So, what am I talking about?.. He parried my strike and said, “They did teach you something after all…”
This only infuriated me more. I swung, trying to reach him with the sword somehow. Doing everything my combat mastery teacher – Master Chiron – taught me. But the Emperor-uncle again blocked my strike. I was nine, but I believed and desperately hoped that I could defeat a man who crushed kingdoms.
“I understand you; like no one else, you have the right to be angry with me, but I would recommend you to conserve your strength. You will have a chance to seek revenge…”
When he said that, I froze. Just stopped.
“I’ll tell you like it is… I wanted to kill you even in your infancy, but your father, with his last wish, decided to spare your life. Could I go against my brother’s last wish? I could! But I didn’t. Because it was the right thing to do. But I couldn’t just let you live… I still have many enemies. And these… enemies… crave to put someone else in my place as the ruler. I can understand them… but I won’t hand over my empire to them because they are not worthy of this empire, and if they are worthy, they’ll prove it… But they won’t, because the ruler of this empire is me. I will fight with you on the day you turn sixteen. You will be full of strength and energy, like me when I defeated my brother – your father. And if you study and train well, you will have a chance to defeat me. And if you win, you will seek revenge and become the ruler of all Raidarian lands, rightfully.”
“And what if I lose?” I asked, but he remained silent. I asked again, but he stayed silent again. With each new question about my potential defeat, I raised the tone of my speech until I started shouting, but he remained silent. In rage, I ran, took the sword with one hand by the hilt and with the other by the blade. The blade cut my hand to the bone, but I was too angry, and this anger extinguished all the physical pain I felt. I ran straight at him, the man who killed my mother and my father. In a leap, I tried to thrust the sword into his heart, as if it were a spear…
But he simply struck the nine-year-old boy with the blunt side of the sword, and I probably just flew in an unknown direction. And I woke up in the infirmary with a head injury and a white cloth bandage wrapped around my hand. Well, it was white until they wiped away all my blood.
It scared me a lot. I exerted all my efforts, and still couldn’t do anything. Ha-ha. Now, I look at it with a light touch of irony. That’s what gave me strength. It angered me. I no longer wanted to meet with my uncle. I just wanted to become stronger, so that when the time comes, I could defeat him and seek revenge. Despite everything.
I started studying everything with tripled strength. At the age of nine, I already knew quite a lot. Mathematics. Not that I was good at counting, but I understood the principles of this science perfectly. It developed in me areas of thinking that often lie dormant in people. History. Relying on the past experiences of anyone, I could learn something as good as if it had happened to me personally. Reading and languages allowed me to develop intellectually possibly more than anything else I studied. Philosophy. It helped me understand the world, answer questions that tormented me, but not all answers I could find only with its help. The art of warfare. All I understood was that it is an art that teaches you to take everything you know and use it skillfully against your enemy, whether your enemy is an inconspicuous person or a whole legion, a state, or a God. I don’t know about gods – I haven’t seen them – but it definitely worked against states. At least, judging by what the Raidarian history says. I’ll let you in on a secret – mostly, it’s about war. I studied everything bit by bit. Even things that wouldn’t necessarily help in a one-on-one battle with Megal. I knew you could never know what would be useful to you tomorrow. Astrology, alchemy, geography, and so on. I even studied magic, like many in Raidaria. Usually, they only study the basics, so they understand how to fight against it. Only a small part of basic knowledge. But I am the nephew of the emperor. It was my duty to learn everything about this, from small to great. Honestly, it was harder for me than for anyone else. I didn’t see the point in such a deep study, as throughout history, magic had only submitted to one Raidarian – General and Magister of Sciences named Basaro. But I studied everything, despite all the pain and suffering that studying magic caused me.
Now, knowledge of magic is gradually fading from my memory due to the lack of opportunity to apply it, but I still remember how Magister Lemna explains the basics.
In the ancient times when people lived in tribes, and the most advanced race in the world was the Elven race, there lived an Elven mage named Rinon. He was a scholar, and like all Elves, he had an innate ability to perform simple magic. However, even as a child, he realized that magic could be more powerful and complex. In his youth, his talent for magic was noticed, and as a result, the Elven king invited him to live at the royal court. There, Rinon studied and taught others.
At that time, there were ancient writings and scrolls that were accessible only to the Elves. Even the Elves did not know who the writings belonged to. It was not even known which people used the writing system that created all this wealth. According to legends, the Elves discovered these manuscripts in an ancient tomb on their lands – but that is not important. What matters is that the Elves formed a special research team to study these manuscripts. This was because these were not ordinary writings and scrolls – they emitted magical energy.
Using the languages known to the Elves, they gradually translated the writings. They even learned to pronounce them correctly. It turned out that by speaking some of the recordings aloud, they could bring to life a magic previously unseen and unknown to the Elves. This further motivated them to study the writings. The more they studied, the more they understood about the nature of magic. They named the language used in these writings and scrolls “magical runes.”
Soon, Rinon joined the investigation of these runes. He spent as much time studying the manuscripts as a human could live. He grasped so much that no Elf could comprehend. In fact, most of what is known about magic is thanks to this Elf. He told all Elves that runes were not written symbols for words; runes were an incomprehensible invisible energy that described the entire surrounding universe. What the Elves called runes were just descriptions of those runes that Rinon referred to when talking about them. He confirmed the theory long spoken among the Elves that magic required energy. But he added that, for magic, the ability to move the energy was also needed. It turned out that every living being capable of performing magic unknowingly directed their energy towards these incomprehensible runes. For most creatures, it was an innate reflex, and they usually took energy from their own soul. Somehow, it seemed to replenish itself in a strange way, although it was not clear how. This Elf also discovered that these runes were built from other runes, and those, in turn, from others. A multi-level construction, as Master Lemn explained.
Finally, we come to the main discovery of that Elf. With the knowledge he possessed, he had enough life to somehow study even the level of runes below. “Slightly more fundamental,” as my teacher used to say. And using this knowledge, the Elf, so to speak, created a new magical language. More straightforward to understand – at least if you are an Elf. It is called Rinon’s language. The one before him was called Ashar’s language. The old one provides more extensive possibilities, but some spells on it sometimes require, for example, a certain amount of lives to be created. The new one almost completely eliminates such possibilities.
Because