind, what happened and how badly did Valun get injured that he died? Did someone intentionally try to kill Valun? If so, what could the reason be? Was it the Head Wife? Or the brothers? I have too many questions regarding this incident. However, if anyone did try to kill Valun, they would probably try to do it again sooner or later, as I am now in Valun's body and I am very much alive and kicking. I should rather not do anything suspicious, or they might catch on to the fact that I am not the real Valun, and I think feigning memory loss regarding the accident and some other unknown memories should be the first thing I do.
"I don't really, remember much, it's all fuzzy and vague.", "It's alright you don't really have to worry about it, get some rest, I will come back later." Kaiser said. I took that time to take some rest and think about what to do in the future.
After a few hours of rest, I called Merida to help me put on some new clothes, as it was all still new to me and I was in a kid's body, though it does feel embarrassing to have a 14-year-old kid look at your bare body. So as much as I could remember about Valun, from "The Lonely path of the swordsman", Valun was supposed to die before Lecion fell ill due to the aftereffects of the war, but in the novel, it was not really stated how it happened, who did it or what their motive was for killing a harmless boy, who could've just lived aside without getting any attention for himself.
Luckily Merida was quick and dressed me up perfectly and fed me some dinner and gave me medicine the physician gave, after having my tiny stomach filled to the brim, I felt sleepy and dozed off before I could utter a second thought, sucks to be a 6-year-old kid, I guess.
1 week later in the training grounds 7 allocated personally for Valun,
*hmph* *hmph* *hmph*(panting), something unseen was moving around at highspeed as the training ground was covered with dust and smoke, "So this is what my body can do huh, even though everything currently happening is too unreal and unimaginable, I can't believe I actually have superpowers it's really amazing." Valun was panting while working out in the training grounds, he stepped back and sat on a bench and took some rest as he was exasperated from all those experiments, he was doing with his newfound powers and abilities, and was still trying to comprehend everything.
*I recovered fully after 3 days since Kaiser met me, in the meantime no one else has ever contacted me or my servants to meet me or to check up on except for the physician, well in one case that's good as I really don't wanna meet new people and have conversations with them, especially the rest of the Aranzyde Family. Just after the day I recovered, I started thinking about all the abilities I got and wanted to know how to activate them or use them as soon as I could and when I first thought about it, I remembered the gift I received and it was called "Ether Eyes", and when I thought about them my eyes suddenly felt weird and my sight was far sharper, clear, bold and I could see minute details and images of the environment, at first I thought it was to help my archery skills, but man was I wrong.
It seems, that the "Ether Eyes" not just give me enhanced eyesight, but also many other abilities I could've never imagined, and among those, the one I liked the most was probably the Information ability, I could see everyone's name on their heads, and I could see their information like their strengths, weaknesses and I also could see their intentions. This only led me to try it on myself, but I could not see much about myself, except for my name directly above my head in a golden color "VALUN ARANZYDE," I think I might have to work on this skill more later.
Well, that's it about my Ether eyes, onto the next one we have is the final Gift, Heavenly body, at first, I thought I just had a better physique but just like before I was wrong again, Heavenly body as its name suggests is my "body", and yes, it's not normal either and doesn't exist in the Novel I've read. Heavenly body has more than few interesting perks, I can heal superfast, I mean SUPER DUPER fast, I got a bruise after I fell while running laps and it was quite painful at the point of injury but the bruise was gone before I could birth another thought, it still is rather hard for me to adjust to a 6 year old's body, after all it hasn't even been a month since the incident. Now it made sense how I healed quickly, from that death dealing head injury, well technically Valun did die, but that does not matter.
Next massive thing about this body is I can FLY!!!! Without any external help, my body can just fly, I didn't have to use any mana, not that I know how to control or use mana at my current state, but the second I started flying few inches of the ground my body started to wobble and I was spiraling around, however I got the gist of how to control my body when I fly, I just had to think as if I was swimming through air, which made it infinitely easier to fly. Obviously, what I found about my body next was that I had superhuman strength which I didn't really consider the limits of, superspeed was what I was practicing just few minutes ago and it looked exhausting and I looked tired but no it was just dirt and smoke bothering me which caused me to take a break, and that's when I understood, my stamina was not normal either, as I was rearing to do more experiments, but there was something I felt was lacking about it, and I really couldn't point it out. Well as for my Arch-*
"Young Master, I would advise to not exert yourself that much while training as you've just finished recovering, and it's also time to eat and then you have to sleep as you have promised to meet Mr. Kaiser tomorrow, and you wouldn't want to be late would?" a man walking towards Valun with a towel and some refreshments in hand exclaimed, as Valun looked towards the voice revealing himself to be Raven (Butler). "I know, I know but I just wanted to train a bit more.," says Valun with a small pout, expressing his clear thoughts *(AHH I was going to do some Archery and this old man pops in out of nowhere) *. While Raven cleans up Valun with the towel, Valun starts to think about how to go on with his current life as even though he has all these powers and the knowledge of the Novel, he however does not know what happened in Valun's life as it wasn't covered in Novel due to him being a side character.
*I don't think I am currently in a place where I can just let my life go according to the novel without any change, if I do that I might as well wait for 6 years doing nothing for my end. I can't let that happen not when I received a second chance to live, for now let's just think about how to improve and hide my strength while doing it, I don't want neither Svetlana nor the annoying children pestering me so I have to be careful and both my father and uncle are people I don't have to worry about now as they don't really appear in this time period of time as the first time they visit Valun and Kaiser is when Valun turns 10, but I should start preparing for it if by chance I have to face them. *
"*Uhhp* That's enough Mr. Raven, I would like to go and eat already." Valun sips some water, and walks back to his room with his butler, "It is really surprising Young master." The old butler said aloud, making Valun turn his head in confusion while Raven was plating his dinner on the table for him to eat,
"What is?" Valun takes a seat and questions before taking a bite of the food,
"Oh nothing, it is just that you used to be, pardon my words, quite the "fanatic" for the sword, and you practiced a lot with Mr. Kaiser but now you are using the Bow as if you have been born with it." Raven answered, with a pleasant but amused look.
Valun spits the food out in shock and started panicking as he didn't know that Valun liked swords or used to train alongside Kaiser with swords, *UGHH, this old man knows Valun inside out as he was raising Valun from his birth, I can't lie to him and make it obvious that I am hiding something, rather let's just try to say it honestly up front. * "Oh, uhm yeah, for some reason I felt the bow calling for me, I don't know why but I just felt like the bow wanted me to hold it, and I really, really love Archery now." Valun said exactly what was on his mind.
"Well, isn't that nice, it suits you Young Master." Raven says with a smile on his face while cleaning the spit food off Valun's mouth,
"Wait you are not concerned that I have chosen Archery as my path? I mean isn't my family meant to wield and die with the sword? Don't you think people will say Ahh Mr. Raven could you keep this a secret from anyone else other than Kaiser and Merida, and I do not want anyone knowing that I've already started training but also switched to Archery, please?" Valun made a request with a sincere look.
"Yes, Young Master, if it pleases you, I will do just as you asked, and I will also tell Merida, but I think it would be better if you tell Mr. Kaiser yourself, as he might be quite upset that his training buddy might leave him." the old man says after cleaning up the dining table.
"Thank you, Mr. Raven, and yes I will definitely tell brother Kaiser." Valun hops onto his bed and falls asleep.
Next day in the open training grounds; "Brother Kaiser, how long have you been training for?" Valun calls out to Kaiser who was practicing his sword swings, in front of a training dummy, which makes Kaiser turn his head in excitement. "Valun!!Oh it's been like 2 hours since I started training, and I've heard that you recovered rather quickly, how are you doing? Are you able to train and play now? Or do you still have to take some rest?" Kaiser says and asks with a bright smile.
Valun: "Yeah, I am doing great, I have recovered completely, the physician did tell me to take it easy for now, but I feel full of energy, and I am ready to train more! But there's also something else I want to talk about, uhm...I-I want to become an Archer, rather than being a swordsman." Valun replies with a small hint of excitement.
Kaiser: "What? You want to become an Archer? YOU? But not long ago, you wanted to always train with the sword, didn't you? What made you change your mind? The Bow is not that strong do you know?" Kaiser was bewildered by Valun's declaration.
Valun: "No, I want to become an Archer, I don't want to train with swords anymore, I like the bow now." Valun was dying inside due to the embarrassment he felt because of his childlike act. "And no brother Kaiser, Bows are not only strong, but they're also cool, and I can shoot anything from a soooo far away. That's why I want to learn Archery." Valun concluded his explanation with a sigh.
Kaiser: "Fine, Fine, you win. So how do you plan to learn Archery? I don't know Archery, but if you want, I can train with you to strengthen our bodies." Kaiser replied with a hint of giving up.
Valun: "I would love to train with you, and I heard that there are some books in our library, which contains some Archery martial arts and training methods from Raven." Valun winked towards Raven, who was shocked at first and then just nodded his head, aiding in Valun's lie.
Next day, after few hours of training with Kaiser, Valun starts to write down some Archery training regime he had during his time learning Archery, back in South Korea, and tripled it progressively to his age and advantage. Surprisingly the more he strained his body the more he felt like he was getting pumped with energy, which was obviously a perk from the Heavenly body. However, there was one thing that Valun was still conflicted and irritated about, which was the tattoo which looked like a bow, he remembered Mr. Shin saying something about giving him a bow, but he can't even get it out of the seal which is the only clue he has about the bow, let alone use it to train.
Well, it's not like he doesn't have any bows to train with, but he was quite bummed out as he was quite excited to try out his own bow. That aside, no matter how good his so-called Heavenly body is, a 6-year-old child's attention span is that of a puppy's or even less if you go about, it technically.
Valun: * Valun was writing in his training book with his eyes focused on the book, and stopped his pen to read what he wrote* "
Daily Practice Sessions (5-6 days a week):
· Focus on form, consistency, and accuracy.
· Work on different distances, shooting positions, and weather conditions.
· Dedicate 2 hours of time to refine techniques and skills.
· Practice mental focus and relaxation techniques to manage pressure and maintain composure in difficulties.
Strength and Conditioning (2-3 days a week):
· Strength training to enhance stability and endurance, with a focus on core muscles, back, shoulders, and arms.
· Cardiovascular exercises to improve overall fitness and stamina.
· Flexibility and mobility exercises to maintain proper posture and prevent injuries.
Skill-Specific Drills:
· Stationary and moving target drills to simulate real-life shooting scenarios.
· Speed shooting drills to improve reaction time.
· Blind shooting drills to enhance reliance on muscle memory and instinct.
Haaah, I know this is too much for a 6-year-old kid as even when I was in my 20's it was hard for me to go through this every week, but I'm able to cope with the training and I'm almost 4 times younger than my previous self. I have to see how much I can push myself, because I just don't know what the limits are to this body after all." Valun left a sigh and chuckle at the same time.
Someone outside the room: *Knock*Knock* "Young Master, there's someone who has come to meet you."
Valun: "Who is it? Brother Kaiser? *No, I doubt it he would've already been in my room if he wanted, ugh now that I hear myself thinking, that sounds creepy. *, never mind tell them, I will be there to meet them in a minute, make sure to be gentle and seat them comfortably in the lobby."
Few moments later in the lobby, there was someone seated on the couch in front of the fireplace facing the painting of Felicia (Valun's late Mother) and Valun, Valun couldn't see their face from behind, so he goes up to the person to see who it was.
Valun: "Hello I'm Valun Aranzyde, I've heard that you've come here to meet me? May I know who you might be?
Stranger: *The stranger gets up and turns to face Valun, which makes Valun stare at him intently* "Ahh, I can't believe how well you've grown, but I didn't think that you've already forgotten your sister, has it been 3 years? No 3 ½? No, it may be just 3 years. Never mind that, I've missed you so much, Valun." the self-proclaimed sister picks up Valun with and hugs him tightly to her chest, suffocating the 6-year-old as a joke.
Valun after recalling who the person was in the Novel, he recognized her in an instant to say the least.
Valun: * "Blood Light Saber", which was the nickname she ended up with later in the Novel as one of the strongest and cruel swordsmen in the continent and lost her arm in the future saving Kaiser from the Exodus, but before receiving that nickname, she was called as, "Luminous Saber", Analita D Aranzyde, she was one of the most strongest and respected swordsmen throughout the continent as she helped countless number of nations in raids against demons and is also feared among criminals, but the reason she becomes "Blood Light Saber" and becomes a rogue with no emotions is because of my death, unlike Kaiser who after my death had his teacher with him to lean on and control his emotions and not rampage for revenge, Analita didn't have anyone as not only did Lecion (father of Valun and Patriarch of Aranzyde), Svetlana and her sons, die, they died and she couldn't even see me or them for one last time. She wanted revenge for me as she made a promise to my mother that she would take care of me no matter what. But all these incidents have yet to happen, and she hasn't grown up full yet. *
Valun: *Umph*Hmph* "C-Ca-Can't brea-dhe,Sister."
Analita: "Oh sorry, sorry. I didn't realize." *Analita sets Valun down on the couch* "Ah, sorry again Valun, it's just that you are so cute, that I lost my composure."
Valun: "It's alright, I'm all good, yeah I've missed you too, so how've you been doing."
Analita: "Yeah, I'm doing great you know, your sister is not weak, even though I'm 15 years old, in the royal academy I'm the top ranker, no one can beat me you know?"
Valun: "Wow, that's awesome, I want to be number one like you to sister Anna, I want to be number one in both studies and combat." * Just after he said that Analita winced a bit, and he knew exactly what made her wince. As Analita the proud and strong swordswoman, no matter how much of a genius she was with her sword and magic, she was the exact opposite when it came to her studies, everyone in the Royal academy used to say this a lot "Combat Knucklehead", as they used to tease her slightly, because of her low to abysmal scores in her in her written exams.*
Analita: *Sweat drops appeared out of nowhere on her face, and her face expressed fear and embarrassment, and spoke out shakingly* "umh, Yeahh, that's m-m-my brother, you have to get number one even in studies j-just like me."
After catching up and joking about her experiences in the academy, Sister's face turned serious, as if she was getting ready to hunt someone. When she moved her left eyebrow slightly higher than the right, I felt as if she was seeing through me.
Valun: "What's wrong Sister? Did something happen, you turned silent in a moment?"
Analita: "Valun, I'm going to ask you this but keep it a secret, I've heard that you encountered an accident, few weeks prior, when I learned about it, the injury was deadly, and you shouldn't be able to move for months let alone 4 days later. Do you remember who did this to you? *Valun started thinking, why's Anna acting like this? Who would even think of asking such things from a 6-year-old does she know who might've attacked me* I just want you to be safe, I am so so so relieved that you are safe, from now onwards I will have someone guard you, so you don't have to worry. *Suddenly Analita's face turned from stoic and serious to curious and happy. *
Analita: "Well, let's set that aside, I've heard that you've started training in Archery? What made you change? I thought you liked swords? *Her face was craving for answers as she wanted to know more about what her baby brother was thinking. *
Valun: "Because it is cool and stronger! That's why, I've read a lot of books saying that many people have mastered the sword, the spear, magic and countless weapons, but no one has yet to master the bow, and I want to be the one who does that and be cool." * Once again, the mental capacity of a man in his 20's can't take the embarrassment as he must act like a 6-year-old child. *"
Analita: "Omo, our little Valun wants to be an Archer, huh. That's sooo cute. You know what, I will be back next month for the semester break, and I will bring you the best bow I could get hands on as a present, how does that sound?"
Valun: "Really?????!!! Really? I would love that so much, Sister Anna. *Valun jumped into her lap, and hugged her real quick without thinking, as he was just too excited to think properly. *
Analita: "Aww, I'm a great sister, aren't I? * She is currently imagining a statue of herself on a pedestal, and giant words written on it, The best sister of the decade. *
Valun: *shit what am I doing, no matter how much of a bow fanatic I am, I should control my desires, BUT it's a first fantasy custom made bow? It's a rare class bow, no it might be an epic class. UGH goddammit now's not the time. * "Uhm, well Sister Anna, I have to go and train with brother Kaiser, so I will see you later, okay?" Valun excuses himself out of the room and goes back to the training grounds.
Analita: *Talking to herself in her brain, so it's not anyone from the family, as Michael and Therion are fools, but they wouldn't do something like that, knowing that Head Mother would be watching over Valun, who could it be? They also picked the perfect timing too, from what I've heard from Raven, that day Lecion and Verion went out for the nearest city to subjugate monsters, and Svetlana and the brothers were out of the state, Raven was tending to Kaiser who got injured, and Merida was working, so how did they know when to attack? Who could've dared to infiltrate and read our moments? Do they know about Valun? No there's not a chance, only me and mother know that and now she's no more so how in the world did-, no that's not the case it could also be related to something else.
But the main question is what could someone gain, by killing Valun? Who could've done that? I have too many unanswered questions, and it's frustrating, should I call "him" to check? *phew* "he" would probably flip out if he knew that Valun got injured, but if he knows someone attempted an assassination on Valun, he will probably hunt the nation down. For now, let's just ask him to get information I guess, I don't want "him" rampaging currently.
Someone outside the room: "Hmm, why did it show that? Is she hiding something? But it doesn't seem like she's planning something bad. I guess, I'm overthinking it."