I smiled at his snide remark, but couldn't even get myself to retort.
After all, it feels like I could fight a dragon right now; my body feels stronger and yet lighter at the same time.
Right now, I couldn't even be considered a magi, though. I was a "Charger."
It sounds cool until you realize they call us that because we can't do anything with our mana except maybe charge some basic runes.
Once you form your first circle, the ranks of magi for each stage go from Twilight, Dusk and finally Radiant. You're just lightening the shade of your mana circle until it's as bright and thick as possible, through a long series of meditation.
While I was thinking I suddenly got a whiff of myself and realized Alaric wasn't lying about the smell.
All the impurities I cleared out of my channels to make room for mana oozed out of my skin during the awakening process.
Leaving Alaric to clean up the floor, while shooting him a smile, I went to the bathroom to have a quick bath.
After scrubbing myself thoroughly multiple times over. I finally got out of the tub and could process the progress I had made.
And the results were quite encouraging.
I already noticed my thoughts running faster, and my senses feel heightened. I know it's the resort of mana passively running through my body.
Through my blood.
Enchanting its every feature, making me stronger.
And it feels nothing short of amazing. I've never felt so strong in my life.
I put clothes on after checking myself out for a couple of minutes and went to see Alaric with a big smile on my face.
"So, whatever happened to that spar?"
He smiled and led me to the backyard, where we grabbed swords from the rack leaning against the house before leaving.
Most mages use weapons. After all, each level of magic makes your body much stronger than the last, not to mention reinforcing your body further by augmenting the speed of its circulation.
Although some do use wands, but its a rarity; certain runes engraved on them slightly increase mana output.
Heeding that information, it's important to get a good head start on weapon mastery while you can.
So for the past year and change, Alaric has been beating my ass and making me work out constantly, teaching me different weapons and the proper way to use them.
The worst part, or the best part, depending on how you see it.
Is that Alaric is an accomplished healer, who is very profound in his use of the light element.
After beating me senselessly, he's always ready to test out new healing spells that don't even work half the time. But from constantly getting beaten and broken, and my muscles strained and recovered over and over again, I've made some ridiculous progress.
Even though it doesn't feel like it, after all, I'm just getting beaten constantly.
But I trust my mentor and his methods.
Alaric told me I'm in the middle of the pack for kids my age in swordsmanship.
Not too high, not too low, and I'm at a similar level with spearmanship, which is quite astonishing for only having a year to catch up. My other skills are average.
But he's complemented my battle sense and physique.
My physical shape should be almost unmatched.
Working in the mines all those years did wonders for building me a decent structure of muscle.
After all, we were surprisingly well fed in the mines; no gourmet foods, but foods high in well-needed nutrients to keep people working 24/7.
Yet despite all that, I can never seem to win against my teacher, even while he's matching his physical qualities to mine.
It's quite disheartening, but I know I'm making progress and that's all that matters.
Anyways, I have to shake off these thoughts and focus before I get my ass beat.
Alaric readied his long sword.
"I'm going to go a little faster than usual, brat. Your body is reinforced with mana now. Even if you're not using it to its full potential, the passive effects are noticeable enough."
Alaric paused, then simply said
"I'm starting now."
And before I could even register his words, he was already in front of me, swinging directly at my left hip.
Due to my inexperience with my new strength, and because of the speed and precision of the strike, I barely got my sword up in time and managed a flimsy block that instantly opened my guard.
Alaric flashed a smile and then kicked me directly in the balls.
Splitting pain shot up my body from my crotch.
I rolled around in the dirt, hands clutching my privates.
Eventually gathering myself, I yelled at Alaric.
"What the fuck, old man!"
I managed to groan as I was still rolling in the dirt while holding my precious jewels.
Alaric is trying to make sure I can't have children someday, I'm sure of it.
Alaric, still standing above me, started walking back towards his starting position, giggling the whole way there, and I swear I saw a little hop in his step.
"I'm just helping with your pain tolerance."
He stated shamelessly.
Fucking geizer.
After taking a minute to recover as well as I could, I stood up to face Alaric again.
And if you ignore the slight shaking my legs were doing, I was ready to face him.
This time, I won't be caught off guard by the initial burst.
Alaric nodded at me and then said.
"I'm starting again, guard your nuts this time."
And then he was gone again, but this time I was ready. He was doing a different swing this time, a two-handed overhead swing.
Not having time to do anything else, I raised my sword to parry his blow to the side.
"BANG"
His sword slid off mine almost perfectly, but before I could capitalize, he had already recovered and was swinging at my waist with a diagonal swing.
Not having much time, I attempted to block his head-on hit head-on.
"BOOM"
The second his sword hit mine, I knew I was overpowered, so I jumped back with the force of the blow, letting it carry me with it.
I landed not so gracefully, but I rolled onto the ground to cushion the fall.
I stood up right away, he was already in front of me before I could even recover.
I attempted to thrust at his chest, only for him to parry the blow and hit me directly in the stomach with the handle of his sword.
And I was on the floor once again, this time puking all over our arena.
"BLEEGH"
Alaric doesn't seem to be pulling his punches today.
We continued for an hour and a half of straight duels, and at the end, my body was completely bruised and battered.
Alaric healed me with his light magic pretty quickly, though.
At least I'm giving the old man some practice on his healing magic. I have a certain feeling that's why he enjoys beating me so thoroughly.
Overall, today was different, but in a good way.
The spars were shorter than usual, faster, deadlier.
I felt myself grow with every duel, especially now that my body is passively influenced by mana.
These duels felt different then the other ones we've had.
After all, I could somewhat keep up with Alaric's movements for once, even though I knew he was holding back a fuck ton.
I knew the mana circling inside of my channels had made me much stronger, but I didn't realize how much until right now.
My thought process was never-ending and quicker than ever before, my movements improved by mana were stronger and quicker, my agility and endurance seemed to spike to a noticeable degree, too.
An overall body enchantment, that's what I got for five minutes of pain, well worth it if you ask me.
I might not be able to slay dragons yet, but this is an improvement.
Alaric walked over to me. I was still lying on the ground from being beaten.
"Good job today, Sylas. I'm proud of what you've accomplished today."
I don't know why, but I started getting a little emotional.
Probably because of my repeated head trauma from our spars.
Or because my teacher called me my name instead of brat, doofus, or retard, or because my eyes were still swollen up from getting beaten over and over.
Or maybe because I've never had someone say they were proud of me that earnestly.
"Shut up, old man."
Is all I could get myself to say before closing my eyes for a well-needed nap, but not before seeing Alaric shoot me a wide smile.
"Goodnight, doofus."
End of chapter 3