The training schedule continued over the next two weeks with magic lessons with mother and combat training and exercises with father and Rachel.
We had started some practical exercises when it came to trying to converting the magic essence to mana. All though Maxime hadn't gotten his Magic disc yet to know what his primary element was mother had still taught him how to feel his essence.
He wasn't able to convert it to any kind of mana or generat any spell as he wasn't able to understand the nature of his magic yet. Mother had explained that the first stage of casting spells is understanding the nature of the element the caster wishes to create.
I remember she told me the last year about the five different stages of casting, and the first was by chanting to cast a spell. Urpie had said she thought it was weird that the five stages was weird.
I kind of agreed with her.
I was sitting in my room by the desk with different books spread out infront of me. I had borrowed and read through a plethera of books from the library the last two weeks in hope of expanding my knowledge of this world and understanding of magic.
I had asked my mother to help me find books with the information I wad seeking but she had told me that she would only help me if I wasn't able to find it myself first.
She had said that knowing how to find the knowledge and information you sought after was a skill in it self.
I agreed with her but our library was bigger then I thought and we didn't really have an inventory list of all the books we possessed.
So my process had been to go through bookshelf by bookshelf and pick any book that caught my interest for now and read flip through it. And anything caught my interest I would do a more thorough deep reading.
Of course I had help when it came to reading all these books.
Urpie would sometimes read the books as I slept and tell me what she found in the morning.
Some information I had learned through these tactics had been mostly some basic information about the countries located on the continent this land was on.
Some basic history when it came to magic and some information I found quite peculiar when it came to Dromos and their home land called The Shadowlands.
Going through this information starting with the countries Urpie and I found out about the name this continent is called. Midvara named after ther godess of earth. It was split in two parts, some argued that it was in reality two separate continents but they were name Western Midvara and Eastern Midvara.
A thin land mass that connected the two was located in the south and was the only way the traverse between the two lands.
According to history and the reason why the two land masses wasn't classified as two separate continents was due to an incident that happened a few millennias ago when a gigantic war that was engulfed the whole continent took place.
And in this war the queen of Dromos cast a spell that tore the land in two leaving the west and east separated since then.
On the western continent were Oakhill was located lived mostly just Humans beastkin and Dwarfs. There was some nomadic tribes of Orcs and a few settlement of Dark elfs and High elfs too.
The three most prominent countries was The Kingdom of Luteria, The Republic of Beastkin, The Crimson Heart Empire and The dwarven Kingdom of Steel Hammer.
There was more smaller countries and some ungoverned lands such as the Twisting woods around the land. These ungoverned lands was usually called hunting grounds and had some protection from the organisation called Adventurers Guild.
At the eastern lands there was only one country located. This massive empire had the name of The Shadowlands ruled by Empress Lilith Shadowheart. The Shadowlands was governmed by different factions of races. There was a lot of elfven people living there but also Giants, Dwarfs, Orcs and around the coast merfolk. There was few human settlement there, but out of all the races the primary people living in the Shadowlands was the Dromos.
According to the book we read about the eastern lands Lilith had been the empress as far as recorded history. Some western scholars had doubt about Lilith being the same person through history as there was no records of Dromos living longer the a few hundred years over a thousand.
And the longest living races such as the Elfs and Celestials had only documented cases of a few thousand years at the maximum.
When it came to the other books that surrounded magic history it mostly covered the western history of magic. I hadn't found anything that was written from the east yet.
It mostly just covered things mother had already taught us. But also names of magic scholars who had discovered the relation between the magic essence and mana.
Apparently magic essence was called mana until two thousand years ago when the discovery of true mana was revealed.
The thought had been that mana was made from magicians and monsters but a man named Kalincoff found that mana was always present in the air and ground and that it was a substance that naturally excited in the world.
"Hey Bellz? Are you sleeping?"
Urpie was in control of our body and was sitting at the desk reading while I was trying to sleep. She called out to me as I was about to drift off to the land of dreams.
I opened my eyes and found myself in the white space with a transparent display infront of me showing what Urpie saw through her eyes.
"I wqs just about to fall asleep. What is it?" I said in a tired tone.
"This book here." She pointed at a thin book that had the name of 'Magic type compendium'.
She opened to the first page that showed a list of its content.
'Page 1-5 the basic elements
Page 6-10 the advanced elements
Page 10-30 Unrelated Elements and schools of magic.'
I felt my tiredness disappeared and we started to read through the book.
The first pages as it had said listed the four basic elements and their properties, and the same when it came to the advanced elements.
But when we arrived at the chapter called 'Unrelated and schools of magic' it didn't start with just listing the different elements as it had done to the basic and advanced elements.
The chapter started with explaining what unrelated elements was. Mother had touched a little bit about this subject and the beginning was mostly just a repeat of what she had said.
How there was different schools of magic anyone could learn but that it was difficult and some people was never able to reach them in their lifetime.
But then there was a sentence that stood out to us.
'... scholars argue about the true nature of these so called unrelated schools of magic. Some think that they are connected to the basic and advanced elements as no spellcaster with only knowledge about the basic elements has been able to cast these kinds of magic. But there seems to be scholars that claims that in small tribes across the lands there exists spellcasters able to use some of these schools of magic without knowing how to cast the most basic of spells. But none has successfully documented these claims before.'
We then reached the next page that started to list these so called unrelated elements.
'Dark
Light
Time
Space
Poison
Life
Death
Necrotic
Summoning
Ki
Astro
Spiritual
Witchcraft
Shamanistic'
We kept reading for a bit before I decided that I really had to sleep. Urpie chose to also rest for the rest if the night and joined me in the white space as she laid down in the bed. She laid beside me as we both drifted off to sleep.
One thing we both was certain of was that the study of magic was a subject we both found truly fascinating. And that book was something we had to have a deep reading of.
-----
The next day we had a whole day of training with only father as Magdala and Rachel had gone to Oakhill leaving father in charge of Maxime Lilly and I.
Today we had our individual training in the our weapons of choice at first.
Lilly who had chosen duel welding a dagger and a short sword as her weapon was training outside by a set of training dummies that looked like they came straight out of a Kung Fu movie.
While Maxime who had chosen a staff as his weapon did some practical exercises by swing the staff in predetermined patterns.
As when it came to me I was now shooting the bow hitting the mark dead center at a distance of 75 meters. As I got more and more a feel for the bow my accuracy increased drastically and I was now getting close to my goal.
Rachel had said that I had to be able to hit the target from one hundred meters before moving to the next stage. Moving targets.
I had asked her what was needed before I could start training to use the Rifle or rather the Dwarven kill staff. She told me when I could hit a moving target from one hundred meters I was going to start my training for the staff.
"You have improved a lot Bellz." Father said as observed me letting the arrows hit the target.
"Not yet I have a long way left before I can start training for the kill staff."
He nodded before he picked up a bow and backed away to stand at a distance of maybe four hundred meters and shoot the arrow and hit the target dead center.
"Remember that shooting an arrow is not the hardest part. Rachel hasn't mentioned this yet but here is a secret tip for you. Something you probably won't be taught for awhile yet." He pointed at the target and said.
"The important part is not to see the target. But to feel the target."
I stared at him a for a bit. "What? What do you mean feel the target?"
He shook his head and smiled. "Your wise father won't say anything more then that." He laughed and then started to walk towards Lilly to help guiding her.
Urpie said as we watch father walk away.
He was kind and he knew his way in combat. But one thing I have learned through these four years...father doesn't really think about what he does, he just acts. Some might call him stupid, but he is mostly just a person with a one track mind.
Maybe not the most intelligent person no but he isn't truly stupid.
I returned to shooting my arrows for the rest of the afternoon before mother and Rachel returned with some surprising news.