Hidden Starlight

Standing in the almost empty training ground stand a man in his 40's slashing his sword into the empty air. His thin white tunic are sticking to his skin from all the sweats and slowly showing broad back that are ridden with scars. He slowly loosen and tightening his hand to accommodate all the calluses and the handle of the blade. Upon closer inspection on the handle, one can see a single name etched on the butt of it. And the name is no other than Chaud.

Each of the slashes that he have done emitted certain aura and instead of overbearing aura, it imbued with a calming and collected aura. Such aura considered impossible to attained by seasoned veteran such as Chaud considering he has participated various incursion and skirmishes. The aura that a person such as himself usually radiating suffocating bloodlust.

While he was still in trance, a small shadow slowly creeping behind him before it greeted him.

"Hello Mr.Chaud, I'm now ready for our class.", Says the shadow. The childish voice yet contained a certain maturity reveal it identity, and it was a person; a boy name Acerius who Chaud would tutor today.

******************************************************

My name is Chaud Vermont. For 20 years I have served the Royal Family as the Striker Knight. But before that I am just a lowly soldier that are good with a sword.

I think it was almost 25 years ago when I first met Arthur. At that time he was already an establish commander in the Kingdom. And it was during a bizarre twist of fate that he noticed me and recommended to become a knight apprentice under one of his knight.

And I'm married and retired in a small territory bordering the Cornelius territories. Few weeks ago, Arthur come to my house and proposed to me a job unlike any other. When he first talk to me about his idea to teach his only son martial art, I felt that it was bothersome as he himself could have done it. Not to mention also, the son is only four years old and no matter how much he bragged about how genius the kid it, it is still impossible. But to pay the favor that he has done for me before, I decided to take the job and prepare the kid for his debut.

And today is the first time I'll teach him. As agreed between Bianca,my wife and me, she will teach during the morning and I'll teach him during the evening. As this was my first time teach anyone this young, I'm quite nervous and to calm my nerve I've decided to do some workout.

Time passed before someone suddenly greeted me,

"Hello Mr.Chaud, I'm ready for our class", the young voice talk behind me. The sudden voice took me off guard. No matter how much someone creep behind me, I'll always catch that person before they even get close, but to think that this kid can creep behind me.

Coincidence?

******************************************************

"Hello Acerius, when we are in session, you will call me Sir, do you understand me?"

"Sir, Yes Sir!", Acerius answered brimming with spirit. But them because of his small stature and very young voice, it's hard for people to take him seriously. At least for now that is.

"Good Answer¦ Before we start with anything more advanced, our training will be split into several section. Each section will correspondence to the day of the week. On the first day of the week, we will start will fitness. Fitness training will mark the start of the day and followed by the day class. " Chaud explained and the he continues, " The first day will be theoretical class, second day will be hand to hand combat,third day will be sword and shield combat, fourth day will be stealth training and the finally the fifth day will be weekly test to see your mastery. The we will repeat the cycle until your last day."

Based on the day Chaud are listing and explaining, he seems to not mentioning the last two days of the weeks, and because of this Acerius decided to ask him.

" Oh those two days will be your off day, seeing that you are still a growing child, we will let you have two days off on the weekends.", Answered Chaud.

"So let's start with light run today."

"How many laps sir?"

"For now I need to see your limit,so run until I says so."

And so Acerius did his running. As this is his everyday routine, it was easy for him. At least for the first five laps. Every steps he taken after the fifth laps are burning his lungs, his muscles feels like he's being shredded alive and still he keep running. Chaud on the other hand thought that he would not finish a single lap without running his breath, seeing that Acerius can ran for five laps before he ran out of stamina sparked a certain emotion inside him. It was not until the eighth laps that Chaud finally ask Acerius to stopped.

Acerius on the other hand are drenches in sweats. His lungs and chests are tightening and screaming in pain. His small heart are pumping so strong to the point that Acerius thought that he could hear his own heart beating.

"How are you feeling kiddo?",Chaud asked Acerius. When Acerius lift his face to answer Chaud question, he could see that his face are brimming with emotion, as if he has found the thing he has long lost.

"I am...good.",answered Acerius. The energy that he previously had are long gone. Acerius ha been working out for several weeks already but he never pushed himself this far before. A single laps in the courtyard is roughly 200M by his conservative estimation.

"Good, and now let's study about history of war in our kingdom. Why don't we go to that tree and you can sit underneath it while I explained to you the history.", suggested Chaud, Acerius on the other hand just nodded and proceed to sit under a single tree on the training courtyard.

*****************************************************************

"What do you know about monster kiddo?"

"Um..monster exist? I thought it was only a fairy tale."

"Hahaha, well kiddo, sorry to bursts your bubble but monsters do exist even till now.As a matter of facts, your father always go to subjugation mission in his territory. Speaking about monster, have you heard about the Goddess Blessing?", explained Chaud nonchalantly.

"What is it?"

"Umm, well have you heard about the story of the elf goes to the thousand mile journey?", seeing that Acerius nodded, Chaud continued his story, " Well according to the scholars, it might be reals and thus the monsters that are living in the dark continent cannot attacked us anymore but some still debating that idea,reason are because monsters are still terrorizing us in our continent. But my wife has a different idea you see, the monsters that are terrorizing our continent are not monsters per se but rather a race just like us but really primitive."

"Sir how many monsters species are there?"

"Don't know kiddo. Here we only have goblins or wolves around here, but in some places there are also the likes of orcs and kobolds. And by the way orcs meat are delicious you know even some place eat it's balls. Well that kind of talk is for when you get older."explained Chaud. His last words contained a certain amount of mischievousness along with a minute grin. Based on the body language and the wording that Chaud use, he was certain that the certain part of orcs meat must be some kind of performance enhancing drugs.

"Sir? Speaking about races what is dwarfs and elves looks like, you know,compared to us?".

"Hmm,well dwarfs is shorter than human adult but they are far stronger, if you are to compare strength between human and a dwarfs you need at least three human to contest against one. And elves, be it the men or the women, they are beautiful and slender just like a fairy."

Chaud then continue the explanation about the monsters to Acerius.

"First let me tell you about monster's again. Here in your father territories sometimes are under attacked from monsters such as goblins. The thing about Goblins is they breed fast, it is suspected that for every weeks at least two goblins are born and they reach maturity under a couple of weeks.", Chaud briefly glance at Acerius to make sure that he was paying attention before he continues. " And once their number increase, the need for food also increase and thus they resorted to attacking villages for foods and once they have tasted the humans flesh, they will continues to attacked the villages. And thus whenever the Lord's of the territories received the report of goblins sighting or outbreak, we will quickly mobilize to destroy the nest."

While thinking about the goblins, Acerius suddenly remembered about a video games the he play a really long time ago," Sir? Are the no adventurers or guild that specializes in hunting them?"

"Adventurer? What's that? As for guild, the only guild we have is the merchant guild. As for a guild that specializes in hunting monsters for what purpose would it do? And why would the soldier and Noble would chose to participate in that kind of things willingly. Even the Goblins subjugation that your father usually do is merely by his own initiative, some territory Lord didn't even bother with it."

"Oh I'm not talking about the soldier or Noble sir,but rather the commoner's. By setting up a particular guild or businesses, maybe the village could hire a group of people to handle that kind of things. Something like that.", Suggested Acerius.

The moment Acerius finish his words, Chaud was staring at him. Unless Acerius has some kind of telepathic power, he would never know what kind of things his teacher are currently thinking. As of right now, Chaud are currently in denial from what he heard from a small child. To suggest something like a guild specializes in hunting monsters and it won't even burden the Nobles or soldiers but rather at the hands of the commoners.

"Well kiddo, why don't you set it up in the future? But before that you need loads of capital. For now, our class will for now, we will meet again tomorrow here."

*************************************

For now Acerius was trying to comprehend his teachers teaching, to think that there are so many things in this world that he didn't know and so many things he need to explore. Right now his situation is neither heaven or hell. But as it is right now, Acerius was certain the he will goes through an uneventful future and for him who always enjoy making and searching for new things in previous life, this might as well be his hell. While he was pondering, something happened.

<CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE UNLOCK A HIDDEN FUNCTION OF STARLIGHT WORKSHOP.>

[YOU CAN NOW ACCESS STARLIGHT INVENTORY]

[DUE TO UNLOCKING STARLIGHT INVENTORY BEFORE THE STARLIGHT WORKSHOP, PENALTY WILL BE APPLIED

[PENALTY APPLIED:

1. MAXIMUM WEIGHT THAT CAN ONLY BE ADD AT ONE TIME IS NOT MORE THAN 1 KG WITH MAXIMUM OF 10 KG OF ANY ITEM STACK IN STORAGE.>

2. ITEM CAN BE ACCESS IMMEDIATELY BUT WILL HAVE A 30 SECOND COOLDOWN BEFORE NEXT ITEM CAN BE RETRIEVE OR ADDED AGAIN TO THE STARLIGHT INVENTORY

3. NO LIVING ORGANISM CAN BE ADDED TO THE INVENTORY

4. ITEM WILL DEGRADED OVER TIME.

5. INVENTORY SIZE IS 1M²

6. MAXIMUM SIZE OF AN ITEM IS NOT MORE THAN 50CM]

INSTRUCTIONS

- SAY <ACCESS INVENTORY><STORE/RETRIEVE/EJECT(NUMBER)><ITEM_NAME>

- ITEMS MUST BE IN CONTACT TO STORE

Seeing that he suddenly gained a new ability, Acerius was overcome with joy. To think that his skill STARLIGHT WORKSHOP comes with such hidden function makes everything worthwhile so far.And then his mind wonder, his ever curious mind now wondering what he can do with it.

And thus Acerius return back to the training ground, he search for pebbles first. After searching for a while, he found three pebbles of different sizes. The first one is smaller than his thumb.The second pebbles is slightly larger than the first and finally the third one is the same size as his fists.

"<ACCESS INVENTORY,STORE,PEBBLES>". A faint blue light envelope the pebbles and vanishes. Seeing such magical things first hand was such a joy to Acerius, it was as if he was watching a magic show.

And now he's trying the other function, "<ACCESS INVENTORY, RETRIEVE, PEBBLE>", a bluish light emitting from his palm and the second pebble emerge from it. "Oh,I never expect that it will be random or maybe it not so random.", muttered Acerius.

And this time he imagine the pebble that he want, a fist size pebbles.

"<ACCESS INVENTORY, RETRIEVE, PEBBLE>", and the same light emits and the fist size pebble emerge.

While he was occupied with the new knowledge, a regal man was calling him.

"Acerius, your mother and me are waiting for you now. Do clean up and be a good boy."

"Yes Father. A moment then."