Samofthepen
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Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 11
🕑 Added 2023-09-29 15:11:21 +0000 UTC“So what do you think about your dad? Pretty awesome right?” My dad asks as he holds me outstretched.
Yeah, pretty damm cool. Letting in a non-lethal hit to get a killing blow is pretty metal, especially when it is a life-and-death situation. I have only done such things in my previous life while in armor and with blunted weapons, when I encountered a more skilled opponent, I would sometimes resort to sacrificing my hand getting hit in order to score a headshot. And my dad did it twice in one battle and came out alive.
After a while of holding me outstretched and seeing me squirm around happily, Dad said with a sad face, “It brings me joy to spend some bonding time with you, I am sometimes jealous that I don't have much in common with you like your mother and her parents, I was never that good with magic, I only know enough to use household magic. Maybe we will have more to bond over when you are old enough to hold a sword.”
Oh, come on Dad, don't say that, I love you too, and I would love to play swords with you when I grow up. I reached out and hugged my dad which raised his spirit.
“Come on son, let me show you what your dad can do! To the training yard!” Dad pointed at the door and marched forward with me in his arms.
We entered an empty training yard where there were training dummies, wracks of wooden weapons, weights, and other training equipment stacked along the wall. Beside all that, there were 10 boulders of different sizes with metal handles attached, they were in ascending order of size, the smallest one being half the size of a man, all the way to one that looked around 5 times the size of a man.
Dad walked up to the smallest boulder and while he was carrying me in one arm, he single-handedly lifted the smallest boulder with his free arm like it was an empty plastic bag, “We use these boulders to test strength.”
Dad then began lifting boulders single-handed in ascending order, when he got to the 3rd one his arm was trembling. After putting the 3rd boulder down Dad said “It seems this is my current limit.” Then he moved on to the 4th boulder.
Hold on a moment Dad, if that was your limit, why are you moving on to the next one, I know you are flexing for me but you may injure yourself.
Dad grabbed the handle of the 4th boulder and then I felt a short surge of mana from Dad, followed by a small physical pulse of pressure coming from Dad, this was the first time ever since I became able to sense mana that I have seen Dad use Aura.
I concentrate my limited senses on Dad. I can feel some kind of energy that feels kind of like mana, but not quite. Is this what they mean by igniting stamina? That must mean that short surge of mana I felt was Dad igniting his stamina to activate Aura? Damm, I missed how it started.
Dad hefted the boulder over his head as his Aura flared, after a few seconds, he slowly put the boulder down and cut off his Aura.
I naturally gave him excited baby claps which encouraged him to move on to the next boulder. This time I was watching very closely, I wanted to pick up on the interaction of his mana and what I can only assume is his stamina. It also helped that I was in skin contact with Dad, I should be able to sense anything going on more easily.
Dad grabbed the 5th boulder and started up his Aura. I noticed the spark of mana at his body's core around the abdominal region, from there, an energy I did not notice at first, but read in a book as “stamina” caught on, for a lack of a better word “fire” and produced the energy I recognized as Aura pumping thru dad’s body.
What even is that energy? I closed my eyes and tried to look inside myself and try to visualize that “stamina” energy that I saw in Dad, but to no avail. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Dad give me a worried look, turn me around, and sniff my diaper wrapped behind then turn me back to face him.
“Huh, you had such a face of concentration I thought you pooped yourself.” Dad said as he continued with his strong man display and then moved on to onehanded weapon displays.
Throughout our bonding time, I got to witness him activating his aura multiple times and I am still no closer to figuring out how to find that energy within my own body. Is this one of those things that I cannot find because I am still in a squishy baby’s body? Or is there some kind of special training to unlock this energy?
Maybe it is time to raid Dad’s library this time.
The next day, I tried to stick to Dad, but unfortunately, he was busy with paperwork. But I managed to cling on to him on the day after that and get him to raid his own bookshelf, and after a full day of reading to me, I found nothing in relation to training or utilization of Aura.
I had hoped that it would be in the body training instruction books, but those were literally as they described. They showed different trainings, from different places, of different kinds, for different parts of the body. Literally a meathead’s guide to getting bigger.
Wait a minute, Mum locked away the restricted magic books, does Dad have instruction guides that are restricted also? And if so, where would he keep them?
Looked around for anything that could hold such juicy restricted material, and my eyes landed on Dad’s grand looking office desk that was sure to have lockable drawers.
I pestered my way to the desk and Dad sat down with me. I reached out and tugged on his desk drawers to no avail.
“No no, that is Daddy’s work stuff, no touching.” Ha! We shall see who shall win this battle of wills. I started crying.
Dad eventually relented and unlocked the drawers to show their insides. They really were boring work stuff. Well this sucks.
After that, it was back to mana practice and being spoilt rotten by my grandparents.
