I awoke in the tent, the birds chirping and the light seeping through the dark fabric. I did my daily quests and got ready before I woke up Gramps.
**
"We'll be going over the basics today." Gramps smiled as I groaned. "You spent 8 years doing advanced but I haven't seen you do the basics."
"But I don't need to-" I tried to protest but one look from gramps and I knew there was no skipping this lesson.
"The journey of big success will always begin with learning how to take the small steps at first. Sotis the smallest things make the biggest difference." he spoke wisely.
Gramps positioned himself opposite and I stood, shoulder width apart, ready. I smirked, rolling my shoulders back and Gramps looked at carefully before returning a humble smile. His smile fell as he flexed his muscles and the shirt he had on, ripped into shreds.
DAMMMN! HE BUILT DIFFERENT!
The man had huge biceps that demanded awe and broad shoulders; straightening himself he almost grew a foot taller. His thighs tensed and ford. He sucked in his stomach and abs replaced the fat like stacked Lego bricks. He tilted his head, smirking back at .
"Damn." I scoffed, stretching my arms. Although I was considered fit for my age and had muscles, I wasn't THAT fit. Gramps was built like a bodybuilder; he had no fat. It was all rock hard muscles.
"You gotta teach how to do that later on." I added on, my eyeballs popping out of their sockets. Gramps laughed.
"Okay Zeref. Fight ." he said.
I was taken aback a little. I thought we were training??? Nonetheless, I pounced at him like a jaguar.
Deciding to use my ice mana, I ford a huge ball of glossy ice, chucking it at his centre but he easily dodged. I tried it again and again but he dodged every single one, despite his large and easy size. He should have been an easy target but he was still so fast!
I switched up the mana into fire, throwing balls of fire in his direction, aiming for the most weak and vulnerable spots. Gramps yawned, letting the fire hit his arm and disintegrating it. UGHHH!
His fist slamd into my jaw, throwing my head back before kicking my feet from under and sitting on my butt. I maneuvered my body into a twisted leap, swinging my leg under him and getting him on my level. I stood up while tumbling back, shaking off the pain resounding from my jaw.
"Zeref, think small!" he yelled, giving so ti to breathe.
Small? If I'm going to be fighting contestants, everyone's going to be going big. Thinking small would be useless.
I kissed my teeth, rolling my shoulders back and flash-stepping towards him. Reeling my ice fist back and swinging it full force onto his chest, he flew backwards but still on his feet. I didn't waste ti, growing icicles into the air and flicking my wrist towards him. The ice crystals flew into him but he dodged all of them, making his way towards . His fist blew into my rib but I blocked him by a millisecond. I expanded a gravity wave from my body, sending him back into the air.
In a second, he was back in my face like a relentless monster.
How did he get there?! I brought up my hands in front of my face, below my eyes and braced for impact. The punch broke through my defence and made contact with my chest; flying back like a rag doll my body tumbled to the ground, bouncing like a pebble on water.
[You have suffered 2000 damage]
Ugh, he was strong!
I picked myself up slowly and clenched my jaw tight fighting the pain. Gramps walked closer slowly, the mana particles in the atmosphere vibrating in fear with every step; my body felt heavy under his gravity mana. What kind of wild beast was he?
'Godspeed'
With a single chant the familiar feeling of lightning empowering spread throughout my body and I let out a smile. With a single step I covered the distance and everything went black and white for as I charged in, imbuing my hand with 'Indra's Spear'.
"You think you're the only fast one?" Gramps spoke and my eyes widened in shock. The tips of my fingers were millitres away from his stomach, Gramps swiftly maneuvered around and grabbed my arm. He was faster than ?!
"I told you to think small." he said as ti went back to its normal state, he wacked my face with his fan again continuously, "Think down to the molecular level. The reason you're weak is because you think that only big and advanced spells can do damage. Why don't you compress your mana, increase your control over the finest molecules of mana, intricately controlling and ordering it; at the mont from what I've seen your mana control is poor, you're wasting at least 45% of your mana with unnecessary moves like these stupid fire balls and ice crystals."
He stopped his onslaught and I huffed and puffed, my face all swollen from the punishnt. I could see why all the kingdoms feared this man. A total beast. I bet he was probably only using 20% of his power.
**
We both sat down on boulders near the tent munching away at the food Miss Elena had made for us. I pondered what Gramps was talking about. I guess it was true, I had learned many advanced skills but that wasn't going to be enough to beat the other contestants. I had to be fundantally stronger, so my base power would be strong enough and my stamina would increase.
"Zeref." Gramps called out, still chewing his food.
"Yeah."
"I don't want you to use Godspeed ever again."
As he said that my eyes widened in shock and my jaws stopped chewing. What was this man on about? 'Godspeed' was my best skill.
"What do you an?! That's my best skill. How am I ant to beat these contestants?"
"Stop being childish, your highness and listen to . First of all your body is still too weak to handle the sudden change in speeds and your mana control while using it is terrible. This is causing the mana ridians in your body to get damaged under the high resistance of the lightning mana."
As he said that my mind focused on his last words. Resistance. So my body was like a circuit? The high voltage running through whilst in 'Godspeed' was too much for the wires or my mana ridians (vessels that carry mana around the body) to handle, causing them to beco damaged. This was bad.
"The more you use it the shorter your lifespan will be." Gramps stated, taking another bite into his sandwich.
"So how can I overco this?" I asked, worry resounding from my voice.
"Of course, there is a solution to every problem, you'll need to first strengthen the muscles in your body."
"I don't wanna look like you!" I retorted.
"No. You fool." Gramps laughed, "The muscles you will be building will be different to mine, they will be extrely compressed high density muscle fibres."
What the hell is that? I scratched my head hearing the last part but I nodded in understanding anyways.
"Secondly, you'd have to increase your span of control over even the slightest of mana particle movents. This way your mana would deplete less rapidly; thirdly you have to increase your control over all your elents, especially the lightning elent. Therefore, I've decided you'll have to learn a new ditating thod to overco your mana control issue."
"Can we start now then?" I asked, finishing the last bit of my sandwich and lting ice into water to drink.
"No, your training will start in the night but for the ti being go hunt so beasts."
I nodded in understanding before getting up and equipping Voadhailis's claw from my dinsion ring.
"Wait, there's a challenge." He gestured to to wait with his hand, "You can only use body augnting. No spells. No nothing, only body augnting."
Body augnting was strengthening the body using mana. In my case I could coat myself in lightning mana. I Hadn't learnt the body augnting spells for my other elents so that was on my to do list. This old man was two steps ahead of in knowing my flaws.
"Say less old man." with that I used 'lightning aura', causing sparks of lightning bolts to form around and I sped off into the jungle.
Ti to go hunting.
**
When I returned I had slayed a total of 2 A rank beasts with increased difficulty so I kinda cheated using skills to kill them; 5 B rank beasts using lightning body augnting and a couple C rank beasts. If I had to guess, by selling the number of beasts in my dinsion ring, I could make about 400 platinum coins. Nice!
"Stop slacking, your training begins now." Gramps said in a strict manner as I laid lazily on the cold grass.
"But I'm tired as hell, how am I ant to train?" I groaned.
"You'll be learning how to ditate and control the mana flow in your ridians whilst you sleep."
I cursed under my breath knowing this was going to be a long night.
**
*Whack* *Whack*
"Focus. You fell asleep again!" Gramps shouted. This technique was harder to master than I realised.
I sighed heavily, before ditating and trying my best to not fall asleep. I just had to sohow split my consciousness so one part was asleep and recovering and the other was focusing on controlling the mana flow, but I hadn't figured out how to do that yet.
"You're not sleeping until you master this technique!"
"But that ans you won't sleep either. Hahahahhaaha!" I laughed as the fatigue was making say stupid things.
*Whack* *Whack*
"Ow!"
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