The mahogany chair of Adui's father was surely emitting a blue hue, but why, was the question. So when he dove into the chair, looking at every nook and cranny of the thing, he realized an oddity in the chair design. The seat, based on how wide it was, felt a little thin in its cushioning. He realized instantly that the secret was hidden in the cushioning. And it didnt take him long to find the false bottom of the chair.
He lay down the chair, to find there were two wooden pieces, that were holding the bottom together. Based on the scratches around the pieces, he realized that more than often these pieces are turned to open to the fake bottom. He turned them, and the wooden plank which was at the bottom of the chair fell. And with it came a stone.
The stone itself was very small, probably the size of an adult's pinky finger. But he had not seen any such stone in his previous life, as this one was glowing. And he could see that this little guy was the thing that had been emitting the blue hue all this time. He touched it, only to see that the blue hue that was being emitted stopped completely. His hand started tingling, and he could feel power surging through his body, in his veins.
This power felt weird. He felt as if there was a current running through his veins, but the current was not harming him in any way. This power seemed to be soothing in fact. The power was almost intoxicating.
But then the power stopped. He looked at the stone to realize that it had lost all of its glow. Does this mean that the power inside the thing is finished?
Adui looked around, a myriad of questions getting born in his brain every second. His biggest concern was, whether this stone's abrupt loss of power would be noticed by their father. And whether he would be held accountable for it.
Quickly, he put the stone back and sealed the bottom once again. He put back everything the way it was, and left the room…
***
Fortunately, Adui was not caught, and surprisingly no one was held accountable for the stone losing power. Considering how loud their family was in small matters, he figured that if his father was to throw a tantrum, he would be the first to feel the wraith. But he never did. In fact a day after the incident, the chair started emitting the blue hue once again.
Arnold might not have thrown a tantrum, but he did something that Adui was not expecting. From the next day onwards, he was summoned to the study room to look over the ledger of the household. More specifically he was called to look over the calculations that were made in the ledger.
And as his father was so impressed, that he ordered Hubert to teach him about book-keeping. He became an accountant for the whole household and soon started handling all the household expenses as well. Which meant that he was given access to the study room, even when his father was not there. That truly was a privilege, as none of his other siblings ever got that privilege. But the privilege also came with some rules.
Firstly, he was never ever allowed to sit on his father's chair. The second rule was not that he was not to disclose the location of the family vault to anyone, not even his siblings. The vault was located under a fake stone in the wall, at the edge of the study. Thirdly, he was not allowed to take even a bronze coin out of the money collected by his father. If he were to take even a single coin, he would be flayed alive.
His father was a Baron, which basically meant that he was the ruler and the tax collector of the six villages that were around their manor. The tax that he would collect from the village would be then collected in their house, noted down in the ledger, and then all the money and the ledger would be passed onto his boss, who was the Viscount. And the viscount would then hand him a portion of the tax money, and keep the rest.
His father was very sleazy and would take some amount of money out of the whole pile before he could start recording them. Not that he cared, but he did realize why his father wanted to make him their accountant. Basically, he wanted to be a scapegoat, who would be the better candidate them him.
Whoever was making the ledger was made to sign their name at the bottom of the ledger. With his name plastered over the ledger, if any trouble was to come, it would come at him.
Although Adui understood his father's intention, he could just only go with the flow. There was nothing he could do that could stop his father. And it was not like he was not benefitting from it. With him being the accountant of the study, he was given access to the study room all the time. And showing that he was a very very slow writer helped in the process. With it, he had all the time to go through every book that was available in the study…
And like that a year passed by. In that time Adui's whole perception of this world changed completely. With the books, he came to know that there was something like magic in this world. Instead of magic, the term that this world used was Mana Arts. Mana is the energy of the world, from which the Mana Art master harnesses their mystical power and can do feats that no normal man can do.
From the books, he came to that a mana art master could ignite fire without wood or fuel, make ice without water, create darkness in bright daylight, and many more obscure things. He took the things with a pinch of salt, but these books did make him realize that his world might host some people who could be considered wizards by Earth's standards.
It didnt take him long to realize that the blue hue that he had been seeing from the chair, or when his father and siblings train is mana itself. And the stone that he found, was a concentrated form of mana. How or why it was formed was beyond him, but he knew one thing, that his father had a huge supply of that stone hidden somewhere in this house.
He didnt dare to touch the stone again, considering what happened the first time. He did notice that the size of the stone changed every one and a half months or so. And considering his father, and from time to time his elder brother sat on the mahogany seat, they were absorbing the stone's power from the cushion. But what those people didnt realize was that he was also absorbing the stone's power at the same time.
According to his family, he was barren. And could never wield mana in his life. But that was simply not true, as he absorbed the stone the first time. From the books, he had come to know that usually, mana wielders absorb mana by directly absorbing it from elixirs or air, while performing exercises.
He didnt understand the part about exercise properly. So for the sake of an experiment, he started doing different Calisthenics exercises, and he was really surprised by the results.
As a native of Earth, he was a master of Muay Thai. So he just started practicing the martial art in the training area. And he started seeing results in a week or so. So he changed his tactics a little bit and also started practicing calisthenics and yoga, to see whether different exercises have different kinds of effects on him. And his suspicion was true, different sorts of exercise have different sorts of effects on his body.
In the past six months, he theorized that mana nourishes the body, and helps in the growth of strong muscles. And now considering the kind of exercise one is doing, a person could sculpt their body however they wanted. He liked the speed and deadly strikes, so his body was progressing in that direction. His father and his brother were both brawny and bulky guys as they preferred strength, over everything.
In the past months, with as many mishaps as possible, Adui read all the books that his study had to offer, completing the second phase of his plan…
***
It was the knock on the door that woke him up. Adui pushed his sheet aside and looked outside his bedroom's window. It was still dark outside. Curious why someone would wake him at this time he went to the door and there stood Martha.
"Young Master Adui," she said.
"What is it dear?" he said softly, making her avert her gaze, and blush.
"It is young mistress Areil. She has awakened,"
Now that is a very pleasant surprise, he thought. Not every person can wield mana, those who can wield, only start to wield mana after coming of age. This coming-of-age process is referred to as awakening. The awakening can happen from the age of 1 to 15, after that no one awakens. From what he had understood, with some process the Hampshire family was able to ascertain that every single one of their children, except him, would be able to awaken. And till only his big brother was able to awaken. Now their family has gotten another mana wielder.
"Has father summoned us?" he asked.
"No…" with a sad voice, she replied, "Your mother wanted me to go and fetch a lamb from a nearby village. We will have a feast tomorrow. But then your father suggested that we should send you, considering that you love to run errands for me…"
In the past months, Adui came closer to Martha. He came closer to quell her thoughts that he was a devil and to keep an eye on her, as she was the one who could possibly be an obstacle in his future plans. But to the rest of the world, it seemed that the young Adui had fallen for Martha, the poor girl thought the same as well. Although he never wanted to play with that girl's heart, he figured instead of breaking her heart, why not use it to his advantage?
He had learned in his past life that it is pretty important for a fighter to regulate their breathing and have good stamina for the fight. The best way to do so was through jogging. He figured that one might it weird that an idiot in the family started running out all of a sudden. So he used his fake love for Martha as a cover. As it turns out, she usually walks to the nearest village which is about 5km away from their house for supplies. Using this information he started going in her stead. And he started going by running to the village.
Everyone thinks that Adui runs to the village, and comes back running because of his love for Martha. Little did everyone know, this was his way to exercise, without anyone batting an eye…
"I love to go." He said. And then moved past her and was about to head to his destination when he heard from behind him, "Be careful out there!" the concern in her voice told him that his plan was working just fine. And with that, he started moving.
By the time he was about to reach the village, the sun had begun it rise from the horizon. Adui had sprinted the whole way, but the strange thing was that he was not feeling tired at all. If he was right then he could go another 5km, and be okay with it. As he was about to reach the village, he quickly went to the large banyan tree that was located around 400m away from the entrance. This tree in particular was very thick, and old tree.
Come on now Adui.. Just like you have practiced. With high concentration, he sensed the mana swirling somewhere behind his belly button. With his will, he was able to mana towards his palm. It took a lot of concentration to move the mana, and then form a layer of it around his palm, and then maintain the form. As soon as he was done, he opened his eyes and punched the tree.
The whole tree shook with the impact, the bark of the tree caved in, and a cavity the shape of his palm. Seeing the results, he smiled, he was finally able to do this after weeks. He then left the tree before anyone else could see what he was doing…