The Broken Halo

Chapter 980 - 979: Happy Birthday [Magic Castle Bonus - ]

[This bonus Chapter is thanks to Monkk!!!!! Thank you so much man.]

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By the last night before his sixteenth birthday, Rowan could tell which healing potion Sir Luke was opening without looking.

He had learned to dread the one in the green bottle.

Fortunately for him, there was no bottle waiting for him tonight. The training equipment had been put away, and Celeste sat beneath the awning with Adrian while Luke checked the yard.

Rowan rubbed his wrist and remembered how confidently he had spoken about becoming like the Halo of Earth.

Luke hadn’t argued with him.

The following morning, he had fastened a weighted belt around Rowan’s waist and pointed toward the far wall.

”Run.”

That had been the easiest part.

Over the remaining days, Luke fitted weights to his wrists and ankles, then made him climb ropes, crawl beneath low bars, and drag an iron block around the yard. Inscriptions on the equipment let him increase the weight without changing its size.

Whenever Rowan began managing a weight, the block grew harder to pull.

His shoulders burned beneath the harness. His toes scraped against the floor as he leaned forward, struggling to move it another handspan.

”Keep going,” Luke called.

”I’m trying!”

”I can see that. Keep going. You’re not trying enough.”

Rowan hated hearing it by the end of the first morning.

The private yard could change to suit the lesson. Posts rose from the floor, forcing him to cross on narrow footholds while carrying a pole across his shoulders. Padded weights swung between them. Rowan could see the gaps, but his legs often failed to carry him through in time.

There was a time one caught his side and two of his ribs cracked.

Luke caught him before he hit the floor and lowered him beside the equipment.

Training stopped until the injury was treated. Then the weights were adjusted, the movements checked, and Rowan went back.

A fall during another exercise broke his wrist. His tendons strained under loads his freshly strengthened body couldn’t sustain. His palms split so often that he stopped trying to keep blood off the handles.

Celeste healed him whenever she was there. He would sit with his teeth clenched while warmth spread from her hands, watching the swelling recede.

When she was absent, Luke brought out the potions.

The green one knitted bone.

Rowan screamed the first time he drank it. The fractured edges seemed to grind against each other as they joined, and the pain travelled so deeply that he couldn’t tell where the injury ended.

Luke held his arm steady through it.

”You could have warned me!” Rowan gasped afterward.

”I did. You said you’d manage.”

”I didn’t know you meant that!”

Adrian handed him water, trying not to smile at the accusation in his face.

Soon Rowan feared the medicine more than some of the injuries.

There were moments when he wanted to throw the bottles away and tell Luke he was finished. Once, sitting with his back against a pillar, he began crying before he realised it. His arms hurt, his head hurt, and another day of the same thing seemed impossible.

Luke crouched beside him.

”Do you want to stop?”

Rowan opened his mouth.

He remembered his father’s hand reaching toward him. His mother beneath the wreckage. Blackmoon standing in the ruined square.

The boy wiped his face with his sleeve.

”Can I have a minute?”

Luke gave him one.

Then Rowan stood.

He slept for three hours a day. The other twenty-one were divided between training and eating, with quieter lessons filling the intervals while the medicine worked.

It was a schedule sustained by expensive restoratives and repeated healing. Without them, his unawakened body would have failed long before his birthday.

Luke kept food arriving throughout the day. Tender cuts of specially prepared beast meat, rich broths, eggs, and grains grown in Aether-rich fields filled Rowan’s plates. Everything had been chosen for a growing boy who couldn’t yet use Aether himself.

Rowan no longer needed encouragement to begin a meal.

Finishing it was another matter.

”I can’t eat any more,” he complained one evening.

Luke glanced at his plate.

”You said that before the last bowl.”

”And I meant it then too.”

”Take your time. We can discuss footwork while you finish.”

Rowan stared at him, then picked up his spoon.

The sword lessons were less spectacular than he had hoped.

Luke worked on his grip, the angle of his blade, how far he could reach without losing balance, and where his weapon should return after an attack. He made Rowan practise stopping a cut as carefully as starting one.

A chalk mark on a padded target became the most irritating object in the yard.

Rowan could strike it easily when fresh. After running with the iron block, his blade began landing around it instead.

Luke pointed at each miss.

”Again.”

”But I know how to do it. You know I’m exhausted!”

”Then do it while exhausted. Will your enemy pity you cause you’re tired?”

That took far longer than copying a new sequence.

He practised holding his guard when his shoulders shook, moving without crossing his feet, and turning a heavy blow aside instead of trying to stop it with strength he didn’t possess.

Luke also taught him to read the requirements of an art before attempting it.

Martial arts were divided into five broad grades: Low, Middle, High, Supreme, and Divine.

The grade helped indicate a method’s complexity and demands, but Rowan had to check its physical and Aether requirements separately.

”Never assume the movements are all there is,” Luke warned him, tapping an illustration in a manual. ”You can’t see the route the Aether takes by watching someone’s feet.”

Celeste’s sword-and-pistol art was High-grade.

Rowan looked up from the page.

”And she can use all of it?”

”She is a C-rank Demon Slayer. Level sixty-two.”

Rowan already knew she was powerful. What surprised him was learning that she was only seventeen.

”She awakened last year?”

”Yes,” Luke said. ”Her progress has attracted attention outside Aurelia as well. You aren’t the first person she’s surprised.”

Rowan examined the illustration again.

Luke closed the manual before he could study it too closely.

”That wasn’t permission to try.”

”I know, Master.”

The title had become natural before Rowan noticed he was using it.

By the final day, he could complete exercises that had left him on the floor when they began. His hands held their grip longer, and his legs no longer failed at the first opening he tried to reach.

He hadn’t acquired years of conditioning in a handful of days. Luke made certain he understood that.

But he had improved.

Even Adrian stopped offering a hand every time Rowan sat down.

Now the final night had arrived, and the absence of another command made him restless.

He had washed and changed after the last session. The little hole in his chest remained beneath his clean shirt, unaffected by the healing that had repaired everything else.

Celeste beckoned him toward the bench.

”Come and sit. You keep looking at the weapon rack.”

”I wasn’t going to practise,” Rowan said, smiling sheepishly.

”Good. I’d like you awake for your own birthday.”

Adrian laughed as Rowan joined them.

Sir Luke checked his watch.

”Five minutes left.”

Rowan sat straighter.

”Remember what I’ve taught you,” Luke continued. ”Don’t start experimenting the moment you feel Aether. Read what the System tells you, and give yourself time to understand it.”

”Yes, Master.”

Celeste met Rowan’s eyes. He remembered the warning she had brought to his room.

The One.

Whatever happened, he had promised to listen.

The minutes passed with very little conversation. Rowan rubbed his hands together, then made himself stop. For months, he had imagined this night with his parents beside him.

His father would have asked about every word on the status window.

His mother would probably have asked whether it hurt.

He swallowed and looked toward the clock.

”One minute,” Adrian said.

Celeste reached for Rowan’s hand.

”Happy birthday, Rowan.”

He looked at her, caught between a smile and the ache in his throat.

”Thank you, Saintess. For being here too.”

”Where else would we be?”

Sir Luke rested a hand on his shoulder.

”Happy birthday, boy. You’ve worked hard.”

Rowan’s smile widened at that.

”Thank you, Master.”

”And from me,” Adrian added. ”Though I’m not carrying you upstairs if you decide to celebrate with another spar.”

”I won’t,” Rowan said with a laugh. ”Thank you, Adrian.”

He looked at the three people gathered around him.

Then the clock changed.

Rowan caught his breath as something stirred deep inside his body. Light appeared before his eyes, forming letters that remained when he blinked.

[System awakened]