Chapter 10

A Monstrous Foe

Lavits had discovered that Sai was just as strong as him while he was only using a small fraction of his strength. He discovered that the only way he could actually beat Sai was to overpower his own son. Lavits could easily do so, but he realized at that moment that Sai had made the right choice in his weapons.

I might be clunky, I'm still slow, and I have nearly no strength like a small child should. But I do have skill, skill that goes against what my father believed possible, Sai thought. Lavits looked at his son very surprised. He then said “You can keep your shield and sewing needle, but you must find another weapon that the tribe trains in and use it. You don’t get a choice in this matter.” His father’s tone was sharp, but it could be seen that he had approved of Sai having ability with his shield. Sai proved that not only did he have talent with the armament, but he was also an extremely quick study. Sai had left the small skirmish with only two bruises, while he had even inflicted one unsuspectingly on his father who was considered the second most powerful person in the tribe.

Sai was worn out, he had used up all of his energy for the day, he needed a moment to recharge. While his father went inside, Sai laid down, his head propped up on his shield, rope dart still strung around his wrist in a way that he could use it at any moment.

Sai’s mother who had watched the whole battle from a small patio behind the house came over to Sai. “Your father just wants you to be safe, there are so many young men that go out with him that don’t return.”

“I know,” Sai replied, “Dad doesn’t understand the benefit of shields though. While he claims that the enemy would simply climb over, the case is actually that if an army were to carry a shield, that army would have no way of losing a battle except by being entirely overpowered. I hope that I could show him today, the only way that dad could have won was to use far more strength than I used. Maybe if we adapted my way of fighting, there wouldn’t be an enemy that would take up arms against us again.” Sai explained sleepily. His logic was far beyond that of any child, it was even beyond that of his elders in the tribe.

“That may be the case, but be sure that you have sufficient strength in order to backup your thoughts. Your father has been outside our tribe many times, he even went to study at a school when he was younger. He has experience that you do not. Instead of proving something try to learn something.” Sai’s mother said to him before turning around.

Sai had not expected that something like a choice in weapons would create such a riff in his family. While he loved his new family, he still could never get past his old family all being killed because he didn’t have the power to defend against those thugs. Sai decided that he would have to disappoint his new family in this case in order to protect them in the future.

Sai had actually fallen asleep outside behind his house. He had woken up in his bed though. He woke up to a faint voice in his head. It was his grandmother. His grandmother rarely reached out to him without him reaching out first, but in this instance it was refreshing. Sai boy, do not take what your parents have said to heart. They are looking out for you in the only way you can. I have seen your past however, and I watched your fight. You will do great things in the future for this tribe if you continue on this path. We will be able to rule over our own valley without any issues when you finally reach your father’s strength. Do not worry too hard. Continue your work and great things will come.

Sai’s grandmother saw right through him, she saw that he was worried, and upset, but she said the exact thing he needed to hear. He was going to continue his plight. To defend his family, defend himself, and never be hurt again. Today was the day for him to truly start his training. His plan today was to train in the woods, to see if his magic enhances his weapons strengths.

He got out of bed, ignoring that that wasn’t where he went to sleep. He was determined to make his own breakfast today through hunting as well, so after getting dressed and grabbing his shield, bow, rope dart, and throwing knives, he headed out the door towards the woods in the back yard. This was the first time that he had been in those woods, so he wasn’t sure about what he could meet in there if he went too deep. Therefor, he stayed relatively close to the edge, though he couldn’t see his village, he could tell exactly where it was.

Sai then started with his rope dart, he had thrown it a handful of times, making sure that he could hit a small tree with it. It was obvious that he could do such a thing. He then began to use magic with it. He started with hunting squirrels and other small animals, though he didn’t cook them, he actually gathered them all and with a makeshift net he hung them from a tree branch to use for bait later.

He began to use his magic in tandem with his rope dart and quickly found that hunting was extremely easy with both magic and a weapon. He began by using his earth magic in order to build small barriers that would trap the prey. Then he continued by using wind magic to speed up the rope dart. But he had finally found that wind magic had another ability that was unique. He could use it to stop flying animals then strike them at the same time with the help of a different wind current. Hunting really was too easy.

His next venture was to figure out a way to use his earth and fire magic on his weapon in order to help him hunt. He had thought of very little however on either of those fronts. Sai had imagined a flaming knife dart travelling at high speeds toward a target, but the further away the knife dart got, the harder it was to control the fire attached to it. Every time he did, it burned out.

His next venture was more promising. He had tried to use his rope dart with the power of earth. In this way, he could throw the dart, and while it was moving, he could engorge it. It would be far more massive than originally then it would strike the target with more weight, therefore more strength. Physics won that battle however. As it would fly out of his hand, it would gain too much weight and fall to the ground. Even if he was stronger, he couldn’t help with the exponential weight gain in the rope dart’s weight.

After several hours of trying time and again to morph fire and earth into his rope dart, he came up with no results. Eventually Silent decided to use specifically magic to hunt. The makeshift net had already been weighed down with dead rodents, so Sai had to make a second. He had planned on using these as bait to hunt something larger, but didn’t expect to fail so much in his endeavor.

Silent was currently downtrodden, but he knew that he shouldn’t give up. He had talent given to him by a self proclaimed god, and he was considered a genius. Instead of giving up, he decided that he would practice with his shield while taking a break from his rope dart.

As can be assumed, there was very little Silent could do in order to practice his shield techniques outside of bashing trees or small animals with it. Silent instead used his bait to bring in a beast that would cause him to need his shield. He had hoped for a single coyote or some other predator that he knew that he could handle solely with magic.

After flinging away several dead rodents in a small trail from a creek to his location, Silent left the makeshift bag of raw meat and bone in a clearing. He then waited. While waiting, Sai was drawing in the elemental source energy from around him. In his current location there was quite a bit of gold and light blue specks, while there was far less red swirling around his body. At this point, Silent would be considered elementary level one still, it was far easier to raise your level with your physical cultivation, but when you finally fill up your body with elemental energy completely, you would be considered a master of the elementary level and you would move to the basic level. At the basic level, you were capable of condensing your energy that is inside of you into a small ball in the pit of your stomach, the place it rested was called your dantian. After condensing your energy in that pit, you had to multiply that energy by filling up your entire body again and again until those little balls of energy filled up your entire body once again and once more condense into a smaller form. This process theoretically would repeat infinitely or until your energy can no longer condense or grow yet still fills up your entire body. In short, if someone were to reach the end of the elementary level, and the ball of energy condenses, but it still fills up a majority of their body, they will be limited to only a fraction of the way through the basic realm.

This means that the realms for energy are essentially percent based, but you cannot reach past one hundred percent energy in your body or it will leak out. This also means that the denser you can create each ball of energy in your body after the elementary realm, the more likely you are to reach a further realm. This finally means that while martial cultivation has sub-levels, magic cultivation is more ratio based. The current Sai would be considered forty percent of the way to the peak of the elementary realm, or as his tribe claims, level four elementary.

It must be said that this energy that is being stored is not the same as the energy that one normally uses. The energy that one normally uses is specifically in the dantian, while this energy starts out in the dantian and expands to the rest of one’s body. If one were to expend this energy, they would actually harm themselves even though they would have extreme gain for a short time. It must also be said that the only true gain in size of the energy reservoir occurs at the beginning of each realm, where your dantian is being filled completely with energy, or when you finally reach a new realm where all of your energy is again condensed into your dantian.

Finally, this kind of cultivation also helps to cultivate someone somewhat in martial cultivation, by adding energy to one’s body, they are also strengthening their body, though not as much as average martial cultivators would. Someone in the first level of the basic realm for magic cultivation would have a body as strong as someone in the fifth or sixth level of martial cultivation.

While waiting quietly for his prey, Silent had filled up a significant portion of his body with energy, he would now be considered the fifth level of the basic realm of magic cultivation. He would only be considered the first level of the basic realm in martial cultivation though. In order to raise a level in martial cultivation, one would have to double the strength that they had in the previous realm.

This needs explained because at this exact moment, waiting patiently for a beast to attempt to devour his bait, Sai had reached elementary level two in his martial cultivation. It was not weird that he reached it at such a young age though. The average person on his last planet was almost at elementary level four, while some of the strongest people were in the fifth or sixth level. This means that Sai could now lift twice the weight, hit twice as hard and block twice as strong of attacks.

While waiting, drawing in energy, finally a beast came. It was not the beast he had expected however, it was a magical beast that was also rather strong. At that exact moment, a mountain lion had entered Sai’s line of sight.

Sai immediately hefted his now far lighter shield. He planned on jumping from his position several meters up a tree and using magic to aid him with his kill.