It has been three years since my awakening, so I am six years old now. Time goes by very fast when you are busy, even though it seems to slow down a few thousand times at certain times. 

And several things have happened in these three years, some of them being extremely important. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, so I'll summarize from the beginning.

The day after the Awakening the training began. Well, to call it training is an understatement, it was pure torture in disguise. I almost gave up more than a dozen times, I am not a Chinese protagonist with an unshakable determination that can endure anything. 

In short, you could say that I was just a spoiled child who thought he knew the difficulties of the world. I often thought 'how hard can it be to do this?' when I saw others suffering to complete something, but now I understand their difficulties.

Mommy also warned us many times that it was going to be something impossibly difficult but I continued with the same attitude of 'it can't be that hard, others are incompetent' and not surprisingly I got fucked splendidly.

I used to consider myself someone who was aware of my capabilities, but now I can see how stupid I was and overestimated myself. 

It's not because of reincarnation or being a Chosen One that I'm going to be good at everything. This was a good brake on the arrogance that I had started to develop. If it wasn't stopped, who knows what a jerk I would become in the future.

Don't be overconfident or overestimate your capabilities too much, be fully self-aware. Well, at least I learned my lesson.

I also became more disciplined and determined, not giving up on something just because it is too hard or some little pain is getting to me. 

Now I can at least endure the training without complaining and thinking all the time 'is this really worth it?' or 'do I really have to go through this?'

Sometimes I relapse but nothing too much. Just some complaint to vent the frustration of having to work so hard.

Who knows, maybe someday I will reach the level of a Chinese protagonist? Able to withstand my body being deconstructed cell by cell only to rebuild it again without making a sound. I just hope my teeth don't break or I develop bruxism again.

Moving on to the training part, I must emphasize once again that it was humanly - or beastly? - impossible. 

Well, maybe it is impossible for humans with their weak little bodies, but that is not the point here.

It was a very simple and barbaric training in the beginning. It just consisted of increasing my stamina and flexibility at the beginning. It was hard, but it was still in the bearable part and I could turn off my mind and work on automatic.

I started with flexibility exercises at 06:00 in the morning - which also served as a warm-up - until 09:00 in the morning, then we rested for thirty minutes until we started the resistance exercises ending at 17:00 with another three hours of flexibility exercises.

And I followed this hellish routine for months, without wasting a SINGLE DAY, but it's not like I didn't want to, I just couldn't, if I missed the training the next day would be double to make up for the day before.

Every time Alice or I could no longer continue Mommy would inject us with her mana and fill us with energy again. 

The mana of a Magus Emperor is highly concentrated, compressed and pure, causing it to contain a large amount of energy so that their bodies could be nourished, since food is not a practical method of obtaining energy on their level.

---

On a side note, for an Emperor Magus to fully replenish himself with food he would need to eat a few tons at each meal, so it's easy to imagine what it would cause in a child who can't even be considered a Beginner Magus yet. 

As for a Saint Magus, it's not even possible to replenish oneself with food, no matter how much they eat. The energy expended is incomparably greater than the energy gained from food, making this method unworkable.

---

Damn, is this something you do for a three-year-old child!? Have conscience, woman! That's what I've always wanted to shout to my mother!

Call me whatever you want for complaining so much, but I doubt that you, three times my age, could keep up this pace for three days. Sorry, I had another relapse and got worked up again....

Back to the point. 

This part of the training continued, with nothing major happening during the period.

Finally, after a few months I had something that was just a reality far more than distant. 

Rest. A week of rest. This was and will undoubtedly be one of the most enjoyable weeks of my life.

That week I did everything I have wished for in all these months. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Literally seven days of doing nothing and yet these were some of the seven best days of my life. How much I miss that week...

But unfortunately it all comes to an end. 

After this week of rest, the endurance and flexibility training ended and strength and speed training took its place.

It was incredibly difficult at first, but I resigned myself to my fate and stopped complaining and started doing everything on automatic from that moment on.

This made it much easier to cope with this impossibly difficult training. When you accept whatever comes your way, it becomes much easier to resist adversity.

Fortunately, we are adaptable beings or this would not have been possible.

So, the months went by and new training came. I was trained to be as capable as possible currently.

Two years after all this training I started to actively train my mana. 

I didn't stand still about it during the other trainings, because I was required to actively circulate my mana all the time, which worked as a physical stimulant - it came out very sexual, but I don't know a better name for it, so this is it - to develop my body faster and also help me to become familiar with mana.

During this one year of training with mana I have gone through several topics. Conversion, familiarity, control, understanding, compression, purification, concentration, absorption, conjuration and its effects and other topics.

In a more detailed explanation for the layman it would be:

Conversion - the act of transforming mana to your desire. An example would be elemental conversion, which consists of converting the elements of pure or already elemental mana to that desired by the caster.

Familiarity - the act of becoming familiar with mana through constant use until it becomes involuntary. It fits with the circulation of mana that I exercised during my training, which was intended to get me used to exercising it involuntarily at all times. 

Control - the act of controlling your own mana and also the outside mana in the best possible way. It is directly related to mana expenditure, casting time, accuracy, strength and speed of spells and amount of absorption, maximum purity, compression and concentration obtainable, and other related elements.

Understanding - your understanding of the path of a Magus. It defines your power, ease and difficulties, perceptions, limitations and development, ability and disabilities regarding your future as a Magus, encompassing everything related to this.

Compression - the ability to compress mana for greater storage capacity and combat power. It is linked to the amount of mana possessed, purity, mana concentration, power, accuracy, and speed of spells.

Purification - the act of purifying mana, purging it of its impurities for a more fluid elemental conversion and other benefits. It is closely related to compression, concentration, control of mana and its byproducts.

Concentration - the pooling of the amount of mana in a specific location for whatever reasons. It is another side of compression, but this one seeks easier access to mana by pooling it in some specific place. It relates to compression, conversion, and mana control.

Absorption - the act of absorbing mana, concentrating it at a certain point. It is commonly used for gathering mana at the Soul Space gate, but also has other purposes, such as condensing Mana Crystals. It involves all the previous topics.

Conjuration - the act of conjuring mana, manipulating it at will. It encompasses several areas, such as conjuring battle spells or household spells. It depends mainly on controlling and understanding mana, but has a bit of every theme involved.

I believe it should be easily understandable now. 

And after that year of study, here I am in the middle of a practical mana training with Alice. More exactly, a sparring.

We have had several of these sparring sessions during the training.

While some were very calm with few minor injuries, others were quite brutal, with me coming out with one arm broken in three pieces and Alice with one foot turned 180° backwards.

It is easy to see why Mommy was so sad when she said that our training would start back then.

No mother would want to see her children like that. 

But well, that's life, so what.

At least it's easier than some dark souls out there.

Indirection aside, let's get back to sparring.

(I just thought now that it might get a little confusing and strange alternating between Affinity with X and Element X in the story, so I'll try to clarify:

  Affinity with X is used when the magic interacts outside the user's body

      Ex: She used her Poison Affinity to create a somniferous

      Ex: I used my Affinity with Darkness to create a shadow

Element X is used when the magic interacts directly with the user's body

      Ex: She coated her whole body with her Element Poison

      Ex: I covered myself with my Element of Darkness

Hope I clarified this and don't get too weird - Author)

Suddenly

'Not there!!!' 

Dodging a kick from Alice towards my precious parts, I step away from her to regain my posture.

This is not something new... Mommy always taught us to attack where cause the most damage. 

'Fuck honor, fuck warrior pride, fuck dignity! These things won't help you survive! Use everything you have at your disposal to kill your opponent!' Her words. 

And there's no way to say she's wrong. If I can survive or win more easily by hitting someone's ball why restrict myself to something like a 'fair fight'?

If I follow that logic, wouldn't my Poison Affinity be useless? 

Only an idiot would follow teachings like that. 

It's like the old saying goes 'if it's in the game it's for use'.

So let's put it into practice.

Alice is already regaining the distance between us, running and using her Affinity with Metal and Poison to create a very rudimentary knife with embedded poison.

Halfway there, her figure starts to become erratic, it's her Affinity with Illusion.  

I begin to distance myself again, since my Affinities are not geared toward direct combat.

Without a weapon you can consider me to have almost no direct combat power at present. 

Unlike Alice, who has the Metal Element as an Affinity, which has as one of its characteristics the easy materialization from the beginning, among my Elements none is materializable being a beginner.

The most I can materialize at the moment is to coat myself with a layer of my Destruction Element, which acts as defense and attack.

And that is exactly what I did.

With a thin layer of black and red light flickering all over my body, I continue to distance myself, trying to take the battle into the shadowy interior of the forest.

Since we are currently in a clearing, my Darkness Element is essentially useless.

As the person engaged in direct combat, if Alice wants to defeat me she will have to follow me wherever I go despite how disadvantageous it will be for her.

Otherwise her only option currently is to let me run away, which leaves me with the possibility of calling for reinforcements, setting a trap for her, or walking away, what is out of the question at this point.

And this is the topic of today's sparring. Combat in a disadvantageous environment.

We are in a simulated situation where we both have something that the other urgently needs, and since we are unable to effect the exchange in a peaceful manner, combat ensues.

Our goal is to defeat the other and get the item, regardless of the adversities in that fight.

So we are unable to give up the fight and retreat.

And as a result, we are in the current situation. I distance myself aiming to reach an environment advantageous to my current fighting style that will also be disadvantageous to Alice.

Halfway to the forest, I start using my Illusion Element, making my movements erratic as well.

Alice, seeing this, decides to speed up. 

Using her Fire Affinity to create small explosions on her feet, she uses the resulting momentum from this to gain greater acceleration.

At this rate, she will catch up with me before I can reach the forest.

Thinking quickly of a countermeasure for the situation, I decide to combine my Destruction and Poison Elements on the soles of my feet.

By combining the Element of Destruction with a corrosive poison, I intend to leave the ground I step on in a molten, slushy, mud-like state.

That way, I can increase my acceleration as well and gain speed - as if I were ice skating - while possibly making she slow down a bit or lose balance.

In theory it is interesting, I just don't know if it will work in practice.

Executing the idea quickly, I see that it has partially worked.

The corrosion was stronger than I expected, as it ended up mostly destroying everything instead of creating the "mud" I wanted.

But the little bit of "mud" was enough for me to get some acceleration and keep the distance a little longer.

A few seconds later, I was a few meters away from the forest, but Alice was also catching up with me.

Realizing that she will catch up with me before I reach the forest, I made a risky decision.

I kept running until Alice came within range.

Using my Element Destruction and Poison with all my strength on the soles of my feet, I will use them to erode the ground below me and have a foothold for an abrupt stop without losing my balance when Alice is about to attack me.

Timing it mentally, I wait for Alice to create a big explosion at her feet, getting a big boost and being about to hit me with her knife.

At that moment, using the hole in the ground as support, I jump and abruptly twist my body backwards in a splendid display of body and mental control.

Using his own momentum gained from the explosion to my advantage, I put one foot on his knife grip and the other on his forehead, pushing myself towards the forest with a leap.

Due tothis sudden counter momentum, Alice lost her balance for a few seconds, mistaking her steps and allowing me to reach the forest.

Since my feet were also coated with my Elements of Destruction and Poison, I hurt her a little.

Her hand holding the knife will probably be numb and her vision blurred for some time along with her disordered thoughts as well.

Taking advantage of this moment, I picked up a rock the size of my fist from the forest floor and used my Affinity for Destruction and Poison, coating it completely.

With all my strength, I threw it towards Alice, aiming at her unprotected Soul Space Portal.

The Soul Space Portal is a formless "organ" acquired during each individual's Awakening, located in the middle of the thorax.

It performs the function that the name implies, it is a portal to the Soul Space, which is where each individual's mana is stored, along with their Affinities and so on.

And this is one of the weak points that all beings possess.

Despite having no physical form, even a slap without any mana can damage it if it is strong enough.

With a damaged Portal your mana will go into disarray, making it difficult and complicated to control.

Now if you have your Portal destroyed... well, you can kiss your life goodbye. 

And you may be asking yourself "even with all this danger you are still targeting your sister's Portal?"

Yes. 

I mean, Mommy won't let us die.

More specifically, Mommy's mana - a Magus Emperor - is so revitalizing to people at low levels like you and me that even healing a damaged Portal is a simple thing.

So we don't hold back and attack to kill during sparring, we know we won't die.

Leaving the explanation aside, the stone I threw is about to hit Alice's Portal.

Actually, it was.

She is not as weakened as I thought she would be, so she was able to partially deflect the stone with her knife.

But the stone still managed to hit her leg, thankfully slowing her down.

"Fuck you! You only know how to run and use dirty tricks!?" And she cursed at me.

Don't take her for an idiot for that, those are not her true thoughts.

In a fight, mentally destabilizing the opponent is as important as knowing how to fight itself.

And if cheap provocations like these have a chance of working, why not use them?

The more mentally unstable you be, the more failures your opponent will take advantage of, which brings an easier victory.

A basic knowledge.

But things like this won't work on me, and she knows it.

She probably wants me to answer her, thus revealing my position and general direction.

I will just continue in silence.

Now that I have distanced myself from Alice, I should stop for a while and recover.

Searching the forest for a while, I find a relatively large tree with a hole big enough to accommodate me until I recover.

Entering the hole, I soon become enveloped in a layer of darkness and illusion, making it difficult to track.

I remain alert for a while to see if there is any sign of Alice approaching, but there is none.

Relaxing, I can finally assess the damage I have sustained.

Scratches and abrasions for the most part and also some cuts and burns here and there. 

Nothing serious that will significantly affect my fighting ability...apart from my legs.

The result is obvious if you think that I stopped abruptly from a speed of a few dozen kilometers and twisted my body with the resulting force and even used Alice, who was at a similar speed to me, as a support to propel me backwards.

In fact, I am surprised that I did not dislocate or break anything.

But the numbness in my legs and the shaking will do enough harm to me. 

I can hardly feel my feet now that my blood has cooled.

But with Mommy's mana still inside me, it shouldn't take long to heal, even if it is diluted and not actively circulating.

I must use this free time I have now for something useful in the fight against Alice.

First, it needs to be something that will prevent her from getting to me.

Second, it needs to be something from medium to long distance.

Third, preferably something incapacitating and that does considerable damage.

Fourth, it needs to be something concealable or difficult to detect.

Fifth, a favorable environment and situation.

Sixth, something constant and unpredictable.

Seventh, nothing that requires long preparation or is very laborious.

With the resources I have available now, my Element of Darkness would be the main thing.

A dark place with a hiding place and space for a Conjuration Pentagram would be ideal.

For the pentagram type...

Formulating a plan to use against Alice and waiting for my leg to be healed, I lose myself in time.

At the same time, Alice was also formulating her own plan against me, aiming to win this duel.

And as for mommy... well, she was enjoying her alone time 'cheering' for me while the idea of watching us was currently in the background... what a great mom.

-----

Author here :)

If you are wondering why I didn't mention the Family Connection, the next chapter will explain