The Edge of Tomorrow

Vol 1 - 9 The Mark

"Wake up, Elijah!" A man's voice yelled into my ears. 'Huh?' I slowly opened my eyes, rubbing them as I sat up.

"Get up, quickly now. You need to go train." I looked up at the voice that was talking to me, it was my father, Derrick.

"Do I have to? The other kids don't even have to wake up early, nor train." I whined, sitting at the edge of the bed.

"Are you the same as the other pitiful kids?" He spat the word "pitiful" with disgust clearly written on his face.

"You need to be different, you need to become more powerful in-order to beat them. We are the Dacre family, every member in this family has some kind of power over the others, that's what makes us different from others. We have the power, so to ensure this keeps running in the family, we need all of our heirs and heiresses to be trained strictly." He lectured me again.

"Now, don't let me repeat this again, do you understand?" His cold gaze peered into my soul.

I just nodded, knowing that I can't say anything or I will get punished, "Yes, father."

"Good, get dressed quickly, we will be doing our usual training." He informed me, by "usual training" he meant hell. I knew my day would just get worse after the training but I couldn't rebel since they would just discipline me.

"Give me one hundred pushups now!" As soon as I stepped into the yard Derrick ordered me to start training. I still struggled with pushups since I've only done them for almost a week now, he has been increasing how much pushups I did by 15 but sometimes it's different, so it's always a surprise and it tortures me a lot.

As I finished my last pushup, my arms shaking, beats of sweat running down my face, I pushed myself back up.

"You need to improve more, next time I will add another 15. Now, run 8 laps around the mansion." He pointed out the door and I quickly got up from my previous position and started running around the house.

As of today and tomorrow, I will keep repeating the same training until my father gets satisfied.

----

BACK TO REALITY...

I thought the pain in my back had completely vanished, but I was wrong. In the middle of the night I felt my back growing warmer and warmer until I felt like fire was burning on my back.

I quickly sat up, feeling my back, It was hot as hell. It felt as if my hand touched lava. Quickly standing up and taking my shirt off, I ran into the bathroom. Looking into the mirror, the mark on my back glowed black. The aura coming off of this symbol was something else. It didn't feel like mana, but still I could sense something familiar in it.

'It must be the quin that Ryker was talking about.' I remembered Ryker mentioning something about half-dragons having quin embedded inside their body's.

Twisting the faucet and cold water started running out, I took a towel that was hanging on the rack and dipped it into the cold water, placing the towel on my back, the heat started to decrease.

Sophia has once taught me that in this world, they have mostly depended on mana and artifacts. Artifacts were made to make life easier, by embedding mana into a crystal in the artifact, it can power something like a ship, but of course you would need multiple artifacts to do that. Like these faucets, there are tiny crystals in an artifact under the nob, making either hot or cold water come out.

Like other things, buying artifacts causes money, smaller ones are cheaper while bigger ones, or buying many quantities of an artifact can be quite expensive.

I have many ideas to replace these artifacts with things in my old world, but the problem is if there is even any of those materials I need here to replace them.

Shaking my head, I put the idea behind my head and focused on my mark. Repeating my process like before, I soaked the towel with cold water and placed it on my back. I've repeated this process until the mark slowly started to cool down.

Looking back at the mirror I saw the black aura slowly die down. Sighing, I put my shirt back on and went back to bed.

----

"Here take this medicine, it will help with your mark, apply this past three times a day, one in the morning, afternoon, and one just before you go to bed." The doctor said as he handed me a jar with white paste in it.

I explained to Ryker and Kathryn what happened last night, and so they brought me here. Ryker, Kathryn, and Aria were standing outside of the tent, waiting for me to come out.

"This bandage has a special spell on it to prevent it from harming you, so please don't remove it, and if you do, only do it for less than thirty minutes or you will start to feel the burning sensation again since you haven't completely understood this mark yet." He explained. I just nodded and took the jar, leaving the tent.

"So, how do you feel?" Ryker asked.

"I'm okay now, I just have to apply this cream a few times a day." I held up the jar, showing them the white paste. He nodded and we started to head back to the castle.