Training Area of the Kuroshi Clan. Morning.

Akane was standing in front of the gate, whistling as she was waiting for someone who happened to wake up late.

"Akaneeee!"

Kai was running towards her whilst waving his hand.

"There you are, you sleepyhead! We're late, it's already started!"

Kai lowered his hand and sprinted.

"Let's run!"

Akane nodded in response.

The training area was one of the largest areas within the Kuroshi Clan, the place where Akane and Kai were at was the Gate of Strength, the reason for the name being that the gate is the entrance to the training area where everyone becomes stronger.

But the gate also has its own history: in the past, it was created by the ancestor who escaped the previous Kuroshi Clan's misfortune and became the first patriarch of the newly found Kuroshi Clan. Its original purpose was to defend against calamity seeing as it has power imbued into it; it prevents any outsiders without the blood of the Kuroshi. But it also has another power, anyone who is deemed not worthy has no authority to step through.

The training area is in the center of the entire Kuroshi Clan's property. In eye's view of the mansion where the patriarch is living. The Kuroshi Clan is positioned like this: the mansion is stationed at the very back of the clan overseeing everything. The training area in the center stretching up to three hundred meters from the mansion. The arena is stationed near the training area. And lastly, the houses are all that cover the rest. They vary from small to large depending who owns what but that is the rough description.

Right now, Kai was late for the training session as he only woke up a few minutes ago due to the spirit that appeared before him earlier this morning.

A few minutes later, Kai and Akane had arrived to one of the training platforms. There are three training platforms in total, one for people who have yet to cultivate any magic, soul, and mind power within their bodies, it was basically for fighters. One for F-E ranks, and lastly for geniuses who could somehow pass E-rank but people who receive special instruction are also allowed use of this platform. The patriarch of the Kuroshi Clan is an E-rank but that doesn't mean he's the only one.

For every rank there are five levels, for each level the amount of power contained in between would be mind boggling. These levels are called steps. First step, second step, and so on. Of course, this is not without basis. Once a person's power reaches an appropriate amount, they would be promoted. This is not a natural ranking system and was made by people of this continent.

Everyone in this world is born with at least one point in mind, soul, and body power. But not everyone can have a point in magic, if the moment you are born, there's not a single point of magic; you cannot train in the ways of the arcane. This was the cruel truth and people born with no ability to use magic would be considered as ones of lower status. But that is not always the case because some people with no magic power can still train their body to a frightening degree and defeat magic with brute force.

Kai was like any other kid, he had one point in everything. This had confused the spirit because normally you would need a huge sum of mind and soul power to see a spirit. But in this world, talent still existed.

"There it is!"

Akane shouted in glee.

"I see it!"

Kai ran faster as if the arena would go away if he didn't.

"HA!"

Roars of people could be heard as their fists shot out.

"HA!"

Another roar rang out as they retracted their fist and used their other fist to punch forward. They repeated this cycle as a form of body training.

Akane and Kai had slowed down their pace as they might disturb the others.

They walked to the back to face an elder overseeing the spectacle from behind.

"Dad!"

Akane yelled out in joy.

The elder, Akane's father looked at her in surprise.

"I thought you skipped because you left early this morning, I didn't know you were just late."

Akane pouted.

"Hmph! Why would I skip? It's all because of Kai waking up late."

Akane pointed her finger to Kai who rubbed his head.

"Hahaha..."

Kai gave a listless laugh.

"Anyway you two better get on training with the other kids, there's only forty minutes left before instruction. Body training had begun twenty minutes ago."

Akane nodded and walked up the low steps to join the others. Kai had stayed behind.

"What's wrong, Kai?"

Akane's father asked to which Kai shook his head.

"Nothing."

Kai then proceeded to follow Akane.

Akane's father tilted his head.

"Weird kid."

Above the platform, Akane had already begun training like the others. Kai walked to the empty space beside her and mimicked her movements.

"Kai, what are you doing?"

"Training."

Kai answered Reo in a low voice.

"But isn't this type of body training inefficient?"

"That's not the case for people at my level, this is important to build a solid body."

"I never really had a body so I didn't know that. I understand."

Reo didn't speak again afterwards.

Kai focused on mimicking the movements of others as his movements gradually became refined.

Forty minutes passed by and another elder in the front of the people training raised his hand signalling everyone to stop.

Many collapsed on the ground from exhaustion, it was the first time they've done that. The platform they are on was the fighter platform and only people who have yet to get F-rank are on the platform. Kai and Akane were one of the many who collapsed. The only people who didn't collapse were the people who had strong bodies and people who had done similar training.

Of course, only kids were on the platform.

"All of you can sit down and catch your breath. We are going to start the lessons now. We will continue body training and try some practical tests after this three hour lesson."

The elder placed both his hands behind his back and continued.

"We will start with the basics of body training."

The elder raised his right hand.

"When people have significant power in their bodies, they can make their bodies undergo transformation. Just like my hand, [Body Enhancement]."

The elder added pressure on his right hand as it enlarged slightly and had more visible muscles.

"This is a move that can increase bodily strength for a few minutes. The backlash is that it uses power slightly above the normal amount so it exhausts some of the user's stamina. It is called Body Enhancement, this move is one of the most common techniques given in our clan. Our clan specializes in the use of dark magic and body power to further give a boost. I will teach you all the basics of this move, how you comprehend this is up to your talent."

For a few minutes, the elder explained the power of [Body Enhancement] and the core concept. It uses the muscles on the body and gives them a slight boost which would in turn make attack power stronger but exhaust the user's strength.

"Since you all know of Body Enhancement now, we will move on to the next technique."

The elder clapped his hands together and closed his eyes. A moment later, ripples of darkness flowed out from his two palms as he separated them. Darkness had no form and had no color. Yet what was in front of them? They saw darkness with both form and color, it was also tangible.

It was impossible to see through the darkness in the elder's hands.

"This is the element of darkness, also our clan's main foundation for magic. For centuries, our bloodline has controlled the power of darkness which is an indisputable fact."

The darkness in the elder's hands vanished after his words as if it was never there. The appearance of darkness left a hint of fear within everyone's hearts as all of them listened intently.

"Now everyone, stand up. You will all form a single file line and take this slip of element paper from my hands."

Everyone followed the elder's orders and ended up with a single slip of element paper.

"Now everyone, channel your magic within and let it flow on the slip of element paper."

The elder raised a slip of element paper in his hand and it turned black. It showed his element was of the darkness attribute.

"If you have done it correctly, this will happen. Do not worry if you take longer than you think because talent and comprehension affects this task tremendously."

The elder gestured for everyone to start.

Kai and Akane looked at the single slip of paper in their hands and nodded at each other. They closed their eyes and attempted to channel the magic within.

These two were very close so even without words, they already knew the thoughts of the other person.

A few seconds after Kai had closed his eyes, the paper in his hand had turned black. It was even releasing faint darkness within its surroundings.

Kai furrowed his brows as he looked at the slip of paper in his hands.

"Kai."

Reo called out.

"What is it?"

"Why did you suddenly close off the connection of your magic?"

"I felt something inside me. Right after the feeling of the soul-piercing coldness, I felt a bone-piercing coldness. It was as if the second sensation had ice being carried along."

"You must be born with two elemental attributes then. You're quite lucky. Only one in a thousand people are born with two elements."

The spirit praised Kai.

"Should I hide this secret?"

"Yep, though dual attributes are very useful towards one's strength, it will also affect envy within others. It's not particularly a problem for you to not reveal it but isn't it better to reveal everything with a bang?"

The elder looked at Kai's paper in surprise. It had only been a few seconds yet someone had already harnessed his power. This was definitely the birth of a new genius.

An hour passed and now everyone had their paper slips with a shade of black.

"The time it took the slower people was an hour. This defines your talent. I'm actually quite surprised with this batch. The average time to harness magic power is two hours yet even the slowest people took half the time."

The elder praised everyone's talents.

Everyone broke out into smiles at his praise as they all looked at each other proudly.

"But remember this, talent defines speed but hardwork is everything. If a talented person were to slack off, any average hardworking person would definitely surpass him."

The elder warned everyone lest they get cocky.

"Since everyone understands this, we will continue our lessons then move on to training your bodies with your newfound strength."

The elder gestured for everyone to take a seat as Kai directed his gaze downwards.

From the looks of the elder in front and the ability of the people around him, he could tell that his talent could be considered monstrous. Even the little spirit who had vast knowledge praised him. He had to tone it down a bit.