The first few days of my new regimen felt like hell.
If I thought the head butler was a demon king, young master's personal trainer was a Demon god.
Not only did he mock every single form my body took, he adapted so inhumanly fast I couldn't even understand when I was beaten black and blue. As for the rapier he directly told me to forget about it.
He took one glance at my attacks and dismissed it entirely, the next moment he pushed a jian in my hand and said to deal with it.
When I said "isn't this just a chunkier rapier?" My arms were cut clean and during the healing process I was forced to listen to the history of the jian while being beaten with a wooden stick mirroring the movements he decided were perfect for my strange body requirements.
I hated that the man was right.
I wanted to use a mace just to prove the bastard wrong, but when even I could tell the difference was like night and day…
I just choked on my hatred and promised to play pranks on him until he died.
My magic studies however… they soared to the skies.
I was able to study what parts of the human brain were responsible for the illusions I was trying to create.
How to trick them with wave vibrations, chemical reactions and all that was needed to get the work done.
I was also able to differentiate between illusions and hallucinations.
The subtlety of illusions was definitely more elegant and precise that I initially thought.
For illusions, a sensory input does exist, they are simply caused by an error in the reception of those imputs.
The ability to fool those receptors solely through the use of the [illusion] rune was addicting, but the possibility to further manipulate everything else with runes like [confusion], [unbalance], [vibration] and [reaction] was on another level altogether.
The first thing I did was revisit the attack version of [Foxfire].
With my newfound understanding of illusions as concepts and the better use of runes, I was even able to completely remove the risk of lasting mental trauma.
It was exhilarating, how my butler shadow would fall in agony and screeches on the ground, only to find himself standing up without understanding what had really happened, the pain completely forgotten.
Truly a fake fire in the brain.
Next was the touch illusion.
This was slightly more difficult, especially since I needed to create a few of these since I wasn't able to command the kind of touch my spell would simulate with my willpower alone, I was sure eventually I would, but probably my lacking experience with human interactions showed in this experiment the most.
Interferring with the somatosensory cortex, I was only able to create the sensation of having your arms cut off, or your hands… or generally being beaten up, since that seemed the only thing I was experiencing those days.
I named those spells [Faker's cut] and [Faker's punch].
Those too were completely free of lasting trauma effects… if I dispelled the magic within a few seconds at most, after that it depended on the individual's mental power.
But what about the instinct I was so afraid of? It developed alright. Sadly, even after experiencing it in my own body, I wasn't able to tackle it with magic, but I did discover there was a lot to be linked to intentions, which is why I also started training my thought process during the daily beat- training to mask or if possible erase my intentions.
Unlucky the Demon God noticed my effort and stopped pulling punches altogether.
If it wasn't for miss. Anne, the unending food I was forced to chow down for my taste illusions and my disillusioned mind, I was sure I'd be dead as of now.
Sure the resulting fruits were delicious, but the effort put in? I wasn't sure it matched the results.
I was able to attack the bastard with a [Faker's cut], but as a result I had all my bones broken because I used magic during physical training.
And so my training continued.
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"He's really absurd. Are we sure he has 0 royal blood?"
"We are sure Patriarch, the divine spirits of Disorder confirmed he has the mana and the rune, but not the blood."
"This doesn't make sense elders, his talent is on par with Yom and the other heirs, without even taking in consideration his knacks for magic."
There was silence after that sentence, a heavy one, filled with questions and doubts.
What was not a doubt anymore, was that [mirage] magic was well on his way to be officially born.
"We also think he must have inherited some kind of skill or knowledge from his original parents, there's no other way his [mirage] magic is this advanced. It can't be just a matter of understanding."
"He sure does, but that's just much better. If he can create the rune for [mirage] that's just better for all of us."
It was the 7th day of training, but Crow had not been satisfied with creating the [sound mirage] he promised to create.
No, the bastard had actually managed to create a mirage or two for all 5 senses in barely a week.
With limitations of course, but that was already out of the world level of understanding.
"In the first day he created the sound [mirage]: [Pretender] and perfected it in the second day, he can now hold entire conversations saying nothing at all." One of the elders said with a thoughtful look.
"He then went and reformed his mental attack spell [Foxfire] and after even I don't know what kind of enlightenment he received he was able to remove lasting trauma from his spells. That in itself is scary as fuck."
"Yeah, imagine losing a duel with him and being exited to begin the fight, only for the referee to announce your loss."
"Let's not forget how that shadow, even if merely a Walker, had been trained from the day he was born."
Everyone was speechless.
Not only Crow had demonstrated that he could keep his end of the deal, he didn't give a fuck about pacing.
He wanted everything and he wanted it as soon as possible.
"Is it some kind of pride at play here?"
"I don't know, but he keeps calling his instructor some form of demons without realising he's a demon of magic himself."
"It's still kind of depressing that even after all those delicious foods his first taste [mirage] is called [Fraud's starvation]."
Again, not a sound could be heard in the room. To think that a young man such as Crow could have such a deep understanding of starvation was unsettling.
But then they thought of the [Faker] series of spells they had witnessed and their usefulness in battle quickly brought up the mood.
"That last spell however… it will be the bane of existence of every teacher at the academy."
"Can you imagine making and entire class smell like blood? And we know he will do it, in multiple occasions."
"[Deceiver's profume] together with [Faker's cut] and I think he could even convince a Trailer that he lost an arm."
Well, the week of preparations was completed, now it was time to host the banquet for the 12 heirs sign a non killing contract between them and…
"PATRIARCH! DID YOU EVEN TELL HIM THAT HE'S BEEN ADOPTED?"
"Oh…"
A collective face palm echoed in the room.
It was so like their Duke to forget this small, but monumental detail.
"Call for my adopted son."
A single rustle sounded in acknowledgment and they waited.
They saw how the bastard son got angry for being interrupted during his night studies, but resisted the temptation to kill the shadows urging him to move at the mention of the patriarch.
In a few minutes there he was, in all his madness and clear discontent.
He didn't even bother to mask his unwillingness to be bothered.
"I have only a few minutes, I need to fuse [Pretender] with at least a portion of [Mirrormonger] or in case the Heir of Love is smart, he could still read my lips!"
"[Mirrormonger]?"
"I'm jealous of a shifter's ability to change appearance and I will make it mine one way or the other."
Everyone thought the same thing at that moment.
This young man is too greedy for magic.