Rebirth: From Nothing

Chapter 12: Cassius Reborn

As I am now, I am physically unable to challenge that man. If the combined strength of Claudia and Marcus wasn't enough, then I am definitely too weak to do it alone. But I am not starting from nothing.

Shared consciousness allowed me to learn all the sword and dagger movements Cassius was taught over the years. I also am capable of all of his magic, as we learned it and experienced the sensations together.

My goal is going to be simple. Raise my baseline stats across the board of physical strength, speed, endurance, magic capacity, mana manipulation, everything. I will also focus on inventing techniques that will give me a fighting chance. The last thing I will need is fighting experience.

I realized this from the little bit of the Julius fight and seeing Marcus fight on occasions. Strategies, tactics, and awareness of surroundings can make up difference in skill. At the very least, I don't want to enter the fight outmatched intellectually.

I will likely start solo adventuring at the end of the year. Until then it is just training. I plan to create a muscle building workout regimen, but too much muscle could get in the way of agility. I will have to carefully watch to ensure that building on muscles doesn't cause harm to my movements.

Ok I have a plan.

...

Octavia wakes me up at dawn and starts preparing breakfast. I barely slept last night. The first thing I do is run around the city walls. Halfway around I start cramping and get tired. I push through anyways.

By the time I get back breakfast is already cold. I don't mind. I'm not eating for the taste anyways. Breakfast is bread, pork, and water. Octavia offered milk, but I am saving that for when I'm finished working out.

By the time breakfast is finished I have recovered enough to do sword training. I start by doing 10 push-ups, 10 pull-ups, 20 squats, and a few sprints. I will gradually increase these numbers over time. I practice the movements that have been ingrained into this body and mind for 20 minutes. Then do another set of the split mentioned above. And go back to sword training once more. This process is repeated until noon.

Lunch is ready by then. It is Beef, bread, cheese, olive oil, and milk. Luch is ate in silence. I bathe after this, to get the sweat from training off me. I also change from the adventuring toga into more comfortable innerwear.

I hand my sweaty clothes to the servant Fabiana and head to the study where Octavia is waiting. She is reading a book when I enter. I sat down and grabbed three others. One is a book on magical theory, one is on manipulation of fire, and one is on support magic.

I am going to finish the night with fire magic, but for now I will focus on support magic while using the theory book as a reference in case I don't understand something. The authors of these books are the foremost experts in the world. Claudia was serious about obtaining knowledge.

The reading occurred in silence, until I needed to ask Octavia to explain something I don't understand about support magic. She has been acting awkward around me since I left my bed.

Oh well, unlike Cassius I have no romantic interest in her. I also don't care for getting all buddy buddy either. The reason I like having her around is...

I like having her around because she reminds me of the good times when she and Cassius would play together in the yard after studying magic.

Fuck. Don't get distracted.

If I'm too exhausted to focus on my studies, I cast the spell 'focus' on myself and power through. This was uninterrupted until the end of the night came. When a guest came to the estate. I had him retire and gave him an extremely generous pension so that he would never have to work again. He came today to check up on me.