Every morning I would wake up early, when the sun wasn't even up to train with Iris who gave me the early morning lessons since I needed extra class time to catch up with Claire. My training consisted of a lot of physical training, focusing fully on it almost 5-6 times every week. These included pushups, situps, running, and all that sort of thing. It's tiring, given the fact that my last real exercise was like what, 20 years ago now.
It's a grueling exercise, I didn't imagine it to be easy on my body as I was still a little 2 years old, all skin and bones, but man… I ain't think exercise would ever be this hard. Iris said that the basics to learn swordplay is to have enough strength and stamina to move around. She told me to build up muscles so I could lift up a weapon and swing it around. She wasn't wrong at all, not being able to even swing around an actual sword defeats the purpose of learning swordplay in the first place.
A young child like me doesn't really have the stamina to maintain effective training all morning so the classes are mostly separated into two sections, the first half on swinging the sword, and bodybuilding, and the second mostly on theory and dynamics. Since everyday was going like this, I had a lot of time remaining even if I stayed and observed Claire's classes. I decided to spend that time working on my spellcraft, there weren't any video games or a pc, so I couldn't really do anything else but work on my magic.
Now that Mother already knows about my 'secret' training, I don't really have any reason to hide it anymore. To prevent further damage from magical explosions, I decided that I won't practice magic indoors anymore.
//
Because of Iris' lessons I'm not able to put as much time into improving my mana pool now, I mean, my growth everyday is still pretty noticeable but it's just not as fulfilling when I'm not able to push my magic use to it's limit.
One thing I tried to do was to increase all the spell sizes when training to the max, that allows me to use almost double the amount of mana every time I cast a spell without consuming extra time. Curiously, during an experiment, I found that actually making my spells smaller also consumes extra mana. I don't really understand what's happening there but like I guess it's a method when I want to practice indoors?
I also tried spell stacking which gave me an efficient way to practice spells just making steam or mist, this doubles the amount of mana used on top of the maximum output with both spells put my amount of mana used to be almost four times the original amount, even with all this I couldn't even reach close to my limit. My mana pool has grown quite a bit huh?
I still didn't truly understand the mechanics in magic, they seem pretty complicated, I have gotten pretty good on the methods of how to use it through practice, but still… I'll just ask the tutor Mother got me whenever he or she comes.
For a while now I wanted to move onto more detailed applications of magic, I can't really do much but throw clumsy fireballs and water balls at enemies, like what was really the use of this in life, I wasn't going to be a war general that has ambitions to take over the world. I wanted to be able to use magic practically in life, in other words the term known as Utility magic, it involves a lot of manipulating elements and warping things, it was a pretty interesting subject. I was able to learn the first part pretty quickly, it just pretty much involves reshaping the structures. I remember a little stuff from high school chemistry so I got the gist of it fairly easily.
Warping objects is a pretty good thing to learn, it was going to be pretty handy during daily life, I could make cups out of clay or stone, make figurines… figurines… naked women… loli?
Shit my bad got carried away in my thoughts. I figured that reshaping hard objects would cost a pretty hefty amount of mana, for instance if I tried to reshape a piece of metal, it would cost me over six times more mana compared to something like clay. Even attempting to precisely create a figurine with metal would almost instantly drain all my brain power and magic reserves, the concentration it takes is really crazy.
//
Everyday my schedule continued like this, day after day, I was sure it wasn't healthy sleeping this late at night and waking up before dawn. About a year has passed, I am anon three years of age, I has't did improve quite a did bite, if I doth sayeth so myself. Anon I can p'rfectly maketh a metal figure without draining all mine own mana backups, huge improvement from ere ay? Let me drop the accent real quick, I'll repeat: I am now three years of age, I have improved quite a bit, if I do say so myself. Now I can perfectly create a metal figure without draining all my magic reserves, huge improvement from before, ay? I have gotten a sense that I have reached a sufficient amount of mana reserves, especially comparing to the bum I was in my past life, this was an achievement, put that checkmark down, reached sufficient mana reserves✅.
I was quick to give myself a warning, for the bum that I used to be slacking off during these times weren't specifically uncommon. Once one slacks off the body goes soft— that sounded weird didn't it, my bad I didn't mean that… For all I knew right now, magic could be the same, afterall I gained my incredible mana pool from training, I couldn't let all this go to waste, I have to make sure it stays this way.
//
Dad came back, it was quite the rare occurrence, normally it would be us visiting Father, instead of him visiting us. On the first day I saw Claire and father sparring in the yard, father seemed even stronger than Iris, Iris was already an extremely capable swordswoman, but father was just on a different level. I could see that father used multiple different styles during his sparring session with Claire. His movement was silky, even in his slender body he could still slither around the hard dirt floor, the way he darted around was really special, it wasn't like what I have learned.
Father was a stern man, his voice is alway monotone and serious, at least it is when he's with me or Claire. When he's with mother, his tone really switches up. Heh, guess even father is flirty sometimes.
Since father came back, the house became pretty noisy, especially at night.
One night, I was just practicing magic, trying to triple stack and burn through my mana reserves. Some lewd sounds came from somewhere, really it wasn't somewhere, I knew where it came from.
To give a little context, there were six bedrooms on the second floor, the maids all slept downstairs in the maid rooms. The six bedrooms were in a line, there were 2 guest rooms and Von's empty bedroom, my room was fifth and Claire's was sixth, and the fourth room was the master bedroom, belonging to Mother and Father, as we can see, I always get the first hand experience.
The creaking of the bedframe and the breathless moaning never stopped all night. If I pressed my ear against the wall, I could hear the loud slapping impact of the skin— My, my, that's really rough… Damn dad, you're making me jealous. I am definitely getting a younger brother or sister sooner rather than later.
I really didn't have a preference, both would be good, in my past life I never really had siblings, maybe if I did have siblings I would have had a better time, maybe I wouldn't have fallen in that hole. Ahhhh— who gives a fuck anymore, I'm living the life now. Maybe I want a little sister… Huh? I guess I do have a preference
//
Clank— the sound of wooden blades clashing echoed in the empty dirt yard, the cool morning breeze blowing in our hair as the sword slices through the air.
I took a step back, huffing and puffing— Claire's strength really isn't something I wanted to directly connect with, if I really tried to overwhelm her with raw strength, my arm would probably have been ripped off.
Within the blink of an eye, my vision wasn't able to see Claire anymore. In this world even the weakest swordsman can easily overwhelm any and all from the other world, no matter if you were a master swordsman or if you were an olympics gold medalist, you would at best be classified as an elementary class swordsman. It makes a lot of sense, since this world has dangerous monsters roaming everywhere.
Clank—
Our blades clashed again, Claire was intermediate level by now, her growth has been impressive since father came back. A decently proficient swordsman in this world can easily move at speeds way past your average car, 50 miles per hour would be my guess at how fast Claire is moving right now.
Clank— Claire hit my blade with an upwards slash, the vibration from the hit coursed through my body, as my arms went numb from the impact… My hands began loosening my grip on the wooden sword— The wooden blade was flung through the air.
The sword landed about 8 meters behind my back, my legs gave out, collapsing to the floor, breathing heavily.
"Big sis—, you know I'm still only elementary class— You don't have to go so hard on me—" I whined as I sat my butt on the dirt floor.
"Stop whining Gryne, if you want to improve you would have to practice." Claire replied, her voice stiff, as if she was trying to give an impression of Father.
Actually that was pretty good advice, I had already decided previously that I won't let my magic go rusty, why not do it with swordsmanship also?
I got up and walked towards where my wooden practice sword was, the sword was all battered up, the wooden edges chipped away from Claire's fierce and ruthless attacks. I pull the sword out of the dirt leaving a hole there, I turn around to face Claire my sword in an upright position as I winded up my blade placing the handle on my right hip, the tip of the blade pointing forward at Claire, I shift my feet to the offensive stance, my left foot sliding back. I was using the sword saint style that Iris taught me, my back slightly arched forward, I concentrated on my breathing— in, out, in, out, a surge of mana coarse through my body as my feet pushed against the dirt floor of the yard.
A small smile washed across Claire's face as she took a defensive position holding up her wooden sword in front, slightly tilted at a 45 degree angle, the flat side of her blade facing me.
As I blitz forward, my blade slashing down from above my head, our blades clashed— Clank. Clank. Clank.
In swordplay, the offensive position is alway advantageous, they can dictate the whole fight if they were skilled enough, although there are counters to this like parrying the attack or whatever they do in the knight style. To put it more clearly, it's like chess to some degree, if you were to move your pieces in a certain way, putting pressure on the opponent, you can clearly predict their next move, there are some variables that can't be controlled though, for example… The queen—
Claire took two steps back, backing up as I continued to slash attack after attack. I thought I had the advantage, slashing my sword from the right side of my shoulder down to my left hip… This is it I'm going to win.
My sword came down, I felt the wind blow onto my face, Clank— I saw Claire's face… She was smiling confidently… "Gotcha." I heard her mutter under her breath.
My sword flung back from the clash… Claire just parried my attack— As I tried to reposition myself, I felt a hard object softly push against my left gut.
Claire was only still 6 years old… Although she's kind of dumb, an airhead… I had to respect her. I had lost to her once again. Taking in the fact that I am almost a 40 year old man, with experiences from my past life still engraved deep into my memory… And was an incredible fighter at my peak. Everyone should respect Claire for completely outplaying me even in such a disadvantageous situation.
//
In the next few days our lives just continued as it was, there wasn't anything to really take in except for the fact that I got destroyed in every sparring session with Claire, but we don't talk about that…
Oh yeah… Father went back to work in the city again, the house has been real quiet since. I almost forgot about that… Sorry dad.