12 My New Sparring Partner

Once the Leywins came inside, Reynolds began to recount the story of what happened on their way up here and I could see them and even the Helstea's sneaking glances at me from time to time.

"Thank you so much Vincent and Tabitha, this means more than you know." Reynolds says sadly, but with a strained smile.

"Think nothing of it Rey, we're happy to have you and your family here." Tabitha says while giving a glance towards Alice's growing belly before Vincent continues.

"Besides we recently renovated the auction house to hold 3 times more people and I need someone like you to whip those recruit guards into shape. You'd be doing us a favor if anything." Vincent said with a bright smile on his face.

"Again, thank you. But what's the story with this little guy?" Reynolds responds and then points at me.

"It's not nice to point you know." I say sarcastically.

"That would be our adopted son Jaron. He lives at the local orphanage until he formed his mana core at just 2 years old." Vincent was the one to answer the question. Both Alice and Reynolds' eyes went wide as they looked at me.

"Why were you more surprised at my awakening than my core level?" I ask childishly, looking for better reactions for my bright yellow core from them.

"It's just… Our son, Art. He formed his core just before his 3rd birthday." Alice said softly, so I feigned surprise while my family didn't have to.

"Wow, another kid like me." I say before adopting a contemplating look. Their looks turned pained again and that's when Tabitha speaks up.

"Alright, no need to talk about such things. You and your family can have the west wing. Why don't we get you settled in and then you can relax from your journey instead of being grilled." Me and Vincent both had the sense to look at least a little guilty, as Tabitha corralled the Leywins and took them to their rooms.

I look over at Vincent and stand up with a slight smile on my face.

"I think this house is going to get a little bit more interesting. Wouldn't you say?" He grins and nods his head in agreement.

"Theirs one thing I know about a Leywin, and that's that there is never a dull moment." He responded candidly. I chuckle before turning for the door.

"I'm going back outside to train, call for me in an hour for lunch." He nods before standing up himself to head back to his study.

"I'll most like send Gerald or Annie to retrieve, just don't go to far." I turn back to him.

"Ah, that won't be necessary."

"Hm? Why not? Do you not like them?" He asks confused.

"No it's just that you won't need to send them to find me. I recently acquired my sound deviance. Plus there's Tuk." I say with a cheeky grin, as I see his face become shocked.

"Sound deviant?! And you bonded with the Sonic Hawk already?" He exclaims

"His name is Tuk, and yes we made an equals contract. Also I got my lightning deviance this morning, but I still need to train them as they drain my mana way faster than my wind or fire man. Not to mention the more concentration." I say offhandedly.

"Sigh, what are we going to do with you Jaron." He says with an exasperated face.

"No clue. Let me know when you find out." I say as I dash back out the front door to get back to my training, also grabbing the Sonic Hawk beast core that came with Tuk.

Instead of going into my swings again I decided to meditate with the beast core, sadly there was no beast will as only A ranks and higher have those. However it should still be helpful in refining my wind magic as well as my sound magic, making me become more in tune with it.

Right now my only real moves with sound magic is muffling sounds and making sound based attacks, but I'm sure I could find more uses. Like how at the right pitch sound can shatter glass, or maybe the sound waves can cause things to vibrate. Not really sure, I'll have to think more on it as I train it.

As I was doing that I felt Tuk approaching and then land on my shoulder.

"You know you're almost too big to be doing that." I say casually while still focusing on the core.

"No you're just too small, hatchling." I grin to myself and chuckle.

"Haha, maybe you're right."

"Who is it that now lives with you? I caught some of the conversation, but I could tell you were being misleading." I decided to switch into our conversation inside my mind.

'They are the parents of a kid much like me. Or I should say "kid" loosely.'

'How do you mean, hatchling?' I can feel Tuk tilt his head.

'I promised to tell you more about myself, so here it is. I'm not from this world, or rather my soul isn't. I lived a past life in a world, where I died and was brought here. Their son, Arthur, is like me. He died in his old world and was brought here, along with some other people from his last world. It's all very confusing and even I don't know everything, other than there is going to be a big war in the future between this continent and another just across the sea.

Influenced by beings that could currently kill me without even thinking about it. Which means I need to get stronger. Originally when I came here that's all I was planning for, but now I have a family something that I didn't have in my last life.' I finish and breathe in a deep breath waiting on Tuk's response.

'You bear a heavy burden for such a small hatchling. Though it only makes me feel that I made the right choice in helping you.' He responds sagely.

'Thanks… Tuk. Please guide me well, I feel there's much I can learn from you.'

'That you do hatchling, that you do.' He says before flying off back on to a tree, to oversee my training. A small smile graces my lips, as I renew my focus on to the beast core.

After an hour of meditating I hear Vincent calling me for lunch. I send a mental message to Tuk and he flies down back to what is becoming "his spot" on my left shoulder as I walked back to the house.

Entering the dining room I see the Helstea's and the Leywin's sitting around the dining table, leaving me a seat in between Alice and my sister Lilia. Alice gives me a welcoming but sad smile as I take my seat. The lunch was just a small affair of sandwich's and tea, I guess you could call it tea time rather than lunch.

Nearing the end where everyone was just sipping on their teas, Reynolds spoke up while looking at me.

"How strong are you, Jaron?" Getting a glare from Alice, and chuckles from Vincent and Tabitha.

"Hmmm, I'm not too sure. I've only ever sparred against Mister Kas, i don't know how I stack up against others." I responded

"Mister Kas?" He questions while looking between me and Vincent.

"He means Kaspian Bladeheart. Though I don't know how much Kaspian is trying, their spars are usually pretty even when using only swords. However with magic I believe Jaron would have a strong chance of winning." Vincent spoke up for me.

"The Xyrus adventurer guild leader Kaspian?!" Reynolds looks surprised as he stares at me as if trying to see my strength for himself. I merely sip my tea with my eyes closed.

"Lets have a spar Jaron." Reynolds says after he recovers. I give a small nod and smile, before replying.

"I would like that, test the strength of someone father thinks highly of so to speak. Plus I would like to learn from you, I can tell you're a light red fire mage. And an adventurer career behind I feel like I could learn somethings from you." I say confidently while staring back at him.

"Very well let's do it!" He responds

"Rey! Can this not wait for for another day before go challenging children to fights?!" Alice says exasperatedly.

"You might as well forget it Alice, boys will be boys and Reynolds will be Reynolds." Vincent spoke.

"Ugh, I guess you're right. Might as well go in case one of them gets hurt." The rest of the adults nod and Lilia follows along behind Tabitha.

Out on my usually training field it was me and Reynolds standing across from each other with about 20 feet between us. He begins to do a slight warmup of punches and some kicks, as I look down at my sword. I can't exactly use that now can I? Removing it from my side i toss it into my dimension ring and take a sloppy fighting stance.

"You're not going to use your sword? I hope you're not underestimating, just because of my core stage." Reynolds said pridefully.

"I would never, but every spar can be used as a learning experience and I intend to learn from this whether I win or lose." I respond evenly.

"Fair enough." Reynolds says and settles back into his stance.

"I'll only be using fire mana and hand to hand combat, I hope that's fine with you Mister Rey." I call to him as I run fire mana through my body.

"Don't cry to me if it causes you to lose." He banters back, and smiles cross our faces. No signal was given but we both moved at the same time.

He started with right punch that was covered in fire, so I slightly turned my body and brought up my left arm to block it out. However he adjusted at the last second and hit my arm directly, I could feel pain shoot through my fire arm before I could pull back. The sudden shift in weight made it seem like he was off balance, but that was another trap.

As soon as I sent my right hand to his body, he had pulled back his right hand already and met my right with his left. Locking it against his side and went to punch me again with his right. However I could lose that easily now could I.

Flaring my mana, I increased the heat and my flames went from the normal red to a bright blue. It now covered my arms up to the elbow and my legs to my knees. The sudden temperature change caught him off guard and he released me while jumping back.

"Sorry Mister Rey, I guess I was holding back a little. I shouldn't have underestimated your hand to hand combat skills. Looks like I really do have much to learn from you." I said with my eyes narrowing and got into a stance that looked like a rough version of Reynolds previous stance. His eyes narrowed as well seeing my "new" stance.

Once again we both charged forward this time both connecting our right hands covered in flames. His strength shown through once again as I could feel myself slowly getting pushed back. Making a split second decision, I flared the fire on that fist to send some flames towards him. The moment he closed his eyes and covered with his other arm, I used my flexibility to do a split.

This time he actually did lose his balance as the force immediately disappeared, and I used this to sweep at his legs but he jumped right before they connected. Using my momentum form the leg sweep I pushed off with my arms focusing mana at my palms and shot off with the flames.

My heels connected with his midsection as he didn't expect my speed and recovery from the miss. It knocked his breath slightly and he could be seen holding his stomach while staring at me. I released the fire on my legs and arms and noticed the burns on his body from my flames, guess I went a bit too hot.

Looking at the ground it was absolutely scorched and the soft loamy ground was replaced with hard cracked dirt that was devoid of water. Even grass that hadn't burned was wilting in a circle around our fight. I also noticed that he wasn't sweating, had the fire really been hot enough to vaporize the water on his skin and in the ground?

"I guess we should stop here for now. It's obvious my hand to hand to worse, but my magic was giving me an upper hand. I hope you'll still train me in unarmed combat." I said before I walked off, and Tuk flew down onto my left shoulder.

[3rd person POV]

"Rey are you okay?" Alice said as she ran towards him.

"Ya I'm fine, just severely dehydrated. Along with a few burns on my stomach and arms." He said and you could here the dryness in his throat. As he turned to face them they looked surprised. His skin was tight and his eyes looked bloodshot, and his nose was starting to bleed from the dryness. His lips were cracked and bleeding as well.

"Oh my Rey!" Alice exclaimed.

"What?" He questions dumbly.

"Your nose and lips are bleeding, and your eyes are bloodshot." She said as she held her hand up to his face to try and heal him, but it wasn't something mana could heal.

"It's not working." Alice mumbled in surprise.

"Well it's probably because it's not an actual injury but dehydration. I'm sure if he drinks some water he'll be good as new." Vincent voiced his opinion to the Leywins.

"I suppose you're right, but I can at least heal the burns." She said as the red blistering skin became smooth white skin again.

"Why do you think he just walked off like that?" Tabitha asked while looking toward the manor.

"Probably a mixture of things. But the main reason is probably because he realized he went a bit over board with his magic." Reynolds said

"Honestly what surprised me the most is when he tried to copy my stance before we started the second bout." He spoke again while leaning his head back thinking on the fight.

"I was wondering the same thing." Alice agree while she and Rey looked towards Vincent.

"Don't ask me, I don't know enough about fighting. What I do know about Jaron though is that he learns extraordinarily fast. Not only for his age but for adults as well. He's already learned anything we could teach him, the rest he'll have to learn when he attends the Xyrus Academy." Vincent answered seriously, while Tabitha nodded along.

"The question though, is whether you still plan to train him after what you just experienced?" Tabitha asked curiously. Rey looked to them and then to Alice before looking toward the manor.

"Of course I'll teach him. If he was able to learn on the fly during a match, especially if that was his first unarmed fight then he will be a joy to train. I may even pick up a few things myself, I'll just have to make sure he doesn't use that crazy blue flame." He finished as he looked at the destruction caused by the heat of the fire alone. All of them nodded before heading back into the house.

All except Lilia who was still standing there with stars in her eyes after watching her brother fight. She had felt the heat from where she was standing, and watched the way he moved and bent the fire to his will. She wanted to become a mage now, and be like her brother.

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Author's Note

Alright time skip next chapter to the fight against Kaspian, and then we will be on our way to becoming an adventurer. MC will pull an Arthur here for obvious reasons. Meaning he will get a mask and use his sound deviance to change his voice. He won't be restricting himself to no magic like Arthur did, but he will only be using his fire mana and it won't be blue either.

I do plan on detailing his adventurer journey more than Arthur's was in the books. He'll join parties and the like, I'm looking forward to it, but not at the same time because honestly this world isn't really detailed very well. I guess I could just make it up, but I want to use towns and places that actually show up in the story if you know what I mean.

Thanks for reading.

-SocioPhobia