Chapter 6 – Getting Stronger

  After that first brutal round of shadowboxing, Jacob was put through push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, and other exercises that blended together into a single long blur of discomfort and effort.

  The ankle and wrist weights didn’t come off, not once, and by the end of it all, his limbs felt like wet rags. When Alex finally dismissed him, he didn’t walk so much as stumble back to his room, using the walls to keep upright, breathing in short, shallow bursts.

  His muscles throbbed with every step, his joints stiff, his back slick with sweat, and when he finally reached his bed, he collapsed onto it without even pulling the sheets aside, too exhausted to care about anything except not moving.

  He stared blankly up at the ceiling for a long moment, trying to will the ache in his shoulders to fade. The silence in the room was comforting, almost unreal after the sounds of grunts and sand being kicked during the training session. His mind drifted slowly, lazily toward thoughts he had ignored during the heat of exercise.

  ‘I never realized it before, but… Alex is actually strong,’ he thought, blinking at the ceiling.

  He wasn’t just competent, he was efficient, disciplined, and confident in ways Jacob hadn’t even known to admire before today. There was no flashy power or overwhelming magic to it; Alex’s strength was something quieter, heavier, built brick by brick with time and stubborn persistence. When Jacob thought back to the way his brother had moved, the clean angles of his punches, the control in his footwork, the sharp turn of his hips it left a deep impression. ‘He made it look easy,’ Jacob admitted to himself, almost bitterly. ‘And none of it was.’

  The realization humbled him more than he expected. Sure, he had always known Alex trained hard. Everyone in the family did, more or less. But seeing that training firsthand, feeling the gap between them in such immediate, physical terms it did something to Jacob. Made the difference impossible to ignore.

  And then came another thought, uninvited but insistent. Jessica. Sweet, cheerful, friendly Jessica who had always smiled at him in passing and asked if he’d eaten breakfast. Wasn’t she training to become a knight too? Hadn’t she already awakened her aura?

  The internal energy that let warriors punch through walls or take a blade to the shoulder without flinching. If she was even close to Alex’s level, she could probably snap Jacob’s spine in half with a single well-placed hit. He shivered unconsciously.

  Thankfully, he had never been the kind of person to make enemies. He barely interacted with people at all, to be fair, but in hindsight that was a good thing. His general habit of keeping to himself might’ve saved him from being flattened one day.

  After a few minutes, the ache in his legs became too annoying to ignore, so Jacob forced himself upright with a groan and hobbled over to his desk. He picked up one of the books he’d bought from the marketplace the day before: A Guide to Improving Physical Strength. A practical-looking book, bound in thick parchment, that detailed various methods of building muscle ranging from conventional workouts and dietary strategies to more obscure solutions like body-forging herbs, soaking elixirs, and rune-based stimulants.

  Jacob flipped to the chapter on elixirs. What he wanted to do was simple: buy a bath elixir designed to slowly build strength over time and soak in it every day. No pain, no rush just a gradual, passive improvement that would stack up alongside his training. The theory sounded good. It was realistic, sustainable.

  But then he opened his wallet, and reality hit.

  He was broke.

  He stared at the slim contents of his coin pouch for a few seconds, then sighed and leaned back in his chair. Sure, he could ask his father for money. If he said it was for improving his physical strength, his father would probably hand over a small fortune without blinking. But Jacob didn’t want that. After what he had done, after what had happened he didn’t think he deserved their support anymore.

  “Belemir,” Jacob called out, his voice still a bit hoarse from exertion.

  “Yes, young master?” came the butler’s reply from the hallway.

  “I need your help selling some things. Old books, clothes I don’t wear anymore, and a few relics I don’t use.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  There was a pause. “Even the relics, sir?”

  Jacob nodded. “Yeah. I barely use the lamp relic, I like reading by candlelight anyway. The sleep relic is worthless, considering I don’t sleep. And the warding charm Mother gave me for the nightmares never worked, did it?”

  Belemir stepped into the room, lips pressed into a thin line. “Understood.”

  With a nod, he began gathering the items Jacob listed, placing them carefully into a rune-etched satchel, a bag designed to hold more than it should, expanding space through an embedded rune circuit.

  It was harder than Jacob expected. Watching some of those books get packed away, books that had comforted him during sleepless nights, given him answers when he was confused, or just offered a temporary escape from the pressure of being him, that stung. But he pushed the feeling down. This was necessary. If his body didn’t catch up soon, he’d be suffering every morning under Alex’s gaze, failing over and over again.

  And that was something he couldn’t stomach anymore.

  When Belemir left to sell the items and purchase the elixirs, the room felt noticeably emptier both physically and emotionally. Jacob sat back at his desk, looking at the few books that remained. ‘It’s better this way,’ he thought. ‘I didn’t need those things. And I don’t deserve them either.’

  He sighed and picked up a book on foundational rune theory. He’d made the decision not to start reading Lazarus’ book just yet, not until he filled in the basic gaps he’d discovered in his own understanding. He couldn’t afford to misunderstand anything when he finally dove into it.

  A few hours later, Belemir returned, setting a small rune-sealed case on the table. Inside were nine spherical glass bottles, each filled with a lavender-colored liquid. The elixir smelled faintly floral, soothing and warm, like spring mornings in a garden.

  Jacob took one bottle, nodded his thanks, and went to his bathroom. He filled the tub with water, poured in the elixir, and watched as the water turned faintly purple, tiny bubbles fizzing along the surface.

  Stripping off his clothes, he stepped into the bath with a long exhale.

  The sensation was immediate. The elixir didn’t sting or tingle, but it soaked into his skin like something alive, working its way into his muscles and joints. It felt as if something cool and gentle was threading its way through his body, relaxing him while tightening everything underneath.

  He wasn’t sure if it was making him stronger, but it was doing something and for now, that was enough.

  The elixir, Knight’s Glory, was typically meant to be consumed directly. Doing so would lead to a rapid and violent transformation of the body’s physical state, but it came at a cost. Intense pain. Possible nerve damage. And, in rare cases, death.

  Jacob wasn’t willing to take that risk. Not because he was lazy, but because he was afraid.

  He had no illusions about himself. He was cautious, hesitant, and self-protective. He didn’t want to die. More than anything, that fear drove him forward, not toward heroism, but toward safety and achievement. Toward legacy.

  Because Jacob had goals. Not ones that required brute strength or mastery of a sword, but goals all the same. He wanted to write books on rune theory. Dozens of them. Contribute something meaningful to the field. Maybe even become a Grand Scholar, the highest academic title in the world of runes, held only by one person at a time.

  Unlike mages and knights, who were ranked in a straightforward system from ten to zero, ten being the weakest and zero reserved for only the most exceptional based on the strength of their mana or aura, scholars followed a very different path.

  There was no easy metric for measuring intellectual accomplishment, no neat scale for categorizing insight or invention. Instead, scholars were assessed using a point-based system, with each published work, successful theory, or breakthrough in rune application being evaluated and awarded a certain number of points by a council of their peers.

  Over time, those points accumulated, and as they did, a scholar’s rank would rise. The hierarchy itself was simple enough in name Scholar, Silver Scholar, Gold Scholar, True Scholar and then, finally, the title that stood above all others: Grand Scholar.

  That final rank wasn’t something one simply reached; it was a singular honor, held by only one living person at a time, the individual who had made the greatest contributions to the study of runery and was still alive to be acknowledged for it.

  It was a ridiculous dream, Jacob knew that. Grand Scholar wasn’t just rare it was mythic. Yet, no matter how unreachable it seemed, the title called to him. To be recognized not just as competent, not just as brilliant, but as the greatest mind in the field of rune theory… to have his name remembered for generations, etched into history alongside the greats, that was something he wanted more than anything.

  That dream had once belonged to someone else. To his brother. And Jacob had ruined that chance for him. Now, in some twisted way, he felt he had to chase that dream, not to redeem himself, but to prove that the dream hadn’t died in vain.

  He soaked for nearly an hour before stepping out, drying off, and dressing again. From now on, he would do this every day, train in the morning, soak in the evening, and study at night.

  And so, six days passed. Jacob didn’t become fast or strong overnight, but there were changes. Subtle ones. He no longer fell over when shadowboxing with weights. His stance was improving. He could punch without twisting his wrist, and his muscles didn’t ache quite as much afterward.

  But today, the routine would shift.

  Jacob closed his book early, dressed with care, and calmed himself before stepping outside. A carriage was already waiting.

  Today wasn’t for training.

  Today, he would travel to the heart of the kingdom.

  Today, he would awaken his aspect.

  Today, Jacob would become a sorcerer.