The Burning Fiend

Next mourning Reynolds was forced to wake up before the fist light appeared, old Frey was in charge of help him with his warrior training and he seemed extremely serious about it as he started explaining.

"As you already know warriors are divided in ranks 1 to 9, warriors depend on their powerful bodies and qi to battle terrifying magical beasts. The first part of the warrior training is the body, while gathering the qi at the first light every morning and at the last light every afternoon and using it to nurture the body."

Old Frey continue talking as he was standing in front of the excited Reynolds, "I would also teach you exercises to increase your muscles. As you develop your muscles you will find that they can contain more qi."

"For the time being you will not learn qi methods, I am sure that you know your family have a few of them. But the first part of your training we will focus only on exercising the body and gathering qi every morning and afternoon. It is said that the best result for warrior training is to manage to get your body to reach the rank 6 warrior before start using a qi method. Of course this only apply to extremely talented people, most people are not able to reach the rank 2 warrior level by training their bodies and start practicing qi methods allowing to reach the intermediate warrior level which is rank 4 to 7."

"Training will be dull and hard, you will put your determination through the test but I have great expectations of you, young master so I will not allow you to be lazy."

Reynolds was wielding a determined look as he nodded his head and proceed to imitate the positions and movements that old Frey was demonstrating.

Training was beyond what Reynolds had thought possible, but he adhere to it as much as he could. He still ended limp on the floor after every exercise and had to wait a moment before continuing with the training. He was released after an hour and told that their spear training would continue as usual as the depressed Reynolds limped toward his room thinking on cleaning himself and having a good breakfast.

He was sitting happily at the table as a sumptuous feast was presented for his birthday and his father inquired about his training. "Tell me Reynolds, how was your first warrior training session?" Reynolds had to stop devouring his fill for a moment to smile at his father and said.

"It was hard! But old Frey explained everything carefully and help me correct my postures so I finally was able to get them right at the end". His father smiled and said. "It is good that you are making progress, you need to work hard. Your two brothers are working hard at the warrior academy and you do not want to be left behind, do you?".

"I will work hard father, I want to become strong!" he hesitated a moment and then asked "Father, Grandpa Lomu said that he would teach magic meditation as birthday present, he was not lying to me right?" His father scowled at him and said. "He will teach you, but you must be prepared as not many people have talent to train as a mage. It will be for the best if you have magic talent, but it would not be the end of the world if you don't have it. Neither I nor your brothers are able to train as mage, but that would not stop us as I am a rank 7 warrior and there is barely any mage within the O'Brien empire that could be my match".

Reynolds smiled and said. "I understand father, even if I have magic talent I do not want to give up on my warrior training". His father was proud but a little doubtful, most people who had magic talent will abandon warrior training after finding out that mages need to meditate to improve their spiritual power and to gather magical elemental energy and in comparison the warrior training seemed barbaric. They would have to wait and see, there was no point in imagine situations that may not appear.

Reynolds spent the next two hours learning under the instruction of an old man about the different kingdoms on the Yulan continent and their history. When he was released from the old man, who Reynolds swore was using some sort of sleeping spell every time he spoke, he went to met old Frey to continue with his 'beatings' while trying to learn how to use the spear. But he was rewarded again with several blue marks on his body and barely any improvement on wielding the spear.

After lunch, he finally met old man Lomu who was looking at the eager Reynolds with a smile.

"Young master, Mages also rank from levels 1 to 9 and they depend on their spiritual power and elemental energy to release powerful spells. In any country a mage is ranked above a warrior of the same level because of their impact on the army. It is difficult to say which one is better if a mage and a warrior are battling each other, but a mage can cast a spell that would kill several enemies on large area and in the army they are considered valuable weapons".

"I will teach you how to meditate and gather elemental energy, as you have requested several times and forced this old man to promise you to teach you as your 6th birthday present. But most people would measure their talent and affinity first instead of learning as there as certain dangers on the first meditation. However you need no worry as I would be guiding you during the entire process. Alright, lets start".

Reynold followed the old man instructions and managed to enter a trance after a few minutes, the old man was happy to see that it had not taken much time to achieve it and said. "Young master you have entered the meditation trance, can you see in you mind any bright particle around you?".

He took a moment to realize that the old man was talking as he was awed on the trance. "Grandpa Lomu there are many red bright particles around me and they are touching my body as if they were trying to get inside me". The old man was surprised and smiled with happiness. "Young master the red bright particles are fire elemental particles and I will teach you how to gather them, now follow my instructions..."

After 10 minutes of meditation the old man guided Reynolds out of the meditation trance. "Tell me young master, did you see any particles of different color? Reynolds take a moment to remember and said. "No Grandpa Lomu, only the red ones". The old man said. "Well you have what it seem to be exceptional elemental essence affinity, so if you train hard you will at least reach the rank 7 mage level. I will talk to your father to include at least an hour of mage training in you schedule and I think that next year will go to test your affinity to enroll you on a mage academy."

Reynolds was extremely happy, he did not know how talented he was as a warrior but at least as a mage he would have a bright future. He decided to work hard, the current him was restricted by age and could only do two hours of warrior training a day, one hour of spear training a day and an hour of meditation a day. His following days would be tough but he was determined to grow strong.

Later that night he was dead tired but still managed to eat his fill with a smile, his parents were happy to learn that Reynolds had magic affinity and after a year of training he would surely get good results and they started to dream of sending him to the Ernst institute on the Holy Union.