Shadow sat there with his legs folded and his eyes directed at the sphere of dark magic he had been controlling. It had taken him days to control it this steady. For the last few days he had been doing an assortment of things in his room. Such as taking in energy for his martial arts and magic. Which he was on the cusp of being in the novice realm for both. Mentally he could feel his mind grasping at something. With his body every time he took in energy his body would heat up and almost feel like it was burning. Though each time it was getting better and better, so he decided on trying get his fast magic down with the elements. Then he had thought about why space magic and dark magic didn't have any fast magic. Soon after just trying to summon it out it seemed to almost instantly zap away half of his mana. Not only that it went rampant around the room leaving a mess. After a few days though he was able to control it and had learned two spells from his father's book. One was applied to his feet making his footsteps almost nonexistent. The other took the two senses away from a creature. The ability to see and feel. Since his room window was pointed toward the forest he would use animals to practice on.
After getting thirsty so many times he had figured out that he could drink his own water magic without any draw backs. Although the taste wasn't as refreshing and definitely not that cold. His my basics for martial arts was still a little rusty but so far he had a pretty good set of skills on hand. Someone would even say he could go against someone who hadn't taken in energy. Most of the population of humans were normal while next was martial artists while in the very few were mages. So of course mages were the most powerful asset to a country because they could use spells to take out large numbers. The downfall was that many couldn't even reach that point of power. So he had decided he would mess around with it until he could use proper magic. Even though he knew the academy would teach him roughly more than he was learning on his own he still thought it would be better to start early.
With what he has experimented with his second spell wouldn't work with something with a strong will or stronger than him. He had found out the through the usage of using it on animals which some broke free seeming to fight it back. The second use isn't all to proven but a wandering bear became the subject once it had gotten so close to his room.
The last big thing he had found out to do was strengthen his body with his fighter aura and protective mana around him. Though he already knew about this from his master mentioning it. so he thought he should roughly work on that till he was taught it.
"Alright Lucifer, that's enough for today my body can't take much more." He had sweat almost drowning him in his clothes.
"You've been moving at a fast rate don't you think?"
"What do you mean I have to catch up to the other kids?"
"Yes but they are all older than you, and most probably couldn't say they did as much as you without help. Even I can tell this much progress in so little time might make others wonder. Even if not that what about your mother believing you can be another general on hold. Then you'll have eyes on you 24/7 while also having an instructor instead of the academy."
"So you're saying hide even more than I already am. That's almost impossible. I would have to balance being good enough to be kept in the academy while not being overly good that they just take me away and lock me in a room."
Shadow walked over to his window looking out at some of the guards patrolling through the forest. Some were even personal guards of the queen searching for any high level enemies that might be trying to hide from the defensive artifacts. But for anyone to get this close wouldn't matter. This was the most secure place in all of the kingdom. But for him this was the most secure prison ever. He leaned out the window and yelled with all his longs releasing all the pent up anger and sadness left in him. One of the guards walking by looked up but shadow just gave a toothy grin back, and put his head back inside the window.
"Alright you are right for my safety it's smarter to show some promise but not all of it." Shadow stared at the mirror where his body had actually started to get a little more built. His body from earlier workouts had already made him look older for his age, but in just a couple days it had looked even more prominent. He needed to decide how far he would let others see him go during the academy. Maybe only using certain fast magic to make them think I can only excel at certain ones. As he got back to taking in energy all of a sudden he felt his mind and body both go through a sudden power surge. He knew he was going to touch into the novice stage.