Junda

Soon after Mr.Adler's expulsion, a new tutor arrived to take his place. She was an elven woman with long black hair, olive skin and sharp dark eyes. Her name was Adeline Silvio and her pleasant mannerism was much in contrast to Mr.Adler's. During our first session together, she'd asked to be called "Adeline" before discussing my current education level so she could make a lesson plan.

I decided to seize this opportunity by overstating the things I'd learned so that I wouldn't have to sit through meaningless lessons. I already knew reading and writing quite well, and math and science to a better degree than I could learn here; what I really wanted was an unbiased world view. Luckily, Adeline gladly obliged. She doubted my knowledge at first but after testing me, she realized that I could back up my words. What followed was a joyous expression coating her face. I think she was overjoyed to have found such a bright student while I was happy to have found such an impassioned teacher.

I quickly learned more about the surrounding societies in the spirit lands, their beliefs and languages which I showed particular interest in. I still had a desire to learn more about the political structure of the outside world but I decided to focus on learning languages while I was still young.

Immediately surrounding Craith, there was the great forest that spanned for hundreds of kilometres. Within this forest, lived the elves along with many wild beasts. The elves had in recent years united the entire forest into one kingdom and whilst their number could hardly constitute a kingdom, their might, more than compensated. The elves were specialized warriors that largely worked in the forest, hunting animals with stealth and efficiency. Their skills were cultivated to such an extent that an average elven hunter matched the skill level of a trained human soldier. The elves had a motto that roughly translated to "quality over quantity" which was observed in the high expectations imbued on children as well as the training they underwent from a young age. In contrast to my expectations, elves had a similar lifespan to humans.

After getting a rough idea of the elven society, I asked to be taught their language, accurately named Elvish. Adeline seemed a bit surprised at first but respected my wishes.

The following weeks were consisted largely of training. I focused solely on learning Elvish with Adeline while with Mr.Giles, I continued my sword and bow training. I'd once considered my martial training interesting but now it was reduced to repeating movements over and over. Luckily, just when I was reaching my height of frustration, Mr.Giles decided to switch up my training. In addition to the the sword and bow lessons, Mr.Giles began to teach a form of unarmed fighting. At first, I was expecting more repeated movements but I quickly began to consider this style of fighting, an art. The art, called Junda, consisted of dance like movements paired with acrobatics and precise strikes that relied on speed rather than strength. Although I couldn't yet fulfill many of the acrobatic movements, Junda was a great fit for me with my light weight and proficiency in stealth; it was also enjoyable.

After a few weeks of practicing Junda, I began to feel something in the air when I practiced the basic strike which resembled a jab. Mr.Giles had walked off as he often did while I practiced so I was alone. I continued performing the strike until I realized what I felt was mana moving. So this was the final form of Junda, mana manipulation? It didn't seem like much, but this small amount of mana added loads of strength to my hit. I wondered what would happen if I treated Junda as a form of mana manipulation.

First, I looked around to make sure that no one was watching before performing magic with Junda. As my hand jabbed out in front of me, a high condensation of air seemed to flow from my hand, quickly impacting a tree in front of me. I was happy to finally have been able to smoothly manipulate mana with body movements but as I inspected the tree, I grew mortified. The once healthy and thick trunk now had a gaping hole through the middle. Quickly realizing that I couldn't let Mr.Giles see this, I ordered the surrounding earth to swallow the tree past the hole. Slowly, the tree sunk into the ground until the hole was no longer visible. The tree would very likely die but I'd cross that bridge when I got there. For now I decided to continue practicing Junda with renewed motivation, without using magic.

—

Around six months had passed from my fourth birthday and I was confident in my improvements. Everyday with Adeline was a clear reminder that Mr.Adler was really trash. After only such a short time with her, I was already at a conversational level in Elvish and I'd begun to learn the writing system some time ago. It seems that I wasn't the only one that'd been happy with the arrangement as Adeline seemed very happy with me as well. At first, my parents had occasionally walked by the room without notice and asked me about Adeline in private but I gushed with praise until they stopped. Their actions were of course reasonable with the last tutor but Adeline was great.

I hadn't slacked off with my other tutor and as a result, I now felt vaguely confident with a sword and bow but my true passion was Junda. I had learned that there were different styles of Junda that varied in style. For now, I'd been introduced to what Mr.Giles said were the main four which I thought was an interesting coincidence with the number of primary elements. After testing, I realized that my prediction was right and that each style of Junda corresponded to a basic element. The first I'd learned, air, had movements that flowed from one to another. Air movements were mostly used to dodge and maneuver, paired with quick jabs which when paired with magic, increased movement speed and released high pressure wind attacks. The most similar to this style was the water that similarly had flowing movements but while it also had high pressure attacks it focused less on maneuverability and more on constriction. The physical movements were designed to incapacitate someone by wrapping ones limbs around them, but with slight alterations I was able to substitute my body with water tendrils. While the physical movements were meant to incapacitate, the water tendrils could constrict like a boa with frightening strength. It goes without saying that I'd had to bury some more trees.

In contrast, both the fire and earth movements were direct and blunt. The fire movements consisted of punches and kicks with some jumps incorporated. The result in fire magic were fireballs that extended from the strikes. The fire movements were arguably simple but I knew that they could be improved greatly, I just didn't feel like setting the forest ablaze. The earth movements were the most stationary. I generally maintained horse stance while throwing punches but I discovered that by stomping my feet, the earth would tremble. I didn't want to cause an earthquake so I didn't develop this style as much either.

In summary, the styles seemed to imitate their respective elements, using the body as a medium. Junda didn't really remind me of any one fighting style from earth so I treated it as it's own. While Junda was capable of minute mana manipulation, it seemed that the art was designed to be used with magic which made me suspect the elves of hiding something or maybe they just didn't realize? Either way, the fact that no one else had made the connection to magic was strange, was something stopping them from finding out or was there persecution? I refused to believe that in a world where magic was possible, no one had found out.

One day, a day like any other, I'd asked Adeline more about the political structure of the elves. Regions were governed by elven lords/ladies while a number of these regions were overseen by a duke/duchess and on top was the royal family. Their marriage, around a decade ago, was between a duke and duchess with great influence in their respective side of the forest. Their names were Frieda and Ahren and they had two children.