Chapter 122: Titus’s Big Brother

Magna kept attacking while Titus just stood there, deflecting the attacks coming at him.

He wasn’t always defending himself, as every now and then he was also throwing a few punches to make the boy dodge or parry.

He also looked like he was trying quite hard to hold himself back from going too far, remembering their last spar, in which he had almost killed him with a punch.

But unlike that spar, this time Titus was in genuine shock while their spar continued.

As time passed, Magna looked like he was getting more and more used to the weights in his hands.

Even his attacks, though the difference was quite minuscule and hard to notice, could still be felt by the experienced Shadow as they kept getting stronger and stronger.

It wasn’t only that his physical strength seemed to be increasing.

After each attack, Magna would quickly stop and seem to analyze it, then make micro-adjustments to his stance, his attack style, and even his breathing for his next attack, refining his technique a little more with every second.

’This boy will one day be someone whose name is heard across the whole continent for sure.’ Titus thought, slightly terrified but mostly filled with pride, as he kept giving silent pointers through his counters.

Magna could also feel that Titus wasn’t just sparring, as with every counter he was actually showing him his flaws, which let Magna think quickly and fix the flaw for his next attack.

One of his last upgrades, the 2x thinking process, was also doing its job perfectly.

It was even helping him train his body better and better, as the system messages no longer only showed increases in Stamina and Strength, but his Reflex and Agility had also finally started to rise.

With every last second dodge of Titus’s punch, every time he moved his body flexibly, every time he tried to change his weapon’s direction mid attack, he was gaining 10x extra training points for those specific stats.

"That’s good, let’s take a rest." Titus, seeing that Magna had no desire to end the spar even as his breath grew ragged and his arms and legs no longer moved as fast as before, decided to give him a break.

It wasn’t only Magna’s incredible physical growth that was now catching his attention, but his will to keep training also made him praise the boy in his mind.

Magna, though reluctant to stop now, since the system messages were too satisfying to watch, still dropped his weapons and let himself sink to the ground, sitting there out of breath.

Only then did he realize how tired he was, as his body instantly started to ache, finding a moment of relief.

Titus, seeing his state, his face turning to one of understanding, walked over and sat down beside him. "I heard you are going to the Tower soon."

He had already heard what happened from Celeste, so what he thought was that the reason Magna was pushing himself this hard was to gain as much power as he could before going to that shithole.

"Yes." Magna answered between breaths, then asked, turning his gaze up toward him. "Do you know what kind of place it is?"

According to Celeste and Rowena, the place was something like a hunger games kind of thing in Magna’s mind, so he wanted to hear a different perspective on it.

Titus wasn’t someone to sugarcoat his words, so he answered directly. "For a Witch? It’s a paradise. Best teachers, best resources, best environment to grow, if you don’t count the rivalry they have to endure there socially." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

He spoke about it as if it were some kind of prestigious school with a yearly tuition reaching six figures.

Though next, his face changed slightly. "For Shadows like me? That’s just a survive or die place. They always need the best, so the weak have no right to waste resources on."

Magna felt a resentment trying to be hidden beneath his expression as he tried to understand. "Have you been there before?"

Titus raised his head, his eyes starting to watch the clouds slowly drifting across the sky. "No. But my big brother grew up there."

Magna, feeling there was quite a good backstory there, pushed. "Where is he now?"

He answered, still looking at the sky. "I don’t know. If he isn’t dead yet, he should be somewhere praying for death every day."

He gave a sigh as he turned his gaze back to the boy and started to tell the story.

"He was very talented, and his bloodline trait was the purest in the family, so the Tower discovered him before long and took him from our family when he was still 10, in exchange for a few cheap farms."

While saying this, he looked at Magna’s golden, focused eyes listening to him, and felt the need to add. "Well, he wasn’t as lucky as you, since in his case the Tower bought him outright. They’re not known for taking that much care of their property."

Magna nodded, understanding, as this was why Celeste had wanted to send him in as Winterborne property in the first place, instead of letting them take him as their own.

"I never saw him again after he left, just heard some stories later." He gave a sigh, trying to shake off some of the resentment inside him. "Last I heard, he got captured during one of his missions, sent to explore a realm. It’s been 10 years since then."

"What is a realm?" Magna didn’t fake empathy for a lost, probably dead brother. Instead, he directly asked the question that had actually caught his interest.

He had previously heard Celeste mention the Fairy Hive, a place where an ancestor of the Winterbornes died during an exploration, but he hadn’t had the chance to learn more about it until now.

So now, finally, the moment had come. He felt like he was just on the verge of learning something truly interesting about this world.