“Okay, since you became ten, I guess it is a good time to move on to some advanced knowledge. I’ll briefly talk about them before moving onto the next section of your training.”

Elius was curiously listening to him, and they were sitting under the shade of the huge tree.

“What kind of advanced stuff?”

“Well, you know elemental magic, but did you know they all had upper stages?”

Elius became more curious.

“No.”

Then his dad started to explain.

“Okay, first, let’s start with fire. Right now, you can only create small things like fireball or fire arrow because you just tried to alternate the shape of a fireball spell. It can give warmth and enable life but also burn and destroy. So you should be careful with it. The more you understand it, the more you can evolve it. Fire can turn into lightning, or even I heard stories about people creating meteors with it.”

Elius’ eyes got bigger from excitement.

‘I want to create a meteor!’

“How exactly?!”

He asked impatiently.

“Hold on, I’m telling. The others also like fire. Water can turn into ice. If you master the earth element, you can even control nature and strengthen your defense.”

Elius didn’t even blink while listening.

“All I know about air is that you can use it to enhance yourself at basic levels, like making yourself lighter to move faster or something. You can control the weather with it or even fly. I guess. For all of that, you have to understand the essence of the element.”

Elius couldn’t hold back anymore and shouted.

“HOW?!”

“I just told you, you have to understand its essence.”

“WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!”

Wilbert sighed.

“With the spell that Julius taught you. It is not exclusive to mages. We can use it too, but it is too limited for us. First, most inner fighters can control only one or two elements, but to perform a spell with it, we have to channel mana throughout our body and scatter it around. Actually, we can cast most of the spells too, but if we try to master an element that we don’t have an aptitude for, even learning two spells will take maybe ten years. So we have to focus on the element we have the aptitude for. Oh, and I almost forgot, there are numerous elements, not just four.”

Elius was constantly tapping his knee with his index finger. Wilbert saw that, and he didn’t want to prolong it any longer. He could always tell the technical part about later.

“And finally, how to understand the essence of an element.”

“Finally.”

Elius fixed his posture with a smile, and he intensely stared at his father.

‘Ahh, I don’t understand this kid’s enthusiasm.’

Wilbert inwardly sighed and continued.

“Until now, you only change the shape of a specific spell. To get the essence and to gain complete control of an element, you should focus on that element, not its shape.”

Elius closed his eyes and immediately began to try.

“Wait, did you understand?”

Wilbert wasn’t expecting him to start right over. He still had things to say.

“Yes. I mean, I guess.”

Elius answered and tried to do what Wilbert said.

‘Not the shape but the fire itself. Not the shape but the fire itself.’

He repeated to himself while concentrating. Finally, after a few minutes, he succeeded, which surprised him.

‘Is that it? What is the fuss about it then?’

But he didn’t know yet. He went deeper inside the fire element until he reached the part he had to solve. Then he came across that image. Thousands of intertwined lines greeted him. Elius was shocked.

“What the…”

He couldn’t even see the end of it.

“It could at least take a year, or maybe two.”

But that wasn’t enough to dampen his enthusiasm.

‘Since I have six more years to go to the academy, I’ll master all the elements until then.’

When he opened his eyes, Wilbert was standing and waiting for him.

“If you get the gist of it, let’s go.”

“To where?”

“To give you some real-life experience.”

Then he turned towards the forest and started to move. Elius followed him silently.

“By the way, I forgot to tell, if you want to create your spell, just like reaching the essence of an element, you have to reach the essence of the mana. And the spell on your mind has to be very, very clear.”

Elius nodded.

“But I guess before I began to create my spells, I’ll focus on the elements right now. I was thinking of mastering them before the academy starts.”

“Yes, you should do that.”

“You said there are more than four, what kind of?”

“Hmm…”

Wilbert started stroking his chin and squinted his eyes.

“Once, I saw a guy who can control sound waves. I heard a guy who could control light. Oh, and there was a weird guy who could control metal. But of course, there is no requirement that everyone will have an element. There is numerous kind of spells and people.

“Whoah.”

An expression of surprise escaped his mouth.

“What is yours? I’ve never seen it.”

“Mine is... Lightning… But there is more to it, a little complicated. You’d get it if you had to see.”

Elius shrugged and decided not to fiddle further. They were getting deeper inside the forest, different types of plants and flowers with various colors started to appear. Elius saw them for the first time, so he was excited and curious as ever. He began to hear animal noises that he had never heard before, even the rustling sound of squirrels running through the trees, moving branches, was new to him. After walking for almost forty minutes, Wilbert stopped him and pulled him behind a tree. Then pointed out towards a cave. Next to the cave’s entrance, something was sitting and violently eating his poor rabbit prey.

“See that green thing? That is a mantis.”

Wilbert whispered.

“Mantis??”

Elius, was bewildered, he saw a mantis from his father’s books, but that was a little bug.

“Yes, a mantis, an evolved one rather.”

“It just looks like a human.”

“Yes, and stop smiling. That is a bad thing. Due to overexposure to mana, some animals could lose their mind and evolve into violent beasts. They will be going to attack any human on sight. Therefore, they have to be subjugated. And lucky you, you’ll be the one the subjugate him.”

Elius stopped smiling. It was Wilbert’s turn to smile.

“Wha-”

Before he could refuse, Wilbert pushed him from behind to the open field and put some distance between them. The rustling sound he made as he passed through the bushes caught the mantis’ attention. Mantis raised his head to look at what was going on and saw the clueless Elius. Elius turned to look at his father, but Wilbert was already sitting on a branch. He waved and yelled at Elius.

“Try to survive!”

‘Ah, look at the smile on his face. Do you like to see your son suffer?’

Elius sighed and turned his attention back to the mantis. He flinched and instinctively took a step back after the mantis’ loud screech sound. Now that he saw the mantis standing, it was even more intimidating. It was taller than Elius, and it just looked like a green human. Its long slender arms hung from both sides, almost touching the ground. It had blades where its hands should’ve been. It looked angry and, without losing time, it rushed towards Elius. That caught him off-guard. He wasn’t expecting it to be this fast and barely dodged the incoming blade by bending his back. He tried to step back and put some distance between them, but the mantis had no intention to let him go. Elius felt his heart throbbed, this was the first experience in a real fight, and weirdly it felt good. A smile formed on Elius’ face.

‘What a thrilling experience!’

He thought to himself while dodging, then he took the risk and decided to test out his bandages. This situation was great to do some experiments. The blade of the mantis came from above this time, but instead of dodging, Elius reached out his hand and caught it. Just like Julius wrote, he didn’t feel any pain. He tightened his grip and didn’t let the mantis go. Realizing that it could not escape, the mantis tried to attack with its other hand. But Elius caught that too. His smile was weirder now, and he brought his face closer to the mantis'.

“You know, I might get addicted to this.”

He said and pulled the mantis towards himself, who was desperately trying to escape, and made it scream in pain with a knee strike to the chest. A tiny crack sounds were heard, and there was visible damage on its exoskeleton. Mantis rolled back a few meters. It hurriedly tried to recover. But by the time it raised its head, Elius’ fist flew and struck the mantis so hard that it was shoved down to the ground. Elius was about to start an onslaught on top of him but stopped, and his smile disappeared. He saw the terror in the mantis’ eyes. A second ago, he was having so much fun but never thought how killing something would feel. He felt pity for the mantis. He didn’t want to take his life away for no reason and decided to let it go. Wilbert tilted his head, jumped down from the tree, and walked towards Elius.

“What are you doing? Finish it. Didn’t I tell you that even a second of hesitation might cost you your life?”

“Why shou-”

Before finishing his sentence, he felt a sharp pain in his leg. He only took his eyes away for a second, but the mantis didn’t miss the opportunity and stabbed his leg. Then crawled out under him, opened his huge wings, and flew away while bleeding. Elius could hit him with a spell but decided not to. The cut in his leg wasn’t so deep, so the basic healing was enough to close the wound immediately. Wilbert shook his head in disappointment.

“Let’s go back. Tomorrow, we are doing the same thing again.”

The next day in the noon, they went deep into the forest again. They were about to reach the spot where Elius fought yesterday. Then a painful scream echoed throughout the forest.

“AHHH!”

Their attention shifted to the scream they heard, and without thinking, both of them rushed towards there. A kid was sitting on the ground around Elius’ age. The messy long black hair was resting on his shoulders, and his clothes were torn and covered in dry blood. His back was against the wall, and he held a blade with his two shaking hands towards the mantis attacking him.

“Another mantis? It is going to kill him. We have to help!”

Elius said and rushed towards there.

‘Look at his fierce blue eyes. He has no intention to die.’

Wilbert thought to himself and observed Elius. As the mantis raised its hand to strike the finishing blow, he lost his balance when a fireball hit him from behind. It screeched and turned to look at what was going on, but all he could see was a black staff that would hit him in the face at high speed. The impact was more powerful than Elius expected and sent the mantis flying towards the wall next to the kid on the ground.

“Whew, are you okay?”

He wiped the sweat on his forehead and quickly applied a basic healing spell on the kid. The minor wounds were closing, but it had no effect on the deep wounds, and the kid continued to bleed. Then they were both startled by a deafening scream. The mantis came out of the debris and pounced Elius like it had lost its sanity. The earlier blow almost destroyed the right side of its face, and there was a wound on its chest. Elius’ eyes widened.

‘This wound? It is the same mantis from yesterday!’

He panicked, not because the mantis was rushing towards him, but because he thought this was all his fault.

‘If I had killed him yesterday, this kid would not be in this state. Or what if it could attack a village with innocent people? Would I be able to carry that burden?’

He was angry with himself, so he frowned.

‘I should’ve listened to my dad from the beginning.’

He easily dodged the incoming blow. Mantis wasn’t thinking straight, and it was blindly throwing random attacks. This time Elius hit the other side of its face. Again, the mantis was going to scream, but Elius had no intention to let it do that. He reached his hand and grabbed the mantis’ face.

*BOOM!*

Then an explosion was heard, and the mantis’ head was sent flying away. Its headless body dropped dead to the ground. It was Elius’ first time killing something, but it oddly felt satisfying. He coldly stared at the dead body on the ground and forgot about the kid for a second. The kid was already lost consciousness. Wilbert rushed and carried the kid back to their house.

The next day, both of them were sitting next to the kid. He was still unconscious, His complexion was quite pale, and he had weak facial features as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Elius was still feeling down. Wilbert must have noticed this because he placed his hand on Elius’ shoulder.

“Remember that feeling, Elius, and never forget. Being merciful is good, but you should know when and who to be against, or it might have some devastating consequences. Imagine that there is someone you love in this child’s place. For example, what if I were in that situation? How would that make you feel?”

Elius was watching the floor.

“I would be devastated and blame myself.”

‘I know, son, I know, even after years, you wouldn’t be able to move away from that feeling.’

Wilbert wanted to say that out loud, but the words stuck in his throat. Instead, he gently smiled. Then the kid slowly opened his eyes and blinked. His body was covered with bandages, and every part of his body was in pain. Elius saw that and got up from his seat. It was his first time seeing someone his age, so he was excited. He didn’t know what to say and tried to smile.

“Hello, how are you feeling? What is your name? Where did you come from?”

He started to list some questions hurriedly, but Wilbert stopped him with a sigh.

“Calm and sit down.”

Then he turned towards the kid.

“Hey kid, can you speak?”

He nodded instead of answering.

“What is your name?”

Wilbert asked.

“My name is Ian.”

Ian answered quietly as if speaking to himself. Elius got up again.

“Hi, I’m Elius. Nice to meet you.”

And he smiled broadly. At the time, Elius didn’t know what kind of connection they had. It was a bond that goes back many, many years.