Let’s jump forward a month. No matter how much I protested, Damon made me train every day. Although he at least started explaining swordsmanship by demonstrating some techniques. When he was teaching me, it wasn’t bad.

  I could do without the broken bones, even with healing. It was beginning to strain our relationship a bit, something he didn’t appear to care about, or at least that’s what it appeared on the outside. It made me wonder if he was trained in this way. If he was, that still didn’t excuse his actions toward me, regardless of what the man thought.

  Still, learning the sword was interesting. For starters, I learned that like magic, there were five ranks a sword user could be. That was Initiate, Intermediate, Sentinel, Phoenix, and Blademaster. Much like Divine and Master for magic, Phoenix and Blademasters were rare. Damon was an intermediate-level sword user, though from what he said, he was a higher tier one, though not quite Sentinel.

  Damon also talked to me about sword forms. It turns out there are four, though in reality three were achievable. First, there was Gylorian style, which was an aggressive stance. Honestly, it would be the stance I’d like to use as a sword user.

  The second form was Iron Guard. This is what Damon used against me in our first duel. It was a defensive stance, meant to block and adapt to an opponent.

  Then there was the Zen style. This was simply a mixed style of aggression and defense. It was meant to keep the opponent guessing, as they wouldn’t know if a person using this form was going to be aggressive or not. Damon told me this style was not easy to learn and most tended to learn Gylorian and Iron Guard forms.

  The last style was one that even most Blademasters couldn’t master and that was the Void. This form was a mix of Gylorian and Iron Guard, except a person who mastered this form was able to adapt at will. This form required a clear mind, and your body would do the rest. Damon said anyone who mastered this form would be unbeatable and emphasized again that this isn’t a form to focus on, at least not unless I became a Blademaster.

  I also learned that sword users do use mana, though it was different than a mage. The reason he could move so fast was due to mana enhancing his muscles, reaction timing, strength and of course, speed. It’s something that comes naturally to a swordsman. This kind of mana grows as the user gets better and better with a sword. This mana was separate than mana for magic. Damon said that while it is a type of mana use, it’s easier to call it an aura and as a user’s aura grows, so does their strength and speed.

  Like magic, it was easier to grow this by fighting strong monsters. Supposedly Damon was on track to become a Sentinel until he met Zena. Once they got married and had me, the days of adventuring were over. The monsters near the village were incredibly weak. Damon could kill the monsters in there every day and not grow his aura a single bit.

  On the bright side, despite not fighting strong monsters, the aura didn’t weaken with time. Damon may not get stronger, but he wouldn’t get weaker either. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t get rusty with a sword if he didn’t keep training.

  Once Damon told me all this, he asked me which form I’d like to learn first. I told him Gylorian and that’s what I’ve been doing since. I wish I didn’t have to learn the sword. Magic is more interesting, and I have a better knack for it. This might also be because my relationship with Damon had tumbled since the first beating. We didn’t spar every time. When we did, he always broke at least one bone and made me fight while injured.

  Thankfully, today was not a sparring day. I walked inside sweaty and not pissed off. I splashed some water on my face and dried my face. Something tugged my sleeve, and I turned to see my little sister looking up at me.

  “Hello, Talia, do you need something?”

  “Yes. Can you teach me magic?”

  “Ah, sorry I can’t,” I scratched my head as I would have loved to teach her. “Mother wants to teach you herself.”

  “But she won’t teach me until I’m five! That’s forever!”

  I barely kept myself from laughing. Talia was so adorable. She was too young to realize that two years weren’t that long. It was something she’d realize when she got older. “Sorry, Talia, my hands are tied.”

  Talia’s eyes darted toward my hands and then back at my face. “Your hands are free!”

  “It’s a figure of speech, I can’t disobey mother, sorry.”

  For a moment I thought Talia was going to storm off. Instead, she bowed her head. “Okay.”

  Then she walked off. It was probably for the best I didn’t teach her magic. A five-year-old with the power to create fire sounded like a disaster. I was pretty sure Zena wasn’t going to teach Talia any aggressive magic, likely healing to start. It was a surprise my parents weren’t more concerned about my use of magic. Zena did tell me to never use magic against another kid, not like I was planning on doing that.

  “Thorian, can you come to the living room?” Zena yelled out.

  “Coming!” I hollered back.

  When I entered the living room, I saw Zena and Damon sitting down. Zena looked cheerful, while Damon looked a bit grouchy. If I had to guess, Zena must have won an argument of some kind. If only Zena could get me out of sparring with my father.

  “Take a seat, please,” Zena said and pointed to a chair. Once I sat down, she began. “I’ve got some good news. After talking with your father, we decided to hire you a magic tutor!”

  “R-really?” I stammered out. This was excellent news! My magic had stalled out since finishing the beginner’s book.

  “Yes. There’s an old intermediate mage in the village that used to be an adventurer. He agreed to train you,” Zena was beaming as she said this. I was smiling like an idiot.

  Since sparring with Damon, I hadn’t been enjoying my time. I was always dreading training with my wooden sword and wanted to run away once I saw Damon waiting for me. This would be great. The joy I was feeling quickly went away.

  “There is one condition,” Zena said.

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “You must continue your sword training. If you slack or stop, then your tutor will no longer teach you magic.”

  I bet Damon fought to not get a tutor at all. The jackass. He wants me to be a swordsman so badly.

  There wasn’t a choice here. Even if I wanted to stop sword training, Damon wouldn’t let me. “Okay, I promise to keep training with a sword.”

  “That doesn’t mean you can half-ass your training. Slacking will also get your tutor removed,” Damon said.

  I couldn’t help scowling. When I got stronger than him, I would give him a taste of his own medicine. “I will train my hardest, I promise,” I said.

  “Good,” Damon said.

  “I’m glad that’s settled. Your tutor will arrive tomorrow,” Zena said.

  All right, at least I can improve my magic. It was surprising to me that this tutor was only intermediate. I’m guessing it must be hard to break into the Mystic ranks of magic usage. Whatever, either way I had someone who could teach me magic. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

  The next day arrived. I felt like a kid on Christmas and Santa was about to arrive with presents. He should be arriving at any time, and all I could do was pace the room. Zena was laughing with Talia, who was looking at me like I was acting strange.

  What? Can’t I get excited about something too? There was a knock at the door. He was here! I almost bolted for the door but stopped myself as Zena walked over and opened the door. “Hello Elias, thank you for coming,” Zena said and motioned for him to enter.

  An older man walked in. Elias looked to be in his mid-fifties, with white hair and a white beard. He was wearing a set of blue robes. There was no doubt in my mind he was a mage. He was older than I expected and the fact he was only intermediate was interesting.

  “It’s my pleasure, now who is the student?” Elias asked. He glanced at me and Talia before looking around the house.

  “My son, Thorian,” Zena gripped my shoulder and nudged me forward. “He’s the one who learned all the spells in the A Beginner’s Guide to Magic book.”

  Elias looked me over and stroked his beard. “I wasn’t expecting him to be so young,” he said after a moment.

  “Thorian taught himself to read so he could learn magic. He’s very motivated. I’m sure you’ll be impressed,” Zena said.

  “You’re the one paying, I’ll see what I can do,” Elias said skeptically.

  Hey, I couldn’t blame him for thinking this is a waste of time. If I were in Elias’s shoes, I would be thinking the same thing. What talent can a five-year-old really have? Either way, this was going to be good for me.

  “Follow me, Thorian,” Elias said. He walked out of the house with me right on his heels.

  I expected us to stop in the open field in the front of my house. Instead, we kept walking. We walked until my house was nearly out of sight. This was the furthest I’ve been from my home. I’d had no reason to come out this far.

  “We’ll start training here. I’m sure your mother told you, but I am an intermediate mage. Before I came here, I was an adventurer for twenty or so years.”

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  “Um, can I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  This was where I was taking advantage of being a child. Children didn’t know how to hold back questions that may hurt someone’s feelings, not that I was trying to hurt his feelings. “Why didn’t you become a Mystic mage?”

  “You know about the rankings, do you?” Elias said with a chuckle. He didn’t wait for my response. “It takes many years of hard work to become a Mystic mage. Not many can get there and the ones that do don’t usually get there until they’re in their thirties. I did try for a brief time. The difficult part is that there are no incantations for skills in Mystic or above.”

  The book never mentioned that. Now that I thought about it, the book didn’t delve into what differentiates an intermediate from a mystic. I assumed it was the spells, clearly there was more to it than that.

  “The thing is, utilizing a mystic spell has to do with optimizing your mana. When you learn a spell, you’re using more mana than is necessary at first. The more you cast it, you are optimizing your mana without realizing it. That’s part of the reason a spell uses less mana the more you use it. This takes a lot of training to utilize mana in a way to cast Mystic spells and even further in Divine and Master,” Elias continued, stopping for a moment as he let out a cough. “Something you’ll realize soon is when you put more mana into a spell, especially if you are making your own. This can cause an unstable spell. For example, let’s say you wanted to heat a rock, but you put too much mana, so it explodes. This can severely harm and in some cases, kills the caster. This is a basic example, but I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying.”

  I absorbed every word. This was interesting and not what I expected. Now I understood why it was difficult to reach that next level of magic. I’d assumed if a mages mana pool was large, they’d find a powerful spell, recite the incantation and go from there. It was also good to know the risks of trying to create a spell.

  Magic got a lot more complicated. My mind was whirling with the possibilities. I needed to shake those thoughts away, for now I needed to learn the basics, then I could move on to the next level.

  In truth, a part of me wanted to live a quiet life with no fighting while another part of me wanted to become a powerful mage. This era is equivalent to the medieval ages, and I want to be able to protect my loved ones in case of a threat, such as bandits attacking or a war breaking out. If this world was anything like my own, then war and raiding wouldn’t be an uncommon occurrence. That didn’t mean I would suffer from it, but I figured it’s better to be prepared.

  “The book I read mentioned there weren’t many Mystic or above mages. How many are there?” I asked.

  “Hmm, let me think,” Elias scratched his head. He was silent for quite a while, almost to where I wondered if he was falling asleep. “These numbers aren’t going to be accurate because of the unknown. Last I heard, there were twenty-three known Mystic, fifteen Divine and twelve Master mages. There are likely a few unknown mages out there who can cast spells of this magnitude. The true number is one we’ll never know.”

  “Wow, there really aren’t that many.”

  “Exactly, it’s not an easy thing to accomplish and requires a lot of training and risks. If you ever meet a Mystic mage and they’re friendly, ask them for advice. That would be the easiest way to transition to that level,” Elias said. “Enough about that, let’s get to why we came here. Show me what kind of magic you can do.”

  “Okay,” I said and began channeling my mana. The more mana I put into my magic, the stronger it would become. We were in an open field, so there was no risk of hurting anyone. I raised my hand and pointed it toward the sky. A fireball formed and I launched it into the sky. The ball of fire went up a couple of hundred feet before fizzling out.

  “Keep going, show me what you’ve got.”

  With that, I spent the next fifteen minutes showing off a few spells. I launched a water ball. Next, I created a earth ball, then shot some wind out of my hand. I couldn’t show off my healing, which was only enough to heal small scratches. The last thing I did was create an icicle. That was about the extent of magic I knew. I could modify each spell to be bigger, smaller, or in certain shapes.

  “Interesting, you don’t look tired despite all the magic you fired off,” Elias said.

  “I used about a quarter of my mana, I think,” I said. It was hard to know how much mana I had stored. It was a guess, one I was fairly confident in. With how much training I had done, my mana pool had grown to a decent size.

  “You have that much left?” Elias’s jaw dropped before he regained his composure. “I can see why your mother asked me to teach you.”

  Hell yeah! I must be further along than I thought.

  “What are you going to teach me?” I looked at my instructor eagerly. He looked amused at my reaction.

  “We’ll do something easy. That fireball you created, we’re going to make it explode,” Elias said. He raised his hand toward the sky and launched a fireball. It was about the same size as mine. A few seconds later, the fireball exploded. A small shockwave caused my hair to blow back. “That’s what it’ll look like. All you need to do is utter the words ‘Fireball Explosion’ and you should get the same result.”

  “All right.”

  It was interesting how different each spell felt. Some were subtle and could take a few tries to learn. “Fireball Explosion,” I said. A rush of hot energy surged through my body and out the palm of my hand and the fireball launched into the sky. Just like Elias’s, mine also exploded after a few seconds.

  “Now do that without using the incantation,” Elias instructed.

  This one was easy. I used the hot energy I felt before and repeated the fireball explosion. This time, I put a bit more mana into it and the fireball lasted five seconds before exploding instead of only a couple.

  “Impressive, so you understand the more mana you put into a spell, the stronger it is,” Elias said.

  “Yeah, that one wasn’t in the book. I found that out by messing around.”

  “That’s because it isn’t a trick for beginners. There’s a lot that can go wrong with magic when starting out. You must be mindful of that when trying out new spells.”

  “That reminds me, is it possible to create your own spells?”

  “Yes. That part is quite simple, though the first time you do this, it’ll take more mana until you get used to using this spell. All mages create their own spells to some degree. Some are more imaginative while others make slight adjustments.”

  “Can you show me?”

  Elias nodded and raised his hand. This time, three shapes formed out of nowhere. Using earth, Elias created three objects that looked like tiny drill bits. He launched them and they went so fast that I barely saw them moving. Next thing I knew, the drill bits hit the ground, creating small clouds of dust.

  “A friend of mine created this to tighten a bolt on his wagon many years ago. I stole the design and created what I call a Drill Attack. It’s quite effective against monsters. Why don’t you try it? It’ll drain your mana more than usual, but I’m curious if you can replicate this attack.”

  I was pretty sure I could do this, if I concentrated enough. The first thing I did was put an image of the drill bit in my mind and summoned the earth. It took me longer than Elias, yet in about ten seconds I recreated the same drill bit Elias formed. I also felt the mana drain. If I had created a rock, I wouldn’t have noticed how much mana I used. This felt like I was using ten times what I should for such a simple design.

  “Very good,” Elias said.

  For the next hour, I began learning more advanced spells. We went until my mana was nearly drained. I was exhausted yet also thrilled with what I’d learned. There was a lot of potential in magic and not just in combat. I imagined this world relied on magic to do many things. I was able to do each spell requested of me on the first try. Thanks to Elias’s teachings, I could now cast two spells at once, something that required a lot of mana to perform consecutively.

  Then we finished for the day. I took a seat and looked at the sky. The number of things I learned today exceeded my expectations and there was still so much more to learn. If I applied myself, maybe I could become a powerful mage before I was in my twenties. Wouldn’t that be neat.

  “I must say, in all the years I have traveled, I have never met someone so gifted with magic,” Elias said, taking a seat next to me. “Don’t let that go to your head. I’ve seen plenty of gifted magic users get themselves killed because they thought too highly of themselves.”

  If I didn’t have my previous memories, I would likely have been arrogant. The fact I had these memories of my previous life made it easy not to think too highly of myself. It was like I was cheating to get ahead in this life. Not that I felt guilty about that.

  “I understand, Instructor,” I said.

  “Do you now?” Elias looked me in the eye and laughed. “Odd thing is, I believe you. Well, it’s best I get you back home. You did learn some intermediate magic spells today, but we have more complex ones to work on. We’ll see how you do with those.”

  “Sounds fun to me. I look forward to learning more from you.”

  The rest of the day was boring. I still did my sword routine. Thank God Damon was off hunting monsters today, so I didn’t have to worry about sparring with him for the next couple of days. That made today one of the best days of my life in this world.

  I was supposed to be sleeping. My mind was racing with the possibilities of magic, and I found myself playing with earth. A drill bit as an attack was interesting and it made me wonder what would I want to use? I didn’t get to make much headway as I ran out of mana pretty fast. Despite training that morning and it now being night, I hadn’t recovered much mana. It usually required sleeping to fully recover. Hopefully I would still recover. It would suck to be low on mana in the morning. It took me over an hour to finally fall asleep.

  “Very good,” Elias said. “Let’s take a five-minute break.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said and plopped myself on the ground. This was my third lesson with Elias. So far, things were going well. Hopefully things kept going that way. “I have a question.”

  “Ask away.”

  “What types of attacks are there with earth?”

  “You mean the most common types?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I would say creating boulders and spikes are the most common for aggression. Earth is usually used more defensively, such as creating a wall to block an attack or surround oneself in a sphere. Why do you ask?”

  “Seeing your drill attack had me thinking about using precise attacks. How accurate can you shoot your Drill Attack?”

  “Ah, very accurately. It is much easier to launch my Drill Attack than firing a bow. I take it you haven’t been able to launch the drill like I did?”

  “Right, I did try after our training session and all it does is stay put. I can shoot water balls and fire without problems, but I can’t figure out how to use the drill attack like you did.”

  “That’s because you need to create the velocity yourself. To throw a rock, you can’t simply hold it in your hand. The same concept applies when creating your own spells. Create the velocity, and then the drill will fire like mine did.”

  I felt stupid for asking the question. His answer made sense; I just couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it myself. Until this point, I’d mainly done the spells as I was taught and not using my own variations. I could change the shapes of water and earth, but I hadn’t tried launching them at anything.

  “Do you have plans to become an adventurer?” Elias asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. It would be a shame to waste my talents and not become an adventurer. I was still conflicted about what I wanted to do in this world. “Right now, all I want to do is learn magic.”

  “Yes, well that’s all you need to worry about right now,” Elias said. “I was the same as a kid, just wanting to learn magic. Adventuring is dangerous work, yet with your skills, I wouldn’t worry about you at all. If you do the right jobs, it can be very lucrative. That’s one reason your parents can afford to pay me to teach you.”

  I’ve got over thirty years on you. Elias may be in his fifties, but I was eighty-two when I died. Add in the five years in this world and that would make me eighty-seven. Was being an adventurer the best way to improve my magic once I learned all I could from Elias?

  “Magic is used for more than fighting. Farmers love hiring magic users. If the crops aren’t getting enough water, they’ll hire a mage who can summon rain to water their crops. There are builders who create houses with magic and of course, fighting monsters or used in wars. You don’t have to fight to make money.”

  The mention of monsters reminded me of something I hadn’t asked my parents. “Is it dangerous to travel thanks to monsters?”

  “It depends where you go. Roads are usually safe. There are certain areas that can be dangerous. Usually forests or caves are the most dangerous places for monsters. The forest your father goes to has a lot of weak monsters but is a great way to increase your mana, to a point.”

  “Yeah, my father has told me about it. He’s told me to never go there without him.”

  “You would be fine, and I would tell you not to go. All it would take is one mistake, and you could be killed.”

  That’s where I disagreed with him. I had fought in Vietnam. I’m guessing Elias was concerned that if I went and panicked, I would get myself killed. I couldn’t see myself doing that, not after what I experienced in my old life.

  “Well, let’s get back to training. You ready?”

  “Yeah,” I said and got up. At some point I needed to explore the village. Eventually I would make my way to the forest. I’m sure I would be fine, but for now I would focus on my training and worry about that later.