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.
All in all, time had been moving relatively quickly for the young Gawain, someone who had only become a mage very recently when turning fifteen. Having learned how to kill a man with a crude axe, a dull knife or even a rusty spoon before he had even learned how to fling a spell, there were a lot of things he could credit Griswold for. If for nothing other than saving him from the Villtsung raiders that had captured him and his mothers and killed his father, let his mother die to disease and forced him to just drag and drop her body in the marshes so the rotters could feast on her remains. To have to go through so much before the age of fifteen had left a mark on the child, one that could never be washed away no matter how hard one would rub that stain.
But it was not all bad. After all, he was a teenager with no attachments, free to wander the world in whatever way he saw fit. Thanks to the black knight, he had learned how to channel much of the rage, the disdain and the disgust he felt for this world into something positive, something he could use to become something better. And so it was that his negative emotions had been honed and refined into a blade with which he could cut through all of the bullshit in life, as well as a mask to wear at all times as a means of hiding the ugliness underneath from everyone else. Just because he knew what had happened to him and the things he had to do to survive did not mean that everyone else did. For him, it was best if the world only saw the stuff he wanted them to see, an eager and carefree explorer and an up and coming mage.
Even though Griswold had gone somewhere else and was more than likely never going to return, there was still the ring he had given him. Though the black knight himself had never used it, he had given it to him during one of their many training sessions within the confines of his old base. When Gawain had first witnessed it, it looked like the kind of ring one would give to someone they truly hated, as it quite honestly looked like it had been exposed to the elements for at least a hundred years and might even be painful to put on. Claiming that the exterior appearance was the reason why most people would have overlooked it, it was what was inside that mattered. Using it as a metaphor for how the ashen haired youth hid what was inside of him from the world by putting on a brave face, so did the ring put on an ugly appearance to hide its true potential.
From the moment he had first put it on, the young man felt stronger than he had ever been, as if he could punch a hole in a tree and get hit by the log as it made its way down to the ground. His skin felt thicker, his fists felt harder, and even then it felt like the ring was still hiding more that it had not shown to him yet. In truth, he had never taken the ring off ever since it had been given to him. In many ways, the ring had become as much a part of him as his grimoire had, what with it making him stronger and being just about the only physical memento he had left to remind him of his former teacher and mentor. As time passed, he had come to learn a couple of things about it that went beyond just physical strength and durability, as there had been a time when he had been hit by a magical spell, only for a portion of it to be bounded back towards the caster.
WC: 695 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
It was a magical property belonging to the ring, that much was for sure, as he could feel it throughout his entire being when it activated. It was almost as if the ring had instinctively tried to protect him from harm, but could only reflect a portion of it away from him and back at the caster. In a way, it reminded him of his mother, and how she had tried to shield him from a world that had rapidly darkened for the both of them. But maybe that was just him looking into things too much again as per usual. Regardless of what it represented and what Griswold had intended when he had given it to him, the fact that there was a lot about this ring that was yet to be discovered meant there was a whole new avenue of exploration for him to do without having to travel anywhere. In a sense, not having to go somewhere new was boring, but there was no denying the fact that it was convenient..
And so it was that Gawain began training, or practicing rather, to see if he could somehow bring out the hidden potential of the ring. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that his physical strength had increased by roughly half as much, and that he could take more of a beating as well. So the first thing on his to do list would be to figure out the actual numbers, so to say. Because gaining new power was always a boon no matter how you looked at it, though new power always needed to be tested to see just how much it would affect him and the situations he found himself in. For instance, if he had remembered the ring and its powers back when the mountain lions had chased him halfway across the forest, he might have instead chosen to turn around and face them head on.
But that was all in the past now, and since there was nothing he could change about that encounter, there was no need to dwell on it any longer than he already had. For now, the best thing to do seemed to be something many believed to be among one of the stupidest things someone could do: Picking a fight. And not just with anyone, but with people that were commonly known as being dangerous, some kind of crooks and rogues with a bad attitude that wouldn’t hold back from beating on a teenager for looking at them funny. Truly a bad plan, but not entirely stupid. For when it came to figuring out the limits on some magical ring that had the ability to take some fraction of the magic thrown at him, reduce the damage taken by his mana skin and even rebound the other half of the damage back at the one that had cast the spell, the only way to go about it was by taking said damage from a spell.
While he could have asked someone more friendly to fling a spell at him, that would still mean that they’d end up damaging themselves in the process, and that wasn’t the kind of thing Gawain would ask of people. Instead, he saw this as a means of doing some good for the community while getting in a good amount of training. With that thought in mind, the ashen haired boy went around town, wandering through the places he assumed a crook might be hiding themselves away in. Back in Skjaergard, he would have looked for these people in the shady recesses of the docks, but since there were no docks this far north on account of the sea being so far away, he would need to get a bit more creative. This creativity came in the form of checking all of the back alleys and even waiting for it to get dark out before patrolling through the exact same place again with revitalized hopes of success.
WC: 665 Total WC: 1360 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
And so as he came back during the hours between twilight and midnight, the amount of shady individuals he encountered seemed to be quite a bit more prominent. Judging by their clothing, their choice in tattoos and the location of said ink located anywhere from their legs to their arms and even their faces, there were several of them that had matching tattoos with some slight deviations in them. Believing to have stumbled upon a gang of some sort, if memory served him right, they were quite similar to some of the lesser clans back on Skjaergard. Small minded people with little to no real strength, yet their bark was as loud as the roar of a lion, trying to make small men seem massive and imposing. But Gawain wasn’t deterred by this. In fact, these men seemed perfect for his little training ruse as he really couldn’t care if they got injured in the process.
In fact, them getting injured might steer them clear of whatever kind of underworld dealings they were partaking in.
“Oi, what kind of shady stuff are you guys peddling? Stolen wares? Slaves? Extortion services? Nah, it’s probably just the stolen wares right? Because you guys don’t seem strong enough to be able to hold any slaves or extort someone, not unless you’re exclusively in the business of extorting old ladies!”
Just by saying that much, three of the men in the alley seemingly took offense, moving over to him as they looked at each other funny. From the looks of things, they had never been harassed by someone less than half their age with such ferocity, showing that the boy did not fear them at all. And for a group of individuals that used fear as a means of motivation and as a tool of the trade, they could not have people seeing that they were being put in their place by what could essentially be classified as a child. It was bad for business, and when business was bad, they wouldn’t be able to peddle whatever shady crap it was that they were pushing. As such, one of the men took out a billy club and asked Gawain to repeat what it was that he just said. Much to their surprise, even as they got up in the boy’s face about it, he repeated the entire sentence without leaving a single word out.
Visibly upset by this fact, the man lifted his hand and brought his club down with the intention of bonking the ashen haired youth over the head with a powerful strike. Knowing the kind of impact caused by such a club could knock someone out if they got hit in the right, or rather the wrong spot, the boy used his speed to dash to the side. Clenching his fists as he did so, he could swear that for a moment, he moved slightly faster than he normally did. But as soon as that tiny little burst of speed had come, it seemed to also have disappeared, leaving him flabbergasted for a bit, so much so that a secondary swing from the billy club almost knocked him right in the temple. Instead, as he was just able to duck underneath the attack fast enough, it only grazed through his mid-length haircut. Being in a position where he was fully open to attack, Gawain made perfect use of it to make the situation ten times worse for all involved parties.
Bringing his foot back, he kicked upward and landed his toes firmly against the man’s nutsack, causing a shiver to go through the spines of every single male spectator as the man wielding the billy club made a nosedive shortly before collapsing face first onto the ground. The force behind the kick might have been big enough to make it so the man was sterilized on the spot, incapable of spawning progeny of his own at some point. But no matter from which angle Gawain looked at it, scum like this not being able to spawn children that would just be funneled straight into the criminal underbelly of this country was one of the hidden blessings this whole undertaking carried along with it.
WC: 702 Total WC: 2062 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
To think that he had come here to begin mastering the hidden powers of the ring, only to do the world a slight favor by making sure some scum would no longer be able to reproduce was something the young man considered a win. More than that, he had come to learn that there was yet another secret factor embedded within the ring, something that managed to alter his physical speed ever so slightly, though he could not yet figure out how to bring it out. But if he knew one thing about himself, it was that whatever was hidden would not stay that way for very long as he was quite adapt at seeking those things out. Several days ago, all he was capable of doing in terms of magic was the most bare minimum of spellcasting, though a bit of training in some rather harsh situations had pushed him quite far ahead.
Learning how to utilize his Ki to the highest possible point that he could reach at this particular moment in time, pushing his spells to a standard where he could give some of the most senior magic knights a run for their money and still feeling like he was on the verge of ascending even further beyond his current limitations. But for him to rise up above himself as he was now, he needed to keep training, he needed to keep pushing himself by throwing himself into violent and dangerous situations to force his own growth. And push himself he did. For when he essentially scrambled the figurative eggs in the man’s basket, the remaining two men did not bother to come at him with just weapons, they brought out their grimoires. Proving to him that they were ready for a proper fight, Gawain started running. Leaving the alley and running through the street as the two men followed him, he made his way into a nearby meadow.
Figuring that this would be the perfect place for his training to continue, the two thugs jumped over the fence and made their way into the meadow as well. When their grimoires opened, one of the men seemed to be in possession of lightning magic, the other possessing something entirely different that he hadn’t seen before yet. Until the man began casting his magic, there was no way for him to know what the guy was capable of, though the crackling of electricity instantly gave the other guy away. At this point, Gawain knew roughly half of what to expect from these men, which meant he could only estimate roughly twenty five percent of the potential outcome and plan according to it. This was troublesome, as knowing only a fourth was like knowing nothing, so all he could really rely on were his own capabilities while hoping he could figure out how the ring functioned.
Following up with the man with the lightning grimoire as he pointed both hands towards him, a bolt of lightning formed between the tips of his fingers as he shot it towards the young mage. While he wanted to take the shot head on to see if he could bring out the ring’s latent abilities, he instinctively cast a spell of his own, using a dome of air pressure to bend the lightning bolt away from him, causing it to rip through the grass field before it fizzled out of existence. More or less spoiling his main trump card, which was the fact that he was in possession of a four-leaf grimoire with one of the most powerful magics in the known world, he could tell that the two thugs were startled by this realization, but were not scared off. That was good, he needed them to stay here and keep trying. Right now, what he needed to get under control was the fact that he himself was a scaredy-cat that was afraid to take a bolt of lightning to the face.
WC: 659 Total WC: 2721 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
But fighting wasn’t so easy that one could just choose when they allowed themselves to get hit, especially when every instinct in their body screamed at them to move, to fend off the attack and to fight back. And so he had used his magic to deflect the blow entirely, though that wasn’t entirely a wasted opportunity. Deflecting the blow had allowed him to get a feel for the damage output this guy had behind his spell, and it wasn’t so much that it would vaporize him on the spot or put him at a real disadvantage if it managed to hit him once. This in turn meant that if he could absorb most of the blow with his mana skin, he could take the risk of letting the blow hit him in the hopes of his ring lessening the impact of the blow as it had done once before.
Firing several bullets of compressed air towards the other target, the man summoned a wall of coral to protect him from the assault, showing Gawain the kind of magic he was capable of using. Again, this worked in his advantage as it allowed him to quickly reassess the kind of battle he had found himself in, which kind of strategy he might apply to deal with these guys, and how best to win this thing once he was done testing himself. Continuing the barrage until several bullets came flying through the coral wall and began punishing the man hiding behind it, Gawain forced the lightning user to respond with an offensive attack. Firing another bolt of lightning in his direction, the man had done exactly as had been planned. And this time, the youngster did not bother erecting a shield, knowing that he could take the hit either way.
So when the lightning collided with his body, it was as if the very nature of the magic itself shifted, damaging him while transfiguring the attack itself. Rebounding a portion of the spell back at the caster, this seemingly caught him off guard as the returned blast knocked him flat on his ass. Proving his theory about rebounding magical attacks and dampening the damage against his mana skin, the time had come for him to start going on the offensive. With one of the men knocked prone and the other hiding behind what remained of his coral protection, the boy rushed their position as he leaped over the wall, coming down right on top of the guy with his foot. Bringing it down from an elevated position and kicking the man right on top of his head, a loud thump could be heard as the sheer force of the attack rattled his brain inside of his skull.
Giving him ample time to stick the landing, the ashen haired youth approached right after his feet had been planted firmly onto the ground. Ducking underneath a wild haymaker that had been thrown at him out of sheer desperation, Gawain returned the favor by landing a punch against the man’s throat with his right fist, striking his temple with his left and then striking his throat again with the right. These three blows in succession were enough to topple the man, causing him to collapse backwards on top of his own wall, crumbling beneath his weight. As he ducked underneath the attack and struck the man three times, he could again feel how his physical speed had increased beyond what he was normally capable of. It was quite frankly a great feeling when he experienced himself pushed further than he thought he could go.
But what mattered now was holding on to that sensation and making sure he mastered it. He needed to make it his own, to make this speed his own just like he needed to make the ability to take a beating, reduce the toll it took on his body and bound a portion of the attack back towards the originator a part of him. It needed to come as natural to him as breathing. To increase his own speed of movement and thought, increase the density of his mana skin and master the ability of damage reduction was all that mattered to him right now, and for good reason. He knew deep down that if he could make these things work for him, that he would be one of the most unstoppable forces to ever walk across the surface of this country.
WC: 742 Total WC: 3463 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
With only one of the two thugs remaining in the land of the conscious, several smaller jolts of lighting were shot into his direction. Evading two out of the three with his slightly improved speed, as he decreased the range between the two of them, there was no avoiding the last one as it simply moved at him too quickly. But again it happened where he felt the jolt of electricity passing through him and his magical defenses lowering, yet part of that damage being returned as a bolt of mana that only barely missed the rogue mage due to dropping himself to the floor like a sack of flower. While he was right to do so, it set him up for another physical attack by the encroaching boy who wasted exactly no time when it came to planting his toes firmly in his nostrils. Kicking him in the head so hard that it seemed to knock his lights out in one go, Gawain refrained from attacking him again.
These guys were all thugs, part of the criminal underbelly that made life more difficult for a lot of regular citizens that were just trying to live the best life possible, though that did not give him the right to brutalize them beyond the point that he had just arrived at. Taking in a deep breath as he watched the men laying unconsciously in the tall grass, his gaze went towards some of the civilians in the region that had been watching the fight with anticipation. To them, this likely had seemed like it was going to be a beatdown presented to the boy by a bunch of thugs, though their expectations had quickly turned out to be quite wrong. That said though, they all seemed more than just relieved, they seemed impressed, some even happy. Judging by the fact that these people had likely been terrorized by these thugs for some time, watching them get beaten to a pulp by what seemed like a tween must have been a relief.
Still though, to go any further than this would put him on the path towards villainy, as becoming the judge, jury and executioner to a bunch of scoundrels he had never met nor heard of before this point in time did not feel right to him. For whatever reason, the system that was supposed to look after the people in this country had failed them, turning them into the good for nothing brigands and thugs they were today. Just how much of that was their fault, the fault of the governing body of Clover or the fault or their upbringing remained to be seen. But none of that was something he was willing to concern himself with. As good as it had felt to kick these guys into submission, this was not some kind of vaunted justice passed by a vigilante, not at all. This had been a training session for the boy, nothing more and nothing less, though the people of this town did not know that.
So as he made his way through the street to find where he had left his broom, several people felt like they should give him something. Where some tried to push a yul or two into his pockets, others tried handing him a loaf of bread or a chicken leg, with one lady even going as far as handing him a bowl of soup. Thanking them for the kind gestures, he wondered if they believed he was a magic knight or some kind of vigilante that had come here just to make their lives easier. Knowing that he had done none of this out of the kindness of his heart, he was still quite eager to accept the gifts passed down to him, eating the bread, the leg and the soup as if he hadn’t properly eaten in days. Which honestly was exactly the case as he really hadn’t. But with his belly filled and his pockets being slightly heavier, he waved the people of this town goodbye as he reached his broom and flew off into the night.
WC: 694 Total WC: 4157 Training Oblitus Praeteritum Relic and the Occulta Historia to Intermediate WC Required: 4000
