NOVEL NEXT Chapter 3: Come As You Are 5
"I like the confidence. You will need it." Vyra lead me to an open area similar to the one we had trained before, of course this time, it was much more filled with bushes, which she quickly disposed of with a snap of fingers. Powerful wind waves dragged most of the vegetation of that area out.
"Are you trying to show off?" I asked jokingly.
"If I wanted to show off something to you, this wouldn't be it." She replied with a sneaky smile.
"Alright, so how do we start?" I try to cut her off, but her face has her usual smile, that probably wouldn't fade away even if she hit her pinky finger on a bed frame.
"So let's start from our last lesson, now you should be able to control your MANA well enough to use it either offensively or defensively. The last exercise that I've asked you to do was the one you needed to create that small flame with a snap of your fingers." While she was mentioning the last time she taught me something, she would demonstrate all the steps she mentioned. From the concentration of her MANA spreading thought her body to the snap fingers, that she did without any effort.
"From what I've seen, you are still wasting too much MANA just trying to maintain your form, if we were at an Academy you wouldn't be even allowed to fight or learn an offensive spell."
She put the finger of tips together and continued talking.
"Since your last exercise was to snap your fingers enough times that you exhausted yourself. Now you are going to maintain the highest output of MANA for the longest period of time that you can."
"And, how exactly can I do that?" I raise one of my eyebrows, a bit confused.
"Now that you are able to spread MANA through your body, your next step is going to burn all of your MANA while forming the most powerful shield that you can all over your body. If you are able to do that, I can safely teach you an offensive spell."
"And why don't you teach me an offensive spell already?" Is she trying to hold me back or something?
"Because your MANA control still slowly. If you were to learn anything more advanced than that, you would put yourself in danger. This is very much like working out, if a moron tried to lift a weight that he should have no business lifting, he would get injury and become unable to train for a while." Her gestures while explaining how to use MANA were quite funny, she has a weird habit of moving her index finger around while explaining something.
"Yes, I have to burn my MANA while I keep it stable, right?"
"Very good, at least you are paying attention. I'd hate if you gave up on your studies so easily, I take my teaching role very serious, so please take yours as student with diligence." That's a surprise for sure, I didn't expect her to be like that. It's like meeting a crazy person outside their job. And then learning they are extremely dedicated professionally.
"Kael, I will give you 10 minutes for you to gather your thoughts, if you try to do this with a wandering mind it's going to be just wasted time. Remember 30 minutes of a focused practice is much better than 3 hours of a mindless one."
"I will give my best then, teacher!" Fair enough. I can't take this jokingly, if I want anything resembling freedom I have to get strong.
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"Do you think he's going to be alright?" Elin turns to me while we were watching Kael's training for afar.
"He has proved himself to be competent enough. There's no need to worry, for now at least."
"Just hope that Vyra doesn't try to manipulate the new conditions you imposed, and jump a couple of steps." Elin replied with visible concern, taking her gaze back to their training.
"I thought you had more trust in her than that. Anyway, we have things to do. We can trust Vyra with the training, if there's one there's one characteristic that surpasses her perversion it is her love for magic and over-explaining everything about it." I turn my back to the improvised training are and move away from it. Elin does the same, following my steps.
"Fair, that much is true. But I supposed you didn't stop just to let Vyra train him, we also don't have that much time to spare. What are you looking for?"
"Yes, since we've encountered that slime, everything we thought was instantly sent downhill. Our initial idea was that they were only going to track their surroundings of Ulzar, but finding them here so early."
"Did you think she was going to quiet down for a couple of years? Your accession has taken everything we previously knew and turned it upside down, this strange power of summoning people is quite frightening."
"Heh, I'm flattered. I just didn't think the Monster Empress herself would be so erratic by my presence." I smirk, looking at Elin as we walk.
"You are an Anomaly in this word. And now that you have brought a man with your ability, I wonder how much things are about to change." Despite my smile, her face is a bland as stone. No reaction whatsoever. Elin has always been like that, Kael and Vyra intentions are always apparent. She is quite the puzzle to figure out.
"There's nothing I can do about it, I'm just focusing on accomplishing my goals. Those small details we can solve later, right?."
"I hope you have this confidence when you face the Empress."
"I thought you had more trust in me." After that, Elin went silent as her usual self.
"I want to see the River nearby, from the maps I've received back in the Inn we stayed, the place where Kael fought the slime and this are connected. "
I and Elin came out of the forest and looked down to a large stream of water going down, that direction was the place the Slime was previously found. Just at glance, we both could figure out the same thing, that creature was here. Elin's golden eyes kept checking every single detail she could, out of the group she had the best sensory and tracking capabilities, the only thing I could sense it was that something with a considerate amount of MANA was here, and it had made contact with the water.
"So, what do you think? This confirms at least one thing." I break the silence, laying my back against a tree.
"Yes, but it doesn't help too much, even with that I can't tell if that thing was going up to the Capital through this path or going down with the flow of the way. I'm not entirely sure if this path is safe either, we should notify to the Capital this. Both the delay and our encounter."
"Fuck, this is going to be a mess. If they know a creature of this caliber is going after, then it's going to be a mass hysteria."
"No doubts about it."
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Meanwhile, Vyra and Kael.
40 minutes later.
*You have reached Level 5!*
I've progressed more than I expected.
"Good job, the experienced you had fighting that slime did help you a bit, and you also managed to spread out your MANA for half an hour. Now that you are quite competent, It's the second part of the plan." Vyra had two small pillows on her, which she placed one in front of the other. I'd say they were about 5 feet away from each other. She sat on one of those pillows with her legs crossed.
"Just as important will be learning how to recover your lost MANA, since you lost it by bits of time, it will be faster to recover through meditation. It makes it take longer than me giving you MANA, but this also improves the control of your MANA, so you mustn't skip this process."
"Okay." I copy her position, sitting on the pillow with my legs crossed while facing her. She's looking away with a distant gaze.
"Did something happen, Vyra?" She turned her eyes back to me then looked down, replying.
"They are taking longer than I expected. This shouldn't take this long."
"Do you want to go check them?" Is she worried about them? Does she know something else that I don't know?
"Ha, of course not. I'm just wondering why, again, focus on your training. They better bring food if they intend on taking this long." She broke her serious with a smile, there is something wrong. "Okay, don't try to distract me, now to the meditation. The fir-"
Just as her words were coming out of her mouth. The sky goes dark for a bit and a flash of light covers one side of my face. As I listen to a thunderous sound that echoed all over the forest. I didn't move from my place, but I could feel the ground shaking as the aftermath was flooded by the sounds of birds screaming.
My body was trembling as I was trying to keep myself composed. I look around, trying to see where that sound came from. But from Vyra's sight it was rather obvious. It was the same location that Elin and Miria had gone to.
"Kael go back to the carriage! I'm going to check them!" And in an instant she dashed through that direction without looking back for even a second.