Chapter 8

“I’m confident you can reach Master Rank in 10 years.”

After the banquet ended and Seolhwa had officially been recognized by the elders as the heir of the clan, I returned to my room, saying that I felt kinda dizzy as an excuse.

I acted fine during the banquet, but still, seeing Seolhwa officially replace me as the heir left me with a lot of mixed feelings. It wasn’t all bad, though, because now I knew where my strength lay.

I lay down on my bed, looking at the ceiling with Lady Elara’s words, my master’s words, still in my mind.

“10 years, huh…”

I kept mumbling that to myself.

I glanced at a wooden sword leaning against the wall by my bedside. It was a small wooden sword, as it was the one I used when I first started my martial arts training.

I looked at my palm. The calluses formed over the years of training had made my hand feel thick.

“10 years.”

I stretched my hand above me and clenched it, a grin forming on my face without me realizing it.

“Let’s do this, then.”

…

I woke up early in the morning the next day. The sky was still dark, but I was already standing at the training ground.

“Man, old habits die hard.”

At this point, I’m not here to train my martial arts. I’m only here out of habit.

What should I do? Should I just go back to my room and get more sleep?

Nope, I feel too awake to go back to sleep now.

As I was standing in place, trying to decide what I should do, I could hear someone walking this way.

For a split second, I wondered who it was, but then I remembered that right now, there was someone else in the main estate who trained as much as me and had a very similar training routine to mine.

“Here for morning training, Seolhwa?”

As expected, it was Cheon Seolhwa.

Seolhwa looked at me, then glanced at my hand.

“Where’s your sword?”

Hearing her question, I looked at my hand and smiled.

“Ah, I’m not here to train. It’s just a habit.”

“I see.”

Seolhwa answered shortly and walked towards the wooden training post. She left her wooden sword there, leaning it against the post, and started running around the training ground.

I watched her for a bit, then decided to join her as she ran around the training ground.

As I caught up to her and ran right beside her, she glanced at me before returning her focus to her run.

We ran around the training ground three times, just enough to warm up our bodies and get the blood flowing.

I watched as Seolhwa started doing her routine.

With a wooden sword in hand, she started doing the movements of the Wind-Chasing Sword Art, repeating them over and over again. Once she had done enough, she sat down cross-legged on the ground, closed her eyes, and started training her inner energy circulation and her dantian.

I kept watching her while she trained.

I, too, was doing everything she did. She didn’t do anything differently from me, and yet she was a much better martial artist than me.

Talent is pretty unfair.

Not that I can say that now that I know I have an abnormal talent for magic, but still.

While I was busy trying to figure out the secret of Cheon Seolhwa’s strength, someone else came over.

“Here you are.”

It was the person who, from now on, would teach me magic. My Master, Lady Elara.

“I always woke up early out of habit. What about you, Lady Elara? Why are you already awake?”

“I was about to wake you up, kid, but then I detected your presence here. Also, from now on, call me Master.”

She stretched her back, then looked at me with a grin.

“It’s time to start your training.”

…

The Cheon Clan’s training ground was massive, so Master Elara and I moved away from Seolhwa so we wouldn’t disturb her training.

“Sit down.”

I followed what she said and sat down cross-legged on the ground.

“You still remember my explanation about magic last night during the banquet, right?”

“Yes.”

“Alright then. I don’t need to explain it again. Let’s go straight to the coating.”

I could feel my heart thumping. I was so excited to finally start my magic training that I kept fidgeting.

“All you need to do in the coating process is absorb the Ether in your surroundings, process it into mana, and store it in your heart. Then you need to use that mana to envelop your heart and have your heart absorb it.”

“Isn’t the mana already absorbed in my heart anyway?”

“No. Right now, the mana you accumulate is simply stored in your heart. You need to have your heart absorb it.”

I tilted my head, confused by her explanation.

Master Elara noticed the confused look on my face. She looked at the leather water bag I always brought with me and grabbed it.

“Imagine this is your heart, and the water inside it is your mana.”

“What you need to do right now to coat your heart is to let your heart, this leather bag, absorb the water inside it instead of just storing it.”

“How?”

“That’s what I’m about to teach you.”

“Close your eyes and start breathing deep and slow. Sharpen your senses into your own body.”

“Hooo…”

I closed my eyes and slowly took a deep breath through my nose and released it slowly.

“Feel everything in your body. From your heartbeat to your blood flow. You need to be conscious of it.”

“Can you feel it?”

I nodded. I could do this easily because I did something like this all the time when I trained my inner energy circulation and dantian. The only difference was that now, instead of my dantian and meridians, I focused on my heart and blood vessels.

“Focus on your heart for now. Can you feel the mana in the center of your heart?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now you need to pull that mana from the center of your heart to the surface of your heart. That way, the mana will slowly spread across the surface of your heart and slowly get absorbed.”

“Can you do it?”

I tried doing what she told me to do. I started to control the mana in my heart and pull it toward the surface of my heart.

Thump!

“Guh!”

Cough Cough!

I felt my heart squeeze, and it hurt. It felt similar to when I pulled the mana during the duel with Seolhwa.

“It hurt, huh? That’s the disadvantage of having high mana sensitivity.”

“Di-disadvantage?”

I was still wheezing because of the pain.

“I told you that normally, people who have high mana sensitivity like you are those who have already trained for at least 10 years. You think there would be no disadvantage to skipping so many steps to reach that level?”

She grinned. Her smug face was really grating on my psyche.

Ah, I want to punch her.

Wait, no. She’s my master and the savior of my life. I shouldn’t punch her.

“The level of your control over mana is much higher than what your heart can handle. That makes it hard for you to fine-tune it. You do have greater control over mana than probably all of the apprentice mages, but because you can control mana so easily, it will be very easy for you to use much more mana than you should. That’s why you felt pain.”

“Decrease the amount of mana you pull to do your coating, kid. No matter how talented you are, this step cannot be rushed and must be done properly.”

“Hooo…”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath again, starting from the beginning.

Now that I knew I needed to decrease the amount of mana I pulled, I started by pulling only half the amount of mana I had previously pulled.

Twitch!

“Guh.”

Still a bit too much. Let’s cut it by another half.

Now that I had cut it by another half, I felt no pain. I found the right amount to use to start my first heart coating. I started pulling the mana toward the surface of my heart and slowly let my heart absorb the mana.

“Good. Now that you know the right amount of mana to use for your first coating, all you need to do is repeat that until your heart is coated evenly.”

I opened my eyes and asked.

“How do I know that my heart has been coated properly?”

“When your heart has stopped absorbing the amount of mana you used just now, that’s when you know your first coating of your heart is finished. After that, you need to coat your blood vessels using a similar method to make your mana path before we can start your magic training.”

“What we’re doing is not magic training?”

“This is still the basics. Your body is not even ready to start using magic. How can we start your magic training?”

After that, I closed my eyes again and continued my coating.