"Koren Knight, huh."

A woman was laying on a bed reading a file.

'His profile is almost perfect, amazing background, amazing test scores, and most of all, his display of power.'

"Somethings not quite right… It's too perfect." she muttered

"You're being paranoid." A tall man replied

"Natashia scouted him?"

The tall man started to cough unnaturally.

"What are you hiding?"

"Well, we tried to recruit him, but we were immediately shot down."

"What?"

"Yeah, first he seemed interested, but then he suddenly turned suspicious and started to run away."

"Did Natashia scare him away?"

The tall man started to laugh.

"Something like that."

*

"I think she's gone.," Koren declared as he stopped to catch his breath.

However, a faint yell protested otherwise.

"KOREN KNIGHT, COME BACK!"

"Oh, she's persistent," Sebastian commented while shaking his head.

Koren immediately started to break into a run; those countless hours of running with a log tied to him were somewhat paying off.

"AH, THE TRAIN STATION."

Almost as if it was a scene from a movie, Koren jumped into a train right as the door was about to close.

Right before the door closed, Koren could hear faint curses from the woman who was chasing him.

"Finally I can relax," Koren muttered to himself as he found a seat inside the empty train.

"Oh yeah master, why did you ask me to run away from them?"

"Don't go for what you get, make them get what they want."

"What?"

"Play hard to get is what I'm trying to say, first they might offer 1000 gold if you persistently say no they'll raise your value without you even trying."

"Remember this, value yourself, don't let anyone else tell you what you're worth and what you'll succeed in."

Koren nodded in agreement.

"Also, you did well today. Taking him out in one shot was quite the spectacle."

Koren giggled

"As you said, revenge is always sweeter when you have an audience, stupid bastard got me in so much trouble."

"Attaboy."

"Now you don't have any matches tomorrow, so we will work a little more on the mana string technique." Sebastian remarked

Koren groaned as he stepped off of the train.

Mastering a technique is a lot harder than learning one. Koren could currently only shoot forward or pull back with his mana string unlike Sebastian who could use the technique like a homing missile and decimate an entire army.

"Don't be so bummed out, you did cut down the time of forming the string from ten minutes to ten seconds in under a month."

"Yeah, I'm pretty amazing, aren't I?" Koren asked while smirking

"Don't get ahead of yourself kid."

They both broke into heavy laughter, which marked the first day of the tournament.

*

"You need to strengthen the mana string, it won't be able to move easily then."

Koren was levitating an arrow up in the air with his right index. With the utmost concentration, he attempted to shoot it left, but the mana string broke dropping the arrow onto the floor.

Koren screamed in frustration.

'Maybe I'm teaching him this all wrong..' Sebastian thought to himself

"Koren, lets go about this another way."

Koren nodded knowing he needed to change his approach.

"Ok, let's say your mana string is a pipe and you need to get water, your mana into the pipe without making the pipe leak and break."

"However this pipe connects to many other pipes, the water output has to be equal in all pipes and there is no exit for the pipes. "

Koren began to frown

"Wouldn't you just need to find the limitation of each pipe and add it all together."

"Exactly, you need to use the exact amount of mana the string can take."

Koren began to shake his head in disagreement

"No, the mana strings limitation is too much of a variable."

"Well until we get to Corendale to fix your mana problem we will have to work with this."

Koren had a problem with his mana usage. He used too much too quickly which greatly hindered his progress. However in Corendale, Sebastian had saved elixirs and items he had gained from all of his adventures. One of those elixirs, Sebastian claims can help Koren's problem.

Koren sighed but he finally now had a guideline to act on.

"Do it like this, create three different categories of mana strings, short, medium, and long."

"First focus on the short mana string, once you have mastered applying the mana on the short mana string multiply its length by two for the medium one and do the same thing you did for the short one. For the long mana string, multiply the short mana strings length by three so it is all an exact formula for the mana string and the amount of mana exerted."

The mana strings formula was quite easy to remember however the problem is outputting a precise amount of mana consistently without breaking the string.

"Ask your mother for help later, remember she is the greatest mage of ALL time."

Koren nodded slowly, almost as if he forgot that his parents are legendary figures,

"Yeah, your right."

Koren plopped to the floor where he then got back to work.

*

In a sorrowful room, a hooded man was sitting by himself in the dark muttering to himself softly

A minute man walked into the room.

"My liege…"

The hooded man raised his head to look at the short man

"How is progress going."

The small man sighed

"Well the kid signing up for a tournament was quite a surprise but your son is making good progress to knock him out."

The hooded man cackled manically

The short man stood there awkwardly.

"Good.. good…"

The hairs began to rise on the short man's back.

"I'll take my leave now."

He bowed and began to leave but was suddenly stopped by a fearsome aura.

A cold voice rang behind him

"Tell him, no mistakes."

The short man nodded quickly before making his exit

*

"Hmm, so what you're saying is you want to exert a precise amount of mana?"

Sasha was quite surprised when Koren dropped to his knees begging for her to help him with magic.

Koren nodded eagerly

"Well, there are two ways we can go about this,"

"One we can use an extremely long and difficult math formula to solve this."

"Or we can use time."

"Time? TIME!" Koren yelled in satisfaction

'Time, that's what I needed.' he thought to himself

"Yes.."

Sasha was taken aback by his yell but continued.

"If you exert your lowest or highest point of mana at a consistent rate, you can time that and use that formula to use a precise amount of mana."

"Thanks mom!"

Koren yelled before racing up the stairs to his room.

"What is that boy up to." Sasha muttered sofly

"Time, time, time." Koren muttered to himself like a madman while scribbling onto his notebook.

Sebastian peered at what he was writing but shrugged and got back to reading his book.

After three hours of scribbling on his notebook and a few moments of flipping pages on Sebastian's book Koren screamed in excitement.

"I DID IT, IM DONE."

Sebastian who was laying down on the floor reading a book responded with a yawn.

"Sebastian, look!"

Koren grabbed his notebook and began to shove into Sebastian's face.

"Let me actually see it." he mumbled

Koren swiftly set down the notebook on the floor waiting with shining eyes.

After a few minutes Sebastian broke the silence.

"Hmm, the formula is quite good."

"Isn't it, Isn't it?"

"Let me speak." Sebastian said gruffly

"Will it work?"

"Ohoho, you're asking me if it will work." Koren replied with his eyebrow raised.

"Yes, I am."

Koren shrugged

"Don't know yet."

Sebastian facepalmed, but from what he saw from the formula it would probably work.

"Well, it's too late to go out, we'll do it tomorrow before school and the tournament."

Koren nodded before leaping onto his bed and immediately passing out from the exhaustion.

*

The next day passed and Koren stood in the early morning darkness with a lone arrow in his holster.

"Ok, try out short." Sebastian ordered

Kizu barked

Koren threw out a mana string almost instantly from his finger. Because he practiced summoning abnormally large mana strings for so long, summoning a string that is significantly smaller was an easy task for Koren.

'Now here comes the hard part.' Koren muttered to himself.

He began to exert a large amount of mana from his body into the mana string.

'1, 2' he counted to himself

'Stop'

"Now pick up the arrow." Sebastian called

Koren easily picked up the arrow from his holster and began to move the arrow around. Right, left, up, down.

"YES! I FINALLY DID IT!" Koren screamed, moving the arrow erratically along with his screams.

"You're not done yet."

"Well the formula works in a way that if this is wrong then it is all wrong."

Sebastian shrugged

"Well you have a tournament to compete in so let's go."

"Okeee, lets go Kizu."

Koren ran out of the forest with joy, following him was a lone arrow, a wolf, and a ghost.