Ch. 13 Squabble Part 1

Marcus Carbo's POV:

That evening, I woke up to see my giant dad looming over me with a grin. In his hand was a white stone about the size of my fist.

After telling me to sit up and stay still, he placed his other palm on my shoulder. The stone went bright and filled the room with white light. My shoulder began to itch, then hurt more and more.

I gritted my teeth while feeling my flesh putting itself back together at a rapid pace. Places where the wound didn't heal properly broke apart and re-grew till not even a scar was left.

Dad waited until I calmed down, and then did the same for my side. In a couple of minutes, I was fully healed and exhausted.

"Does this mean, huff, that we get to learn magic now?" I asked while pointing at the unusual stone.

"Almost there." he said, and then gave me a necklace. It was a steel chain holding a small orange stone as its jewel. Unlike the white one dad used to heal me, this one was transparent. It was also covered by 4 steel strips, so I could barely see it.

"You better not break or lose it." said dad. "I had to borrow it from the King."

My jaw dropped, and for a second, I thought of digging a pit to hide it. According to dad, this was a testing necklace. The rock was a small mana core. By connecting my soul to a core, I could gain access to its powers.

However, this small stone didn't have any powers. Due to its size, it also didn't contain much mana. So, any side effects from the connection would be minimal. If anything went wrong, we could remove it before things got serious.

Mana modified living beings which came in contact with it, turning them into better vessels. If your body was compatible with mana, you would gain ungodly strength and speed like the brigand that chased me. Most people could only raise their physical abilities by about 2 times, but some could raise them by 3 or more.

On the other hand, if you weren't compatible with mana, your body would either mutate into a monster or quickly decay and die. Because of this, I and Deia had to stay under close watch over the next few weeks and report any changes to our dad.

My sister received a similar pendant and the same explanation. It would take time, but we were finally on our way towards becoming mages.

Elek Carbo's POV:

Medeia was my flesh and blood, and Marcus was half a God, so I didn't really worry about them not being compatible. Nonetheless, I kept them close while I dealt with the troops.

Fortunately, Captain Lyra and her platoon could use the newly empty houses for accommodation. The buildings were a bit cramped, and some soldiers had to use tents, but it wasn't anything they couldn't handle.

I gave them the first day to set up camp and rest after the journey. The next morning, I had them assemble to receive orders.

While Darius likely wanted them to act as guards and receive training from me, I had other uses in mind. It was a bit annoying that a new platoon would arrive every month, but I'd make the best of it.

A platoon was a complete unit, meaning it had experts from all sorts of combat fields. I sent 10 people who specialized in reconnaissance and infiltration to nearby villages to gather information about the brigands. They dressed like traveling mercenaries and spent the next month on the road.

I then picked 2 squads of 5 and sent them to the nearby forest on a special mission. 2 more squads of 5 would patrol the city, and the remaining 20 soldiers I would train personally. I was going to alternate the 8 squads within the village, so they could all get training.

Captain Lyra helped me supervise them. In terms of skills, she was excellent. Captains were veteran warriors possessing a mana core. However, despite being only 24, Lyra had 2 cores and was extremely skilled with both.

One was a simple amplification core. It contained mana, but it didn't give its user any sort of abilities. It was the most useless type of core, but Lyra found an ingenious way to use it.

By connecting the stone to her bow, she created a weapon which increased its firing power the more mana she put into it. By draining all the mana inside the core, she even managed to shoot an arrow across the village and all the way to the rock from where I was watching them with my daughter.

However, this shot was only possible thanks to her active core. The one she merged with her soul amplified the user's senses 3 fold. Along with her reinforced body, she could see 6 times farther than a normal human.

Of course, all these abilities would be useless without excellent aim. Considering her skills and having 2 cores at such a young age, I could only assume she once dived into Tartarus. At this rate, her future would be very bright.

My children were staring at her whenever they met her, though I suspected it was for different reasons. My daughter wanted to learn archery from her, while Marcus' eyes kept traveling towards forbidden areas. Unfortunately, until their bodies grew stronger with mana, they wouldn't be able to train with the troops.

Until that day came, I assigned one of the soldiers to train them separately each morning. They watched our drills in the afternoon, and I trained them personally in the evening.

After a week passed, the village chief came to meet us with 20 youngsters behind him. Apparently, they wanted to join the army and requested training. Seeing how my children needed partners to run team drills, I happily added them to the roster. Of course, they only received instruction in the morning from a reinforced soldier.

This would be good training for him/her too. Reinforced soldiers were often put in charge of normal troops in times of war, just like mages led platoons made out of reinforced soldiers. By changing the person in charge each day, they could work on their leadership skills (though it was just an excuse to train my kids).

Marcus Carbo's POV:

It took almost 3 weeks to finally rebuild my muscles. It was a little scary how fast they atrophied while in bed.

Fortunately, our training had reached further heights. Each day, a new individual in shiny steel armor would come and lead us through drills.

Most of them took the time to give each trainee pointers, though my sister and I would always receive more attention. Normally, we would oppose the favoritism, but as dad said, we were already doing the trainees a favor. Training from a reinforced soldier wasn't something a peasant could afford.

After basic weapons training and drills, our instructor for the day split us into groups of 5 and made us spar against each other with blunt weapons. That's when I noticed the atmosphere shifting. All of a sudden, our colleagues' eyes were on us and not in a good way.

My neighbors, some of whom I had shared drinks with in the past, quickly made teams. None of them included me or my sister. In the end, we were left with 2 scrawny 15 year olds with swords, and a 17 year old girl with a spear. The only one with a shield was my sister.

They left us with the weakest squad. Our instructor didn't care and just announced the first fight.

I felt a little better when looking at the other squads. They were terribly unbalanced. Nobody grouped up based on weapons and skills. Instead, they joined forces with whomever they were friends with.

One squad had 4 guys in the front and the town beauty in the back. However, one of the men used a bow, and the rest just had swords. Adria, everyone's favorite girl, had a large shield and a sword. It was a no brainer that the person with the shield should have been the vanguard, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

The other team had 3 swordsmen, one girl with a bo staff, and another with a spear.

When the instructor gave the signal, they all charged at each other and chaos ensued. The guy with the bow tried to use it as a club, but he was quickly knocked unconscious by the bo staff girl.

The 3 swordsmen of both sides clashed against each other and were at a stalemate. However, the first team's shield user was kind of hovering in the back not sure what to do. The girls from the other team took this opportunity to gang up on one of the opposing swordsmen.

They took him out quickly and freed up one of their men. Now, it was 5 against 3. The remaining swordsmen from team 1 fell like flies.

To her credit, our town beauty didn't give up when she found herself alone. She tried to oppose 5 people and unsurprisingly fell on her but. The men were slightly reluctant to hit her, but the girls had no such mercy. They smacked her over and over with their blunt weapons until the poor girl finally surrendered.

In a bored voice, our instructor stopped the fight and ordered whoever was still standing to give first aid to the injured. The area was cleared, and it was now our turn.