“Quick, open up my present, Brance, hurry up,” Cynrik, who was seated next to his 5-year-old little brother, squealed excitedly.

As if following his older brother’s orders, Brance took the small, crudely wrapped box and tore the paper revealing a small booklet the size of an adult’s palm. It was a thin blue booklet that only held fifteen to 20 pages, but its contents bore faint traces of Mana.

“Tier 0 Basic Swordsmanship,” Brance read aloud with sparkling eyes.

Putting the book aside, he tackled Cynrik and thanked him by rubbing his head vigorously on his shoulder, causing Cynrik to attempt to flee the torment befalling him. “THANKS, BIG BROTHER!”

The sibling’s antics drew laughter from both of their parents as they lovingly watched their two children wrestle about like usual.

“Now, now, Birthday boy, you still have your presents from us to open.” Cinyah chirped at the youngest.

“Yes, Mommy.” The bright-faced boy with aqua-ish purple hair replied politely, returning to her side and gratefully receiving a neatly wrapped box from his mother.

“Don’t let your rascal brother pollute your obedient ways, Brance.” Cinyah quipped while tossing a disapproving look at Cynrik; it didn’t take much evidence to conclude that he had spent all his allowance on a swordsmanship skill book for Brance. Unfortunately, skill books weren’t candy; even a simple Tier 0 booklet held a hefty price tag for a child who only received a little pocket money for doing chores around the house.

“Oh, c’mon, Mom, I’m not THAT bad.” Cynrik’s head drooped as he was scolded by Cinyah, knowing that she was unhappy at him for blowing all his pocket money on a fighting technique for his brother.

“Yeah, honey, let the little ruffian off; you know how bad Brance wants to train with the boy and me.” Rikard cautiously tried to console his wife, knowing full well that he was toeing an incredibly thin line. He and his wife had conversed at length about whether or not to allow the boys to learn combat arts at their young age.

It had taken months to convince her to let him start Cynrik’s combat training even though he’s just six years old. After several long days and nights of appeasing his wife, she finally relented. Cinyah had noticed long ago just how talented her oldest son was, so, against her better judgment- she relented and gave her consent to let Rikard train her Cynrik.

Now she had to not only worry about her oldest getting hurt but even her youngest was being dragged into her ruffian of a husband’s battle-addict ways. Her sweet, gentle baby son was being tarnished by Her hooligan husband just like Cynrik had been.

Cinyah could do nothing but sigh as she watched Brance open his remaining birthday presents while smiling and laughing. However, she couldn’t stop herself from worrying about her two handsome boys. They meant the world to her and being the doting parent she was, it would be completely uncharacteristic of her to turn a blind eye without giving them all some hassle.

The festivities wrapped up, and it was now time for the children to go to bed. After tucking both boys into bed with a song and kiss, Cinyah left the boys to sleep for the night.

Unbeknownst to her, this was the time when Cynrik and Brance would train every night. As the two brothers grew older and their level increased, they came to realize relatively quickly that the actual amount of sleep they required daily began to dwindle. Simply sleeping 3-4 hours a night was sufficient to restore their bodies to normal no matter how strenuous their training was.

It had officially been five years since Brance joined the world of Vinestra alongside his older brother, and during these years, they hadn’t sat idle. It had been five years of brutal self-training and growth. The two young boys, whose souls were many times older than their physical bodies, experienced more pain than they could have possibly imagined in these short few years.

Unfortunately, unlike the well-thought-out and organized plans that Cynrik had spent nearly two years building in anticipation of his brother’s arrival, they hadn’t progressed nearly as much as he had expected.

In his initial plans, Cynrik had already worked in a certain amount of hang-ups, setbacks, and bottle-necks they would need to break through to get stronger, but he hadn’t expected to meet these challenges so early on.

The first issue they came upon was how many Revolutions of Mana through their Circuits they could complete. Cynrik was forced to acknowledge the simple fact that certain limits were enforced on the growth of the human body. It was physically impossible for an infant or even toddler’s body to withstand the amount of force and strain put on it by Mana Codexes and Mana Circuits, which in turn severely inhibited the number of revolutions and potential growth they could gain daily.

But not everything was terrible. Even in the darkest of days, light shines through, and just that had happened. Within the first few hours after birth, Brance’s first Relic benefits kicked in, one of which was a passive ability named Sibling’s Gain. It was a passive skill that allowed him to gain four times XP from Quests so long as he was within a range of 10 meters of his older brother.

Luckily for Cynrik, the boost was seemingly nerfed as soon as his younger brother’s level and stats caught up to his. Upon the syncing of levels and Essence, a change happened with Sibling’s Gain.

Instead of being a four times XP booster for only Brance, it evolved into a double XP booster for both brothers as long as they were within a certain distance of each other.

After five years, not only were the brothers stuck at 50 cycles and Tier 0 of Codex and Circuit Stage, but they were also at Level 4, with a massive wall of XP to climb over.

The Cycles were one thing, but meeting the required 10000 Essence for level 5 was an entirely different challenge. Gone were the easy days of breastfeeding for XP; these were the days of physical exercise, and arduous strange body poses.

[I’m beyond tired of these bullshit yoga poses. Like I get it, flexibility is excellent and all, but this is just too much.] Cynrik was currently bent over backward, standing with the use of only one leg and arm.

[I don’t know why you’re bitching, weren’t you the one who was excited about the added Agility points we could gain from this crap?] Brance was already three poses ahead of his brother. Unlike Cynrik, he just wanted to get this shit over with, so they could move on to the next quest. His brother, on the other hand, had a nasty habit of procrastinating after every pose. This resulted in Cynrik always being left behind when it came to Brance’s pace at the Agility Stretches.

[Tsk, you just wanna get it done so you can jump into swordsmanship. I’ll have you know it took a fuck ton of convincing to get Father to bring me to the skill market to get that book.] Distracted momentarily while teasing Brance, Cynrik messed up his pose and collapsed onto the ground in a heap, drawing a snicker from Brance, who continued with his daily quest gracefully.

Some 20 minutes later, Brance sat cross-legged, reading his new skill book while Cynrik analyzed his current stats. Luckily for him, he only had to do half the work he had initially planned for since Brance’s Stats were a literal mirror to his own, with the only differences being his brother’s mind stat of 19 and Light affinity.

: Level: 4 :

: Essence(XP): 3160/10000:

: Distribution: 1 Per All :

: Mana Codex Tier: 0 (Proficiency= 50.0%) :

: Mana Cycles: 50 (Proficiency= 50.0%) :

: Mana Circuit Tier: 0 (Proficiency= 50.0%) :

: STATS :

: HP 100/100 :

: Mana 64/64 :

: Stamina 50/50 :

: Stat Points- 40 :

: Strength- 5 :

: Dexterity- 5 :

: Agility- 10 :

: Intelligence- 5 :

: Vitality- 10 :

: Mind- 29 :

: Affinity- Dark-Tier 0 (Profiency= 0.0%) :

‘Brance blazed through his daily quests while I, on the other hand, still have to do my 100 pushups and 100 sit-ups; we already knocked out the 100 jumps and the 1 mile run in the park.’ As he sat there blankly staring at the massive 10k of Essence required to reach level 5, a sigh escaped his lips, and he casually glanced at the studious Brance, who had a serious expression as his eyes scurried across the pages of his skill book.

‘Welp, better get to working out.’ With that thought, he rolled over onto his stomach and began finishing up his last daily quest for the day. Unfortunately, he was already lagging behind Brance, and if he wanted to harass Tobs tonight, he would have to get his quests done.