The Beginning Of The Ruler
Chapter 06: Climb Up The Mountain

I don't know if his goal is to defeat the common sense of the child he suspects has an inflated ego because he hears me sort of genius or whether he is really trying to gauge my strength, but with the satisfied grin he had. On his face while looking at me (Even if it was natural for him to physically look down at me, it still irritates me), I assumed it was probably for the previous reason.

Taking the wooden sword I received as a gift from my parents, I walked to the edge of the camp where Anton was waiting near a small clearing.

"You know how to strengthen your weapon, don't you, genius?" he asked, emphasizing the last word.

At this moment, my father already sensed that Anton was just trying to show dominance to his son, but he was just watching, knowing he wouldn't hurt me too much.

Thank you so much dear father.

My mother seemed a little more anxious as she kept glancing forward and backward between me, Anton and my father, holding tightly onto her husband's sleeves.

Well at least mom's here to heal me if I get hurt, right?

I focused my gaze on Anton, who was only about 5 meters away from me. The shadow of my past life, dueling with other kings with my country and loved ones at stake, popped into my head. My eyes narrowed, limiting my vision to only the man in front of me. He is an opponent now.

I put Mana into my feet and ran forward with both of my hands clasping the wooden sword on my right…

His haughty appearance was still there, Anton was preparing to block my horizontal swing as I feigned and used the special footwork I developed in my old world that I used to duel. Almost instantly, I blinked one foot diagonally to his right. Curse this body! I could not execute the skill perfectly due to the difference in height and weight compared to my old body. I was not used to this 40 pounds, 110cm body. While I didn't reach the area I was headed to, unfortunately for Anton, he had already prepared his wooden stick to block my swing from the other direction so that his right side was unprotected.

His overbearing appearance disappeared and was replaced by a shocked expression, with his eyes wide open, as he realized what was about to happen.

Swinging my wooden sword to its exposed ribs, I strengthened my wooden sword with mana at the last moment to save my mana, as I knew I must have been harmed against a veteran like him.

The shocked expression on Anton lasted only a split second before he twisted his right leg at an almost inhuman speed. I crouched down in time to avoid his swing upwards and changed my stance from thrust to swivel punch and landed a punch on his left ankle using all my momentum. His ankle gave up at that moment, making Anton lose his balance.

Or so I thought.

He actually did a full split, followed by a sweep of the locomotive with his feet as soon as he was on the ground.

This body would not be able to take such a blow, so I jumped to avoid his legs when, from my view, I saw a brown glint from his wooden stick.

With no time to use the blade to hold the swing, I thrust the handle of my sword, setting the time for Anton's wooden stick and the tip of my handle to collide.

Newton's Third Law of Motion suddenly came to mind.

For each action, there is an equally large and opposite directional reaction

And boys are the opposite painful reaction. While I managed to block the blow, my 4-year-old body was unable to withstand the force of the blow and I flew before gliding gracefully on the ground like a flat rock in a lake.

Fortunately, I strengthened my entire body before I received a blow or I would be severely injured.

While groaning, I sat down and rubbed my throbbing head. I looked up, only to see seven dumbfounded faces staring at me.

My mother recovered first, shaking her head. He rushed towards me and immediately muttered a healing spell around my body.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Dicky hit Anton on the head with enough force to make him stumble forward. Heh~

"Baby, are you okay? How you feeling?"

"I'm fine Mom, don't worry."

Anton's voice cuts, "Not taught him how to fight my ass! How do you train this little monster?" he groaned, still rubbing his head.

"I didn't teach him that" my father muttered.

She shook herself out of a stupor and came to my side to ask if I was okay. I just nodded my head.

My father lifted me up and gently lowered me back to where I was sitting before and squatted down in front of me so that he was level with the eyes.

"Art, where did you learn to fight like that?"

Deciding to pretend not to know, I said, putting on an indifferent face, "I learned by reading books and paying attention to father."

I don't think of saying, "Hey father, I am the representative of the Duelist King of my country from a world where diplomatic and international matters are resolved by battle. I happen to be reincarnated as your son .. Surprise," will get a warm welcome.

"Sorry to have made you rude there, little buddy. I didn't expect I would need to use that much power to get you off me."

Seeing Anton apologize gives me a little better impression of him. I guess he's not a total jerk.

I heard a faint voice from my side. "Your fighting style. How did you make that move after the trick?"

Waw! Two full sentences! It was the longest string of words Viona had spoken throughout the journey so far.

I feel very honored.

I reset my mind before trying to explain gradually what I was doing.

“It's really a simple technique. Since I was falsifying to Mr. Krush's right side, I placed my right foot forward as the last step before the trick. There I focused my mana directly on the right foot, pushing myself backwards, and at the same time I carried my left foot back to the right, it pointed towards the corner in the direction I wanted to go, focusing mana onto my left leg this time around, but with greater power than when I used mana on my right so that I did not push myself. Back off instead of the direction I really wanted to go."

That's one breath.

I looked around to see Anton, Helen, and even my father heading out into the open, trying to test what I had just explained.

When I turned to face Viona, I only saw her back as she rushed towards the open as well.

Mom sat down next to me, patting my head with a gentle smile on her face that seemed to say, "You did well." Angel came to me too, buried my face, or rather my whole head, in his chest, cheerfully exclaiming, "Funny AND talented isn't it? Why can't you be born early so this brother can snatch you? by yourself!"

Blushed, I broke away from the breast that I suspected had its own gravitational pull. That ... guns are dangerous.

My guardian angel, Dicky, was much calmer about all this and just gave me a thumbs up. He's so cool.

The night passed when the four idiots spent most of the time trying to master the deceptive move while I slept in the tent with Mother.

_________________________________________

A few days passed when we finally made it to the foot of the Grand Mountains, which of course lives up to its name.

Along the way, only Helen managed to put down her pride and ask me for clarification on that deceptive move. I discussed it slowly, explaining the time interval between the last right leg and the left leg should be and how to properly balance the mana output to both feet so that you can go in the direction you are heading. The entire time, I could almost see the ears of the other three idiots getting bigger as they tried to suck up the Information I gave him, nodding while making mental notes.

The first one to succeed was Viona. He looked like a cold and genius type. I guess that's true.

She pulled me aside one day, almost blushing, as I took reading and writing lessons in the back of the train with mom and asked me to watch.

We had to stop for a while so that the carriage wouldn't leave us. After successfully demonstrating the deceptive move to me, I clapped my hands while saying, "Excellent! you learned it very quickly!"

It's one of the most basic techniques I've developed, but I won't tell him that.

She answered briefly by saying, "That's nothing", but the curvature of her lips upwards and the small twitch on her nose showed otherwise.

Haha, he's happy.

By the time we arrived at the foot of the Great Mountain Range, the four idiots had managed to learn the technique, changing it slightly to suit their own fighting style.

The next trip was to climb the mountain. Fortunately, there was a path around the two wide carriages surrounding the mountain, eventually leading to the teleportation gate at the peak.

The front carriage included Dicky, holding the reins at the front, with father beside him to accompany him. This train holds most of our luggage. Helen was currently sitting on top of the second carriage, which I was riding in, looking for any abnormalities. Angel sat in the back carriage with my mother and me, while Anton walked behind us, just in case. While Viona was driving the carriage, I kept noticing how she looked back and looked at me, almost making an *jiii* sound*. Did he expect me to show you another technique or something? Every time I met his gaze, he quickly turned his head back to the front.

Does he have five?

Speaking of age, I turned 4 in the first leg of our trip to the foot of the Grand Mountains. I don't know when Mom prepared the cake, or where she even put it (Or if it was edible!), but I didn't complain, smiled broadly, and thanked her and everyone. While everyone was giving me hugs or pats on the back, Viona surprised me as she gave me a short knife, simply stating, "Present."

Wow he cares! I want to cry.

Fortunately, our trip up the mountain was pretty smooth. I spent a lot of my time reading my book on Mana manipulation, trying to find more differences between mana and Qi. So far, it seems very similar except that, in rare cases, the use of which an Augimenter can take on the properties of an element. Reading on, I noticed that for beginners who are able to dabble in this, it is not as different as you might see when Magician cast spells, but more like the quality of each different element.

For example, an Augimenter, assuming he has an innate compatibility with Fire, would have a Mana that indicates the quality of the explosion when used. Water will naturally have a smooth and flexible quality. The earth will have a solid and rigid quality. Finally, Wind/Wind will have a sharp blade quality.

Thats odd. Back in my old world, this quality in Qi has nothing to do with the elements, but rather depends on how you use your Qi. Shaping the Qi into points and edges will give him what is called the "Wind Elements", while saving your Mana into a single point and blowing it up at the last moment will give him the "Fire Elements" and so on. Sure, practitioners have preferences and are naturally better at practicing one style than another, but I wouldn't say that it's rare. Only the most basic use of Qi involved strengthening the body and weapons.

I have to test this with where in the future. Being trapped in a 4-year-old body with constant supervision by a suspicious adult makes exercise very hard.

I continued reading when suddenly, the alert voice of Helen's screams rang out in my ears.

"BANDITS! PREPARE TO GET INVOLVED!" he shouted, as the rumbling sounds of footsteps came from our right and back.

"Make it, O'wind and follow my will. I command and gather you to protect. Wind Barrier!" Instantly I felt a gust of wind forming a tornado around Mom, Angel, and me. Then it bends into a ball around us.

Angel stretched out her wand, concentrating on keeping the barrier active while the arrows constantly bombarded the barrier, only to be directed in different directions.

My mother pulled me closer, trying to protect me using her body from anything that might happen. Fortunately, his efforts did not seem necessary as the barrier remained strong.

Within seconds, the tarp covering the carriage was torn apart and I could see the situation better.

We are completely surrounded.

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