Chapter 2: The Basics

Today was the 25th of the Pegasus Moon 1177. It'd been five days since I had woken up in Fódlan and I was still getting used to living in this world and my new body.

Byleth was healthier than I had ever been and because of that, I was able to spend our downtime between jobs exploring the village and surrounding area in the Viscounty of Fenya. I visited a small local church and a library to get some information that the lore didn't help me with. There was nothing new about the church, which I expected. The Empire hadn't been under the influence of the Southern Church in over a century so I doubted I would learn anything important from one of the small churches in a small town. The library mostly had historical accounts about House Fenja and its interactions with other houses.

It was clear to me that they didn't expect a mercenary to enter the library. The fact that I was a commoner might have also made it weird because as far as I understood, literate commoners were rare. I wasn't denied access to the library though, so that was fine. While in the library I encountered the first daughter of Viscount Fenja and asked her some questions and she was all too happy to speak about her house's exploits.

After a few days of exploring and visiting the library, I had a solid basis of information. Fenja was a small house with little pull but I got a good idea of the state of the Empire and the other houses and their relationship with House Fenja. Once I was happy with the information I had It was time to start plotting.

In just over a month we'd be in the Great Tree Moon and the year 1178. The game's story would begin on the 20th of the Great Tree Moon 1180. So I had two years and just under two months to get ready for meeting the House Leaders. That was a decent amount of prep time that I had access to. This game had been my hyper-fixation and only relief during the last two years of my old life so I was confident that I wouldn't forget the important plot details by the time I needed it.

Anyway with a timeline to prepare I decided it was time to figure out the basics. According to the games Byleth was a monster on the battlefield and a tactical genius. I had never actually picked up a sword so I would need to learn.

To my surprise, the moment I picked up a sword to get some training in, I found that I knew what to do. The sword felt right in my hands. It felt like I had been holding a sword all my life which I suppose I had. Even if my consciousness had only awoken recently, I was still Byleth Eisner. I was the Ashen Demon.

I swung the blade around a few times. My body immediately knew what I wanted to do and executed the moves perfectly. I effortlessly performed moves that I had seen Byleth execute in the game. I also found myself performing the same combat arts that I had seen Byleth perform. There was only one problem with the Combat Arts. I had access to more than I should have.

The combat arts appeared as names and techniques in my mind. I had access to Wrath Strike, which was within the realms of what I expected. But I also had access to Grounder, Bane of Monsters and Windsweep which didn't make a lot of sense. There was no way that I should have access to these combat arts when they had to be something that I only learned during the main story.

In the game, Byleth began at D rank in sword skills and only had access to the Wrath Strike Combat art. But almost as if I was on a new game plus save file, I had access to more than I should have. It took me embarrassingly long to figure out why that might be the case. As a game, Fire Emblem Three Houses needed to maintain balance so that a player didn't feel too overpowered. But in canon, Byleth was often compared to some of the best Knights of Serios. So by that logic, it made sense that I was actually on their level. The world didn't need balance if it was real.

Well, at least I knew where I stood regarding my sword skills. Time to figure out my other strengths.

"Hey Sothis, You awake?" I asked.

"Yes, I am," Sothis responded immediately. "What do you need?"

"I want to start learning the powers we share. Any chance you can teach me how to control my crest?" I asked.

Sothis didn't respond immediately. I could see her floating off to the side with a contemplative look as she tried to figure out how our crest worked. She hadn't regained any of her memories despite me sharing the truth about her identity but I had a feeling that she'd be able to figure it out.

"Activating the Crest of Flames is simple," She began eventually. "But using it is complicated. Our crest has many applications, it can restore your vitality, protect your weapons from sustaining damage, increase your offensive power and even prevent enemies from attacking.

"It has more applications outside of combat as it is the power that belongs to the progenitor god," Sothis continued. "To myself."

"Yeah. I figured that much," I said. "But how do I actually use it?"

"Crests can be activated under reaction to certain stimuli. Anger and fear are strong emotions that can activate any crest," Sothis explained. "But if you can keep your emotions in check and reach within yourself and bring the power to the front you will you will be able to control it."

"That doesn't actually help me with activating the crest," I deadpanned. "What do you want me to do, get angry and swing my sword at a tree?"

"Just focus on finding the power within you," Sothis instructed. "Locate it and bring it out as if you are finding your breath."

"I would like to point out how vague that is," I muttered.

"Stop complaining and try!" Sothis snapped.

I decided to shut my mouth and tried to activate my crest. I focused on 'finding my breath' as Sothis instructed hoping it would awaken the power inside me. All that happened was that I ended up with a coughing fit. Somehow I had forgotten to breathe during that exercise.

I tried again for a few minutes before I decided to take a different approach. Since most crests had a strong emphasis on combat, maybe swinging my sword might help me to activate the damn thing. The crest was stubbornly silent when I trained.

It had been about two hours of trying different things when I decided to give up on trying for the day. There hadn't been so much as a flare-up of my crest and I was getting annoyed at trying without any results. I considered asking Jeralt to teach me how to activate my crest but I quickly discarded that idea. It occurred to me that I had no way of knowing that he had a crest.

"You could always say that your crest activated during the recent battle and one of its passive abilities allows you to detect the crests in others," Sothis added. "It's not completely inaccurate after all."

"Wait really?" I asked.

"Yes. That night I awoke, I could detect the greater blessing of the Sky Dragon Sign within him." Sothis responded. "In another one of the mercenaries, oh what was his name again, Joseph,"

"Johnathan," I corrected.

"Yes him. He bears the lesser blessing of the Water Dragon Sign," Sothis said. "And the child of the Viscount, she bears the minor blessing of the Earth Dragon Sign."

"That's the Crest of Serios, Indech and Cihol I think," I muttered. "Huh, I didn't know you could detect crests in others."

"It makes sense. If I am truly the progenitor god as you say, then all the crests come from me. It only makes sense that I'd be able to detect them," Sothis added.

"Alright, I'll try asking my dad," I responded.

It was still weird to say. In a way, he had always been my father, the only father I had ever known but in another, he was just my dad in this current lifetime. My personality and identity weren't just inhabiting Byleth's body, it had just been asleep within my body for years. Jeralt was both my dad and only recently my dad because of this and calling him dad when I still remembered my dad's face from my past life was weird but also normal. I couldn't explain clearer than that even if I wanted to.

Regardless I set off to try and find him. Luckily he wasn't that hard to find. Jeralt Eisner was a creature of habit. If he wasn't fighting, he was having a drink and if he wasn't doing either of those two things, then he was probably dead. Okay, maybe that was a bit of an oversimplification of his habits. But anyway I found him in the tavern with a drink in hand as he looked over some maps.

He was specifically looking at maps of the Kingdom around the western regions. I had a feeling that our next job would take us out to Faerghus.

"Ahh, there you are," he said as I approached. "We had wondered where you wandered off to."

"I wanted to get some training in," I responded. "Actually, I was hoping you'd help me with that."

"What's wrong kid, want to learn more combat arts?" Dad asked.

"Not exactly," I said. "Something a little different this time."

"You finally want to learn to wield a lance?" Dad asked.

"Tempting but no," I said as I sat down. "During the last battle, something interesting happened. There was a flash of light and a crest floated in front of me. After that, I could tell that my crest had manifested and I could also tell that you had one. The Crest of Serios, I think. I was hoping you'd teach me how to use my crest."

Dad stared at me as if I had just grown a second head. Oh no, was Sothis visible? All jokes aside, his surprise was warranted. I wasn't supposed to know about crests until Hanneman would mention it to me at the start of the game, which as previously stated was still two years away. Jeralt had done his absolute best to shield me from the church and its influence. He never even told me about his crest and I can only assume that when I never manifested the Crest of Serios as a child, he didn't have a reason to tell me. Wait until he learned that I had the same crest as Mom.

"You have the same Crest as Sitri?" Dad muttered in awe, surprise and perhaps fear.

Wait what?

"Wait What?" Sothis echoed.

"Come on kid," Dad said, his drink and the maps quickly forgotten. He stood up and walked out of the tavern and I hurried to follow him.

We walked in silence for a bit until we reached the outskirts of town. We had a brief detour where Dad picked up a small back from the inn we were staying at before we continued our walk. Only once we were a good bit away from the closest building did Dad speak again.

"When I first met your mother, I was a Knight of Serios," Dad began.

"You were a Knight of Serios?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"A lifetime ago," He continued. "You're mother was a simple nun back then. When she wasn't bedridden she helped with prayers and tended the gardens at the Monastery. I was walking past with an old friend and squire when she noticed me. She said that I felt like Lady Rhea, the Archbishop of the Church of Serios."

I was surprised by how much Dad was revealing. He always kept his secrets close to his chest. In the original games, he only revealed some of the truth after being at the monastery for a few months and in Three Hopes, he only revealed the truth in the year 1182, two years after the start of the original Three Houses timeline. Now he was speaking freely, even about Rhea and serving as one of her knights after I prodded a bit.

As he spoke I could almost imagine the scene. My mom, young and impressionable, at one of the tea tables as my father walked past. I imagined her calling out to him and remarking on his Crest.

"Sitri had a unique crest, one which allowed her to accurately guess the Crests of others around her," Jeralt continued. "Now there were a bunch of people with the same Crest as me around the monastery. It's a popular crest for Imperial kids. But most if not all of them had minor crests, except me and Lady Rhea.

"And because of the circumstances on how I got my Crest, Sitri said we felt similar," Dad added.

He didn't elaborate on the circumstances around how he got his crest and I didn't pry. I already knew the answer to that particular experience. Well, Dad didn't know that I knew, but it's not something I needed an explanation for.

"She never told me what her Crest was," Dad said. "Only that it was incredibly rare and incredibly powerful. And looks like you inherited more than just her looks but some of her power as well."

Dad turned to face me before he held out his hand. Almost immediately a glowing small white glowing symbol appeared above his hands. The symbol was the Crest of Serios.

"I'm not sure if I'm the best teacher to show you how to use this," Dad said. "Unlike most people, I wasn't born with a crest. I got it later in my life. So it wasn't as easy as activating a dormant power within me. To activate my crest I had to pretend like I was using magic."

He didn't know it but I had a feeling that his experience would be exactly what I needed to activate my crest. Technically I had been born with innate power within me, but because I was also used to being a normal human without power, accessing it felt alien to me especially as I had never done it before as Byleth.

"Crests can trigger with your emotions but as long as you keep a cool head it will be easy to control," Dad said before he removed an item from the small bag that he carried. It was a small book.

"This tome was your mother's," Jeralt said. "As she was around many of the students she picked up on a bit of magic and she liked to use this tome to focus her magical ability. It has a few spells, and prayers for white magic."

He tossed the tome into my hand. And just holding it I could just imagine my mom smiling as she read through her tome while Dad talked with a knight that I couldn't imagine. It surprised me just how vivid my imagination was and how clearly I could just picture her sitting there reading this tome in the Knight's Hall at the monastery.

"Try a spell. And once you've got it, try doing the same thing to activate your crest." Dad instructed. "When I first activated my crest, doing this helped me."

"You know magic?" I asked as I opened the tome and began looking through it.

"Not entirely. A basic heal spell," Dad said. "Go ahead and try, it's alright if you don't pick it up immediately. It took me a while to pick up magic even with the instruction of…"

He didn't finish his sentence before a single fireball flew from my hand and into a wall. The fireball wasn't particularly strong but it was there all the same. A massive grin spread across my face as I realised that I had done it.

"Well, I'll be." Jeralt whistled in awe. "Not bad kid."

When this was only a game for me, I forgot that Byleth was also a prodigy. Everyone online would always talk about Edelgard being one of the greatest prodigies in Fódlan's history, Lysithea's incredible work ethic turning her into a deadly unit or Dimitri's natural strength that made hiking up a mountain in heavy armour carrying a boulder look easy. Among all these gifted characters, the protagonist of the game was considered a powerful and skilled unit in their own right and I was that unit with the same growth rates and apparent skills in magic.

I was tempted to try magic again. Maybe flip through the pages and find more spells to try but I restrained myself. I was here to learn how to use my crest, not spam magical attacks. I took a deep breath in and tried to replicate what I did with magic but instead drew on that power inside of me.

Almost immediately I saw a flash of green light as the symbol of the Crest of Flames appeared in front of my palm.

"Good job Byleth," Dad said with another whistle. "You're a natural."

"Thanks," I said with a grin on my face.

The crest vanished shortly after and I tried to give Dad back the tome but he stopped me.

"Keep it," he said. "Sitri would have wanted you to have it and as a mercenary any tool is worth keeping. You never know when a bit of magic might keep you alive."

"Thanks, Dad," I responded.

~00000~

Dad watched as I practised for a bit before he decided to return to the town for the evening. It was only when he was gone that Sothis decided to speak up again.

"You've gained two new skills to help you on your mission." She said. "But I sense that you aren't satisfied. You want more?"

"Yeah," I said. "I've got two years to master this. Any chance you want to teach me how to turn back the hands of time?"

Sothis appeared beside me, still invisible to anyone who might walk past.

"I thought you'd never ask." She responded with a confident smile.

CyberActors15: Another chapter done for this fun little fic. The training has begun and this version of Byleth is getting his bearings on how to control his power. If you enjoyed this chapter, feel free to leave a review also check out my Linktree (linktr dot ee /CyberActors15) for more of my story content. If you didn't like it, feel free to leave a review and tell me why. Feedback is always appreciated, and criticism only makes me a better writer. Until next time, peace!