章 64: Chapter 64 - Thunder and King
[Bairon Wykes POV]
I was in front of my family's residence, waiting for my new apprentice, the prince of Sapin, Curtis Glayder. I was honored to see that the king decided to choose me as his son's magical mentor.
Even though I have numerous tasks as a Lance, specific weekends were chosen so that I would have free time to teach him. At first I had protested, even though it was something important, the most important thing was our public image and our duties as protectors, but my opinion was changed when my colleague, Varay, told me some indirect advantages that came with it. Making me fully accept this new job.
I could see a carriage approaching, and one of the maids from our residence went there and opened the door, revealing Prince Curtis, who carried a simple bag and had his hair slightly disheveled. I might as well let this pass, since it's not even close to noon yet.
"Welcome to my family's residence, Prince Curtis. I hope your coming here hasn't been a hassle." I said as he approached me.
"Thank you, Thunderlord. And coming here was more peaceful than I expected. I'm curious to know your teaching methods." He said as we started towards the main door.
"It will be similar to my training at your age. The king asked that you be taught to be like me in some battle situations." I made a slight comment to further his curiosity, while the maid closest to the front door let us in.
Inside the residence, my new disciple was welcomed by my brother and sweet mother. She started talking to him in a very friendly way, meanwhile I noticed a strange malicious smile on Lucas' face and I stared at him. It was two seconds before he noticed me and started shaking, wiping that smile off his face.
My mind was filled with phrases of disapproval, even though he has done countless evil things and we have to hide it all, he is still my brother, he is still my father's son, he still has the same blood as me in a way. And I'll forever be forced to know this, all in the name of House Wykes' reputation, but I know deep down that my father just didn't disown him, because of the magical potential he has, and the expense we spend on all the elixirs he had access.
I realized that the little introduction and conversation between the prince and my mother was ending, and when the last words were said, I decided that it was better to start this training soon. "Follow me."
We walked through the main halls of the mansion, until we arrived at my private arena. Due to my flying skills, it was decided that this open area we had in the back would be completely mine when I was here in Xyrus.
We took a step on the large piece of white quartz and I walked a few meters in front of the prince, positioning myself and starting to instruct him on what to do now. I was selected to be a royal's magic mentor, but still, I felt a responsibility to teach him more than that. As a Lance, my primary role is to fight for my people, so may I see that reflected in my first disciple.
I saw the fire mana around him becoming intense as he picked up a pompous sword, but which I knew had an extremely durable blade.
The prince positioned himself and set fire to the blade, now holding the sword with both hands. "Okay, let's get started!"
He started propelling himself towards me with a firm and dense step, having the sword aimed at me, he made a slight movement to the left and already started trying to attack me with a horizontal slash. The flames that were on the blade seemed so intense, I could feel the heat making my skin sweat a little.
I managed to dodge it by taking a side step, while waiting to see what he was going to do. I didn't want to use any mana. That was just for me to see how far he is in swordsmanship.
"Yaaah!" Curtis jumped towards me with a swinging sword movement, this ended up leaving him with some openings in the leg areas, so I quickly ducked down to dodge the attack, and soon after gave him a light slap on the leg, making him stay in standing still, confused.
"If I could attack you with everything, even if I were weaker than I am now, you would have received a strong blow to the legs. You can't leave your body with gaps. That blow of yours was interesting and seemed to use momentum well, but still, if you're going to do something like that, let it be while you're wearing armor below the waist or do it so quickly that this flaw can't be seen." I made a comment as I stood up and walked away from him a few steps.
"Continue!" I said, getting into a defensive position.
The prince seemed to take the situation a little seriously, approaching and then making another move with his sword, seeming to do a Vertical Slash. To get away from it, I took a side step again, but something surprised me.
Amid the movement of a vertical slash, the prince used the flames of the sword to propel the attack horizontally without the momentum being undone. He simply changed his attack midway through. I managed to dodge it by jumping back, but it was still surprising to see someone of his level making an attack modification in such a short window of time.
"You said you wanted to see my sword skills, but how about a mix between sword and magic?" he smirked.
"So your old instructor also taught you something like that?" I said as I took a closer look at the mana around us.
"Heh? No. I saw a friend of mine from the academy doing this, and I was imitating him in my spare time." he said and then began to make a movement with the sword, turning it inside the axis of his left hand, with the flames on the blade becoming more intense with each turn.
I raised an eyebrow. "So the prince was already thinking that watching the mages around was a great choice? Interesting. But I would like to meet this friend of his." I thought for a while and then spoke again while carefully observing the mana around "I'm not surprised to see techniques like this among the students in your class, it's your fourth year, isn't it?"
It was interesting how that technique he used was being fueled by ambient mana rather than his internal mana. He's an augmenter, that wasn't supposed to be possible. But if he'd managed to do that, and he hadn't had a magic tutor before, it meant he'd learned it at the academy.
"YAH!" The prince again advanced against me, but this time it was different, he seemed to make his sword guide him, with the flames on the blade propelling him and making him make several quick cuts in my direction.
I didn't want to do that, but I was forced to augment my body to get around it, I raised my hand after pulling away and soon he stopped moving, disabling his magic. I gave a slight smile.
"Okay, I see that your sword moves are good for official tournament battles, but you still need to learn survival techniques for when fighting some mana beasts or enemy mages. I also see that you already have some efficient basic learning regarding magic. Then we will train more complex things." He smiled a lot when I mentioned that and then he bowed to me.
"Teach me as much as you can, Master Thunderlord." He stopped bowing.
"Fine, let's move on to more uses... Besides swords... Have you ever used a spear?"
"No, but I used a staff when my old instructor used to train me to have a firm grip on the sword hilt."
"Fine, so a spear is similar to a staff." I said as I formed a spear of lightning in my right hand. "The difference is that it has a blade on the tip. Making it a medium to long range slashing and piercing weapon."
"Why are you telling me this?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Because you never know when you won't have a sword in your hand. Also, in terms of crafting items using elemental mana, making a spear is a lot less complex than making a sword. And in moments of danger having an item that doesn't need all your concentration is better."
"So besides magic, are you going to teach me how to use a spear?" He smiled.
"I'll teach you how to use a spear and more whenever I see we still have free time. But 90% of the training I'll give you for now is just magic. If your father allows it, I'll teach you some other more strategic things."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
[Virion Eralith POV]
I was talking to my granddaughter while watching that brat and his colleague train some more. I have to admit, that boy's earth spell control was interesting, and Art seemed to be both teaching him a few tricks and learning from what he didn't know. It was surprising to see this level of self-learning from both of them, considering that one of them didn't have that much control and the other had earth as the least developed element.
I noticed the door opening, to reveal this old woman I knew all too well. She seemed to smile when she saw my granddaughter and when she noticed the brat there training.
"What did you come here for?" I asked with a slight laugh.
"Hmm.. Just came to see how my disciple and my favorite students/teachers are doing. I heard Luz came to train here along with the captain of the disciplinary committee, but I'm not seeing them right now." Cynthia said as she approached us, Tessia let go of me and went to her mentor.
"They left saying they'd be back soon. I still find it unbelievable that that wonder brat isn't captaining this committee." I said shaking my head, making Cynthia laugh.
"Claire Bladeheart is a great candidate anyway, one of the reasons I got the job was the same reason I got Tessia as student council president. Her uncle is the leader of Xyrus' adventurer's guild, you know?" She said hugging my granddaughter.
"I already knew that, after all, I was there a few months ago to see possible candidates to be 'extra Lances'." I answered her.
I ended up having a different thought in my mind again, the two possible candidates that we had gone to see were Luz and Arthur, but of course, we didn't know that at first, but it was also expected that they would attract attention at that level. After all, one of them is the only Quad Elemental and Dragon Tamer I've ever seen, while the other is a human that can use plant magic, something that's never been reported before, at least officially.
"I've met another human who used plant magic, but that was a long time ago and I've never heard of him anywhere else... His name was a little funny.. something like Ju-" I thought to myself, but then my mind snapped back to reality when another person entered the room, it was Lance Alea.
Aureate, Cynthia and Tessia started to have a simple conversation. Meanwhile I was looking at my granddaughter, seeing the sparkle in her eyes and how happy she was today, until I heard Alea say that Luz wouldn't come back to the training room today, because he was extremely tired due to using his AOE spell.
"Hey, Old Bat! How about a little spar like old times?" Arthur spoke looking at me.
"I thought you would never ask for this." I smiled and went near him.
We stayed a few meters away from each other, while Arthur's friend started to make a kind of large rectangle of earth, so that everyone there could sit and watch our fight. Tessia was pouting, possibly remembering all the times the brat and I trained at the castle, Alea seemed to see it as a common event, Cynthia and the other boy seemed excited to see the situation, at least that old friend of mine could hide it very well.
"Only rule, we can only use the wind element and our beast wills. Are we in agreement?" I said while I augmented my whole body with wind mana.
"Your rules are clear like my ice attacks." He said with his expression changing, his eyes showed the same seriousness as when we trained together, he was smirking at me, but why?
"Airborn."
My answer came when he spoke a spell I'd never heard of. His body was surrounded by wind mana just as I did, but there was something different. My mana was covering my body in an ordinary way, while the mana in his body seemed to cover it in order to keep moving. The simplest way to explain it would be that I could feel the mana particles around all of his limbs, they were in constant motion as if they were small vortices.
He seemed to notice my surprise as he commented "I've learned quite a few tricks recently."
With that, I already started activating the first phase of my beast will, with my body starting to be surrounded by a not so dense black aura. I tried to lose him, running in circles and then stopping where he would least expect it, but I noticed one thing right away, his eyes.
Even with all the base speed of my first phase, he was managing to follow my movement with his eyes. Which I didn't think would be possible, because, as far as I know, he only has one spell that gives a high reaction speed, and it was a lightning spell, not a wind one.
Anyway, I propelled myself against him to give a vertical blow with one of my hands and he managed to defend himself, coating one of his arms with a dense layer of wind mana, and then quickly punching me in the stomach area, with the other hand. It felt like it was going to throw me away, but I ended up just backing up a little, with my feet firmly planted on the ground.
"What was that?... I felt my whole body had become lighter than the air itself..." I thought as I watched Arthur, still standing in that position and smiling.
"Sound Cutter." Arthur did a spell, quickly moving his right and left arms in an X shape. Causing an X-shaped attack in my direction.
I recently learned that he unlocked Sound Deviant, so I wanted to know what power level his attacks have at the moment. That way, I allowed myself to be attacked, but first I at least created a very dense wind mana barrier in front of me.
The result was bigger than I expected. Even having unlocked sound deviant and poorly trained this type of magic, he was already able to make my barrier crack, but not completely break.
"Impressive, brat. But let's see how it goes!" I said, activating my second phase, I was pretty excited.
My body speed up a lot as I started running around him to confuse him and create a kind of mini tornado in our battle. He seemed to reciprocate with several slashes in the air using his hands imbued with wind mana, making blades of wind appear towards me, they were always close to hitting me, but I had everything under control.
"Razor Wind!" I said, advancing against him with blades of wind forming in my arms, they were dense and glowing a bright green. But Arthur seemed to defend himself by creating a barrier of wind that seemed to vibrate, breaking part of the blades I formed. Without wasting time, I returned to running, making that tornado around us become more intense.
"Circle duo!" He said, creating circles in his palms and flinging them to the ground. The discs seemed to increase in diameter, it was as if he was trying to hit me in every possible spot I was going to walk, since he couldn't aim properly at me. I must say, it was a good strategy, but it wouldn't work on me.
To undo those discs, as I ran, I made the wind mana concentrate more on my legs, forming a sort of armored boot that went up to my knees. With that protection, I kicked hard the attack that tried to hit me, making that blow go far, just hitting the walls of the place we are.
Soon I saw the boy putting one of his palms open towards the ground, while the other was aiming up. I had a bad feeling, but still seeing him trying something I would never think of is always one of the few things that amuse me since met him.
He seemed to concentrate too much and soon I noticed both of his arms vibrating at a crazy speed, was he augmenting himself with sound mana in this whole scale? I never saw someone using SOUND for this type of thing! I only saw at least in the entire hand, but in a whole arm?! What will he do?!
"Dissonance!" He said another spell I'd never heard of in my entire life, and soon the vibrations that were in his arms went immediately to his hands and then released into the air. All that vibration in the air caused an explosion that destroyed both my tornado and threw me with great force to one side of the training ground.
I swear, I could feel all the wind mana that was in the surrounding environment being thrown away from Art, even the wind mana that was augmenting his body. What this kid did was literally repel all mana far away.
As I stood up from the place I had fallen, I could see that Alea had created a large set of vines that stood in front of the people to protect them as they watched our battle. Approaching them, I noticed Cynthia with a look of complete shock, something I'd never seen her have as Tessia ran towards Art. The boy with the glasses and Alea were panting and that's when I noticed that the earth place they were sitting on had been reinforced with stone rods, which meant he also cast a quick spell to help Alea.
I glanced towards Art to see that his arms were smeared with blood, not in an extreme way, but it was the considerable minimum to think he was badly injured. Which made me run towards him.
"Arthur, is everything alright?!" I asked.
"A-art! Don't try something that insane!" Tessia complained about seeing his arms bleeding.
"Relax.. I'm fine." he said moving his arms a lot. "See? It was just the blood coming out of my skin a little from the vibrations. This is a common consequence."
"I have to agree... That's why sound mages never augmented themselves with sound at this level of entire limbs, they always do it only with small parts of the body like hands or fingers." Cynthia said approaching us and looking at Arthur. "But even so, it's something super complex, specially for someone who awakened this kind of magic less than a month ago.. Arthur, how did you manage to do that?"
"I just used the concept of imbuing lightning throughout my body, besides I was thinking of this attack as when I used it on my sword the day I discovered this ability." He said, like it was no big deal.
"Using lightning magic muscle memory for sound magic... Really, it's only you to think of such madness." The dark haired boy said, adjusting his glasses.
"Heh. Relax Elijah, I'll try to make you as crazy as I am. Maybe that way you can even throw a king away." at the comment, the two boys began to laugh while the boy named Elijah shook my former disciple's shoulders frantically.
"Still! Even Mentor Cynthia said this is dangerous, so don't use it! Hmnf!" Tessia pouted, still staring at the quadra-elemental.
"Alright alright. I won't do more unless I have to." he finally stopped being rocked, but right after that, my granddaughter pinched one of his cheeks.
"Ooh, it looks like you're going to be a couple who love to fight in front of other people. At least try not to be like that for once." I smirked while saying that, making Cynthia and Alea also smirk in their direction, Elijah just started to laugh as a madman, while Tessia and Arthur started to blush as hell, their faces were like tomatoes now.
"My God, you're so much redder than at that dinner!" Elijah said still chuckling but soon stopped laughing when he noticed I hear that.
"Wait... What dinner?" I asked, looking at my granddaughter who was extremely silent.
"It wasn't a big deal, it was a dinner to celebrate our leaving the hospital. Yesterday was the only day we could find it and everyone from the student council and disciplinary committee had been invited, but unfortunately some declined the invitation at the last minute." Arthur answered me.
"And what was at that dinner?" I asked as Arthur's gaze drifted away from mine, possibly knowing I was planning on using the cactus if he said something wrong.
"Well, it was in a fancy restaurant, private room, 11 people...and we just had dinner and dessert." He answered me with sweat pouring out of his forehead, and I gave a sigh.
"If that's all it is... It's fine. It's good to know that you treat my granddaughter the way she deserves, she should always enter the fanciest and most respected places in Xyrus." I said honorably and she turned redder, hiding her face behind Art.
"Speaking of treating well.. You'd better go out to eat, wouldn't you?" Alea said worriedly.
"Actually, I've already asked an employee to bring their lunch... As they had warned me in advance that there would be more people today, I asked them to bring what they always ask to eat, only in larger portions for have for everyone." Cynthia commented.
"And what do you usually ask for?" Elijah looked curiously at my granddaughter and Art.
"Hm... We always order salad... Pasta... And lots of meat." When my future son-in-law said that, a white figure appeared and knocked him to the ground, it was his bond.
"Sylv! Get off me!" Arthur tried hard, but that disguised dragon wouldn't come out of his face at all.
"Ooh...she's annoyed that you mentioned meat but there's nothing here yet." Tessia said, managing to pick up Sylvie and caress her belly.
"I think I'll be on my way. I need to get back to the council castle for a special meeting we're having this afternoon. Aureate, could you follow me?" I looked at Alea, who seemed distracted by the baby dragon, but then she looked at me.
"Y-yes!" She said goodbye to everyone there and went ahead of me.
"See you someday folks. And I hope next time you can tell me how the date went." I smirked and started to walk away from there, just hearing my grandaughter trying to say something, but she couldn't.
"During our time there, did you see anything interesting?" I asked to the Lance next to me, as we approached a carriage we asked to wait for us here around this current time.
"Interesting at what level? About your former disciples being monsters when it comes to learning, or the princess being able to make rapid progress when assimilating an S Class Beast's Will?" She asked raising her eyebrows.
"In general..." I said with a sigh.
"Well, this new generation is going to be insanely powerful if most people are on their level. And I mean, even a completely random kid, after befriending Arthur and Luz, turned into a mage who seems to be slowly approaching their level little by little. So at the very least I can say that everyone around them will be insanely dangerous to have as an enemy." Alea gave me a super honest answer.
"Well, I hear they both became teachers... So by the looks of it, we're going to see some great mages leaving from here this year." I laughed out loud after saying that, getting into the carriage with her.
After the carriage started to move, I relaxed a little in my posture, as Alea seemed to grab a bag inside her dimensional ring. And she offered what was in the bag to me. "Would you like some sour finkra roots?"
"Ooh! I do. It's my favorite snack." I opened one of my hands and she put a bluish root in my hand, I put it in my mouth and started chewing the tip, causing the root to release a sour liquid of the same color.
In a way that even surprised me, I ended up hearing a slightly high-pitched sound, it was related to the communication scrolls. I took what I had in my hand and opened it, seeing the face of Aya Grephin, the other elf Lance.
"What is it? Did something happen?" I asked.
"Master Virion, I have discovered some information that will be interesting related to slave houses by Sapin. Some of it seems to be connected with another slave sellers guild in Darv that we had been told about earlier." She said, looking straight into my eyes.
"Great, have you done anything about it?"
"I took advantage and already sent a messenger to the council castle, he has the original version of some of the documents I found that I saw that would not be important for my part of the mission. The ones I sent have written the name of the cities, possible owners of these localities and a small list of nobles who did personal business with the slave houses here in Sapin."
"Perfect! Next time when you have more results, instead of sending a messenger, come here in person. Of course, if possible." I made an order and she complied, soon the communication scroll in my hands crumbled to ash.
For now my only thought was of what we had discovered a few months ago. Things are really going to get intense in the future, I can feel it deep in my bones.
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