Skill (10)

Elowen's POV

"Smooth ride?" Novius asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Indeed. I was asleep most of the way," I replied before turning my attention to Xironia.

I hugged her tightly, feeling the soft fabric of her dress against my arms. "Don't you feel cold? You're wearing such thin clothes," I muttered, eyeing her white dress and the silky shawl draped over her shoulders.

Her arms were pinned in my embrace, leaving her no choice but to laugh softly. "Not really," she replied, her voice light. "I've only been outside for a few minutes. Unless you're suggesting we stand out here all day, I'll be fine." She added with a smirk, "I can stay enhanced, you know."

I released her with a shake of my head, a small chuckle escaping me. But as I stepped back, something felt off.

"Hmm…" I murmured, scanning the area. "What's missing? Oh!" I clapped my hands together. "Where's my sonny?"

Xironia chuckled softly, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Novius smirk.

"Mother, you're pouting," he teased, the smirk spreading into a full grin.

"I am most definitely not," I shot back, trying to glare at him, but his growing grin made it impossible to keep a straight face. Rolling my eyes, I turned back to Xironia. "Well? Where is he?" I demanded, muttering under my breath, "He'll get an earful from me. How can he not come out to greet me!"

"He's probably in the gym," Xironia said, amusement flickering in her eyes. "Somehow, he wakes up earlier than the rest of us these days."

"Doesn't sound very impressive coming from you," I quipped, raising an eyebrow at her.

Her mock-offended gasp was almost theatrical. "I am not THAT lazy!" she said, crossing her arms with exaggerated annoyance which didn't last long as she chuckled. I looked at her smiling but it didn't sit right with me.

"Uh, Nia?" I asked, breaking the silence.

She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Is Alaric… sad?"

"Sad?" She blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Huh? About what?"

"The Blitzscales," I replied, my voice quieter now. "It's not exactly a reasonable task, you know."

Xironia's lips curved into a sly smirk. "Oh, so the running was reasonable?" she said in a snobbish tone.

I sighed, rubbing my temples. "Xironia, running was much, MUCH more reasonable. Those beasts are one of the biggest reasons for mishaps in the Mire!"

She shrugged nonchalantly, her smirk widening. "Well, the ones here are pretty tame."

I nearly choked on air. "Nia, the ones in here are just as impossible to catch!" I exclaimed, my voice rising in disbelief.

Her laughter was as soft as it was infuriating. "Hehe~ Don't worry, don't worry," she said, waving a hand as if to dismiss my concerns. "Alaric's fine. He just never mentions these things unless we ask him, so I've stopped asking. I'm sure he'll tell me if something happens."

Her words were quite soothing, I don't think I want to be the reason to sadden Alaric.

"That's much better to hear," I muttered.

Though Aurelia's words about Alaric still lingered in my mind, training with Blitzscales was not a matter of physically pushing yourself, not when someone is in the Black stage. While it is useful for improving reaction time, it is useless if you simply can't see your target properly.

Xironia and I walked in silence, the crisp air biting but oddly refreshing. It wasn't long before we reached the gym, but just as I was about to enter, something peculiar caught my eye.

"Hey! You two!" I called out, narrowing my eyes at the two guards standing by the window, their heads tilted like curious children. "What are you up to?"

They jolted upright at my voice, spinning around with the speed of guilty thieves caught in the act. From their uniforms—or rather, their lack of polished appearance—I guessed they were off duty.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, my tone sharp enough to make them shuffle awkwardly.

One of them opened his mouth, but before he could stammer out a response, Xironia's light laugh interrupted.

"Why not just go inside? I'm pretty sure you'll find out," she said, her tone teasing. Her smile? Oh, it practically screamed I know exactly what's going on.

I turned to her, suspicious. "You know something."

"Maybe." She gave a sly shrug, her grin widening. "But I've got paperwork waiting for me." With that, she spun on her heel and left me standing there.

I let out a long, exasperated sigh. Paperwork—her eternal excuse.

Turning back to the gym, I squared my shoulders and pushed the door open.

The room was eerily silent. Not a single soul in sight. It was so quiet that the faint sound of water splashing reached my ears.

I spotted him at the far end of the room: Alaric, kneeling in front of a tub, his head bent in concentration.

I took a few steps closer, noting how much he'd grown since I last saw him. His frame, though still small, had a sturdiness to it now.

"So busy you forgot to come greet me, huh, sonny?" I said, my voice cutting through the stillness.

He flinched, his body jerking in surprise. Slowly, he tilted his head back, craning it farther and farther until his wide eyes met mine.

"Aren't you here—" He tilted so far back he lost his balance, his arms flailing as he tumbled. His head was heading straight for the ground when it collided with my leg instead, cushioned by my presence behind him.

"Early?" he finished, grinning up at me sheepishly.

I raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. "Stop making excuses. Why didn't you come to greet me?"

"I was going to," he said quickly, pointing to a small clock sitting on a nearby table.

Wait. Was that Xironia's clock?

I shot him a look, and he caught it immediately. "I, uh… borrowed it," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "But I forgot to check the time."

Shaking my head in mild defeat, I asked, "What were you doing staring at the water like that? It looked like you were debating whether to dive face-first into the tub."

"Trying to catch two of them at once," he replied casually as if he were discussing the weather.

My head went completely silent for a second, and I nearly screamed in disbelief, 'WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!!'

"Uhh… Alaric, you aren't done with the task yet?" I asked cautiously, hoping—praying—he wasn't doing what I thought he was doing.

Alaric turned to me, his expression as blank as a fresh sheet of paper. "Nope. I would've told you if I was done. I think it'll take me a few more months."

Then why the hell are you making it hard on yourself? That was what I wanted to say, but I asked a better question: "How many Blitzscales have you caught so far Alaric?"

He tilted his head as if trying to count in his mind. "Umm, I've caught all of them," he said nonchalantly, as though he hadn't just dropped a bombshell.

My jaw dropped. I stared at him, hoping he'd crack a grin and say he was joking but he did the opposite and continued speaking.

"But I want to catch them all in streak before I call this task done," I stared at the boy as he turned his head back to the water.

"I am actually trying to catch all of them in a streak before calling this task off." 

His words scrambled my brain like a chef whipping eggs. I blinked rapidly, trying to process. 'Was I drunk?' No, I didn't remember drinking. Not last night. Not on the way here. 'Wait. Am I dreaming?' My hand twitched, itching to pinch myself. 'Or am I hallucinating?'

*Splash* *Splash* *Splash* 

The sound of splashing water snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts.

What I saw next was nothing short of a surreal dream. Not a miracle—a dream.

A horde of beasts, each one capable of tearing a cultivator as strong as Aurelia to shreds if not confined to these specific tubs, was being manhandled by a literal child. A child who, by all accounts, should be weaker than a Rank-1 beast.

Well, to be fair, Alaric was stronger than a Rank-1 beast, but even a cultivator in the Dark Green stage would struggle to do what I was witnessing right now.

Alaric's expression was carved from stone—no twitch of his facial muscles, no sign of strain. His eyes were locked onto the water with laser focus. In a blur of motion, he dipped his hands into the tub, back to back, again and again, without so much as dropping the Blitzscales he'd already caught.

Four dips later, he stopped.

I stared, my jaw slack, as he held up both hands, each one cradling four Blitzscales. One nestled snugly between every gap in his fingers.

'What in the name of all that's sane am I watching?'

This wasn't training. No. This was mental harassment. Not just for me, but for the Blitzscales too.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I truly understood the emotions of a beast.

The poor fishes didn't even flail in his grasp. They hung there limply, defeated. Their beady eyes seemed to stare into my soul, silently pleading: Why? Why us?

'How many times has he done this to them?'

I'd instructed hundreds of cultivators, from the Black to the Red stage, to catch Blitzscales over the years. Most of them gave up after the first few attempts. This wasn't a practice for the weak-willed. It required failure—lots of failure—before any success.

The problem was that catching even one Blitzscale was a monumental achievement for cultivators at these early stages. No one—not a single person—could catch all of them in these tubs.

And yet, here was this child, not only claiming he'd caught them all but doing so with such mechanical efficiency that the fishes themselves seemed to have given up on escaping.

Alaric continued dipping his hands into the water, each movement precise and deliberate. With every successful attempt, I could feel my intelligence draining away bit by bit.

The first time, he caught eight Blitzscales before transferring them into another tub. The second time, another eight. After that, it dropped to six Blitzscales per round, but his accuracy didn't waver. He would wait for a few minutes, watching their movements, before striking with unnerving precision.

He didn't fail. Not once.

By the time he'd caught his fortieth Blitzscale, I found myself genuinely questioning reality. 'Was he keeping up with their full speed? No, that's impossible in his current state… he knows their movement patterns. He's memorized them. Each one.'

Finally, just as he caught his forty-second Blitzscale, he slipped.

A single fish darted out of his grasp.

"Ughhh!" Alaric groaned dramatically, collapsing backward with a flop. His arms and legs flailed in frustration. He got up, and the one Blitzscale that was in his grasp was slammed into the water.

'It is no wonder they look dead after being caught. Not only are they being tortured, they are also being abused as if it was their fault… it is still fun to watch though.'

It was fascinating—mind-boggling, really—but I still couldn't wrap my head around why Alaric hadn't finished his other goals yet. With what I'd just seen, the physical exercises should've been a walk in the park over the one-year timeframe. Unless…

A thought hit me. 'He's increased the weight for more difficulty, hasn't he?'

I decided not to ask. Instead, I pulled a chair from my storage ring and sat down, watching him like some kind of mythical creature performing feats beyond logic.

It couldn't have been long since he started training, because, after a brief pause, Alaric went right back to the Blitzscales. The sheer relentlessness was impressive.

Eirlys arrived at some point to call us for breakfast. I barely registered her presence and nodded and hummed my way through whatever conversation unfolded at the table. Mentally, I wasn't present. I was still replaying everything I'd witnessed like a poorly written-dream sequence.

After the meal, Alaric returned to his training, and like a moth to a flame, I followed.

This time, it was push-ups. He started with the same eerie determination as before, his movements controlled and steady.

"How many does he do in one set?" I muttered, squinting as he passed the hundred mark with ease.

Two hundred. He wasn't slowing down.

"Maybe three hundred," I guessed. Surely, he'd stop there.

He didn't.

Three hundred came and went, and while he was sweating now, it didn't look like he was anywhere near done. "Has to be five hundred," I reasoned, nodding to myself. "No one stops at four hundred. Four hundred just sounds wrong."

But Alaric kept going, his arms churning out push-ups like a machine.

Every rep made me question if he was done. And every single time, the answer was a resounding no.

"One thousand and thirty-seven…" I muttered, staring at him in disbelief. His arms trembled like a man who'd spent all night walking naked through a snowstorm while buckets of icy water were poured over him.

Before I could fully process the absurdity of it all, he shifted gears. Sit-ups.

By now, anyone would think I'd be desensitized. I wasn't.

There were no sets. No breaks. Just relentless motion. One sit-up after another, each one daring me to question the limits of human endurance.

He hit over a thousand. Then twelve hundred. By the time his body finally gave out, he was writhing on the floor like a man whose abdomen was staging a full-blown mutiny.

An hour later, he was back up again. Because of course, he was.

This time, pull-ups.

Seven hundred—give or take. His arms visibly gave up the ghost, and his entire body followed suit, collapsing like a felled tree.

I barely managed to catch him before he faceplanted into the floor. Gently, I laid him down, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths.

"Aurelia wasn't kidding," I muttered to myself, "He is forcing himself in a way that will either break his body or he will somehow make it."

I waited for Alaric to regain consciousness, the glow of the setting sun casting long shadows across the empty gym.

I'd noticed something peculiar—no one had visited the gym today. Not a single guard. From the way things looked, it seemed they deliberately avoided this place when Alaric was here.

The room was eerily silent, broken only by the sound of Alaric's steady breathing. Oddly enough, the quiet felt welcoming, soothing even, especially after the relentless spectacle of mind-bending feats I'd witnessed today. My body felt like it was sharing a sliver of Alaric's exhaustion.

A sigh escaped my lips as I slumped back into the chair, tilting my head back to stare at the ceiling. For once, my mind wasn't spinning. For once, there was peace.

Of course, it didn't last.

The creak of the door jolted me upright, and I turned to see Xironia entering. She was wearing a dress that brushed past her knees, her movements graceful yet purposeful.

"Mother," she called, her eyes landing on Alaric's still form. "How long do you think he'll be out?"

I followed her gaze, glancing at Alaric, then back at her. With a shrug, I said, "No idea."

Xironia let out a soft sigh as she strode toward me, her expression both exasperated and fond. She stopped beside Alaric, shaking her head lightly. "He doesn't need to be so harsh on himself…"

Without hesitation, she bent down and gently picked him up, cradling him in her arms like he was still the small child he'd been not so long ago.

"Mother?"

I blinked, realizing she'd been speaking. She was halfway to the door when she tilted her head, studying me with concern. "Are you not feeling well?"

"It's nothing," I muttered, brushing it off as I stood. "I just zoned out for a moment."

Quickly, I tucked the chair back into my storage ring and briskly walked to catch up with her.

We walked side by side through the quiet halls. Xironia's voice broke the silence, soft but thoughtful. "He'll probably wake up in an hour or two," she said, glancing down at the boy in her arms. Her lips curved into a small, affectionate smile. "Almost perfect timing. He'll have time to freshen up before we celebrate. It is his birthday, after all."