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.
For the vast majority of the people living in this country, all that mattered was getting through the day without losing a whole lot. Whether this loss was expressed in money, food, lives or other resources was often up to the beholder, and the words themselves had different meanings too. For the poor, losing money could be expressed in amounts one could hold in the palm of their hands. Lives were often expressed in their children or their livestock. For the rich, losing wealth could be done in numbers so big the previously mentioned party might never be able to see as much in one place throughout their entire lives. For a military commander, lives could be expressed in the totality of the magic knight soldiers they might lose fending of some of the greater threats that faced this country and its people.
Strange how the same words could have so many different meanings to so many different kinds of people.
For him, the same words carried varying meanings, as he often found himself dancing in the grey area between several of the aforementioned positions. There were times where he had a fair deal of money, allowing him to feast like a king for a couple of days before running low on funds to the point where he would need to feed on scraps for the next week. For that was the kind of person he was. Not overly great with money, nor the greatest when it came to moderating his own wealth. Perhaps it was because of his age, or maybe it was because of the way in which he was brought up making it difficult to really manage his own funds. Not that it mattered. He only had himself to look after, and thanks in part to his time on Skjaergard and Griswold’s teachings, he could survive off of the land quite well.
While his own foraging and survivalist skills were but a pale imitation of the formers, Gwyn still believed himself to be far more capable of not dying in a forest when compared to most other commoners, especially so when compared to city folk. In many regards, there were a lot of things where he excelled beyond the majority of people that surrounded him, a fact he realized quite well. For he was one of those select few that received a four leaf grimoire, the stuff of legends that was often gifted to those who were destined for great things in the future. And as someone who had very little to no real grasp over magic as the only training and field knowledge he had related solely to hand to hand and weapon based melee combat, it seemed that the sky was very much the limit. Either that, or he simply overestimated how much impact magic had in this world.
Unfortunately for him, whenever they debated ethics and morality, Griswold had never really shared a whole lot of useful information with him when it came to the use of magic. They discussed how magic was formed, the purpose of mana and the unfair distribution of it, like how it was often focused around those of noble birth. They talked about how magic could evolve and develop, as his had done from once being a single magic that branched out and improved over time to become a magic that was exactly like the one Gawain possessed now, as well as a far more bestial form of magic that revolved around physical prowess rather than shooting balls of fire or bolts of lightning. It was in that sense that Griswold deemed Gawain to be special, as he had been through quite a rough life during his years on Skjaergard, only to be rewarded for his hardship with one of the most powerful forms of magic in existence and a legendary grimoire.
The black knight often made it clear to him that one should not let such things get to their heads, as there were always those more powerful than themselves. Whether they were human, or perhaps spiritual or demonic in nature, there was always someone or something stronger, and that would more than likely never change. It was why one always had to keep pushing themselves to do better, to be better, and to keep wanting to grow as a person until the point came where they either drew their last breath or had beaten the last foe they would ever need to face. More often than not, it was the former of the two that was the most likely.
Part of that was the reason why he was here today, throwing knives in his pockets while also twirling one between his fingers. When he was still on the island, there wasn’t a whole lot of wildlife one might stand a chance at killing with a mere knife or two. No, the wildlife there would shrug it off like sand on a beach before crushing, chomping or mauling you to death. Those things would take several swings of a large axe or sword, perhaps a hail of arrows, but nothing as insignificant as a thrown chunk of metal. But here on the continent, there were rabbits and hares. There were a lot more woodland critters too, like squirrels and rats, though those really were not worth the effort of hunting as they’d really just serve as target practice and nothing more. And if there was one thing he had learned from his mentor, it was that killing for no reason was a crime.
If he ever had to kill an animal, he’d better make sure to put most of it to good use. Whether it would be for the meat, the pelt, the teeth or the bones, as long as there was some use to it, all was potentially fair game. There were quite honestly times where Gawain wondered if Griswold would have sooner killed a human being over a woodland animal, though he imagined it best not to dwell on such things for too long.
Making his way over to a nice and quiet area of the forest, it was time to practice with something Gawain had struggled with quite a bit. Having never been the best when it came to tracking his enemies or being entirely aware of them before they made themselves known, there were quite a few stories that popped up in his mind. Stories of times when his mother had still been alive where the dead decided to start moving again and exact their revenge on the living. Times where he had only realized that they had started moving again when they were already upright and in attack position. When Griswold told him that there were ways in which one might sense the world itself around them and make sense out of the experiences and sensations in a way that almost allowed them a form of clairvoyance, Gawain couldn’t help but wonder what if. What if he had possessed such an ability sooner, could he have kept his mother from getting touched by the dead?
Could he have severed that rotten limb before it reached her, could he have kept her from falling ill. Could he have kept her from dying in that run down old shack?
Yet another train of thought that ended up nowhere but near heartache and misery. That chapter, just like his time with his parents, his time in Skjaergard as a slave, his time at the orphanage, his time with Griswold, all of that was over and done. They served as nothing more than experiences now, hurdles for him to get across and become better than what he was before. That was all that mattered now. While in the forest, he did not aim to find an open space. No what he needed was the exact opposite. A place that was difficult to penetrate with just sight alone, where the leaves made it hard to see what moved along the branches above or the tall grass and shrubbery below. For that would be the best way for him to focus on this thing Griswold had called Ki. But as it turned out, this was a lot more difficult than he had imagined.
Closing his eyes, the most obvious thing was that his ears were instead starting to pick up on the more minute changes to his surroundings. A rustling of leaves, movement in the grass, though that was just because he wasn’t using his eyes right now. None of this had anything to do with what Ki was about. Trying to tune out his hearing by concentrating on his surroundings, Gawain felt that it was quite difficult to pull this most basic step off. What had seemingly come natural to Griswold was far harder for him to grasp. When the former had learned how to do it, his magic had been nowhere near as developed as it was later on, or so the boy surmised. Where in his case, his magic was very well developed for a fifteen year old mage that had barely even held a grimoire to begin with. Still, there was no denying the boy had a lot of mana swirling throughout his body, not to mention a lot of honed instincts from fighting that made it difficult for him to tune out his senses long enough to give Ki a chance.
As it turned out, being prodigious in a bunch of things did not mean that one would be good at everything, which quite honestly put a lid on any sense of entitlement he might have at this point. Still, just because it did not work straight away did not mean that he had a free pass for giving up and quitting. This was something important to him because it was essentially the last thing Griswold had tried to get through to his skull before his departure towards gods knew where. And while he did not care a whole lot about making the black knight proud, he did care about proving him wrong as the man believed he might not be ready for this kind of thing for some time to come.
If nothing else, it pushed him to try harder, to be harder on himself as he closed his eyes again and put his fingers in his ears. Essentially blocking out his senses, he tried again. Simply standing there as he tried to focus on his direct surroundings, he could tell that the grass was moving against his pants, branches brushed against his shirt, though nothing else beyond that yet. But that was when it happened. As if seeing something in his mind for the briefest of moments, there was a glimmer in the space behind him. Though small and only feeling it for a neglectable amount of time, there was no denying the fact that it was there. Focusing harder upon the area behind him without turning around to open his eyes or unplug his fingers from his ears, he could feel the same presence again, this time for the same amount of time, yet multiple times. As if picking up on motion with his minds’ eye, the glimmer was starting to take a rough shape.
It was a rat.
Feeling the twitches when it reared its head to sniff the air, likely sensing that Gawain was standing not too far from it, the imagine in his mind moved as it became clearer and clearer. Not sure if it was simply because he knew what a rat looked like and created a mental image simply by projecting what he knew to be true or because this was what Ki did naturally, he did not really care right now. That was something to be fleshed out later. For now, he could take some pride in the fact that he could sense a rat, which was one of the smallest critters he could possibly have sensed out here in the forest aside from perhaps mice. Regardless, a win was a win, and this particular win made him want for more.
Reaching into his pockets, Gawain pulled out one of the throwing knives, though not for reasons one might imagine at this point. After all, killing a rat would do nothing but robbing the forest of one of the creatures that were quite valuable when it came to clearing out carrion. They were a necessary part of nature as much as trees, flies, bees and flowers, even if they weren’t the most wanted in one’s homes. And understandably so, as many of them carried diseases with them that could get people very, very ill. And if there was one thing his past had taught him, it was to not make less of something such as disease and illness, not even in this world of magic. Taking his knife and tossing it with a flick of his wrist, the goal was not so much to hit the rat without seeing with his actual eyes, but to get the creature to move so that he might be able to follow it. And so it was that the knife got stuck into the ground, releasing what felt as a ripple in reality, causing the shape of the rat to move away.
Moving quite fast while also being quite small in stature, following it was quite difficult as the image in his mind appeared and disappeared from his mind. With every big move, the creature appeared, only for it to seemingly blink out of existence when it stopped moving long enough to consider where to go next. In a way, seeing the world through this lens was even more beautiful when compared to watching with his actual eyes. Normally, one saw the animal as a dirty creature that only brought disease with it, something one would rather not bear witness to at all. Mangy and riddled with parasites, to be exterminated as soon as one set foot inside of a building within the cities or townships that littered the landscape.
But seeing the creature within his mind, he could see the undisclosed beauty of even the lowest of animals. Slowly starting to pick up the more minute changes in the way it moved, the silhouette within his mind had never been clearer as his focus sharpened with every passing second. Estimating the animal to be at about roughly ten meters away from him, where he could only sense its torso a couple of moments ago, the head, feet and tail had also appeared along the image more clearly now. While it was still merely a silhouette, there was no questioning the creature he was tracking, a feat of which he was quite proud already. Sensing what felt like the twitching of its muscles before, allowing him to predict the general direction it was headed into, something started to change. A negative change to be certain.
For the further the creature moved away, the less clear the image became to the point where Gawain could barely even tell that it was in fact a rat at all. Ten meters. Twelve meters. Fifteen meters. Eighteen meters. Twenty meters. And then, just like that, the image disappeared from his mind entirely. Try as he might to get the image back, every attempt at doing so appeared futile. Opening his eyes and turning to face the direction he had thrown his knife, it would appear that this was currently the extent of his sensory range. Twenty meters, give or take. Reaching down to pick up the throwing tool before brushing it off and stuffing it back into his pocket, part of him felt disappointed with himself. Not because of how quickly he managed to pick up this whole Ki thing, but because of how small a range he could manage.
In combat situations, it was true that most battles were fought within such a range, which made it quite useful in and of itself. However, he also knew the speed at which something like a thrown dagger or an arrow fired from a bow moved. Even with his Ki being able to pick up things within twenty meters, Gawain imagined that picking up something small like an arrow was an entirely different cup of tea in and of itself. Not to mention the sheer speed by which it cut through the air. Even if he could pick up on it, by the time he could pinpoint where it came from and where it would end it, it was likely that it would have already hit its mark. Needless to say, if an arrow hit him straight in the head, knowing where it came from would not do him a whole lot of good.
One way or another, he would need to figure out how to increase the range of this means of sensory if he was to make any kind of good use out of it. Because as it was right now, the benefits of using it seemed to not outweigh the downsides that accompanied it. For even getting an image in his head at this point seemingly required him to tune out his other senses, especially since his magical sensory means clashed with his Ki quite hard. The duality of these concepts placed a noteworthy strain on his mind, one which would not benefit him in the slightest if he were to try and utilize it in an actual combat situation. No, for the time being, it was likely better to keep practicing how to keep the image still in his mind, figure out how to summon it without having to close his eyes and plug his ears, as well as expanding the range within which he could sense motion.
Once all of that was in order, that was when the other important factors would come into play. Things such as size, speed of motion, direction of origin, likely point of impact, all of the things that would increase the means of effectiveness by quite a high percentage. Simply put, there was still a lot of work to be done. But the day was still young, and there was plenty of time to continue before he would call it for now. And so, the good work continued.
*End of Tier 1 Ki Training* WC: 408 Total WC: 3045
