Jacob POV
6/1/2012
Right now, I am currently running laps inside the Italian colosseum with three other people training under a friend of Dulio as that friend is a nun named Griselda Quarta as these three are girls named Irina Shidou, Xenovia Quarta and Jeanne as all of us are wearing exorcist clothes of black unitards with long sleeves as the clothes have been enhanced by magic.
It resists darkness but not much else and on top of our clothes are weighted armor on our upper bodies and legs, but those weights have magic placed onto them to help us both physically and magically as we are also studying magic as well.
Together we are a team of exorcist that will be used as a strike force of some kind thanks to our various talents but that is about all the information Dulio and Griselda have given us as we are simply going to be functioning as a group and apparently working out and training together will help foster trust and form good bonds or at least that is what Xenovia said when we were told.
That girl loves fitness and I also learned that I apparently have a dormant [Sacred Gear] within me that has yet to be shown as this exercise is also going to help me unlock it since Jeanne has already unlocked hers while Xenovia and Irina are holy sword users candidates while my affinity wasn't where it needed to be.
Granted they haven't been tested to wield a holy sword yet but since their magic affinity is high enough it got them noticed as prime candidates in the future while I need to focus on trying to unlock my power and abilities.
"Alright everyone that makes lap ten so you can stop running for now." Dulio said as Irina and I both collapsed onto the ground exhausted while Jeanne was out of breath and Xenovia seemed the most well off despite the intense running.
"Now we move on to sword practice." Griselda said as Irina and I had to force our bodies up as we where given wooden swords and put into two groups.
Jeanne and I will spar while Xenovia and Irina will spar with each other.
"Now this is the first weapon training we will be doing but other forms of weapon training will be available to you if you wish. Now let us begin with basic strike and basic defensive forms." Griselda said as we began practicing with our wooden swords as we first practiced basic attacks and blocks/parries with the swords as we couldn't hit each other yet and nobody seemed to mind as we kept up the exercises for a while as the practice got a bit more intense until we broke into full on sparing matches with Dulio and Griselda watching over us.
"Ha!" Jeanne shouted as she knocked me down after about two hours of our sparring as my entire body felt heavy and I ultimately couldn't move.
"Alright take five." Griselda said as I couldn't even talk back as I felt like puking and Jeanne put down her sword to try and help me up.
6/11/2021
"Alright." I said with cheer as we are in the colosseum again training as today was magic training as magic apparently requires mathematics as I am the first person to fully materialize my magic in the group as I am standing in front of everyone with a light blue baseball sized sphere of magic in my hands as doing this much didn't faze me at all.
"Impressive. Your magic reserves must be rather large if you can manifest your mana this quickly and densely." Dulio said as he poked the sphere and felt the resistance it gave him, but it did little to nothing as I reabsorbed the mana into my body. "Alright Jacob now that you can manifest your mana you should easily be able to summon your [Sacred Gear] so do what you've learned so far and focus all your might into summoning the power hidden within you." Dulio explained as we learned about [Sacred Gears] a bit more so I did what he said and closed my eyes as I focused inward to try and find this hidden power.
Deep within my body I can feel my mana as it feels like a water washing over my entire body but deep within that feeling is another smaller feeling as I try latching onto that feeling…
I got it. The bizarre feeling within my mana. I got it and I focused on it as hard as possible as I felt the sensation grow and grown until it finally came to the surface as I felt a weight over my right forearm which made me open my eyes and see the item that had appeared.
"Whoa." I said in shock as I saw a shield appear over my right forearm as it is circular in shape and looks to be metallic and is a pure white color but in the center is a neon pink gemstone of some kind.
"Well, it seems you possess [Divine Armor] which is a [Sacred Gear] designed for defense powered by holy magic." Griselda said with a clap as I couldn't help but smile as I moved the shield around a bit before realizing I had no idea how to use this thing.
Now it is solid and strong so it can take hits but otherwise I am not sure how to use this thing.
*Ring, Ring*
The sound of a cell phone got all of our attentions as Dulio searched and found his phone in one of his pockets before he answered it and after a quick phone call, he hung up the phone.
"Well, it seems our timetable of training has been snuffed out as we are going to have to send you kids off on a mission rather soon. So, for the moment we are upping all of the training exercises to prepare all of you to fight for the church and our lord." Dulio said before we went back to training but now with some worry as none of us where sure what he meant about us going on a mission soon.
Seriously? We just started our intense training so how can we possibly do a mission yet?
6/20/2012
These past few days have been hell, but they have paid off because of Griselda's intense training. Her training brought out our best despite how hellish it was and now she even said we are as ready as possible as I am currently on a plane ride heading towards our first mission in Russia.
I am the leader of our group as the group is myself, Irina, Xenovia and Jeanne as we are an elite force or we are going to try and come off as one as I am in charge of the money and communications as I have a wallet and cell phone in my battle suit pocket as we are wearing our training suits underneath our white holy robes as we have also been equipped with basic arms.
Irina has a light sword like I do while Xenovia has a lesser holy sword wrapped up a guitar case that she has as a carryon. Also, we spent the time just blending in and reading the foreign magazines as we used a language understanding spell on ourselves so we can read, write and speak the native tongue as we simply waited for our flight to end so we can start our extermination mission.
Our mission is to kill several ghouls that have appeared as they have been raiding graves and killing some people as ghouls are basically zombies but instead of undead, they are people mutated by dark magic.
"Alright ladies and gentlemen we will be landing shortly." The pilot said over the intercom as all over us tensed up a bit as I felt my heart pound in my chest. Granted we are trained, and we rehearsed how to fight as a team, but it is still a bit stressful knowing that we are going to have to kill someone.
Extermination isn't arresting someone…It feels wrong but so does turning people into monsters.
"Alright everyone. Let's go." I said as the plane soon landed, and we got off as we exited the overfilled airport and walked into the wilderness which was very cold but none of us dared complained as we used mana to enhance our legs as we began running towards the target with me in the lead as I had my flip phone opened showing the GPS map of the area and the red dot that was our target.
"Jacob. Do you think we can really do this?" Jeanne asked as she ran up next to me.
"Yeah, it won't be a problem. We trained for this, so we just need to keep calm and remember what we learned." I told her as Irina and Xenovia in the back agreed with me as we ran past several trees and animals at fast speeds towards a small-time town in the middle of nowhere.
"Is this a town?" Xenovia asked in confusion as it was way too quiet as we walked through the town a bit before we saw one of the monsters as we saw a ghoul coming towards us as it is running on all four legs with no skin on it's body as Jeanne quickly killed it with her magical swords as she summoned four of them and sent them towards the poor guy.
He never stood a chance.
"Someone really did turn this person into a monster." Irina said in shock as she looked like she was about to puke and frankly the rest of us aren't doing any better.
"Irina it isn't a person anymore. We need to remember that." I said before we soon got surrounded on all sides by various ghouls as I summoned my shield over my left forearm this time and wield my light sword in my right hand as the girls got ready as well before we went on our extermination mission and started killing these monsters.
xxx-xxx
"So many people." I said as I looked over the various corpses we created before I took out my phone and saw the target on the move. "Girls come on." I said leading the way as we ran again despite how tired we are and soon enough in the woods we came up to the cause of so much death in the form of a relatively fit but old man wearing a basic lab coat with black trousers and boots as he turned around to look at us while carrying a large book.
"Malcom Drov, you have committed numerous sins in the eyes of god and as such you have been sentenced to death." I told him as I pointed my sword at him.
"To think the church would send simply children to come and fight me. They must think I'm weak!" Malcom shouted before he aimed his hand at me and fired a magical attack as I raised my shield at the last moment and was sent back from the force as he sent some kind of fireball towards me as my shield managed to absorb the attack for me as I saw Jeanne and Irina rush the guy and attack with their blades but he countered with a strong magical shield of some kind as the light sword and Jeanne's magical swords grinded against the shield without breaking it as the shield was a dome like shape around him.
"Jacob. Are you injured?" Xenovia asked as she tightly gripped her own light sword as I slowly got back up.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I said before I looked at my shield and saw that it had somehow absorbed the attack into its gem as I saw magical symbols appear in front of the shield gem as I instantly knew what the words said and meant.
Now my shield just absorbed the fire-based attack and now I can create a fire variant of my shield…Now I finally get it. The best offense is a good defense and that means I can be both offensive and defensive with my shields if I can master them as I focused and felt my shield shift a bit as I looked at it and saw that it morphed into flames.
"Get back!" I shouted as I thrusted my shield hand forward and sent the shield flying towards Malcom as I saw that it shattered and sent him flying into a tree before my shield reappeared on my forearm as I collapsed to my knees from exhaustion as that just took all my mana.
What I did was absorb the attack and sent it back at double the force as I saw Jeanne finish the dude off by cutting off his head before he could get up as Irina and Xenovia helped me to my feet.
"Jacob how did you do that?" Irina asked me.
"Well, my shield absorbed the attack and sent it back at him, but it just took everything out of me." I said as I had to lean on these girls a bit before we began making our way home after getting rid of all the evidence of the dark magic by burying everyone who died tonight.
xxx-xxx
6/22/2012
"No matter how hard I try I can't make my shield catch on fire again." I said to Dulio as he and I are in the colosseum training with my [Sacred Gear] as I tried my hardest to create a fire shield but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't repeat what happened during my fight with Malcom.
Also, after we came back from the mission, we were given proper compensation as the girls saved their money like I did for a rainy day.
"Well previous users of the [Divine Armor] where capable of making all matter of shield on command so maybe it requires your own input to create such shields." Dulio said as that did make sense as I have to be able to do certain things in order to create certain shields.
If I want another fire shield, then I have to learn some pyromacy and the same goes for other such spells as I have dense and large amounts of mana but other than body strengthening, I don't really know what to do with it.
"So, I need different types of training to create certain shields." I said as I dismissed my shield as I put my hand on my chin in thought.
"Well what kind of shield do you want to create first?" Dulio asked as that was actually a good question that I didn't know how to answer for a moment as I didn't know what shield would be good for me to use.
"Well, I need something to stop an enemy from escaping so I guess I need something like a rope or a chain shield." I said as the image of a shield made out of chains came to mind. "Actually, I take that back and instead of rope I need a chain shield because chains are much stronger than rope." I said as a chain shield could be used for both attack and defense.
"Well, I'm not sure how that would work but for something like that it would take a lot of visual and physical training like trying to magically create a sword. The process will be slow and probably painful but if you really want to test out this plan than just say the word." Dulio said as I waited a moment before saying something.
"This is something I have to test out Dulio. So please help me." I said before he left and returned with a large iron chain as the physical and image training basically had me messing around with the chain all day.
Touching, staring, feeling the sensations as I wrap it around parts of my body, drawing the chain perfectly and repeatedly, and basically just focus all my mental power on chains and how they work and what they are made of.
6/30/2012
"I did it." I cheered as I was training with Jeanne with our [Sacred Gears] as I blocked her sword strikes with my shield and during one of my random thoughts about chains and how they work I somehow transform my shield into a [Chain Shield] as it trapped the tip of her broad sword in one of the chain links and wraps around it before I get proper control of it and yank her sword away and make the chains go slack as the sword falls on the ground.
The shield is basically chains wrapping around each other in the form of a circle and now they are all over the place before I flex my magic and make the chains reform into a proper looking shield.
"You made a shield made out of metal chains?" Jeanne asked in total shock and confusion as she doesn't even care about the fact that I had just disarmed her.
"Yup. I was training really hard to make it happen, and it looks like I can change my shield with enough practice and training." I said as I focused my mana and thrusted my hand forward as chains went flying towards Jeanne as she was now wrapped up in multiple chains that didn't seem to run out as her arms and legs were restrained as well as her torso.
"Okay I give." Jeanne said as I called the chains back before I felt my shield shift back as I recalled all the chains and with an experimental flex, I see that I can switch the shields with mild ease.
"Well, that is certainly unexpected. Dulio did you know about this?" Griselda asked making Dulio chuckle nervously a bit.
"Well, I did help him discover a new ability so I would say that this turned out rather well." Dulio said as Griselda was a person who rarely liked surprises but with this one, she didn't seem anger or anything and instead just seemed to be a bit surprised.
"Still the fact that he learned how to do that also means that he can alter the properties of his shield with enough training and that is valuable information." Griselda said before Jeanne created another sword before we went back to training as I focused on hand-to-hand combat instead of using a sword.
I rarely land hits on Jeanne since she is a fast fighter but the fact that I can block her blows means that I at least have decent reaction time, so the training isn't too bad as we get used to using our [Sacred Gears].
xxx-xxx
I am currently sitting outside of the colosseum by myself as the others left as I summoned my shield and looked it over a bit in mystery as I remember the sensation from the fight with Malcom, so I touch the gem a bit and see that nothing happens.
"I can absorb things into the shield so maybe I can store things in them as well." I said as I took a leaf off the ground and experimentally placed it on the gem of my shield.
{Absorption}
A silent voice said in my mind as the leaf got absorbed into the shield as I felt my mana begin shifting around as a result before I feel my shield change as I see it take the shape of an actual green leaf.
"Whoa. That actually worked." I said as this shield feels super light as if I'm not even wearing it as I raise it and feel the shield tug on my mana a bit as I give in and feed it mana before seeing the shield fire small razor sharp leaf like blades from it as I saw leaf's embedded into a colosseum wall which quickly made me switch back to a normal shield before I dismissed it.
"Shit." I cursed as I ran over and pulled the leaf's out of the wall and ended up cutting my fingers from how fast the leaf's where. "Okay don't use the leaf shield unless I absolutely have to." I said to myself as I decided not to mention this shield or what it can do.
Although it does raise the question about what else I can absorb into my shield and steal the properties…But this proves that experimenting is dangerous so I shouldn't be reckless and experiment with this thing wildly or stupidly.
7/2/2012
"Well done." My new magician teacher said to me as I was studying in her backyard as this woman is known as Yubelluna and calling her beautiful doesn't do her justice and frankly she has some massive…Never mind.
Anyway, she is complementing me on my magic as I showed her the magical sphere, I am capable of generating as she was curious about how much control I had over my mana as I have good control and dense amounts for no reason.
"Thank you but this is nothing." I told her as she simply smiled at me as we both sat on her concrete patio in wooden chairs.
"I must say a quick study like you is a rare find in the magical world and the fact that Dulio had to find me to teach you only shows that you are going to be going far so. Since we don't need to worry about control or manifestation then let's move on to basic magical techniques and abilities as magic is broken up into multiple categories and we need to find which category you are most drawn to." Yubelluna said before explaining magic to me.
Now magic is broken up into Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, Conjuration, and Enchantments. The classes are mostly self-explanatory, but destruction covers the elements and attacking magic while restoration covers healing, wards, dispelling magic and other such things that revolve around healing and holy magic.
Alteration is the magic of changing things into other things as well as changing the foundations of magic itself, Illusions are self-explanatory so I can't really explain it, Conjuration is necromancy and it's various practices, while enchantments are a bit hard to describe but they are items enhanced with magic and other things as well as enchanting more or less can cover all the areas of magic to a certain extent.
Yubelluna herself has a hard time explaining it and she is a expert in magic so I don't bother trying to wrap my head around it as we go over numerous spells, incantations and rituals of magic that could work for me as well as simple exercises for me to practice in order to use such spells with success as magic is a serious thing and shouldn't be taken lightly as I spent the rest of the day practicing my mana exercises and spell exercises before going back home to the group home as today was merely day one for me.
Now in addition to my normal exorcist training I will be training with Yubelluna in becoming a mage since Dulio and Griselda both think that fighting with magic bests suits me instead of relying on a sword or gun even though I am not above using such things which is why I like learning how to use them or upgrade them or even build them myself as you can never be overly prepared.
END!
Authors Note: Okay another short chapter but hey I am only human, and I tried stretching it out, but it didn't work. Anyway, I hope all of you enjoyed this chapter and remember to please fav, follow and review.