Yesterday was our visit to Elder Rinia, we had arrived so late at the castle, it wasn't worth starting our training at that moment, so we went to our rooms. We had a conversation with the King and Queen of Elenoir, apparently they wanted to apologize for what they said about us before our journey to Rinia's house. Arthur and I accept their apology, as it really was a massive change in customs that took place overnight. Virion told us that the training would take place a little after breakfast, so we went to our respective beds, sleeping peacefully knowing how our parents were alive and well.
I woke up to a loud scream from my brother, got up and opened the door, still in my pajamas and my new elf beret, thinking this was just Tessia waking him up again. But I noticed Virion running towards Arthur's room, and the sun wasn't set yet.
Getting a look of shock I ran to see what was happening. And when I got there I saw Virion helping Arthur with his mana core, apparently the imbalance by having beast's wills was hitting my brother's body, while I still hadn't received any negative effects from "mine".
"It's a bit early, but let's start training now." I could hear Virion saying this to Art as he walked out of his room. When he saw me, he asked us to go to the courtyard, so I followed him, with my brother right behind me.
Sitting cross-legged, the Elder took a long look at us before explaining. "Until now, you've been purifying your mana core and manipulating your mana using mana channels. While, for normal mages, this method is sufficient, for beast tamers, we can't rely on this approach. Instead, we do something called assimilation." We sat down facing him. I was trying to think what type of 'assimilation' this was, but we just looked at him as we had no idea what he was talking about.
Looking our faces, he started to explain "Well, the most essentially for this is intergrating the mana from your core directly into your body's bones and muscles, hence the method, assimilation. Unfortunately, throughout the period of assimilating, your mana core won't develop at all, but that isn't the point of this. Once the mana from your new core is absorbed throughout your body, you'll be able to start utilizing whatever power your beasts' wills had."
"So it's a way for our bodies to get so used to our mana core... and with that they won't start rejecting each other?" I said that and Virion nodded in agreement. Art did a facepalm, apparently it was such an obvious thing to think about, but we didn't do it because we focused on our knowledge of magic, not knowledge of our bodies.
"Okay, with that said, there isn't much I can help you with for the first part of your training except making sure your mana are distributed evenly throughout your bodies and relieving you when your body spasms like earlier." After Virion said it, we started our training.
Training continued on with us meditating, dispersing the mana out of our core and into our bodies without using our mana channels. We had gotten the hang of it after a few days. I didn't complete the assimilation but managed to assimilate enough that Virion didn't worry about my mana core anymore, with that he focused more on Arthur. My brother was having trouble assimilating, with his days being an intense routine of waking up, eating, assimilating throughout and sleeping. Not being able to leave the castle at any time, for his still being unstable.
Deciding that I would stop assimilating while Art was not well, thus enjoying the days with Tessia. I was able to know more about the elven capital and interact with some of the inhabitants. There were those who kept looking from afar, and there were those who wanted to shake hands when they passed near me. I didn't know why, but I soon found out by talking to King Alduin.
Apparently, the soldiers found several elven slaves within the locations I was able to show them using that map I stole from the slave traders. The king just hadn't spoken before, because he was waiting to finish all them to officially enact my assistance in all this rescue. I was happy about it, at that time 327 rescued elves were saved, and it had been around two weeks, and there was already a prediction that there were around 2000 to 5000 kidnapped elves, according to reports and population counts.
About a week after I found out about what my deed was doing for the elven community, I happened to see Virion with two guards in one of the castle's outer gardens. Both looked like elves with a very mature female body, one had white hair and very light eyes, the other seemed to have dark hair and brown eyes.
Finding it strange that they seemed to have different uniforms from the other guards, I slowly approached, waving and trying to get my Mentor's attention.
"Yo, Virion. Something new happening these days? Is my brother doing well in his assimilation?" I asked, with the two elves now also looking at me, while one smiled waving at me, the other seemed to give me a wink, which caught me off guard making my cheek be a little warm.
Master Virion soon turned to me. "Oh, brat! Well... your brother is doing fine, except for some still uncontrollable pain, for your other question nothing much, just talking to some royal guards. Ladies, this is Luz Leywin, one of my disciples."
"Oh! Disciple? I see, my name is Alea Triscan. It's an honor to meet someone who managed to get the attention of our former king." The light-haired elf said.
"Uuuh... A disciple? Interesting. Cute, my name is Aya Grephin. Nice to meet you, Luley." The black-haired elf spoke in a rather attractive tone, winking at me again.
"L-Luley?!" It made my cheeks rosy, making even Virion laugh, while Alea seemed to slap the back of Aya's head for saying something like that. But soon I managed to answer, bowing. "It-It's a honor to meet you too."
"Your presence really cheers people up, brat. But did you just come to ask simple things like that?" Virion looked at me curiously, as I always had second motives for him.
"Actually, I was supposed to show a trick, I found I could do it when a thin branch was about to fall on Tess' head while we were walking around town." I said, turning my back to them and making wind mana focus in front of me, I move my arm in order to spread the mana in the shape of a blade and so I launch a kind of blade razor, which hit the nearest wall , cutting the vines that were nearby.
"Wow, so you're a wind conjurer? Not bad, brat."He clapped for me, and the two elves also did it, even though that was good, I felt like they were applauding a child for finding out what 2+2 was. But that would change when I showed one more thing...
"Yes, but when I went to pick up one of the parts of the branch that fell off, I did this." I picked up one of the cut vines and approached them, with the piece of vine in my hand, it started to catch fire, burning it.
The eyes of the three showed the level of surprise they had, with my mentor saying. "Not just a Mana Conjurer, but a Fire Augmenter?!? Wait, you're a double elemental that can act like two completely opposite types of mages!!!"
"Exactly. And with that said, I wanted you to teach me about wind magic at least, after my brother had assimilated enough to not feel pain."
"Well, maybe, but it would take me a while, as he doesn't show that much improvement." Virion said, while Aya seemed to do a little jump. "Hey, could I help your disciple with some basic wind magic tricks?"
"Hmm... Maybe, but brat. Don't forget who here is your real mentor!" He said with a laugh at the end, tapping my shoulder lightly and leaving.
"Uh... Okay...?" I was a little confused how things took this turn, when I looked back at the girls, Aya was already very close, studying me with her eyes, while Alea seemed to create a stool made of thick vines, to sit on and see what that would give.
"So come on, Luley, I'm a Wind Conjurer, as well as being a personal guard of the royal family with great power, which makes me perfect for training the disciple of our former elven king." Aya said enthusiastically, never letting the seductive tone of her voice out. But soon Alea seemed to laugh a lot.
Why was she laughing? Simple, my face was deadpan, making the things Aya said seem unimpressive to me.
"Okay, are you going to teach me what kind of basi-" My speech was interrupted as she put a finger in front of my mouth.
"I think a light battle would be good for me to know that basics would be redundant to teach you, after all, you looked like a prodigy showing that wind blade from before."
"I knew it was going to look like this... Relax boy. I'll protect you if she overdoes it." Alea said as she leaned her head on a plant structure she created.
----------------------------------
[Alea Triscan POV]
I still couldn't believe what I was seeing. Would Aya, a fully grown elf, really want to face a human boy who has just discovered his elements? Although, the way his mentor is... maybe Luz is used to this, of people attacking him out of nowhere.
I looked at them giving a space of 10 meters between them, and Aya has already started as the first move to use Illusion magic, creating a fog. Did she really want to test him or tease the child more?
"Hunf, how boring." I could hear the boy say this, as he seemed to clear the fog with a strong gust of wind that went from top to bottom.
I wasn't shocked at first, as I thought this fog was weak because it was just a provocation from Aya, but I soon noticed her amazed look... Wait, was there supposed to be no way for him to get out of that?
Aya seemed to start throwing a few simple gusts of wind at the boy, who now... seemed to be floating in the grass... dodging the attacks....
"HOW IS HE FLOATING IN THE GRASS?" I spoke aloud in shock, watching the boy wonder, while Aya soon noticed that detail as well.
"Boy, how are you blowing gusts of wind through your feet? and in that consistency?!" Aya asked the boy.
"I thought you wanted to see what I can do, My Lady~" He answered Aya in the most seductive voice a little boy could say.
My shock at all that soon faded for me to laugh, it looked like he was getting back at her for the earlier teasing. And at least, now I had an explanation for the boy's movements, although it didn't surprise me, yet he's in the solid red stage, how long can he keep that up?
Aya, her pride hurt to see a human able to use such techniques on an element that was barely used, lunged at him, releasing a great fog again in the garden. But not only that, before the mist reached me, I could see her casting a sound spell.
For a few seconds blinded by the fog and hearing nothing, I used my plant magic to locate and know what they were doing there. It wasn't that surprising, but I could only locate Aya. The kid must still be using that weird technique of wind coming out of his feet, and that thought of mine had been shown to come true, because I noticed a strange place where the grass was more affected by wind, but it wasn't a simple point, it was a circle of 2 meters in radius.
It would have been 5 minutes already, watching the battle using my magic skill was already getting tiring, so I decided to get up and go towards them. My magic showed that they were still for the moment, or at least it was Aya who was, as the boy continued to use that technique...
Seriously, how could a solid red stage human use that amount of mana? Or was he a genius who figured out how to use the wind efficiently?
"Urgh, kid... for a human you're doing great... But for your age... Geez... I feel like we should stop for now, you don't need the basics in our training, I think we'll go straight to advanced stuff."
Finally able to hear someone, it was Aya, who cleared that fog around, and what I saw made my jaw drop. Aya was sitting on the grass, looking at the boy who had his clothes a little torn, as if he had taken several blades of wind through his body. And I could also see a faint dark smoke coming from his legs. What the hell was this 'little battle' idea?
Some maids came up to us offering fresh juices, I decided to create more little benches of vines, so the 3 of us could sit and refresh ourselves with that cold drink. There were no missions for either of us at the moment, so it was okay for us to relax a little and talk to Luz.
Honestly, who is this kid? His appearance was completely different from the way he spoke to us, even though he was 5 years old, he was very respectful, had considerable mana knowledge and had even started teasing several times, more than my colleague teased him. I think we'll get along fine.
And for a few weeks these were our routines. On days when one of us were on missions, the other would train that boy, even showing some wind techniques. I swear, he'll be a sound deviant before he's 10 years old if he keeps this up.
On one of our training days, he said he wouldn't participate, apparently his brother was already better in terms of the pain of assimilation, and Luz wanted his brother to have a day tour of the capital. I still couldn't believe there was a little boy with a Beast's Will in that castle, but I'd been spying on this Arthur guy myself a few times before, so there was no lie in that.
"Sorry girls, you know... Art needs to get out of the way so he doesn't go crazy just being stuck in the castle." The wonder boy said to both of us.
"Fine, Luley, but be careful, okay?" Aya continued to use that silly nickname to tease the boy.
"Eh. Relax, according to Grandpa Virion we will be with Tess and we will be watched by a guard in the distance." Him speaking like that, demonstrated his level of intimacy with the royal family.
Little did he know that the guard was me, making me smirk, but I soon covered it up with a laugh.
I was now watching from distance, seeing Princess Tessia dressed with a white sleeveless sundress and a white sheer cardigan over it. Her Light pinky sun hat was so cute, it was giving her a very doll-like appearance.
The two boys were grabbed by Princess Tessia's hands and went to the city. I could see a lot of people looking at them in surprise. Yeah, two human children were holding hands with our only princess. I sensed that some of the gazes were of pure hostility at Arthur, now I get it why Virion wanted me to this job.
It's when I saw, Arthur, Luz and Princess Tessia were starting to argue with some noble child, I couldn't see for too far, so I went a little near. That kid was from the Ivsaar Family and he was about to start a duel against the boys. What made me not know what to do? Did I intervene or would they be okay?
Quickly my answer came when I noticed Arthur easily knocking the little noble down while Princess Tessia and Luz pushed him away. They were indeed human, it was not to be expected that they knew what the so-called 'duels' were like in the elven realm. What made me laugh, but then it would be hard to imagine what would have happened to the poor boy if Luz had been the first to attack.
When I went to inform Elder Virion, he just started to laugh, apparently the boys had already told him what happened. Really, it was a completely silly way to see someone's magic level. But even so, that didn't stop the boys from continuing to go out sometimes to interact with the elven people, most of those times, I was the guard with the function of watching over the 3 children. While taking advantage of the days they were training with Virion to go on my missions.
According to Aya, there were small moments when Luz went to her to train advanced wind magic, and according to her, she also helped in training with fire magic. When I asked her about it, she told me that she used wind magic to strengthen the boy's fire magic so that he could train movements using those powerful flames. I was impressed how he was managing to train both elements together.
This routine continued for 3 years.