Chương 3: Magic-II

Nozel went through the pile of paper in his desk. He had a lot of duties as both the lord of Silva household as well as the captain of the Silver eagles.

'Too much work.' Nozel shook his head. Nebra would have helped him with the paperwork but she was currently on a mission and Solid was too young to do anything.

Nozel leaned against his chair. Although with Solid's personality it would be a while before he could help him with something like paperwork. *Knock* *Knock* "Come in." He said. The door revealed a slender black haired middle aged man. It was Jeeves, the head butler of house Silva. "Lord Silva, The guest has arrived."

Nozel nodded as the butler quietly left the room. Solid's teacher had arrived. It was two days ago that Solid had requested Nozel to find him a Ice mage which was reasonable since the prior had no experience with ice magic and was taught water magic for most of his life.

What was surprising was the fact that it was 'Solid' who had asked him that and not the other way around. Nozel's brother had always been confident, too confident so for him to ask for a teacher was a welcome suprise.

Nozel had multiple options for ice mages who would be qualified and willing to teach a young prince of house Silva. He thought about his options, the most logical would have been a knight from his squad. He had the authority to do so and he wouldn't have to owe anybody any favours but Nozel didn't like that option because it would mean that he would have to sacrifice a competent knight to teach his brother. The diamond Kingdom had started act up once again after being silent for a while so he didn't want to weaken his squad, not even an individual.

The second option was a retired knight, Nozel didn't have the same authority over a retired knight as he did over an active one but he doubted anyone would say no.

But when he went through the list of retired ice mages, he found an interesting candidate. Amanda Lugner, The former Captain of the Purple Orcas. House Lugner had a good relationship with House Silva and Amanda herself was very close to his mother.

'I am glad she accepted.' Nozel sighed. In all of the Clover kingdom. He doubted there was anyone else more perfect for the role.

…

Amanda sat in a luxurious room. The decorations around the room. The golden chandelier, the carpet and various artefacts around the room screamed 'Wealth'. It was expected of a royal family but still, she did not like such extravagance.

The door creaked open. Revealing Nozel, The young captain of the Silver Eagles. "It's an honour to meet you. Lady Lugner. We're glad you decided to help Solid with his magic."

"The honour's mine, Lord Silva. Besides, I owe your mother a lot. Think of it as me repaying a small portion of the favour I owe her." said Amanda, grabbing the cup in front of her. She took a small sip of the fragrant tea. 'They even made her favoured tea.' Amanda thought slightly impressed.

"I was told of your brother's condition. In all my years of serving as a knight, I hadn't heard of something like that. So naturally I was interested as well." Amanda said looking at the young royal in front of her… well young by her standards.

"I am sure he will be able to learn a lot from someone like you." Nozel said, "And while I have warned him, if he were to do something out of line, You have my full permission to… Discipline him."

Amanda chuckled. If what she heard about young Solid was true than he might need quite a bit of 'discipline'. She looked Nozel, he reminded her of an old friend. 'Acier' although she was quite a bit younger than her, Acier had always been something of a friend to her. She was a comrade, someone who she had fought with for countless battles. Amanda was shocked when she heard of Acier's passing, especially at such a young age. It all looked so suspicious to her… yet she didn't have the authority to do anything.

"Alright, show me my student." Amanda said as she stood up from her seat. Nozel was surprised at the old lady's impatience.

Both of them walked towards the arena where Solid was practising his magic. Amanda looked at the young boy. He was tall for his age and had the same pale silver hair that identified him as a Silva. He was also very thin.

Though what stood out the most about him was his mana capacity. It was large. Even for a royal, the amount of magic the boy held was absurd. Almost equal or maybe even greater than Acier herself.

…

"This is my student." I heard the old woman who I now recognised as Amanda Lugner said.

Nozel nodded. "I will take my leave. I have much to do." With that Nozel left us alone. The old woman looked at me for sometime as if studying every detail about me.

"How long have you had Ice magic?" She asked.

"It's been four weeks since I woke up with ice magic." I said.

Amanda nodded thoughtfully. "Show me what we're working with here." said Amanda tapping her cane on the ground. Five boulders made out of ice popped out of the floor all at different distances. The farthest one was twenty metres away. 'Did she just create a structure twenty metres away from her without even using her grimoire.' I was once again reminded of my place in the world.

I understood what she meant by that. I raised my hand in the shape of a gun. My grimoire fluttered open as three ice bullets around me. All the bullets dashed towards the closest boulder which was five metres away. All of the bullets connected but to my suprise not even a dent was left in the boulders. My bullets simply shattered as soon as they hit the boulders. Tch I somewhat expected this but still. I once again cast the spell this time aiming at the farthest boulder. Again all of them connected but simply shattered as if they were nothing. At least I was accurate.

I looked towards Amanda trying to gauge her reaction. She had the same cold unimpressed look that I had come to expect from her. "Is that all?" She asked, tapping her cane impatiently.

I gathered mana around me once again. My grimoire fluttered once again. I dashed towards the closest boulder, I doubted ice bullets would even scratch it so I instead opted for a different tactic. It didn't take long before I was in front of it. I raised both my hands together, Ice gathered around my hands forming a huge greatsword which was just as big as my body and just as heavy as well. Using the momentum of my dash and good ole gravity I slammed the greatsword downwards with full force.

It connected to the boulder cleanly and the next moment shattered into a million pieces. I looked at the boulder which didn't even have a single scratch. 'Alright now this is starting to get annoying.' I created a huge bullet and blasted the boulder at point blank range. The shockwave from the clash pushed me back.

"Ow" I said, rubbing my back. The boulder stood there as if nothing even happened. I looked at my teacher who just looked at me with the same impassive expression. A feeling of shame and disappointment passed through me. I couldn't even create a dent on the stone. And then I heard the same word that I had been dreading. "Is that it?"

"Well, stand up." Amanda said, shaking her head, "We have much work to do." She once again tapped her cane and the boulders simply shattered and erased as though they never existed. She pointed towards a nearby rock. "Freeze it." She commanded.

I pushed my open palm towards the stone and let my mana pass through it. Soon a layer of ice formed around the rock. I then looked at my teacher who looked at me as if nothing happened. I once again put my hand on the frozen stone and did the same as before, the layer of ice around the stone grew. I once again looked at my teacher, who looked at me as if she were looking at an idiot.

"I told you to freeze it. All you did was create a layer of ice around it." She walked to the rock and tapped it with her staff. The rock simply broke apart and revealed a very much unfrozen rock. "Tell me young Silva, is creating a layer of ice what freezing means to you?"

"N- no" I said, not meeting her eyes. I had flashbacks to my uni days were nothing I did seemed to matter to the teacher and everything I did was wrong. "You have yet to attune properly with your magic." She said, as a tendril of ice emerged from beside her which quickly took the form of a snake. All three of the snakes looked at me then once again. "Ice magic is much more than creating and throwing pieces of ice." The snakes dissipated and the temperature around us dropped astronomically.

Layers of frost formed on the ground and the air itself seemed to lose all moisture in the form of snow. I could feel my body losing its heat. "It is the manifestation of cold. Of the absence of energy." She looked at me and for the first time I saw her make an expression other than apathy. I noticed why and I was shocked as well. Even though my body was freezing and losing heat, even though my entire body had started to go numb, I wasn't shivering as if I was unaffected by it.

"At least you can handle the cold." Amanda said. Her face betrayed a hint of a smile. "Everyday apart from Saturday, we will meet here just before the sun shows itself. If you don't show up. Trust me, You'll regret it."

I nodded. Somewhat scared but also excited at the prospect of finally learning magic. 'This is going to be awesome.' I thought.

I was wrong