That evening at dinner, I devoured everything within sight.

  A small side effect of my training, though Alme’s excellent cooking certainly played a major role.

  Both of my parents had excused themselves early, but luckily, Lelya and her younger brother, Rin—who wasn’t even eight years old yet—had stayed behind with me.

  Lelya and I had been born just a few months apart, growing up practically side by side. She was like a little sister to me, even though she was technically older than me.

  We used to spend a lot more time together as kids, playing and messing around, but even now, we still found moments to catch up to each other.

  She had inherited her mother’s green eyes and her father’s light brown hair. She was a few inches shorter than me and, just like her mother, had a thin frame. More than having her look frail, it made her look gentle.

  Growing up, I was sure she’d bloom into a real beauty. I already could easily imagine her having a long line of admirers trailing behind her whenever she went into town.

  Not that I think she would care. I smiled. It would be so much like her turning them down one after another.

  Rin, on the other hand, was a spitting image of Boras.

  “Arda, Arda! I wanna fight with swords too!”

  His passion for knights and sword-fighting was borderline obsessive. He never stopped talking about them. Other than possibly boring out of their mind unprepared souls, it had the curious effect of making his round amber eyes continuously gleam in delight.

  Day and night, he always had a new story about some famous knight or their legendary feats.

  “Oh? So you want to become a knight too, Rin?”

  Maybe I had been conditioning him a bit too much, but he was the only one I could talk to about this kind of stuff without getting murdered in my sleep.

  Besides, I genuinely enjoyed spending some time with him.

  “Yes! I wanna travel the world and help people in need,” he declared, brimming with excitement.

  It’s always nice to see someone with such honest intentions.

  “Young Master Arda, please don’t encourage him too much, again,” Lelya sighed. “At this rate, I’ll be getting gray hairs from stress before my time.”

  Although she did her best not to show, she didn’t seem too thrilled about her brother’s boundless energy. I could only imagine how exhausting it must be to keep up with him all day.

  I had heard Lelya had taken it upon herself to oversee Rin’s education, as well as getting him into the family job. Perhaps I could lend her a hand.

  “Rin, listen up!” I said seriously, instantly getting his full attention. “Today, I’m giving you your first official quest as a knight-in-training.”

  His eyes sparkled with anticipation.

  “A true knight must be well-mannered and respectful to others,” I began. “Always ready to extend a helping hand when needed. Don’t you agree?”

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  “Y-Yes, sir!” he answered, standing at attention.

  “Excellent!” I nodded. “From now on, in preparation for your future adventures, you will help anyone in need, always uphold your honor, and remain polite at all times.”

  “If you do that…” I trailed off.

  “Will I get a reward? Like a real knight’s quest?” He asked eagerly.

  I grinned. “In exchange, I will personally give you a beautiful sword for your tenth birthday.”

  I did a quick mental calculation. That should be about two years to save up the money, but it was worth it. His reaction alone was more than enough of a reward for me; Rin was barely keeping at bay his excitement.

  “But wait, I’m not finished,” I stopped him, raising a hand.

  “If you manage to behave well until,” I pretended to think it over, “your thirteenth birthday, then I will personally teach you how to fight with a sword.”

  I leaned towards him, shooting him a wink. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Of course!” He answered without hesitation.

  “Then shake on it, sir Rin.”

  With his tiny hand, he gripped mine firmly. “Remember,” I added. “Always behave yourself, and be sure to help your sister Lelya whenever she needs it, okay?”

  He nodded seriously.

  Lelya, meanwhile, could barely hold back a laugh. She probably never imagined it would take so little to get him to settle down for a while.

  As I left, I winked at her too, receiving a silent thank you in return.

  “Come, Rin,” she said, taking his hand. “Time for the little knight to go to sleep.”

  “Aw—” he moaned for a second, before our promise returned to his mind. “Aight, Le. Let’s lay siege to my room!”

  With nothing better to do, given the late hour, I mimicked my fellow wannabe-knight and headed straight to bed. But, unable to fall asleep, I ended up staring at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, I gave up.

  As I’d been doing in the last few nights to my parents’ unbeknownst, I retrieved from my desk the book that had marked the beginning of my career as a mage. Carefully, I lifted the seal on my reserves and poured mana into the book.

  As the spitting image of myself emerged from the blue mist, I reached for the wooden sword I had thoughtfully hidden under my bed.

  “Long time no see, buddy,” I joked, carefully keeping my eyes on the Mirror Ghost.

  Dropping into a defensive stance, I engaged in a silent battle with my phantasmal copy.

  As I had the chance to find out, the Mirror Ghost shared all my physical attributes and abilities, although it seemed unable to use mana. Curiously enough, it had also seemed to replicate my desire to keep these late-night spars a secret.

  If it had been a little smarter and flexible, it would have made the perfect training buddy.

  We both went through the stances Father had been drilling in my body, pulling our blows at the last second to make as little noise as possible. Being able to watch myself going through all nine basic stances from the outside, I was able to slowly spot and adjust to the glaring errors.

  It was exhausting–and tremendously slow–but it was a necessary effort.

  The nine stances had originally been designed for hand-to-hand combat, but they had quickly been adapted for swordplay. That roughly meant that training one would automatically improve the other.

  The nine stances could also be executed in sequence, flowing into one another to create a deadly combination. This had been the first maneuver my father had ever taught me. A fairly basic one, still, it was very competitive and effective if executed right.

  After about an hour of continuous fighting and observing, my arms dropped in exhaustion.

  The Mirror Ghost, however, didn’t get the cue and smacked my head with its ethereal wooden sword. “Are you for real?” I glared at it, before sighing in resignation. “See you tomorrow, buddy.”

  Snapping in salute, it let out a soundless chuckle and fizzled out. The blue mist lingered in the air for a couple more instants before dispersing.

  Completely exhausted, I collapsed back into bed, drained and drenched in sweat, but with a deep sense of accomplishment filling me.

  In that strange twilight between wakefulness and sleep, my mind kept drifting back to the endless spars I had. My body twitched each time I went through a particular stance in my mind.

  “Wait for me, Father,” I smirked drowsily. “I’ll catch up to you.”