In this world, Magic is Everything. All people, all races, are granted with the power to perform mystical and magical feats via grimories, mystical tomes granted to each and every child on their 15th birthday. Those blessed by the mana can have their names written down in legend.
Shattered Grimoires is the work of the mind(s) of Ardere & Shattered Grimoire's staff. All characters and content are copyright their creators, and may not be replicated without their creators' permission. Black Clover is owned by Yuki Tabata and published by Viz Shonen Jump. All images belong to their original owners. The theme you are currently viewing was made by Eliza of ElizaCodes exclusively for Shattered Grimoires.
As a new member of the Crimson Lions, there were quite a few things that had changed with regards to how Griswold had been living up until this point. In a time that had long since passed, he had always lived off of the land in a village grown from massive trees within the neutral zone. Because of their placement at the very border of a strong magic region, there were a lot of things one might encounter that they would never expect. Creatures that had been warped and changed due to living in constant exposure to wild mana, generations of altered evolution causing even ordinary creatures such as wolves, rats, bugs and birds into hulking monstrosities and very capable opponents that could kill even some of the most battle-hardened and well-trained hunters and huntresses. Compared to those men and women, he had been but a scrub at the time, something he had been very well aware of.
Even now that he had gone through the customs of this country and obtained a grimoire, as well as going through the trials of the magic knight selection procedure, he was still nowhere near their level of expertise and magic control. Ever since he had started living on the Cromwell farm in the forsaken realm, it had become increasingly obvious to him that surviving in the human world was a whole lot different. It was tough, but it was tough for different reasons altogether. In his original home, one had to fend of monstrosities bred by magic and strife, which was obviously not the case in these places that at times just felt devoid of magic entirely. No, these humans had entirely different problems, one such problem being the system that seemed to heavily favor those in positions of power, the so called “nobles” of the country.
In and around the magic capital, possessing magic and wealth seemed to go hand in hand with one another, which was not something that sat well with the Crimson Lion. After all, the further one moved away from the capital, the more one started reaching for the places where people struggled because they did not possess a lot of mana, did not possess a lot of money, or simply struggled from a lack of both. It was quite sad as the people living in the village near the farm do not have a lot of money, just like the farm itself had almost no money to spare if they wanted to be able to provide for their cattle and still be able to farm and sell their crops. The intention to help one another was there, as had become evident when they picked his lifeless body off of the street and brought him in.
Repaying their initial kindness for saving his life by preventing a raid on their farm, Griswold had made the decision to do more for the farm and the villagers than just hanging around as a farmhand. He knew that, as the person with the most mana by far among the villagers, he was perhaps the only one that could make it into the magic knights. With that kind of salary, he could send back whatever money he didn’t need to the farm and make sure they would be able to make it through another winter. Though his aspirations did not end there. If he could provide them with enough money, they could perhaps expand the farm by farming more crops and expanding on their cattle. As such a thing would require more than just Emery, Henrik and Paige, it would mean hiring additional farmhands.
Obviously, this would provide others from the village that had little to no income whatsoever to benefit from the wellbeing of the farmlands. This was what the dream outcome would be in Griswold’s head, though there was no telling as to whether this was actually something he would be able to realize in the future. As things were now, he did not know how much money he would make on a monthly basis, he did not know what it would take to climb the ranks and make bigger earnings, there was no telling whether the villagers would want to get on board with his plans of expanding the farm and giving everyone jobs and many, many other factors that simply made knowing what the outcome would be next to impossible for someone lacking the ability of future sight. And as that was not one of the few abilities he had, all he could do was guess and hope.
Sitting on the corner of his bed, Griswold was pondering on what needed to be done today as he repeated the process of lowering and raising a single dumbbell with his right arm. During his spare time, there were really no excuses to not do some form of physical training as it did not necessarily require a whole lot of space. Had he been meaning to practice his magic, doing so in an enclosed space with blankets and drapes would most likely not be the brightest of ideas. Speaking of blankets, the bed he was able to enjoy now that he was a magic knight were on a whole other level than the one he had been sleeping in during his stay at the farm. While it certainly beat having to sleep on the cold floor during his journey up to the royal capital, the beds at the farm had certainly seen better days.
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Last Edit: Mar 1, 2021 16:32:11 GMT -5 by Griswold
Switching arms so his right one could get a bit of rest, he thought about the magic knight qualification fight and how things could very well have taken a different turn. During his fight, he had been put up against a rather capable mage that utilized different kinds of flowers and plants. While relatively fast and covering quite a bit of ground, it was due to the fact that Griswold could quite easily burn through the defensive structures the man created while burning down the vines that got too close for comfort that he eventually took the win after about a solid two minutes of fighting. Perhaps he had wasted some time, though he believed that it was very important to properly assess the threat before showing his cards and making a play that could win him the match. As was often the case with magic, there was no telling whether someone was holding back any trump cards.
Had he fought with more grace, had he ended it sooner, perhaps he could have caught the eye of some of the other magic squads as well. While he knew that most would not even spit in his direction due to the fact that he was from the forsaken realm and did not have a drop of noble blood in his veins, the fact that some of the captains and nobles looked away the moment they heard where he was from was enough to add to his distaste for nobility in this land, or any land for that matter. Wrapping up his arm workout and putting the dumbbell underneath his bed, he made sure the sheets were in order and fluffed up his pillow before leaving the room. Though it felt like unneeded luxury, if someone of higher standing were to inspect his room during his absence, he at the very least wanted the place to look neat and not bring any shame upon him.
Wandering through the Crimson Lion headquarters, it was at times hard to fully grasp how he had even made it here in the first place. But that did not matter now. As a new recruit, or a Junior of the fifth rank, which was just about as low as one could be within the order, there were many things that needed to be done if he was to prove himself worthy of making promotions and thus earning more money to send back to the farm. As a commoner, there was not a whole lot about him that really stood out about his background as he had willingly chosen to sign up with the name Griswold Cromwell, rather than as Solarian Shadesinger. This was not because he wished to deceive people, but because of the fact that as an elf and a commoner from the forsaken realm, things would be hard enough without adding fuel to such ideas in people if they constantly heard a non-human name.
That, and the name Griswold served as a constant reminder that he had been saved by the Cromwells after he had lost everything and had been left practically at the brink of death. By all means, he was Griswold Cromwell just as much as he was Solarian, so which name he went with did not matter a whole lot to him personally. Besides, hearing his last name called out by the other members of the Lions served as a constant reminder that he had people to protect, people that relied on him to send back a portion of his cash so they could one day escape the clutches of poverty and make something of their lives. Once he left the compound and ventured into the city, he tried not to draw too much attention at himself by making sure he left his Crimson Lion cloak on a coat hanger in his room.
In his free time, he did not want to have to deal with anything that he might be able to avoid, such as the unwanted attention of being a magic knight. Today was for training, and with that thought in mind, he passed by the bakery to get a loaf of bread and hit up the butcher for a nice cut of beef and a lettuce from the produce stand. Placing it all into his pack, Griswold made his way out of the city at record speed, heading into the countryside and looking for a place that had fresh water and was removed from any shrubbery or trees that he might burn down during training. At this point, he did not actually possess any spells that he was aware of, aside from the one on the very first page of his grimoire that had allowed him to win his qualification fight against the plant magic user.
The spell that had been introduced to him as simply “firebolt” was a simple enough one to pull off. All it really took was for him to point his hand or finger into a direction and just let go of his mana. The resulting bolt of flame was relatively fast, did a decent amount of damage and could certainly cause some incredibly painful burns on contact, this much he had seen during the fights. Knowing that the damage he could inflict was quite decent of someone at his level that had only recently acquired his grimoire, there were other factors that required more effort from him if he was to become more effective at using it in real battles. This time, there were one or more healers on the side that would make almost any kind of wounds disappear. But when he was out in the field, being able to blindly rely on others to heal him might not work.
Hell, the chances of there even being a healer around, let alone one that could get to him in time if he were to be grievously injured were likely to be nihil. He could never let it come to that, so he needed to be able to better control the mana he had and the spell he currently had in his possession and make the most of it. Maybe if his mastery of this one spell were to reach a certain level, he’d get that much closer to unlocking another one that could aid him on the field of battle. For the time being though, just this one would be enough as he reached his destination. A quite piece of flowing water running between two barren banks littered with rocks and stone of various sizes. This would be the perfect place for him to continue his training, of this he was certain.
Gathering various rocks of different sizes and setting them up on the other bank, he stood on the other with his finger pointed towards them like a gun. Believing target practice would be a good place to start with this kind of controlled mana weaving, Griswold did his best to quiet his mind as he closed one eye. Once he was ready, he shot a bolt of fire from the tip of his index finger, sending it across the water and chipping off a small portion of the rock he shot it at. Barely hitting the mark at the uppermost corner, it seemed that accurately firing his magic at a distance of ten meters posed some difficulty after all. On the other hand, getting to see how fast his bolt moved was something he had never been able to pay attention to just yet, so that at the very least was something new he’d just learned about himself.
But just because the first shot he fired did not go entirely as he had hoped did not mean that he had to give up already and make the distance between him and his mark smaller. With the clear and present goal being to hit the mark from increasingly larger distances, moving closer would be the opposite of what he wanted to achieve, and that was not the way he had learned to act from his former mentor. Parnomir had been a real asshole to him at times, making fun of him and cracking jokes just to get a rise out of him, though there was no talking around the fact that he truly did know what he was doing. But that much was to be expected when one spoke about a member of the hunters responsible for the safety of the settlement. And even among those, he had been something else.
Along with his own mother, Parnomir had been one of the longest sitting members of the hunter corps in charge of protecting the settlement and training the next generation of hunters and huntresses. Many of their generation had eventually been felled over time due to the strong magic region bordering their settlement and providing them with the natural mana with which to quickly grow large quantities of food. The Shadesingers had always known that living there posed problems, and that they needed ample protection towards dealing with whatever threats might emerge from the magic region. As even rats that started dwelling there might become hulking, ravenous monstrosities within a generation’s time, the hunters were not just a luxury. Though they did not need to intervene very often, when they were called upon, it was always to deal with a life-or-death situation. And if the hunters failed, many would lose their lives.
It was because of these facts that Griswold had always had a hard time with the fact that the entire settlement and all of the people had all just disappeared one day. No remnants of architecture or clothing, no bodies or signs up struggle, just a deep crater in the forest floor without anything to go on. How so many trained mages and warriors had been caught up in whatever it was that got them all sent away or killed or whatever it was that happened to them, all without anyone knowing a thing about what was coming seemed incredibly unlikely. Being one of the few things that managed to keep him up at night, or just send a couple of haunting nightmares his way, the Crimson Lion hoped that he would one day get an answer to his question and would learn what had happened to his people. For the time being though, that would have to wait.
Until by some twist of fate, some credible piece of information would find its way into his hands, there was exactly nothing he could do towards figuring out what happened that he had not already tried. At the time, he had been searching the neutral zone, the forsaken realm and the fringes of the strong magic region, leaving him on the verge of dying due to malnourishment and dehydration. Not encountering even the faintest clue as to what might have happened or where they might have gone, going back now or in the future without any credible leads would just present him with the exact same results. And that was why he would instead focus on turning himself into a more powerful magic knight, as doing so would actually let him help someone on the shorter term of things. Changing his footing, he turned his gaze back to the rocks on the other side of the stream.
Pointing his finger at it, he angled it just a bit more to the left in hopes of this being what would make the difference. Releasing a shot of flame that quickly crossed the distance from him to the rock, it crashed into it and blew out a larger chunk of rock. Hitting much closer to the center than his first attempt, he fired a second shot that hit almost the exact same spot. What this meant was that his spell’s trajectory was not all that affected by natural winds, as might be the case with bow and arrow or with a slingshot. Though silly to some, these were all things Griswold really did not know a thing about as he had only ever used a magical dagger to funnel his mana into when he needed to do battle. Aside from that, all he had ever really been doing was studying, farming or doing physical exercises to become a stronger individual.
Now that he was starting to figure out how this spell thing worked, he started changing hands, firing shots at the various rocks he had planted without taking a long time to aim. More often than not, his shots were not exactly right on the money, though they still either hit the rock on the outer edges or just barely flew past them. Maybe he was getting into the overall vibe of slinging about bolts of fire, though he did not really care a whole lot about his aim still being somewhat off. If he did not cast his spell from over ten meters, chances of him still missing his target were slim anyway. And given how fast the spell could be cast and moved from point A to B, maybe this simply was not the kind of long-distance spell to begin with. Pointing and shooting at random targets, the use of magic started becoming more and more normal.
It was only natural, as the more something became used, the more it became normalized, that much was something everyone knew to be true. As it turned out, Emery Cromwell had been correct when he stated how Griswold had more mana than most of the people that lived in the forsaken realm, barely feeling it when he used the firebolt spell. While it obviously drained him, there was no point in holding back as that would just be detrimental to the training exercise, or so he figured. Again, he had no idea how these kinds of things worked as he was mostly unfamiliar when it came to doing magic like the people in the clover country had grown accustomed to over the decades. One thing he noticed as he practiced his magic was that his tome had started glowing as it floated alongside him, orbiting him like a moon would a planet.
Believing that it was doing so by itself as he could not feel the drain of mana like he could feel it being drawn from him whenever he cast a firebolt, it made him wonder who was responsible for making these things or how they seemingly possessed magical properties all on their own. All he knew for certain was that it could not possibly be a natural occurrence as books were by all means not alive, though they could have been books that had been warped by mana. He had seen how that kind of thing worked on animals living in the strong magic region, though such a thing took several years before it became notable. Even so, that was the case with animals, meaning it could either take longer or affect it way faster on account of it being an inorganic, non-living object.
While it sounded unlikely, the idea of someone having made these grimoires and knowing exactly who would come to pick up which one, probably hundreds of years ago seemed even more outlandish. Whatever the case was, the more he started pondering on the subject, the more questions that came up without being able to receive their proper conclusion. Sighing deeply as he let the subject go, he took a deep breath in before taking aim and guiding more of his mana towards the tip of his fingers and firing not one, but two successive shots in rapid succession. Due to the rate at which the second had popped out in the same salvo, only the first went straight as the second went somewhat up into the air above the mark and evaporated. Staring at the tip of his finger with a dumb expression on his face, he wondered how he had just done that.
Judging by what he could sense of his remaining mana, he had not exactly expelled enough mana to cast the same spell twice at the same time. Thinking about it, he was quite certain that he wouldn’t even be capable of such a thing if he tried, meaning he would put it on his to do list for later. Brushing it off as a one time accident, he decided that the time had come for a little break. It was for this exact moment that he had stopped by several stores to get fresh lettuce, a freshly baked bread that was still hot to the touch at the time of purchase, as well as a tender section of salted beef. Not being the kind of person that would bring silverware on a training trip, he just tore the bread in two halves with his hands before pulling off some sections of lettuce.
Putting the entire slice of beef between the two halves of bread, he topped it off with the portions of lettuce and pushed the two halves together. Bringing it to his mouth, he bit a large chunk out and began chewing. As the combined three flavors were mingling together in his mouth, he closed his eyes as he savored every second of it. Because of his upbringing, Griswold hadn’t been all that used to eating meat on account of it not exactly fitting with the philosophy of the Shadesinger clan. The large gardens they had that were governed by skilled plant mages such as his own father allowed them to grow so many fruits, vegetables and fungi in so little time that actually hunting and killing animals was not required for them to live decent lives. In fact, the only time they ever got to eat “some” meat was when the settlement came under attack by magically altered, feral wildlife.
And even in these cases, it was only for a select few that called dibs on it first, and only after they made sure the meat was not in any way tainted. The first time this particular Crimson Lion had ever really had any meat was when he first woke up on the Cromwell farm in the forsaken realm. It was there that Paige, his sort of adoptive sister, had prepared a meal of potatoes and meatballs. Only having enough for the three of them, Emery, Paige and Henrik had all donated a section of their meatball to Griswold so he’d get to enjoy it too. They might have been average people with funds that were way below average, but they possessed hearts of gold and did not mind sharing what little they had. To him, that was what set the people of the forsaken realm apart from your average noble, greedy and clad in luxury as they were.
While he could not speak for all of them, and knew that there were also good ones that signed up to become magic knights and protect the country, there was no denying that he had seen some of the bad seeds at work too. People that actively frowned upon him for being what they considered a commoner, and therefore being similar to trash. Either that, or it was simply his bloodline that was trash, thus making his life worth less than their own. How they managed to rationalize such trains of thoughts was honestly beyond him, as it went against all he had been taught before coming to the clover kingdom. How a system of castes could work in such a massive kingdom initially seemed weird to him, but considering how the nobles seemed to hold both the money and the mana, there was really nothing the commoners could do. Hopefully, that would change one of these days.
But even if it did not, it would not keep him from realizing his goal and expanding the farm back home into the gem of the forsaken realm. As he pondered on these issues, he had already chomped down so many times that half of the loaf had already gone down the hatch and disappeared into the black hole that was his stomach. Replenishing his lost mana and stamina, he rose up from his seated position and walked around a bit, scouring his surroundings with his eyes to make sure that he was truly alone. Once that much was done, he inspected the rocks he had placed in specific positions for target practice, making sure they weren’t broken enough to do the job they had been assigned to. As far as he was aware, he had not actually managed to truly break anything with his rather basic spell, which served as a cause for relief and annoyance at the same time.
Annoyance because of the sheer lack of destructive force behind his only offensive spell in his arsenal, but relieved because he did not need to go about finding new rocks and setting up new marks for his training. In a way, nuisance trumped relief as doing some lifting shortly after eating would add some more physical exercise to his training afternoon. But it was what it was, and there was nothing he could really do towards changing anything now, aside from collecting boulders for the hell of it. As the final piece of his “sandwich” vanished, only to reappear in a different shape at a later time, the time to continue where he had left off had come. Firing one shot at a time was something he now knew he could do, even managing to pull off a successive shot from the same finger by accident. This led up to a simple and somewhat logical next step for certain.
Attempting the same spell, except with two hands at the same time. Not sounding like much to a more skilled practitioner of magic, it would require twice as much effort, focus and mana for Griswold to pull off properly. While not denying that he had gotten the hang of the spell rather quickly, the part where he would learn how to get better at aiming would probably come to him at some point in the not-too-distant future as well. Instead of pointing his fingers at the targets, he instead aimed both of his palms towards them, hoping that using a broader surface as the vocal point for his magic might help release a more controlled shot. Even though using one or two fingers to shoot with like some sort of finger gun felt cooler, looking cool was not going to win him any battles, a fact that he knew better than to ignore.
Releasing his magic from both hands at once, he could feel the drain on his mana much more heavily than before, though this much had already been anticipated beforehand. As this was merely a training session to see whether he could actually do it in times of need, he really only needed to know whether he was capable of doing it, and what the effect might be. Not all that different from what he had expected, the outcome was basically a total of two firebolts being launched from the palms of his hands and making their way to the other side of the stream. There, one crashed into the wet sand while the other smashed into an already banged up rock, causing it to shatter into various chunks that got launched into several directions. Had his senses not been so well developed, he likely would not have heard the chirping noise coming from the tall grass.
When several birds shot upward from the grass, the high-pitched calls did not stop, leading him to believe that he might have done something bad by accident. Quickly crossing the shallow stream and making his way to where he had heard the sound originating from, Griswold noticed how an injured bird was desperately trying to get away, but could not fly. Not exactly being a bird doctor, if there were such a thing, he went through quite a bit of trouble to catch the little thing without harming it further as it had no intention of being caught. Once the crimson lion wrapped his hands around it and picked it up however, it was as if the bird had suddenly just given up, accepting its fate and likely believing that it was about to be eaten. Had he been a mountain lion, a marten, a weasel or even just your ordinary housecat, this would likely have been true.
Now that he had the bird in his hands, his mind began racing as he had not really given any thought as to what he should be doing next. As far as he was aware, there wasn’t exactly a bird sanctuary or a place for small animals to recuperate within the royal capital, nor did he know of such a place in the common or forsaken realms. Thinking about what his mother had told him about the feral beasts that they were forced to slay after he had asked whether or not they could be persuaded to leave in any other ways, he remembered how she had told him that there were animals one could save, and ones that had to be put down. Judging by the bird’s wings, it seemed unlikely that it was going to be flying off any time soon, meaning it would likely get snatched up and killed by one of the creatures he had mentioned earlier once it became dark out.
Feeling both ashamed of his carelessness and saddened because he knew that the kind thing to do would be to kill it in as humane a manner as possible, likely by snapping its neck, his grimoire violently lit up as it turned to the next page. At first, he did not see much of anything there, but shortly after, writing started forming on the otherwise blank page. Simply stating the title “cauterize”, along with a description and some magical formulae and circles, it appeared to be some sort of healing spell that utilized fire magic. Raising a brow, it seemed odd to him that something as destructive as fire could have a beneficial effect such as this. But, educated in myths and the natural world as he was due to his upbringing, he remembered how the mythical phoenix was a bird of flame that had healing properties.
More than that, the creature was also said to come back from the dead upon reaching its time of expiration, rising from the ashes of its former body in order to begin life anew. As touching as the story was, Griswold was very well aware of the fact that he was no mythological bird and that such a story did not apply to him personally. But maybe, just maybe, that was what his magic had been derived from. Deciding to give it a try, he figured that his grimoire would not be feeding him nonsense and lies, and the formula seemed legitimate. Folding his fingers together so as to cup the bird between both hands, he started channeling his mana into it, feeling how it went from his body and made contact with the bird. For a few seconds, it seemed like everything was going well. But shortly after, flames suddenly erupted from the spaces between his fingers as the bird became hot to the touch.
Afraid that he might have been wrong after all and thinking he had created a furnace between the palms of his hands instead of some sort of healing sanctuary, he instinctively took a step back and tore both of his hands away from one another. Releasing a burst of flame that obscured its ascent, the small birdy took to the skies and flew away without looking back even once. Entirely dumbstruck, he watched as the bird eventually disappeared from sight, having entirely expected that what he would be met with once he unclenched his fingers would be a smoldering little corpse with charred plumage. Even after the bird had flown away, it took him a few more minutes before he had fully gathered up his bearings and picked up on the fact that he had actually managed to heal something. Staring down at his hands that had just stopped shaking as much from the experience, a smile formed on his face.
From what he could tell, any healer within the country could do something simple as healing a bird, though there was much more than that to it for Griswold personally. The only things he had ever known to be true about fire was that they could make things hot and that they could destroy huge swaths of nature and end all life that came into contact with it if left unchecked. So just knowing that, if he were to train it further, that he could actually use his magic towards healing the injured as well as defeating the enemies he would need to face, that it would make him a rather beneficial member of whatever team he were to join when going out on missions. More than that, he would also be able to just go out on his own without having to rely on any healers to back him up, which could be considered a boon.
Being the kind of person that was among people as often as he was alone, he did not care a whole lot as to whether or not he was sent out on his own or in the company of other people. Before he could take on such assignments however, he would need to prove that he was in fact strong enough to actually be able to do so without getting himself killed or into a buttload of trouble. And truth be told, after what had just happened, he was no longer really feeling like actually training anymore. Right now, what he really wanted to do was just return to the capital and take a long nap. At this point, what with the little scare he had just had, it would probably have been for the best to do just that. But seeing as the day was slowly drawing to an end as the sun was gradually getting lower and lower, pushing through seemed like the only valid option.
If he went to go for a nap now, he’d just end up not sleeping through the night anyway. Putting the things that had just transpired away in the back of his head and returning to the present, he would no doubt find a place where he would be able to practice his healing magic. Just as he had originally intended, this afternoon was meant to be one about training the spell he had so that he could become a more potent mage. The side goal had been to get so good at it that it might help him unlock an additional spell in his grimoire. Now, if he were to take an honest look at how things had progressed, he could say that he had figured out a thing or two about his firebolt spell. Ways in which to better utilize it, get better at aiming it and just getting a better feel of what it was all about.
That, and he had managed to unlock a secondary spell, just not the kind he was expecting at all. Regardless of the outcome, the things he had set out to do had already been achieved, though he was not out of time just yet. With the destruction of one of his targets, he first needed to go fetch some more rocks and boulders that he could shoot it, making sure there wasn’t anything hidden in the tall grass right behind it. If he were to hit something again, he would have to go through the process of healing it again. Seeing as how his magical healing was a new development, there was no telling whether he would be successful a second time without proper training, so he would rather not risk it if he could avoid it. After a quick sweep, Griswold was about as certain as he could be with regards to the safety of the local animals.
Without any theatrics, the mage just wandered back to his original location and returned to firing at his markers, using two hands at a time to both increase the drain and the output of the flames he could generate. As his training progressed, he moved from using his palms as a vocal point to using the tips of his index fingers for the same purpose without even realizing it at first. Maybe it was a sign of overconfidence, or maybe it was simply a sign of increasing his mastery to a point where he no longer needed to play it safe. Making it sound like it was this incredible and massive feat of strength and skill, it was but a basic and low class spell to begin with, so most people would likely have managed to push the boundaries of possibilities way beyond what he could do with it by this point in time.
But that had always been the story of his life, what with his peers unlocking access to magic long before he had been able to do so, creating a gap that just kept on growing every day. For him, just keeping up with them had been next to impossible and meant having to train during every free hour of the day that was not already spent studying or helping around the gardens. Life had never once been fair to him, so assuming that it was going to stop doing so in the future was not a thought that managed to exist within Griswold’s head. For someone like him, he would need to work hard just to master the most basic stuff that others such as the nobles of this country most likely took for granted, just like they took everything else for granted.
Firing several salvos towards the rocks again, most of them hit as intended, causing the mage to smirk a bit as he glared upon the results from a distance. Through effort came results, as his father had once told him would be the case. One of the positive side effects of being the kind of kid that grew up having to worker harder than most just to get similar results to those more naturally gifted was the fact that he took this with him while growing up. During training sessions, he watched from a distance, as well as on the streets while strolling past different stalls in the markets, there were so many that just showed through their actions that they had never experienced any real hardship. They proved that they had gotten to where they were with luck and a natural giftedness. However, when they were faced with having to work harder, they collapsed like a house of cards.
Thrusting his fingers towards two different targets at once, the thought of him never getting to be, nor wanting to be that kind of a person wielded some familiar results. Instead of each finger firing a single bolt, both of them fired a total of two successive shots towards the stone targets. More importantly, they both actually managed to hit the rocks in their dead center, this being as close to a “bullseye” as it was going to get with this rather peasant-like training. Because of the lack of paint or drawing tools, he did not actually make any marks on the rocks, meaning they existed only within his mind’s eye. Unlike those that had the funds to set up a bunch of dummies and the like that they could smash and just replace without batting an eye, that was not a place Griswold was in yet, and might never get to.
To him, working with rocks and boulders like he was doing was good enough, as the results were arguably the same. After all, he had managed to come this far without the luxury of bringing his own stuff. Speaking of growth, this was the second time in the same afternoon that he had managed to increase the output of his spell by quite frankly doubling the number of shots he could shoot for the same amount of drain on his mana pool. The first time had come to him as a surprise, but this time, he managed to get a feel as to what had happened internally when he cast the spell. In a way, the overall anger he felt towards the inequality in the world allowed him to temporarily refine his control over the output of his mana, thus technically casting the same spell twice within the confines of a single use. While he made it sound difficult, it was actually quite simplistic in nature.
All it would really take for him to grab hold of this concept and normalize it would be for him to get a hold of the way he felt at the time he had cast it. Or rather, he had to specifically get a hold of the way this feeling altered the manner in which he would double the number of projectiles without drawing out twice the amount of energy. In battle, preserving his mana seemed like one of the best ways to not get killed in the first couple of seconds, as well as not becoming a liability for running out of stamina and turning into a slowly moving target. The reason why he was working so hard was so that people could end up relying on him to be able to do his job, not so he would have to rely on others to pick up his slack.
If that were his goal, he would never be able to realize his true goal of funding the farm to the point where they could grow and thrive within the region. And if he were to die before he would even get to prove himself, all of his dreams, goals and ambitions would end up being cut short, and that would never sit right with him. That said, whether it sat well with him would not matter at all as he would be dead anyway. Shaking his head and slapping his cheeks as a means of waking up from his pondering, he focused both his body and his mind while extending one finger towards one of the remaining, unbroken rocks. Trying to capture the feeling and the state of mind required, he aimed to synchronize the two to the point where he could emulate the situation he had been in before. Once he felt like he was experiencing the proper vibe, he cut loose.
Releasing his energy, two shots were sent through the air in rapid succession, staying right behind one another and striking at the exact same spot. Even if the bullets did not outright shatter the stone, they seemed to strike for about the same amount of force as a singular shot would, and that was something to be proud of indeed. Repeating the same kind of exercise where he would first try to get his thoughts and feeling in line before attuning the flow of his mana to it, after which Griswold would release the mana in the form of projectiles to rain down upon his targets. After about thirty minutes of just taking his time, getting himself into the proper mood and shooting his shots, the need to take as much time to prepare gradually disappeared. Or rather, the time he needed for it got shorter and shorter, until it eventually no longer existed.
The sad part about it was that, as soon as he truly held a more firm grasp on the concept of a double salvo, it had already gotten late to the point where the sun was about to set. Not yet being all that comfortable at finding his way around the royal capital after dark, as it seemed like the streets he actually knew his way around seemed to become entirely different, that meant that he had to leave his training spot and make his way back to the crimson lion headquarters. Scuffing at the notion of not being able to find his way around his own capital city yet, it was what it was. Packing his stuff and making sure he didn’t litter, as those that did were among the worst kind of people in his opinion, he travelled back to the royal capital, reaching it just before twilight descended upon the world. This part of the world that was.
Nodding at the gate guards that probably did not know who he was, aside from the fact that he was a member of a magic knight squad, he passed into the city. He could not fault people for not knowing him here. He was not of noble blood, nor did he grow up anywhere even remotely close to the city. Adding further insult to injury, he was a foreigner to the very country the city stood in and had only been a member of the Crimson Lions for about a month, maybe even less. Griswold hadn’t made much of a name for himself, nor did he really get the chance to do so in such little time. And that was fine. The things that had transpired over the course of the afternoon had proven to him that, as long as he did not skip out on training, that he would be able to keep up with the other members of the squad, with the members of the other squads too.
He already knew that he had to keep working hard, but seeing the fruits of his labor like he had today only served to fuel the fire that was already there. One could constantly keep talking to themselves, claiming that as long as they worked hard or harder, that good things would eventually happen to them. The annoying part about that was that, if results did not show themselves any time soon, that person might become disillusioned and cease to believe in their own ability to keep growing through hard work and constant effort. Truth be told, he could not blame people for feeling that way, as he had been in that exact same position many, many times over during his relatively short life. While most of the setbacks had come to him when he was still a child, what with most of his peers surpassing him by miles, there were more recent examples too.
One of the most impactful moments of self-doubt had come to him shortly after he had collapsed from physical strain, a lack of food and water, causing an overall mental and physical exhaustion to almost kill him. This happened shortly before the Cromwell’s had saved him, and several days after a mysterious force had been the cause of his entire community and family to just vanish from the face of the planet in what felt like an instant. While unconscious, feelings of inadequacy manifested themselves within a dreamscape that was created inside of his mind, one where he saw his parents, the kids he grew up with, as well as his mentor Parnomir talking down on him. Questioning his loyalty and why he had been absent during whatever had happened to them, claiming that he had been too weak to stop it and had decided to run away because of it.
More than that, they claimed that he had never intended to find them, and that now that they were all gone, he became the best out of all of them by proxy. While he knew that none of those things were true, and that the people he was seeing were not the people he once knew, his mind managed to manifest such a convincing dream that made the whole experience hit him like a freight train. Making it hard for him to wake up from his unconscious state, the coma he had brought upon himself through sheer overexertion and refusal to just stop and put some fuel back into his tank, it was as if reality itself was a dream when he finally did wake up. Laying under a blanket in a pile of hay, sharing a space with livestock and two human siblings he had never seen before, it just seemed surreal.
Grateful to Paige and Henrik for looking after him, as well as to Emery for pulling his motionless body from the dirt and into his house, it opened him up to so many different things that he could never have imagined would happen to him. Even though it took him weeks, maybe even months before he truly felt close to the person he had been before the event that took everything away from him, living life as a farmhand was strangely therapeutic. On the Cromwell farm, there was nobody he needed to live up to, as the people he wished to one day match or outgrow had all met their end in an untimely manner. As a farmhand, all he had to focus on was whether or not the chickens had been given their feed and fresh water, if the sheep were in need of shearing and how the pens surrounding the land the cows found themselves in were adequate.
Had his own people been around, or anyone that knew him before his time on the farm began, they might have claimed that all of this was a form of regression, that he was merely pulling himself back from the real world and the real him because reality was just too painful. And in a way, they were right. Hell, even the reason why he left his original name behind was a way of letting go of the past and embracing the person he had become, a citizen of the Clover Kingdom. On the farm, there was no need nor place for Solarian Shadesinger, though Griswold Cromwell was a valued member of the family and a capable farmhand. He did not mind spending his days tending to crops, checking and maintaining food stores or simply looking after their cattle. It might not have been a prestigious job or the calling he had originally had in mind for himself, but it was a decent and honest living.
For a long time, it was the kind of life that he could see himself living for as long as he would remain alive, being among people that he liked and doing something he was good at. In many ways, tending to the crops here was no different from how he had learned to do things back in the Shadesinger community. Plants were plants after all. That said, there was really only one difference, and that was the fact that these crops were in no way or shape introduced to beneficial magic that would make them grow faster. Here, it took a lot more effort and time before they were ready. That, and the simple fact that they were a fair distance away from the farmhouse meant that one could not always be present to keep away pests and birds that would feast on them, regardless of ripeness.
Perhaps it was because life on and around the farm kept him busy all day, as well as isolated from the rest of the world. Being around the same people day in and day out, him not meeting people because he did not leave the farm in order to go to the village meant that he had no idea as to what was going on in the rest of the world. This was not because he did not want to go there, but because Emery had told him that the people here did not take kindly to strangers, and that they were still adjusting to the lie he had told them regarding how Solarian, now named Griswold, had been a cousin of theirs that had come to live with them after his parents had died from a sickness. It wasn’t until a band of raiders came to the farm and threatened to destroy everything Griswold knew a second time that the remnants of Solarian woke up from its slumber.
Calling upon what magic prowess he had created over the years, he made his way from one place to the next. The first thing he did was make sure Paige, Henrik and Emery were safe, savagely beating the few raiders that had entered the farmhouse for trinkets and money into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp. Not pulling his punches even once, it was a surprise to him that he had not actually killed anyone that day, as the motivation and drive to do just that were entirely present. Once the farmhouse had been secured, he had moved to clear out the storehouse as it was the second most important thing to their continued survival. If all the crops, feed and wool was to be taken, they had nothing to sell and trade, meaning they would be left with nothing if they also managed to steal or kill their livestock. This particular fight had been slightly more dangerous to him and the others for obvious reasons.
As his magic was a rather volatile and unrefined factor, he could not exactly use it offensively or defensively while within the storehouse without running the risk of burning the entire place down. This also meant that those he was facing had the upper hand for having greater numbers and access to magic, or so he believed. Luckily for him, he had the element of surprise working for him, allowing him to get the drop on them. What also worked out quite well for him was that these people came from the forsaken realm, which apparently meant that their magical prowess was not of an incredibly high level and that their mana was normally rather low as well. After a bit of a scuffle, his physical strength combined with the training he had received as a hunter of creatures much more feral and dangerous than your average human made the difference between winning and losing.
And win he did, that much was evident by the fact that the farm was still standing a day later. Once he had taken care of the storehouse, he rushed over to the meadow where the sheep were located, finding that they were all accounted for. And thanks to his heightened senses, he could hear how there were still people in the meadow with the cows. Not even needing the guidance of the sun or the moon to shed light upon the world, he relied entirely on his own senses to locate and take out the remaining two raiders that had attempted to guide away some of the cows through a hole in the fence they had created on their way in. Bringing the raiders together in a central location with some help from the locals, they were tied up while others called the authorities to act and take them away.
The next day when the magic knights arrived to take away the imprisoned raiders was the first time Griswold had ever laid eyes upon the people seeing to the safety of the country as a whole. Though he did not exactly get the same feeling of inadequacy that the other villagers seemed to have, he could tell that they carried with them a level of respect. The kind of respect that was required from the people if one was to have any kind of authority, to be somewhat elevated above the rest and seen as the kind of hero that some of them might be. These particular knights were from a squad called the Green Mantis, as one could tell by the green coats they wore that held their emblem sown unto it. At the time, he had no idea what magic squads and the like were even about, believing the magic squads to be one singular organization.
It was on the walk back home to the farm that Emery explained to him that this particular unit existed out of former convicts that were believed to be reformed, or were undergoing reformation within the unit. To him, it seemed like a good way for people to spend their time doing good, and not rot away in prison. It made him wonder whether the raiders they had taken away would be given the same option at some point, because once his rage towards them had subsided, he had come to realize that these people had been driven towards doing the things they did because their country had failed them. While the Cromwell farm managed to always keep their heads above water to some extent, there were a great deal of people dwelling within the forsaken realm that were not nearly as fortunate as they were. They had no money, meaning they could not buy food and care for their relatives.
For some of them, things had gotten so bad that simple, preventable diseases cost them their loved ones because they simply lacked the funds to had them looked at by a medical professional. Others just wasted away in their homes because they had no food or got too old to work and just withered away. Had he known this sooner, Griswold would likely have gone easy on them when the raid transpired, though there had been too much angst and rage inside of him, as well as another tragedy from his past that he beat into their skulls. The more he thought about these issues existing within this new country that he had been living in for the past two and a half years, the more he felt the urge to rise up and do something about it. The sad thing was that since he was a foreigner, had not a drop of blue blood in his veins and was an elf to boot, the people of the kingdom would be unlikely to listen to a word he had to say.
While it got his spirits down for a bit, he eventually came to the realization that there was more that he could do for the Cromwells, for the farm and for the village than just spend his days as a farmhand. As a member of the magic knights, no matter which squad, he could earn money and respect, thus allowing him to work towards making a change. He knew full well that changing an entire country was not something a single person would ever be capable of, so he would not even dream of doing such a thing. What he could do however was send the portion of his earnings as a knight that he did not spend on food, drinks and clothing back to the farm so they could have an easier time keeping their heads above water. More than that, maybe they could use it towards the betterment of the entire village by expanding their meadows and fields of vegetables.
If they put more money into the ground, they would need more people to tend to the farmlands, thus allowing them to hire the villagers that had to live off of scraps. If he could create a foundation that would allow the Cromwell farm to grow into one of the biggest farmlands of the forsaken realm, there was a chance that he could give everyone living in the village a better life. All it would take was for all of them to be willing to work together on it, which would not be the issue as the villagers were all very tight with one another. That said, this whole dream of the future was counting on one thing, or rather, on one person to pull through. That person was Griswold. If he could not create the foundation for this dream and push it towards becoming a reality, none of it was ever going to happen.
That was the whole reason behind why he spent days like this one training so damn hard, pushing himself towards being better than he had been that morning when he woke up. Even if he would never be able to lift the farm into becoming one of the biggest, as long as his hard work could benefit even a single life of a person he cared about and make it just that much better, it would have been worth it. Having pondered on the past for quite some time now, it was as if his legs had just carried him from the city gates and almost all the way towards the Crimson Lion headquarters on autopilot. With soggy boots still crusty with mod, dirty trousers and generally just being covered in dust and mud, the first thing he would do once he got back “home” would be to take a shower, get a chance of clothing and toss his dirty outfit into the laundry.
Feeling somewhat bad for whoever’s turn it was to take care of the laundry the next morning, he imagined that there must have been others within the squad that were even worse off than he was. Those that actually had missions to tend to likely had their clothing burned, ripped and dirtied with blood and all kinds of other gross things that were ten times worse than a bit of mud and dirt. In a way, Griswold was quite happy that he did not have to worry about any real missions just yet, not really believing himself to be in a position where he could really hold his ground against other, more capable mages. That said, he was not really aware if there were any specific groups of people that they were up against in the name of the country. But that was mostly just his own fault as he had been rather self-centered during the past month.
Doing only that which had been expected of him within the Crimson Lions, he had made somewhat of an effort at not really blending in with any social events or gatherings as he believed he would not fit in with them all that much. In the capital, it was not really a welcome thing to frown upon status and nobility, rather a thing to be proud of and in need of congratulating. If he were to be locked up in a room with people that acted in such a way, he imagined that he would likely either have a stroke and die or say something he shouldn’t and get removed from the squad. As neither of the two outcomes were what one might consider as being beneficial, Griswold just spent his time training and preparing for actual missions that might come his way in the future. Having already established that he did not want to be a liability for anyone, days like these served towards his own personal betterment.
And boy did he need days like these. It was perhaps a bit of a secret to the rest of the country, but the fact that Griswold’s grasp on magic was not exactly as well developed as people might have been led to believe during the examination as he called it. At that point in time, everything had been exactly as they needed to be for him to just blow through it without too much effort, though there would certainly come a time where he would get thrust into a situation where the odds were stacked up against him. It was almost funny how the world could suddenly go from easy towards being incredibly hard in a moment’s notice. But that was exactly the kind of thing he needed to prepare himself for, as this had already happened to him twice. Once when he lost his people, and a second time when an entirely peaceful farm suddenly got raided.
Knowing this, it seemed incredibly unlikely that something along those lines would never happen to him again as it had already done so twice before. If anything, it stood to reason that it would only happen to him more often now due to certain decisions he had made as to which direction he should take in life. As a magic knight, he was expected to move in the direction of danger, rather than moving away from it like most civilians of the Clover kingdom. And as was often the case with people that went out looking for danger, it was danger that they ended up finding. All things considered, Griswold was quite okay with living that kind of life, just not right now. Before delving into strange and dangerous places or setting out to root out dangerous individuals, he wanted to make sure that he possessed a level of strength and skill befitting of a knight of the Clover country.
More than that, he had been allowed to become a member of the Crimson Lions, even as all the other nobles looked away when he was fighting to prove himself formidable enough to become a magic knight. That was something he would not forget, and pushed him towards becoming a more capable mage that would bring back some level of honor. If he were to die on the first instance of a mission that he was presented with, it seemed unlikely that people would be willing to let commoners from the forsaken realm enter their ranks again. But if he were to present himself as a capable and trustworthy knight that could get things done just as well as any noble, it might bring about some small level of change within the inner workings of the magic knights. Right now, there were still those that would not even spit in your direction if you weren’t of a noble lineage, allowing them to enter into a squad through a backdoor mechanic as opposed to having to prove themselves.
While incredibly unfair, that was the way the current magic squads, as well as the wizard king were likely fine with. And maybe they had good reason to. After all, it seemed like those of noble blood possessed a strong aptitude for magic, as well as having larger pools of mana than those from the common or forsaken regions of the country. So if one were to go out and recruit members for a police force or army, it made sense that they would actively seek out those with the best credentials. However, that meant that they were potentially missing out on those few that hailed from these regions that were different from the rest. Griswold did not consider himself to be one of these select few people though, mostly because he was not born and raised as a peasant, and because of his elven lineage that set him apart from most humans.
He was sure that the people that were actually aware of such ancestry might be able to make that differentiation as well, not seeing him as an ordinary commoner, though a great deal had failed to do so up until now. And that was a good thing, as it allowed his actions to not just speak for himself, but also for those that were living in poverty but possessed the heart and spirit required to become a magic knight. Given the number of things he already had to carry on his shoulders, this was just about the least of his worries, so he did not really ponder on it all too much. That said, if what he did or did not do as a knight might have some impact on the ease at which nobles might enroll into a magic squad compared to a simple peasant or commoner, that would be a very welcome bonus.
Smirking a bit as he got dressed after taking his shower, the thought of him of all people being the one that might just bring about a bit of change just felt odd. In the forsaken realm, he was this person that was elevated above the others because of his mana pool. That said, this only applied to those from his village and the farm that were even aware of them, which was but a tiny fraction of the populace. Given how massive the forsaken realm was when compared to the rest of the country, he knew better than to act like they had all known about him or what he had done. He was not that grandiose, not was his intervention in a raid all that special when taking into consideration how often the magic knights were tasked with executing similar actions against rogue mages or groups of outlaws.
The only thing that was different about it was that he had taken care of the issues on his own, and did so as a civilian rather than as a member of a magic knight squad. If nothing else, at the very least it had acted as a means of empowering the people that so often felt powerless in the grander scheme of things. They did not have any political pull, no means by which to truly affect their own fate aside from working their asses off just to live at the barest minimum of qualities, so they could use just about every little win that came their way, something Griswold had become incredibly aware of during the three years he had spent among the populace. Even now as he was making his way over to bed, he felt hyped up over the future he wanted to be working towards even now.
His whole day had been filled in with working towards getting stronger and realizing a very specific dream of his, with learning how to better utilize his spells and push himself towards becoming that much stronger than he had been a day earlier. Even if that was at times an unreal goal, there were those unique days such as today where everything just seemed to work out and go his way, allowing him to really push himself and get himself invested in improving himself more the next day, week or month. At the end of the day, literally in this case, the only thing one could really do towards making the world a better place was by starting with one’s own self. As long as Griswold would be able to do that, it gave him something to strive for as he could work on himself and towards improvement in quite literally everything he did.
Whether it was during work or during his free time, there were always some means available in terms of making better use of his time or turning a routine thing into a bit of a workout. Besides, no one ever said that free time had to be spent sitting around doing nothing. With that thought in mind, it still took him some time before he finally got mentally tired enough to fall asleep, as his body being drained and tuckered out had clearly not been the issue at all.
[End of Thread]
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Last Edit: Mar 5, 2021 16:36:57 GMT -5 by Griswold