Reincarnated As The Dark Knight

Artur stood in the middle of the large room and assessed the whole thing with his eyes, not daring to touch anything at first. He for one did not understand anything around him. For some part it was like his father was a soldier, another, like he was a scientist. Another, like he was a scholar. 

The room was very big and further down from where Artur stood, he could that it had three sections full of weapons of every class, artifacts, bookshelves, boards and chalk, and many more. Between three sections were tall walls which clearly defined each space. The walls were at least, ten meters tall giving it nice spacing and more than enough room for the many shelves he was seeing around him.

'What in the world was dad doing here? It's like he was some kind of secret agent or something' Artur thought with memories of his past life playing in his head.

Just like any other person, Artur could not contain himself. He put his bag down and started checking everything out. He went from books to weapons, even swinging them, then to the artifacts that were in the shelves. 

"Dad is really amazing, who would have thought that he had stuff like this hidden down here. I've never seen anything like this"

He saw a table at a corner with some books on it and went to it. 'Let's see, what was he doing last?'

Artur went through the books one by one and tossed them aside because their titles seemed to bore him. It went on until he finally came across one which caught his attention but it still was not all that great, so he tossed it aside too.

'Doesn't dad have anything interesting in here?'

He kept on going through the books until he finally saw another one which he liked.

"The Secret of Pure Vitality: The Essence Form" He read "What is this? like some martial arts manual?"

He picked up the book and the one under it also got his attention.

"The Loxley Sword Techniques" Artur read "The Loxley Sword Techniques? Like the ones dad used against Duncan?" He put the first book down and opened The Loxley Sword Techniques book. He skipped the first part of book and went straight to the part that showed the fighting techniques. It really was a manual. A feeling of joy swelled inside Artur.

He wanted to know more about what his father displayed that night. According to Lucas, it was not magic and Duncan called it Sword Techniques. Thinking back, he thought it sounded stupid. He had lived for over four years in this world and he did not stumble once upon anything that mentioned magic. It was like they were hiding it from him.

"This is nice, now I can learn some more besides what Lucas taught me..." He said "...but how do I even do this if I don't know how he displayed all moves that day. I mean, it's not like water is just going to appear if I swing my blade the way the manual shows me" 'There has to be something around here that can show me how to do it, right'

Artur eyes went from left to right as he scanned the lair. 

'Where do I even start looking?'

He was tired from his journey, so he decided to sleep and continue the next day. He may have had the mind of an adult, but he was still in the body of a twelve-year-old.

***

'It took me over two hours, but I finally found it' Artur looked at the cover of the book with a smile on his face.

The Beginner's Guide To Magic

"Ok let's do this" Was what Artur said but when he started to read he realized that he did not understand the contents of the book at all. All the concepts it gave him were very confusing and only served to frustrate him. He needed none of those, what he needed was a clear way to use magic or whatever his dad used the night of the attack.

He got up and went to the table to search again, throwing the dusty old books aside as he took them from their spots. It took him a while, but he finally stumbled upon a paper that was buried beneath the mountains of books. At first, he paid no attention to it but when he looked again, he noticed that it had something that piqued his interest.

The paper was long and on it was the names of several people, names he had never heard of before, but they all had one thing in common: The Loxley last name. He was surprised to see that there were so many Loxley names, that meant he had a lot of relatives that he knew nothing about. After each name on every row there was a vertical line dividing the paper and next to it was an 'x'. Artur wondered who all these people might have been. He flipped the paper over when he was done with the first page and the first name he saw on the next page was 'Victor Loxley', his father's. It was not a surprise, he was down in this underground base after all, it would be weird for so many Loxley names to be on the list and his name would not be among. Artur had no idea what the paper was for, but he deduced that it was some family event exclusive to those who had Loxley blood running through their veins because even Lily's name was there but his mother's wasn't even though she had inherited the Loxley name.

Artur continued the read-through and stopped when he came to the last four names that were on the list. They were not crossed like the rest; their slots were still empty and lo and behold, Artur's name was the last on the paper.

'What was this for? What were they trying to do?' He wondered.

The last names on the paper were Kane Loxley, Alta Loxley, Luther Loxley and Artur Loxley. He was very sure that he had never heard anyone in his family or house, not even the maids who loved to gossip about, or his mother and father who loved to tell him about the great histories tied to their family, mention any of those names before. His curiosity was growing. Who were these three, what were they doing to everyone that they were all failing? He was so clueless. He knew almost nothing about his family, only had basic knowledge of the world he was living in which his parents had forced him to learn. Hell, he never even had any idea that magic existed in this world until the night of the display that took his family from him.

There were no dead bodies or skeletons in the Hawkhurst barony when he got back, he wondered if the king or some other noble took care of them. It was so convenient for him.

"I'm lacking in knowledge, strength, money, everything. Unless I can up my game, I won't be able to survive in this world. He looked from left to right at the three sections of the underground.

'Looks like I'm going to be here for a while' He thought 'I'll search this place for some other book that explains things more easily first' He blinked, not knowing where to start from but if there was something it had to be the science part, right? He decided to check the shelves there first. 

***

The search went on for long, but he found nothing on magic. He refused to stop though, believing that there was no way his father would have a base like be this and there would not be something as simple as an introduction to magic. He stopped to think for a second, maybe he was searching for the wrong thing. Should he have been searching for something different. 

He went back to the first book and read the first part where it described what magic was and how it occurred. According to the book, there was a special energy within them called mana and they could harness it to achieve inhumane feats but not everyone could use it. If it was inside everyone's body, what he needed to be doing at the moment was looking for a book that talked about anatomy if there was one. If this was really an energy that everyone depended on to live, then for sure it would have affected their anatomy, making it different from that of the regular humans that he knew from his past life. If he understood the anatomy, then there must have been a way for him to manipulate mana.

As he searched the shelves and the tables not finding anything for a while but with the exposed walls which were previously shielded by the books, he saw something in the corner with a low shine in the fire light.

Curiosity killed the cat.

He walked over to check it out, wanting to know what it was that was hidden away even in a hidden room. He put his hand into the space between the and after a bit of struggling he caught hold of it. As soon as he was sure that he was holding it, he tried to yank it out of the corner but it felt like something snapped and his hand came out with one half of a broken key.

'What?'

Artur heard a low boom! and when he turned around to respond to the sound. What he saw next sent his legs to sleep.

'What the hell is that?'