TBATE: Blessed by Mana (Dropped)

6. Veteran Swordsman

Licht Eralith's POV 

Did I hear that my grandfather wants to have a spar with me? A mere four-year old in terms of physically speaking. Does than even make sense? He really did say spar. I swore I heard him say that.

Does he want to shorten my already short life or something? At the very least I am glad I didn't die virgin.

Ahem!

Is this really what I should be thinking right now? No, but the sudden invitation of spar by the strongest elf of this world has send my brain spiraling for the moment. Regaining my composure I gave a thought on how should I act on this one. The answer is plain obvious in my head. All it depends on is my acting skills which I know are definitely better than my grandfather's.

"Spar?" Feigning innocence perfectly, I asked as if I don't even know the meaning of the word. Well no one expects a four-year old to know the meaning of the word spar do you?

Moving on.

"Not sparring, I said friendly sparring." Grandpa Virion replied before snapping off a small branch from the nearby tree. The branch he broke off was almost the size of my wooden sword, if not then a bit bigger than it. "You will use your sword and this branch will be my weapon. I want to see how much you have progressed in reinforcing your body and weapon with mana."

Looks like there is no getting out of it seeing the seriousness with which grandfather spoke with. It is natural for a teacher to test how far their students had progressed since the beginning in order to move ahead with the lessons. I had to learn anything about the elements. I might as well show my progress here and impress him enough to get started with my elemental training. I need to find what element I would be adept in.

Speaking of elements I had come face-to-face with some harsh realities. Elves can't learn Fire from the basic four elements, nor can they harness Ice, Lightning, Gravity, Magma and Metal. Here humans are the most versatile when it comes to harnessing different elements of magic.

Out of the basic four we elves are limited to the three, i.e. Wind, Water and Earth. Speaking of deviants we are limited to Plant and Sound. That's all.

What's with this racial discrimination over magic? I had enough of that in my last life too!

That's enough of my rant over magic and magic-based discrimination, time to get back my attention to the spar at hand.

Grandfather Virion moved exactly five meters away for me, a standard distance during a friendly spar between two augmenters. He held the branch with his right hand pointing it at me while the left one stayed idle. Is he giving me a handicap?

Handicap or no, I had made up my mind to give it my all, leaving no stone unturned to impress my grandfather. Simple reinforcing of weapon? I ain't going for that. For this spar I planned something better.

"Mana Skin."

Having awakened as a mage, I could finally sense the abundant mana in my surroundings and the mana within me. This quick sensory perception is something all elves are born with, wherever we go. This and using my previous knowledge of applying mana, I am finally able to do something which I once could do even while taking a nap.

I completely reinforced myself and my weapon along with it. Not only mana skin will reinforce my body but also increase my sensory perception which will help in sensing attacks even before they land. This is one of the uses of Mana Skin.

Though with my current body comes a restriction. Currently I can only use it for up to three minutes max. My core has yet to go to the red stage despite a few cracks forming on the black surface. So right now this is all I can pull off. I have to make best use of the three minutes I have.