Chapter 1 - Improvement

‘He’s Improved,’ Sy thought, as he parried his son’s blows effortlessly with his one remaining left arm, ‘He might even be at intermediate class now.’

The dull thuds of clashing wooden swords filled the air like a thick unpleasant aroma; the sun was at full peak and Xavier could feel it. His thin cotton overshirt was drenched in sweat and his arms were heavy after what seemed like forever practicing with his father. Retreating three steps Xavier examined his father, looking for a sign that he had any chance to land a blow let alone win the spar.

He didn’t find one.

‘Oh come on, now that’s just stupid,’ Xavier whined mentally, ‘I get that I haven’t really done anything but he’s not even sweating! Is he immune to the sun too?’

Placing his right foot slightly behind his left he dug the balls of his feet into the ground and jolted at his father, swinging his sword with a clean horizontal slash aimed at his father’s abdomen, his muscles screamed with the exertion as they had long since hit their threshold of activity, but his grip didn’t falter.

The strike was only rewarded with a loud bang as his father, without so much as moving a step, parried with blow with titanic power causing Xavier’s sword to explode from his right-hand grip, almost shattering into splinters as it flew into a nearby tree.

Xavier himself also had a little journey as he was flung a few meters to the right landing rather inelegantly on his backside.

‘Hahahaha!’ Zeus giggled as he saw his brother groan in pain clutching his ass, ‘How’s it feel now, huh?’

‘Shut up you moron, that was you 5 minutes ago!’ Xavier retorted.

This only seemed to amuse Zeus even more as he once again burst out in hysterics.

‘Quiet,’ Sy said dryly, ‘The both of you.’

Their father slowly approached the two 7-year-olds and examined them both accordingly. Xavier was now pushing 155cm, tall, and his green eyes were wild and alert. He still had the lean and immature body fitting for a boy his age, with curly black hair draped on his forehead.

Zeus was roughly an inch shorter, but his build was near identical. His hair was a lighter shade of brown but still had the signature curls of the ‘Chaoxs’. His eyes, however, were not like anyone’s in the slightest. Divine is the way he remembered describing them, eyes of pure gold.

‘Xavier, in terms of pure strength I can probably rank you as an intermediate knight now, but your technique is still lacking. You tend to rely too much on that power instead of varying your attacks; for the last two minutes of that duel even a beginner class knight would be able to read your movements.’

‘Z, your power isn’t quite as high as your brothers, but your technique is far superior. If you worked more on the strength of your strikes and stamina, you could easily surpass his performance in a one on one.’

The boys both took mental note of this advice. Their father was strong, even if both of them went at him they knew they stood no chance to win, maybe one win out of a thousand? No, they shouldn’t kid themselves, it was definitely zero.

Xavier’s breathing was still ragged as Zeus passed him a jug of water having since recovered from his spar previous. Xavier gratefully accepted with a nod, downing its entire contents with a gulp, letting out a large belch in exchange. Zeus grimaced at his brother’s manners and waited for his father to continue.

‘As you both know, your aptitude test for the academies will take place two years today, this means by then I expect you to both have reached the advanced level and place highly within our empire’s rankings. You will have to compete against many high-ranking families each with children as talented as you, with far better mentors. Until both of you can prove your worth to me as swordsmen, we will continue with our daily basic training as is, understood?’

‘Yes, Father.’ The twins replied in chorus.

‘Good, now off inside, your mother has prepared you lunch.’

The two hurriedly got up off their asses and sprinted towards the open back door laughing as they chased one another to get there first.

Sy let loose a smile as he watched his sons enter the house before looking down at his wooden training sword. He had noticed the crack straight away as he parried his son’s slash and couldn’t help being amazed. An intermediate class recruit cracking the sword of a renowned ‘King’ class knight? Nobody would believe it, even if it was just a wooden prop.

He couldn’t help but recall his earlier words: ‘Children as talented as you’.

He highly doubted it, and that went for them both.