Run, Luke, Run

"Seems like you're satisfied with the answer and you have interpreted my words into a fitting standard for yourself" Michael nodded, "Your intelligence and mana reserve already set you steps ahead of peers your age, but a large mana reserve without control and precision is worthless."

"Your brother has already explained the basis of the two paths, Physical study, and Mana study, so I won't elaborate further for now." Michael said, "For now, you'll study how to control your mana and then further extend your mana reserve"

"How do I do that?" Luke asked innocently and in return, all he got was a devilish smile back from his father.

"The first step to increasing control and reserve for your mana is a strong body," Michael said, "Now go run laps with your brother."

"What?" Luke asked but before he could even wait for an answer his legs started moving on their own, from the cheeky smile his father was giving him the answer was clear, 'Shut up and run!'

Luke didn't know how long it had been since he first started running, after a certain point, he couldn't even fathom what relation magic and cardio had with each other. Breathless and sweaty, he felt like he could crash on the ground at any moment but the damn spell Michael was using on him made it impossible.

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Despite his fatigue, and the tiredness written all over his face, his body kept moving on its own with a great posture that even Usain Bolt would be jealous of.

"How long has it been?" Luke asked Jacob who was passing by him, "I am dying... I need water..."

"It's been around 72 laps for me, as for you, I am guessing 24." Jacob answered, although he looked just as tired as him, he was running without any hesitation. In fact, he wasn't even under a spell but the monster who was already steps ahead of him kept running like there was no tomorrow.

"That damn... physical magic..."

"Oh, I am not using any magic currently!" Jacob shouted running even faster, "I am just better"!

Luke wanted to do nothing but kick him in his smug face, but let alone doing that he could barely muster enough strength to speak at the moment.

"Stop!" Michael's voice rang in their ears as Jacob who was already ahead had long stopped and after a minute, Luke finally caught up as well, crashing on the ground.

His heart beat faster than it ever had before, "Am I dying?"

"Don't be too melodramatic!" Jacob came over helping him up a little and giving him a bottle of water which he chugged immediately, "Take it slow or you might choke."

"How was it?" Michael came over to them with the same smug face as Jacob's,

"Wh-Why?" Luke asked barely staring daggers at his father.

"Why? I explained to you already, that you need a stronger body or are you asking why I used a spell and forced you to run?" Michael answered, "That's one of our family's personal training guides. You see, waiting for someone to catch up to an expected outcome would take ages, so instead we just force your body to cross the limit every single time and make your body adapt quicker to the training and show better results with it."

"It's basically just beating the techniques onto your body until you get the hang of it yourself."

Luke looked over at Jacob who just shrugged, 'It's been a day and I already miss Ethan! Why did you have to leave me with these monsters!!'

"Stop whining! And take this." Michael handed him a jar full of what seemed to be just swamp water mixed with god knows what. The thick black liquid slushed around revealing a sharp smell that burned the tip of his nose.

Nearly puking at the rancid smell Luke looked back at Michael hoping he was just joking but reality was always bitter than one would expect.

"It's a potion I personally made after reading through a bunch of no-majs research papers, according to them, every time you worked out, you'd tear your muscles and would need time to heal, but once healed, your muscle would be stronger than before. To be stronger is to repeat that very action again and again. With this concoction of different vital herbs and ingredients, your body will begin to heal immediately, making the healing process shorter, so you could keep going on and on."

'I like the fact that you involve actual scientific data in your research towards improving performance, but man have you oversimplified it.' Luke shook his head, not sure whether to be proud of his father for his ability to research things outside of the wizarding world or be disappointed with the end result of things.

Hoping he would get some help from his one lifeboat, he looked at Jacob once again, only to be shocked and disappointed looking at his brother chugging the entire jar of the vial potion down his throat, what made it worse was his face drinking the damn thing, with tears in his eyes and disgust written all over him, he still had to be a daddy's boy about this.

Luke wanted to throw away the potion, but with his body shaking to its very core and the unimaginable pain that would come after, he held his breath and began chugging the potion as well.

After what seemed to be an eternity in hell, he finally finished the potion, hoping to die at the very moment. He wanted to raise several complaints regarding the potion but he couldn't as he did start feeling a lot better than how he had started, even his shaky leg had calmed down and the soreness was slowly but surely waving off.

"The potion has much more benefits than just healing, especially for growing kids such as yourselves." Michael satisfied with the result snapped his fingers as two huge wooden boxes floated in front of them.

"Jacob should already know what this is," Michael reached his hands inside the crate pulled out two transparent stones, and threw them over to the both of them, "These stones are called mana crystals, or Void crystals. It's a very important tool for a lot of magical practices including runes and alchemy. In simple terms, it's a battery that fuels a lot of things including formations, or spells that need to be held up for a longer time." 

"Currently as you can see, the stone is transparent, hence the battery is empty but once you fill it with mana, it will change colors turning it dark," Michael picked up a stone and filled it with mana turning the transparent stone darker by the second, "Too little and the stone won't retain the mana for long, too much the stone would explode and the slightest irregular flow of mana would crack the delicate stones."

"This is the best training you could do to control your mana and be precise with the outputs of it."

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For those who haven't checked it out yet, you can go ahead to the auxiliary chapters to see images of the characters I have generated through AI.

Although, not all that accurate, I think it's fun to give characters you're reading faces.

Also, let's go crazy on the voting!