“Happy birthday Casius!”

  I wake with a start as multiple people barge into my room. Opening my eyes I see three people smiling at me, my father, mother, and Amelia.

  Did they say ‘happy birthday’? They never really celebrated the ones before. Is this one special?

  “My boy’s finally nine!” My father cheered

  Was nine a special birthday here? Must be if they all barged into my room before I woke up.

  “Casius, hurry and get out of bed we’ve got surprises for you!”

  They leave the room now that I’m wide awake, no doubt waiting for me to come out. Surprises? That gets me quickly out of bed and I take time to get changed into some better clothes. Hurriedly I walk out the door and into the dining room where a large breakfast is spread out across the table.

  “Mom, we never really celebrated my birthday before, why are we doing it now?”

  “Well that’s because this one is special. You can finally start training tomorrow!” Training! Finally, I’ve been waiting for this day to come.

  “Also you won’t be training alone. You'll be paired with another boy around your age.” Oh, that’s new. I haven’t met anybody else the same age as me yet. I wonder what he’ll be like? Hopefully not too full of himself.

  “What’s his name?” I ask

  “His name is Sean Genis. In fact his parents were members of the same party as me and your father from our guild days.” Really? That’s interesting. Seems we have a similar background.

  “When will I meet him?”

  “Tomorrow, make sure you’re up early too, and you’ll meet in the backyard.” I’ve yet to go into the backyard but sometimes I hear my father training out there.

  Leaving it for tomorrow I decided to eat my breakfast and enjoy the day with my family. Hours passed as we went out into the now familiar city, watched a woman make beautiful figures with fire magic that almost seemed alive. I wanted to try using mana sight but sadly she was too far away from me.

  Finally back at the house we ate dinner, excitement filling the room as we prepared for what was coming tomorrow.

  “Who’s even going to be my trainer?” I asked nobody in particular.

  “A man named Arthor Ginfrey, he’s a pretty famous instructor here in the city. Especially for ‘new recruits’ as he calls them, in fact he just finished training Duke Reigan’s son. Bit of a fiery reputation he has but I’m sure you’ll be fine” My father replied.

  “Okay, but what will I learn, and how long am I going to train?”

  “Well we’re not going to spoil the surprise but it should be only for 3 years.” A shiver runs down my spine at the thought of what I know will be intense training for such a long time. Especially if what my father said was true about the man.

  Conversation flows towards another topic as I sit and continue eating until we've all had enough and go to our respective rooms.

  Over these past six years a couple things have changed. My strength and speed have increased even with the limited amount of training I can do without my mother watching. But the most important thing now is that I can keep mana sight activated for even longer than before. At first it could only be a couple minutes before a headache got too bad for me to handle, but now I can keep it active for about an hour.

  Another thing is that I don’t have to concentrate much for me to see it anymore, now it’s more of a switch I can turn on and off. Even with all these improvements my sight has barely expanded now reaching four feet from its original three.

  Knowing I start something big tomorrow I try to go to sleep but the excitement of everything happening keeps me up. What will my instructor be like? Father said he taught the Duke's son so he must be good. There's also the problem with Sean, I have no clue what his personality is but I’m hoping it’s fine considering he’s the son of my parents party members. Thoughts go through my mind until I eventually fall asleep, the anticipation of the hellish training I know will come finally fades as I drift off.

  – 8 hours later –

  Thankfully I fell asleep early or else I doubt I would’ve woken up on time. It was about 6 in the morning as I quietly got dressed into ‘training clothes’ my parents had given me the day before.

  I look into the mirror admiring my handsome looks, ash gray hair covering my head along with my father’s violet eyes. At nine years old I stand about five feet tall with slight muscle definition from my body exercises over the years, though I wouldn’t consider myself shredded, donuts having obviously ruined that for me.

  I walk out of my room, through the house and finally out the backdoor where I see a small path that leads to a secluded training ground. Anxious thoughts fill my mind as I think about the coming training. Will me and Sean be friends? I mean our parents should be similar even though I’ve never met them.

  Reluctantly I step into the clearing and see what looks like a bear in human form, an intimidating aura exuding from his presence. Scars cover the man's arms and chest, huge defined muscles ripple across his body with a face that demands orders to be followed.

  Looking to my left I see a dark haired boy around my age walking out of a similar path. A grin spreads across both of our faces as his blue eyes meet mine.

  “Since both of you decided to be late on our first day, take ten laps around the yard.” The middle aged man in the middle said, seeing our confusion he gave us his ultimatum. “If you boys don’t start running now you’ll be running till I’m tired. GO!”

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  That takes us out of our hesitation as we start running. The first lap is fine but after the second we are both breathing hard. By the fifth our breaths are ragged, lungs burning but we continue running. After the eighth lap we were barely even jogging, my legs numb as sweat covers my body, continuing forward through sheer will. Looking to my right I see Sean in a similar situation as he keeps moving with a lost look in his eyes.

  Finally we finish, instantly collapsing onto the hard ground as we struggle to get air. I still can’t feel my legs as my muscles pulse in anger from the hell they were just put through. This isn’t even the start of our training, is it? That old man said we were late, so is this just a punishment?

  “You brats really can’t run a measly ten laps? Well thankfully your parents are paying me well so I can wring this privilege out of you!” His booming voice hurt my frayed mind. “Since it’s your first day I’ll even give you a five minute break.” He finished, laughing at our pain.

  “Breaks over boys, get up.” It’s like I can hear the joy in his voice. Not even a minute has gone by and this madman is already forcing us to stand.

  Sean thinks the same but decides to make his voice known.

  “It hasn’t even been a minute you piece of shit.” He grates out

  “Well, one of you has a mouth huh. That’s fine just means the running wasn’t enough. Now, pushups until I say to stop.”

  Nice going, you just had to say something. Grimacing, I get on my hands and start.

  “Good, now while you both do that I’ll explain why I’m really here.” I hope he doesn’t have much to say, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

  “The reason your parents spent so much money on a guy like me is simply because I’m good. In fact I’m one of the best on this continent at doing one important thing. Training your will.” Will? What does that have to do with any of this?

  “Not only will you get stronger, and faster, we will train to unlock your mana sight before you awaken and strengthen it.” Wait, don’t I already have it?

  “I already have it.” I say through gritted teeth, still struggling with my pushups.

  “Oh really, tell me what it looks like when you activate it.” I can hear surprise but also doubt in his voice.

  Taking my chance to stop doing the punishment I answer. “It’s like a field of floating blue dots surrounding you.”

  “Interesting…” He mumbles “Now tell me, how far out does your field go?”

  “About four feet.” His eyebrows raise but quickly his surprise disappears.

  “Okay, that doesn’t really change anything. The best way to expand your will over time, at least for now, is by doing hard shit. I’m sure it’s grown from when you awakened it but that’s from getting older.” That makes sense I guess.

  “Now get back to work, I didn’t say stop yet!” Sighing, I continue the hellish work.

  The day goes by as Ginfrey puts us through various exercises that would make even the strongest of men tremble, but at last finally the training is over. Pain washes through my body, not only are my muscles fighting just to stand, my brain can barely think properly.

  “Sean, I want you to sit down and close your eyes like you’re meditating.” Seeing him do it he continues. “Good, now try to envision your will as a muscle. Right now it’s trapped in your body, find a way to release it into the air.”

  Trying his best despite the limited instructions, Sean squeezes his eyes shut and flexes his body. Sadly he fails, but that was expected. I mean it took me years to be able to do it, though I don’t think it’ll take him that long.

  “Casius, since you can already use mana sight your goal is to learn how to control it.” He says, turning his attention to me. “What I mean by that is toning it down the blinding light when you look at stronger people.” Is he talking about what happened when I looked at my dad in the city?

  “It’s not that hard actually, just try to ‘see’ less.”

  See less? How do you see less? Deciding to just give it a shot I turn on my mana sight as he moves in range to me.

  “I’m just going to put my arm in range, that should be tolerable for you without causing a headache.”

  Nodding, I watch as he slowly brings his arm closer. Instantly I can tell his strength is at least equal to my fathers, maybe stronger. Thankfully he was right, the light is bearable when I squint at it.

  But that’s not what he wants me to learn. I need to somehow limit the amount of mana I see coming from him like I’m turning down the brightness. An idea pops into my head to stop seeing my mana sight as a switch but instead a dial.

  Focusing, I carefully change the switch I’ve been picturing into a small dial. Grabbing it with my will, I slowly turn it left, lowering the brightness. I watch on in surprise, the once blinding mana I saw coming off the arm is now only as bright as a fire.

  Though it doesn’t take long for me to lose the mental image as it reverts back into a switch, forcing me to turn it off.

  “I did it, but I couldn’t hold it there more than a couple seconds.” I say

  “Not bad for your first attempt, I assume it’s because your mind’s muscle memory is still learning not to always have it on max. Keep practicing it until it feels natural.”

  I look at Sean who is still in deep concentration as he continues trying to awaken his mana sight. I should probably try to be friends with him after today.

  Hours pass and at this point both of our brains are basically mush from focusing on our wills all day.

  “That’s enough for today, also if you don’t want to be punished tomorrow make sure to be here before I am!” The old man said with a laugh.

  “Finally, I don’t know how much longer I could keep focusing on nothing,” Sean vented, frustration leaking through his voice.

  “Same here, my eyes feel like sand.” I reply

  We both lay there trying to gather the strength to stand. Truly we had been working all day with little to no breaks even after we finished the punishments, the sick man even told us that we would run more since the one before didn’t count.

  “Glad I’m not doing this alone though, I can’t imagine having to go through that by myself” I say

  “Yeah.”

  He sits up and looks over at me, “Wanna make a bet?”

  I squint at him, “What kind of bet?”

  “Just that if I awaken my sight tomorrow, you have to do my portion of running the next day, and if I don’t I’ll do yours.” He says with a daring look.

  “Okay, but to make it fair you have to do my running for a week or it’s not worth it.”

  “Fine, just be prepared to run two days from now!”

  After that we both lay back down, minutes in silence until we get up and head our separate ways. I trudge my way back through the path only to see my parents looking at me with a sad expression.

  “Now when were you going to tell us you awakened your mana sight young man.” My mother said sternly.

  “Well I wish it had been sooner or we wouldn’t have had to pay so much for Ginfrey.” This time my father continued with a sigh.

  Knowing trouble was coming I tried to make myself look small as I walked into the house eager to get their gazes off of me. Well shit, I guess it never crossed my mind to tell them. Exhausted from the day, I take a shower, eat a big dinner and finally sleep embraces me.