“Some people sought to maximize their strengths, while others attempted to cover their weaknesses instead. Both methods have their own merits, and which one you should use would depend a lot on yourself.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“Very good, Rhys, Eilonwy,” praised Aideen as the siblings managed to land a blow on her – if causing a tear on her clothes counted – for the first time in the years since she took to training them personally. They had managed to do the feat together when the four of them were working together just the year before, so Aideen had them split into pairs since then.

By then a decade had passed since she brought Kino back from Elmaiya. The girl, once naive, had learned most things people should know of by now, and was far more mature compared to her former self. Even so, she still kept that spark of innocence most often seen with children on her, though. Her personality was also mostly the same, a curious, eager girl who was very happy to live her life no matter the situation.

And by now, an extremely dangerous individual as well. Aideen’s training had ensured that, even if Kino only used her weapon instead of tapping into her inborn talent for Void magic.

Out of the four, Kino was by far the deadliest fighter, primarily thanks to her void magic, as most people simply had no answer to an unkillable void mage of her skills, and that was while she had yet to truly grow her mana pool at that. Needless to say, she wasn’t allowed to use her magic while sparring with the other three, for safety reasons.

Even though Aideen could heal just about any injury as long as the person in question was still alive, she could do nothing if someone had been utterly annihilated, after all, and that was what Void magic was prone to do to its victims.

As for the other three children, Áine and Rhys practiced their weapons diligently because as mages of the Mortality and Life affinity, their magic was unsuitable for offensive uses. At most, both of them could use it to reinforce their bodies and heal their injuries rapidly, so if they were to fall into a situation where they had to defend themselves, their weapons would be what they relied on.

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On the other hand, Eilonwy took a path that few necromancers trod upon, where she didn’t focus on the quantity of her undead minions, but instead focused on only a few while also using her Death affinity magic for more direct offensive purposes. When she used her magic, the girl trained to control ten undead puppets which would fight alongside her.

Since she had fewer minions to control, the degree of fine control she could exert over them was greater. When the girl grew older, she would likely improve the capabilities of her minions as well, so as to get more usage out of them. At the moment, however, Eilonwy was only barely able to control those ten minions while also fighting at the same time.

It was the reason why most necromancers favored just commanding a horde of undead instead of joining the fight personally. The difficulty of controlling their minions while also entangled in a fight was far greater than doing it while being able to focus entirely on control. The path Eilonwy took meant that she would be far less vulnerable than an average necromancer, though with less impact on the larger scale in battles.

The path Eilonwy chose was not an easy one to tread either. It took a great amount of practice to finely control ten minions at the same time, though if the girl managed to master it, then whoever fought her would feel as if they were fighting against eleven of her at the same time. That was still a matter for the future, though, and the girl still needed many improvements on her actual fighting skills.

Calais visited and sparred with the children from time to time, as he was pretty close to his nieces and nephew. That said, other than the early spars, once the children understood more of what Aideen taught them, he ended up being their punching bag. As a result, he asked Aideen for more guidance as well, and sometimes trained along the four.

Since the children with Aideen far more often, though, it was inevitable that Calais continued being their punching bag. At least the matter served as a motivation for him to stop lazing off, and even when his parents heard of it, his mother couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of her son being beaten up by her grandchildren.

Some questioned the need for the children to train themselves that hard, since the Lichdom was a peaceful place to live in. They were not wrong, since the last time the Lichdom went to war was when Aideen was much younger, over two centuries ago. Even for the long-lived folks that was a good while ago.

Aideen felt differently. She knew that her grand-nieces and nephew were mostly of elven heritage, and that included their lifespan. If they were to live only a hundred years or so, then it was easy to be content with living in the Lichdom their entire lives and never needing to fight. On the other hand, these children were likely to live up to seven or eight hundred years.

Over that long a period of time, it was unlikely that they would be content just staying in one place. Already out of the three Aideen noticed how Áine and Eilonwy had quite a bit of interest in the world outside the Lichdom. If they went out, chances were likely that one day they would be forced to defend themselves for some reason or another.

Aideen firmly believed that it was better for them to be prepared to do so rather than flounder when the need arrived. A little hardship early on to prevent future troubles, so to speak.