Lucivar was now wearing the uniform like the others, a fitting red shirt and black pants.
Seeing the others were exercising together and the fact that he was wearing the exact same uniform, as them—Lucivar was expecting to do some sort of exercise, with them. Tobias was probably going to teach him one-on-one before he could join the others.
Now he realized it seemed he was half right.
It was true that Tobias would tutor him one-on-one, but not for teaching him to exercise.
Tobias, who had carried a patient air around him, suddenly changed.
As he raised both fists and adopted his fighting stance—the air around him sharpened like a forged blade. His expression stiffened into one of deadly—seriousness. Even for a complete amateur like Lucivar—who had never raised his fist until recently, he could feel Tobias had a lot of fighting experience.
Just meeting Tobias' gaze alone, his capability for violence was palpable.
It was suffocating, and Lucivar felt a chill run down his spine.
"Defend yourself the best you can," Tobias suddenly commanded with a stern voice.
Upon hearing this, Lucivar snapped out of his trance and was about to say something, but he could not get it out of his mouth, as he saw Tobias, making his move. Expertly, Tobias cut the distance between them in an instant with a single step.
Leaning back instinctively as Tobias closed in, Lucivar saw Tobias swinging his left fist.
He was aiming for Lucivar's face.
Reacting to this attack, Lucivar raised his arm to block, and to his surprise, he succeeded.
But in the next instant, his eyes bulged as he collapsed to his knees, clutching his stomach in utter pain. Saliva dribbled from his mouth, as he gasped for breath, pain permeating from the gut blow Tobias had delivered with his knee.
"Don't focus on the pain, probe your inner body for any sign of warmth," Tobias instructed.
Lucivar tried to do that, but ignoring the pain was not an easy thing to do.
Pausing for a moment, Tobias went to the side and took a wooden sword from the stack.
"My wife is a good healer—so we can go all out and maximize this training," Tobias said as he went to stand, in front of Lucivar again—but this time, a wooden sword in hand. "At any point, if you want to stop before I say so, tell me, and I'll drop you off at the nearest city"
Upon hearing this, Lucivar gritted his teeth, 'I can't get kicked out of here, I need to endure!'
Despite struggling, he slowly climbed back to his feet.
"Good," Tobias smiled when he saw this. "I will also explain the fundamental things you need to know, as a Hybrid, so listen carefully. Unlike the others—you are extremely new, you need to learn a lot before you can catch up to any of them,"
As he said that, the training continues with Lucivar on the receiving hand.
He was beaten black and blue by a wooden sword.
Other than that, Tobias explained that right now Lucivar could be called a first-star Neophyte Hybrid, the weakest possible rank as he had only recently become a Hybrid. Furthermore, he also told Lucivar that the weakest out of the others was Bakar, a four-star Neophyte.
In order to cultivate his power, he needs to feel his bloodline's energy inside.
An inner energy that's normally called Ether.
Lucivar would first need to locate his Supernatural Ego, the core of a Hybrid, to do this.
Upon successfully feeling his Ether and using it to locate his Supernatural Ego—he would be able to determine, what kind of bloodline he unlocked through the shape of his Supernatural Ego, and only then could he truly be called a Hybrid.
He would be called a Hybrid then, because only then would he learn his first innate ability.
Of course, a recently awakened Hybrid is stronger than a normal Human, but they were not a true Hybrid, if they could not use any abilities, associated with their bloodline. Following that, to advance to the second star, he would then need a proper absorption technique to start.
As promised, Tobias would provide him with the necessary technique.
Bam!
Eating a blow to the face, Lucivar got sent rolling back and stopped on the wall.
He coughed a mouthful of blood and sat there unmoving.
"Other than that you should also try and figure out the constitution your bloodline brings. For instance, a new Vampire Hybrid would instantly have a hunger for blood. Naturally, the purity of the bloodline would determine how strong the hunger will be—but all Vampire Hybrids will have that hunger," Tobias explained, brandishing the wooden sword that was decorated with bloodstains.
Gazing at Lucivar, Tobias found that he was not moving and was weak already.
Even then, Lucivar had his eyes closed and was trying to feel his supposed bloodline energy.
However, no matter how much he tried, he couldn't feel anything.
It was as if the spark that had gotten to him back against Dorian was never there.
"Leandra managed to feel her Ether minutes after I started training her but you're no Leandra it seems," Tobias mused, and went to the side to place the wood sword back—gesturing that the training for today was over. "We'll continue this tomorrow, no point in going further"
Opening his eyes, Lucivar gazed at the leaving Tobias.
For some reason, hearing what Tobias said made him angry, it was the same as his Mother.
He had always been compared to other people who became a Hybrid early, and he had been undermined by his mother through that, just like what Tobias was doing right now. Somehow, the stinging pain across his body becomes numb.
'I'm not letting myself be undermined again, I'm going to make him focus!' He thought.
Putting down the wooden sword, Tobias heads to the door with light steps.
"Go to my wife to be healed. After you cover, Mirel will help you exercise" He said leisurely.
But as his hand was on the door handle, a figure with glowing eyes appeared behind him.
Bam!
Tobias blocked a punch from behind and glanced over his shoulder.
"Oh...?" A smile crept to his face when he saw Lucivar strike him from behind and his glowing eyes—filled with power showed that he was tapping, into his bloodline. "Do you have more in you? It was too soon to call it quits, then"
Parrying the punch, Lucivar was pushed back as Tobias turned to face him.
In the next second Lucivar pounced again, sending a series of attacks of his own.
Alas, his attacks were clumsy and full of holes as he was not trained for combat whatsoever, but Tobias could see, that his overall strength exploded. Receiving the attacks—Tobias, kept himself on the defense and observed what Lucivar had to offer.
Bam!
Blocking a punch from the side, Tobias raised an eyebrow, feeling the strength behind it.
Despite being on guard, he was pushed several meters to the side from blocking that punch.
'Strength-wise, he is as strong as when Bakar became a Hybrid, perhaps even stronger'
However, as Lucivar's attacks became even more frenzied, Tobias kicked him away.
"Don't let emotions control you, take control," He said as he realized Lucivar was completely overwhelmed by anger and was not thinking—forgetting what this bout was about. "Haven't you realized it yet? Your bloodline is activated, try feeling it now"
Upon hearing this, Lucivar widened his eyes, he didn't realize that his power was active.
Fearing that it might be deactivated in a moment, he quickly closed his eyes.
He focused on locating the source of his power—feeling the warmth, radiating from his solar plexus. Opening his eyes, Lucivar quickly turned to Tobias and said, "I found it, it's right here—the source of the warmth is coming from here"
Pointing at the spot, Lucivar informed Tobias about his findings.
Nodding his head, Tobias went over to him and told him to sit down and relax.
"Close your eyes," Tobias said as he stacked both of his hands on Lucivar's nape. "I'm going to open, your inner eyes. Focus on the location of your Supernatural Ego—and do not waver from it. If your inner eyes are opened, you'll find yourself inside your Inner Chamber—where your Supernatural Ego lies. It should be a statue"
Lucivar nodded and closed his eyes.
It was completely black, but he could feel an intense heat coming from his nape.
Seems like Tobias was infusing energy into him.
As Tobias instructed, Lucivar kept his focus on his solar plexus and before long, he could see something through the darkness of his closed eyes. It was far and blurry, but it got clearer as the heat on his nape grew intense.
Just like blinking his own eyes, he slowly began to grasp what he was seeing right now.
More than that, Lucivar was surprised when he could move.
Looking down at his body, he realized that he had now taken a golden astral form.
Even though Tobias said that he was going to open Lucivar's inner eyes—the inner eyes, that Lucivar expected, were nothing like this, he was expecting to only be able to see, not be able to move around like this.
Nevertheless—Lucivar looked around and found he was inside some kind of small room.
Judging from the holy engravings on the wall, the room seemed to be inside of a church.
It was dusty with rubbles littering the floor.
"Hmm... there's no windows or anything," Lucivar mused but then his eyes landed on a statue at the center of the room. It didn't take the shape of a being, or anything like that—it took the shape of an egg instead.
Approaching closer, he circled the statue and inspected it.
As he noticed earlier, the statue was shaped like an egg, but its exterior was jagged and also uneven. Lucivar tried to touch the statue and found that it was made of rock—he knocked on it a couple of times and found that it was extremely dense.
It even hurt his knuckles by doing that.
Moving back to see the full view of the statue—he realized the odd shape wasn't part of the egg itself but rather, objects tightly embracing it. At first glance—these objects looked like a series of arms or limbs.
But he soon discerned they were not arms.
"No, they were not arms, they are wings..." Lucivar muttered in surprise.
As opposed to arms, the egg was embraced tightly by wings.
Despite realizing that they were wings, he still couldn't tell what kind of bloodline he had.
Moreover, these wings, seemingly avian, were intricately carved to appear as if they were the guardians protecting the egg. Lucivar marveled at the level of detail of the features, each line meticulously etched, giving the impression of a living creature frozen in time.
Such a sight was both mesmerizing and unsettling.
Lucivar could feel that his bloodline was not a normal one.
Precisely because of that he still felt uneasy.
"Five pairs of feathered wings," He muttered, counting the wings. "Ten wings..."
Lucivar couldn't help but frown, he didn't know what kind of being had ten wings.
For starters, there were a lot of bloodlines that had wings such as Griffins, Harpies, and even the mighty Dragons, but the statue had ten wings, protecting the egg. It was only then—that his eyes widened at a possibility.
"Do I have the bloodline of an Angel...?" He mused, sucking in a cold breath.
His eyes widened when the egg vibrated with golden energy and it shot into the ground.
Swoosh!
Five intricate golden lines could be seen spreading on the floor like snakes, each heading in a different direction. Lucivar followed the golden lines—before he gasped when he realized the statue of an egg was not the only thing inside his Inner Chamber.
On the sides of the chamber were five statues, each starkly different than the others.
"So... which one is my Supernatural Ego again?"