Chapter 38: Exposed [3] - Deception

"Give your grandmother a straight answer." A voice echoed from behind a nearby tree before Lochras walked out from behind it.

He had bags under his eyes that made him look like a man who hadn't slept in years. Of course, Silas had seen him that morning, but for some reason, his complexion looked a lot worse at that moment. Maybe it was because he was frowning?

'Did he really think I didn't see him there... Oh wait, they don't know about my mystic eyes or my new, but very weak, mana sense. Mhm. Mhm.' Silas nodded in realization.

"I didn't awaken any single element." Silas replied with a smile. Lies always spiraled, so he wasn't going to lie.

He was going to bend the truth until the truth becomes indistinguishable from a lie.

"That's not what Syra said." Lochras frowned.

Why lie, when bent truths are so much more believable than lies?

After all, a deceptive truth was always the better deceiver out of the two.

"I didn't awaken a single element... I awaked a blessing." Silas responded while leaning back onto a tree standing behind him and watching the eyes of the two before him analyze him skeptically.

"Silas..." Lochras spoke, his voice having reached a new level of coldness.

"Yes father." Silas smiled.

"What did I say about lying." Lochras gritted his teeth to keep his anger in check. He had always thought of his child as a well-behaved one. He quite literally only made mistakes when he didn't know there was a mistake to be made.

But even then, it was as if he almost always knew what he should and shouldn't do at all times. He had always thought that he might have learned it from the books he always read.

While Silas was closed off, it always felt like Silas was honest with his parents and never kept things from them. But now...

In a sense, he was kind of relieved. At certain points, Lochras felt like he wasn't doing his son's intelligence any justice. Silas was mature, level-headed, and could probably be considered a genius for his age.

Books were teaching Silas more about the world than he, as a father, was. His son was too good for him.

So, he was relieved when he heard that his son had disobeyed a command from them and had chosen to go out on his own into the forest every night.

Sure, he was enraged and worried, but he was also relieved. Maybe, just maybe, his son wasn't too good for them?

"I don't lie." Silas crossed his arms and looked at his father with a deadpan expression.

"What do you call what you've been doing all this time, then? Going out at night? Risking your life. You could have died. Do you even understand what would have happened if you died out there?

How could you be so irresponsible? Imagine how your sister would have felt if she learned you died because she didn't say anything. Your mother, grandmother, and I too... Imagine how we would have felt."

"I don't lie." Silas insisted, his face falling into a serious one as he looked his father in the eyes.

"I simply didn't tell you."

"That's lying."

"Do you know what the definition of lying is?" Silas sneered.

"Don't speak to me like that." Lochras clenched his teeth.

"If what I did was considered a lie by your standards, then you've been lying to me since my birth." Silas smirked.

"Wha-"

"You've been keeping something from me about the Skylark family. I could tell that much from Grandma's reaction to me accepting the battle invitation from that girl. She was clearly worried that I might lose and shame the family name, but I knew what kind of person she was.

She is not the kind of person to care about something so small and insignificant. I'm not an oracle, so I have no idea what you guys are hiding, but shouldn't you at least follow your own rules and moral compass before forcing them onto your children?"

"We did that protect you." Keira argued.

"And I could argue the same." Silas gave his grandmother a side-long glance and continued.

"Do you want to know my ability?" Silas asked, but before they could answer, he cut them off and began to tell them anyway.

"I can use all elements."

"..."

"This isn't time for jokes." Keira also frowned, but Silas didn't react to her sneer the way the expected. He simply stood straight and pointed his hand at his grandmother.

'What the hell.' Keira widened her eyes in shock.

Suddenly, a magic circle appeared before his hand, causing both of them to freeze out of shock.

Water spiraled before Silas' fingers, and before they could understand what had happened, a tier-1 water ball shot toward Keira's face.

However, while she might have been too slow to react to the sudden spell, the same could not be said for Lochras. After all, only Keira understood how big the feat occurring before them was.

Casting magic without saying anything wasn't impossible. Actually, there were three levels of magic casting. Inscription, incantation, and silent magic. Of course, they were all limited by the rules and limitations of the magic circle.

Inscription was the first stage and usually never used except in array creation, enchantment, or in the process of forgemastery.

Incantation was the most used spell-creation method since it was the easiest to learn and was considered the second fastest. To say an incantation and succeed in creating a spell, one must have a basic knowledge of the spell they're creating. This meant that they needed to have created the spell through inscription once in their lifetime before actually creating it through incantation.

Incantation was complex, but it could also be broken down into main rules. Stronger spells have longer incantations, but if someone has a particularly strong connection or understanding to the spell itself, they are capable of shortening the incantation down. Some mages can cast tier 2 spells by simply saying the spell's name.

On the other hand, Silent spell casting was a feat on its own level. Only a small few on the entire continent have been capable of creating magic circles without saying a single word, and those were either considered the top geniuses of Gilea or were extremely old magicians who've mastered the craft of spell casting.

*Swoosh*

A blade sliced through the water and caused it to splash onto Keira. Lochras didn't know why, but he expected the water ball to be much stronger.

Maybe it was the sudden sense of danger he felt when Silas raised his hand? Or maybe it was the look his son gave him before shooting the water ball toward Keira.

Of course, Lochras knew that silently casting such a spell was an amazing feat, but he didn't know how amazing it was since he wasn't a mage himself.

"What the hell are you doing?" Lochras roared. He didn't know what was coming over him today. He was struggling to control his anger.

"You kept this from us..." Keira asked while pushing Lochras to the side.

"Though, I can't really use more than two at the same time. Also, it's more of a reversal thing, if you know what I mean? I can select a mage with a certain affinity, and use the opposing affinity against them. I can select up to two people too." Silas ignored her and continued from his previous point, but now, there seemed to be a trace of shame on his face. His previous confidence seemed to crumble, and at the same time, so did Lochras'.

Looking up, Silas acted like he was controlling himself, but at the same time, he made sure to not look his grandmother or father in the eye. He simply looked to the side and into the horizon.

"There's a reason I didn't want to tell you. I watch you guys praise Syra for how good of a mage she is every day. Sure, you praised me when I got better at fighting with the sword, but its not the same." Silas spoke, his voice quivering slightly.

They knew what he was going to say next. Despite not wanting to admit it, they had been neglecting Silas when compared to how they treated Syra. Syra was the favorite child despite being the oldest child. Every parent had a favorite, and Syra just happened to be theirs.

Of course, Silas didn't care about that. After all, he wasn't a child.

"I didn't want to take that away from her..." Both of their eyes widened when they heard what he said.

He didn't want to take that from her? What the hell did that mean?

"She's a mage. She has an S-class affinity. She's definitely going to be an amazing mage in the future, possibly even surpassing you, grandma. I didn't want to take that away from her. I love her to death, and it would kill me if she lost her motivation because of me." Silas looked at the ground as tears fell from his eyes.

"So you can call me selfish and irresponsible. You can punish me if you want. But don't tell Syra about my blessing. I don't want her to feel overshadowed the same way I did when she awakened." Silas covered his face with his arm as if he was wiping his tears.

The corner of his lips quivered intensely, but it wasn't because he was sad.

It was because he was trying to stifle his smile.

He was trying his hardest to not laugh out loud at them.

The puzzle piece was finally falling into place.

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{A/N: I was getting my passport yesterday and today, so uhm... Sorry about the one-chapter uploads. I know that I'm 6 chapters in dept to you guys. I'll try to make most of it up today.}

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