Capítulo 21: Making Connections
I turned 15 a week ago.
I returned to the church in Hage after almost five years to celebrate my birthday. I bought a lot of food for everyone, and we celebrated the entire night. Although I sent letters, meeting in real life was different. Father almost cried after seeing me. I never stopped hunting and earned a lot of money, so I donated a part to the church and brought gifts for everyone.
Fortunately, Asta doesn't annoy Sister Lily with marriage proposals anymore. During my years at the church, I ensured to teach manners and common sense to Asta and Yuno. What Asta feels for Sister Lily is appreciation and love as a maternal figure, not romantic love—I explained this clearly to him when he was younger.
In these three years, I mostly explored the common realms and occasionally visited the Black Bulls. Vanessa had settled completely and became the carefree Vanessa I knew from the series. Gauche joined the Black Bulls a year ago, leaving Marie in the care of Sister Theresa, and Grey joined just after him. Gauche gave me death threats to stay away from Marie every time I went to the base; sometimes he even attacked me after I mentioned her name.
That aside, after storming my brain, I found a method to unlock mana pressure.
I asked Yami and Sister Theresa to unleash it on me several times for research, to gain immunity, and to increase my mental strength.
Though I had to pay Yami for that; he refuses to do anything without getting paid.
I could stay awake for an hour under the pressure of Sister Theresa, but under Yami, I fainted instantly and woke up after two whole days.
After that, I asked him to release only a minuscule amount of his pressure.
Yami and Sister Theresa began calling me a masochist for going through this mental torture but for me, the gain was worth it.
I noted that every time someone unleashed mana presence, their aura represented an animal or concept like Sister Theresa's represented a leopard, and Yami's something I couldn't comprehend yet.
So I tried to shape my aura.
Until now, my aura was wild and dispersed, so I meditated a lot and practiced shaping it.
I read many books and visited museums to find something that suited my flame's characteristics best. After a few months, I got completely immune to Sister Theresa's mana pressure.
As my mental strength increased, I started having multiple dreams in which I found myself in a forest of flames of flames that felt similar to me.
Each time, a figure became familiar to me, which looked like a bird.
Finally, one day, I saw the figure clearly.
This piqued my curiosity.
I confronted Sister Theresa about it, and she said it meant I was going in the right direction in shaping my aura but something was strange.
The bird I was seeing in my dreams was a "dark phoenix," a lesser flame spirit that could absorb mana from other species through its flames. Seeing the picture and reading about it gave me an unknown feeling of nostalgia.
I am sure the spirit is linked to me somehow but I can't figure out how.
This bird has a large wingspan and tail, and its entire body is black. It is said that it has never chosen a human to share its power and prefers to live independently.
This bird is a relative of the firespirit Salamander.
There are not just four great spirits in this world but many lesser fire spirits, like Salamander being the Great Spirit and Phoenix being a lesser spirit.
I reached a conclusion when I practiced all my flame-type attacks: I found the spell I wanted to base my law on—it was "flame devour." Out of all the spells I knew, this one and the phoenix robe gave me the most comfortable feeling while using. The flame devour flames had a property of absorption and corrosion which I wanted to accommodate in my magic attribute. Moreover, I found that a dark phoenix's flames could burn an opponent until it had no mana left. I combined these three elements and started working on it.
My flames improved as my understanding improved.
I conducted an experiment in which I tried instructing people to create a mana core, but I found out that unlike me, others couldn't move mana inside their bodies. Even Sister Theresa, with her great mana control, was only able to move it for a short time before losing control. So, no mana core for anyone else.
I guess it's something unique to me.
At the end of the third year, I managed to produce a red flame that burned with enormous heat and had the property of absorbing the opponent's mana and continuing to burn. However, I could only produce them after focusing for some time, and they would disperse immediately.
Today, Sister Theresa was taking me to Leopold Vermillion's 15th birthday party. They invited her and one more person, so she took me along to introduce to them. I dressed nicely in the suit I bought, and with my looks, I didn't look much different from a noble.
The place was quite far, so we began our journey the previous evening.
"Be sure to make some friends at the party; you will need connections in the future," said Sister Theresa.
On the way to the Vermillion base, I checked my stats:
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NAME: Julian
AGE: 15
RACE: Human CORE: Light Orange
MAGIC: Fire (Basic Law)
BODY POINTS: 85
MANA POINTS: 180 SPELLS: Flame Claws, Flame Bullets, Flame Laser, Flame Breath, Flame Wave, Flame Wall, Phoenix Robe, Flame Arrow, etc. SKILLS: Mana Reinforcement (Intermediate), Ki (Intermediate)
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When I reached there, I was amazed by the size of the base. It was nothing less than a huge castle, almost thrice the size of the Black Bulls' building. There were many people from the Vermillion family with iconic reddish-orange hair and a lot of Crimson Lion squad members. I saw some members from House Silva with grayish-white hair and House Kira with blond hair.
When Sister Theresa introduced me, some royals and nobles eyed me with hostility, but no one approached me to cause trouble, for which I was relieved. I didn't find Fuegoleon and Mereoleona anywhere. I don't think they would miss Leopold's fifteenth birthday, so they are most probably around. I didn't see any people around my age.
After the crowd cleared to a degree, I was able to meet Leopold. He politely greeted Sister Theresa, as he knew his siblings respected her a lot. I gifted Leopold a locket made from the horn of a geo rhino I hunted years ago with some extra modifications. Surprisingly, Leopold was happy to have someone his age at the party. We started talking and became friends. Me having fire magic and being a student of his sibling's teacher played a role too. He was loud and fun to be around. He was the opposite of the royals present here who gave me stingy looks.
He introduced me to his cousin Mimosa. She was a year younger than me and Leopold. Unlike Leopold, who didn't seem to care about his bloodline, she had that pride of the royal. Apparently, not all Vermillions had fire magic. Leopold's side had fire magic, and Mimosa's side had plant-based magic. I saw Mimosa's brother praising his beauty in one corner like a narcissist.
"I don't like that guy; he's too weird," said Leopold loudly. I found a problem with this guy—he has no control over his mouth. He would blabber anything that came to his mouth without considering the time and place. I'm pretty sure Mimosa's brother heard Leopold's remark but decided to ignore it. I could see Mimosa agreeing with Leopold. From them, I got to know that there are currently three main royal houses: the Kira, Silva, and Vermillion, with the Kira house holding the throne. The rest who call themselves royal are branch families bearing the last name. Leopold asked me how I trained under Sister Theresa, but he shuddered hearing it as it matched mostly with what his brother told him, which he thought was a joke.
Leopold had decided to join his family's squad and succeed his brother as the leader in the future, and Mimosa had received an offer from Golden Dawn for her healing magic and status, so she agreed to join after getting her grimoire next year. I had to take the exam normally, as my identity was not special. I talked with Leopold a lot and promised to hang out later on.
The dinner was arranged in the space outside the base. I also got to know that Mimosa and Leopold eat a lot.
From a balcony, three people were watching everything.
"Ho! He's restraining his aura quite well," said the orange-haired woman.
"I didn't expect sensei to take another student. Are you sure your health is fine?" said the orange-haired man.
"Hmph! It's too early to worry about me, Fuegoleon, Mereoleona. As for him, he'll surpass you both if you laze around," said Sister Theresa.
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder