Chapter 13: Baptism

"Not even one bit. Don't worry, you'll get used to it, after all, the training begins now." Uncle Ross answered as he approached him with an evil smile.

(I might have made a mistake by allowing this monster to be my teacher...) Alaric regretted the life choices that led him to this moment.

Following that, the boy tried to swing his weapon at Uncle Ross 13 times and was one-shot koed every single time.

"Come on, put in some effort, you're not even trying at this point." Uncle Ross taunted.

"I am, someone is simply not doing their part." Alaric alluded to the lack of teaching occurring, as he went in for another attack.

"I'll teach you, relax. You just have to make your own style before. I wouldn't want to taint you." His Uncle responded as he calmly parried the attack effortlessly.

"What is that even supposed to mean?!" Alaric swung again, this time as a feint, and went for a low kick.

"My style is the freedom style, meaning you first create your own flawed battle instincts, habits, and style, and then you learn from the ones that came before.

"After all, I'm not just trying to make another warrior, knight, or soldier! I'll help make you into your own combatant. So show me, what Alaric Nyx Lofn can do!" Uncle Ross expressed with a wide smile as he stopped the feint and dodged the kick.

"Say less!" Alaric went all in ready for a battle.

The exchange was one-sided as the boy started attacking to no avail.

As expected the gap was too big and Alaric was limited to his natural physical ability and his combat knowledge. While his physical was outstanding, especially considering his age, his knowledge in combat was close to none, so he could only try not to do too badly.

"Interesting... Your physique is beyond my expectations, do you have any, body enhancement skills?" Uncle Ross questioned as he looked at him intensely.

"No." Alaric gave a short answer as he didn't want to get into it.

"I see, and I assume you still haven't leveled up at all yet, correct?" His uncle continued to inquire.

"Actually… I have..." He answered truthfully.

"In that case, it would seem you have the opportunity to become someone very important in the future... Honestly, just the fact that your body has the strength of a high-tier wood-rank adventurer, is already very impressive for someone your age.

"Even if it does rely on mana, it's not something many could pull off, especially so young. I get why your parents call you a prodigy." Uncle Ross commented.

"You say that, but I wasn't even close to getting a single hit in." The boy retorted sweating as he looked at his Uncle with his eyes narrowed.

"Well, that's to be expected. You can't shorten the gap between a wood and a gold rank just by having a stronger body.

"Plus, you're movements are stiff and obvious, aside from the fact you're not using the advantage you have using a weapon with quite a good range. Not to mention how you also give yourself away by focusing too strongly, on the target of your next attack.

"Finally, to name a few more problems: weak balance, inconsistent stance, lack of awareness of your surroundings, you're also not using your height to your advantage, inefficient usage of your muscles, no proper breathing technique resulting in wasted stamina, lack of creativity in the ways you try to attack, no exploration of gaps or weak spots, and I could go on, but let's not demoralize you too much." Uncle Ross dropped an unexpectedly long list of things on which Alaric had to improve.

"You say that, but you've been defeating me with the same moves all this time... Also, is there really anything else you can still criticize me for?" The boy couldn't help but ask.

"Most of what I called you out on, only truly matters if you want to be a combat master or if you are in a tough fight. None of those apply to me.

"Also, yes I still have quite a few things to criticize, like your weak defense, your way too predictable evasion, your non-existent countering ability, the poor maneuverability due to your lack of understanding of what to do with your body in combat, oh we can't forget you-" Uncle Ross calmly responded as he teased his nephew by actually having more to criticize.

"Ok! Ok, I get it. So what now?" Moving on from it, Alaric changed the subject.

"It's your sisters' turn to try out their weapons before we start unarmed combat, then we'll proceed with general physical training. After that, I'll tell you more about what we'll do next." He replied before we moved to the side, where the others were.

"Honestly, how can you just keep getting yourself hit like that? You're lucky you're not seriously injured." Crystal was the first to say something, which her brother guessed was her way to demonstrate worry, or maybe she was just being herself again, who knew?

"She means she was worried about you, and honestly, are you ok? That looked very painful." Lilian added before he could even answer, further confirming Crystal's nature while showing her more genuine worry.

"Yeah, I'm good. You two should be worried about yourselves right now." Alaric reminded his sisters while pointing at the now-waiting Ermidia, behind them.

Shivers could be seen going through their bodies as they looked at the very serious-looking Ermidia, standing there, menacingly.

While those two were trying to build up the courage to be the first one, their brother was approached.

"Hi, cutie! Let aunt Roshva look at you, and you'll be feeling as good as new in a bit!" She came in with a strong and friendly aura to her, which was unexpectedly quite overwhelming.

Knowing she was a healer Alaric didn't see any problems with letting her check on him. As the process was being done, Uncle Ross was trying to get the girls to go to Ermidia quite unsuccessfully.

On the side, the boy could feel Timina's gaze basically burn onto him, as Roshva was inspecting his body.

"Hey, can you take your vest and your shirt off? I want to check your torso for bruises." Roshva requested.

"Ok." At the moment he had a brown vest over a white shirt, equally brown pants, and shoes with white socks.

Following her instructions, he took off his upper body's clothing.

".... You're 10.... Right?" Roshva stopped and narrowed her eyes, probably to look at him most likely surprised by his physique considering he was still quite young.

"Yeah..." Alaric responded avoiding eye contact.

"How packed with talent this family is... Well, I better get done with this." She commented before looking at him for a bit before giving him back his clothes and saying. "You're good to go, just a bit strained here and there, but that's part of the training. It's better to let something like this heal on its own."

Not knowing much about healing magic, he could only nod his head and take what she said as verdical, before putting his clothes back on.

That aside, Timina also stopped gawking at him like a hawk readying itself to attack.

Once that was done, Alaric was surprised to find that the girls had already decided who was going first and it was Lilian.

From where the boy was, he could see the tears build up in her eyes, but not fully come out as she had a determined face on, and even took a battle stance, as she was holding the blade outwards with both hands. Uncle Ross focused on them as he watched from the side, now taking on the role of referee.

"Begin!" He gave the signal to start.

Immediately Lilian ran at Ermidia and began swinging at her, none of her attacks hit. As she continued to swing time after time, frustration began to build on her face.

This contained for who knows how long before Lilian got exhausted and was breathing heavily. It was stopped there and Roshva went in to get her, while uncle Ross urged Crystal to go in and take her turn.

As soon as Roshva brought her, Alaric went to check on Lilian.

"So, how are you feeling so far?" He asked his sister.

"I'm good… it's just annoying. I know I'm weak, but I didn't know I was this weak..." Lilian sighed as her head was down.

"You did great. You have to remember we are dealing with mid-tier adventurers, not many people could ever get to that level. We're lucky to have this opportunity to learn from them." Alaric sat next to his sister and gave her a small little one-arm hug as he spoke.

"You don't have to lie to be nice, you know… But yeah, I guess it will be great to get to become cool enough to do justice…" Lilian smiled lightly as she replied and leaned onto her brother as she did so.

"Yup, I know. That's why I didn't lie. I just said my truth. So, let's do this together and beat this training with ease." He said as he bopped her nose.

"Hey! Don't do that! I'm your older sister! I'll do the bopping here!" Lilian looked at him with a light frown and a pouty face as she aimed at his nose to get back at him.

"Then just catch me!" Alaric got up and dodged her attempts.

"Get back here!" Lilian pursued.

They played this game of catch for a while before Alaric gave up and allowed himself to get caught.

Moving on with the training, Crystal had a similar fate to Lilian, unable to get a hit and defeated by exhaustion, without hitting a single time.

(They have it a bit easy, no… I guess this is the price of greatness…) This made Alaric a bit envious of how light they were having it, but then again his body and mana were abnormal, so he guessed it was to be expected he would have it harder.

The next part was the unarmed combat training, though it would be more accurate to call what they were doing today an evaluation.

Just like the girls, he could not get a single hit in on Ermidia and they weren't any better than the last time.

After that, they began to start the general physical training, which consisted of a training routine similar to Alaric's prior one, but a bit more extreme for him, as the girls started by doing a tenth of what he had to do.

It was 300 push-ups, 300 sit-ups, 300 squats, a 30 km run, improvised weight lifting, flexibility training, and 1 hour of meditation.

"Ok, that was much better than what I expected when I was asked to do this, and I actually believe that all of you can become much stronger and maybe even suppress me if you put in the work.

"Now, let me just say that for the next 6 months, we won't be doing any weapon training, and will solely focus on unarmed combat and general physical training. For today this is all, let's go back home." Uncle Ross explained.

We were all very tired and satisfied to get to go home, finally.

From then on the days would start with the morning stuff like the lessons, and the work at the bakery, then from there, it would be training with Uncle Ross and his party until it was nighttime.

As Alaric had decided previously, he started working on training hid magic in his mind space, while he worked at the bakery.

This continued for 3 months, and their physical ability and close combat improved a lot during that time. Also, Lilian turned 13 a few months ago.

It was now time for Crystal's 14th birthday, which was considered adulthood in the kingdom of Mormial, their country, and honestly probably in the entirety of the central continent of Crismentia, their continent, or even maybe all of Mirth, the planet they lived in.

Whatever the case, the important part was that as a family, they were all attending the monthly coming-of-age ceremony at the church of the Great Seven, which happened on the last day of every month for all who had reached the age of 14.

The purpose was to unlock one's class, activate bloodline, awaken physiques, and see if they would gain any blessings from the 15 Divine Lords or even a fate given by them.

Everyone had to dress fancy for the occasion, and luckily there was a church of the 15 Divine Lords in their town, otherwise, it would have been bothersome to go to another town or even one of the cities just to get this done.

Once they arrived, the church was already very busy, and many kids who Alaric assumed were 14, were already lined up with nervousness licking off them, and Crystal had to join in the line while they sat with the rest of the people.

About half an hour later, the Cardinal had his presence announced.

"All bask in the presence of our eminence, Cardinal Ark! Today here to hold the ceremony that shows us the future of tomorrow as our children become young adults." The Archbishop made the announcement.

Alaric was a little surprised to see a blindfolded man with long golden hair wearing the church's robe walk in.

It was quite something as he had a strong presence, which outshined the poor children who were supposed to be the focus of today.

"Welcome dear children of the Divine Lords, may fate be on your side today. Blessed be. Let us commence the monthly coming-of-age ceremony!" Cardinal Ark smiled as he spoke to all the people present.

After that, the ceremony proceeded, and a bunch of people had part of their status revealed, fortunately for Alaric, only the part related to the ceremony appeared. Nothing too special happened as a bunch of average people one after the other had their baptism taken care of.

Finally, after a rather long 5 hours wait, Crystal finally got up there, and Cardinal Ark began prayer chanting until the information was displayed on a floating screen.

[Baptism Status]

[Name: Crystal Nyx Lofn
Age: 14 years old
Sex: Female
Class: Rapier Ballerina(Special class)
Bloodline: Hellhound Hybrid(7 stars)
Physique: Hellhound Hybrid(7 stars)
Blessings: #%@?@
Fate: So long as she remains on the path of self-improvement, she will someday have a great future, where she will fulfill her dreams.]

A commotion broke out because of Crystal's Baptism Status, as even Alaric didn't expect her to have a 7-star bloodline, much less a hellhound one... Not only that, she has a special class, a blessing, and a fate.

(Gosh, I feel sorry for all those who came before and were nothing to write home about, but those who come after her are just pitiful souls.

(Also, this fate message seems different from the usual, which leads me to believe this was made to make things work in the future... Oh well, as I'm right now I can't really do anything about it anyway.) Alaric smiled seeing this.

Chapter end