In a a field of blood red grass, one would be able to see a rather interesting scene. Pieces of the earth would rise straight into the air, twisting and turning repeatedly, constantly contorting itself into different shapes and sizes.
An equal amount of Water and Fire could be seen spewing everywhere, one after another wetting the grass for one moment, and then burning the grass next, before once again soaking the grass in water completely extinguishing the flames.
And in the midst of this one could see a number of bright sparks flying uncontrollably through the air, shooting left and right, up and down, and side to side. The very air twisted and turned as the wind blew irregularly through the plans causing the grass to fly one way, and then another the moment after.
And in the center of the chaos was Azule, silently watching his students train. Tristan walked up to him, and whispered something into his ear. He nodded, and clapped his hands causing a deafening sound to reverberate through the air temporarily stunning everyone in the vicinity. With his second clap the earth that rose to the air crumbled, the wind return to normal, the sparks had stopped, the flames was extinguished, and the water dried itself. And with the third clap the imps were knocked back to reality, and the the invisible chains that bound them vanished.
Everyone fearfully turned their heads to the center of the plains. They watched as Azule signaled them, and pointed at the ground in front of him. And all the imps scattered about immediately started frantically dashing towards the center. And in less than a minute the entire group that was scattered about had already gathered together.
Tristan teleported everyone back to the classroom in the castle, and Azule scanned the room once. He nodded his head, in approval, "With this today’s lesson has ended. Make sure you wake up early tomorrow so we can undergo morning training. Understood?”
""Understood!""
Azule nodded once more, and left quite pleased with the results before him. Things were progressing quite swimmingly, even after just a single day.
The changes themselves aren't to noticeable, and the recipient of the training itself have probably yet to notice. After all it would be quite frightening if someone was capable of training at such a speed that changes were instantly visible.
But Azule could see it, and as the teacher he knew more than anyone else how extreme the changes are. Their bodies have developed at speeds that would require several days of diligent training. Their spells have improved to the point that they'll soon enough be able to move onto the next Tier. And this is just the first day. It's impossible just how this group will truly develop until an extended period of time.
And maybe after optimizing and refining this training method even further, maybe these little geniuses will reach an unprecedented rate of growth, where the changes are visible to your average bystander.
Or at the very least that's the plan. Doing something like that is easier said than done, after all can you imagine just how many resource's Azule's used already? He's prepared everything from their food, to their learning environment, instructors, baths, clothes, weapons, equipment, books, and spells. He's prepared everything to use now, and everything he plans to use in the future.
He's spent an entire week crunching numbers, doing calculations, and finding the most effective path. He's measured just how much they can take, how long they can take it, and how much it's going to take to improve that. He's carefully chosen and manipulated every factor that could possibly influence their growth.
I mean just think back to those ever so vast red plains of grass. Too those imps those plains are simply just plains. They're somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but even the middle of nowhere wouldn't be so deserted. Because if you were to take a careful look around atop a hill you'd find that there were neither trees, nor beasts, nor buildings, nor stone too be seen. No matter if you climbed a hill, flew into the sky, or tirelessly ran through those plains you'd find nothing but red grass.
Could is far from being simple, as a matter of fact it's leans more to being absurd than anything else. The very air, the earth, and the grass itself acted as if they were supporting the imps, or rather anyone who stepped on these plains. If that isn't bizarre than what is?
Because you see these seemingly ordinary plains could easily be considered as one of the Rosen Clan's most valued treasures. These plains, are just like the forest Satou was born in, are a constructed sub-dimension titled the Plains of Slaughter. And there's probably few other places that are more suitable for training the next generation.
After all these plains have long since been water by blood of countless enemies, the ground has been feed their flesh, and their bones have long been used as their fertilizers. And after countless years the very sub-dimension itself has become completely permeated with the Blood Element, one that is extremely nourish to those of the Vampiric Races.
Even the drugs were specially made just for this training. Let's look at the Crippling Toxin. Crippling Toxins themselves are poisons specially compound out of a mix of several other poisons, and herbs. Each separate poison has it's own use like corroding the bones, tearing the skin and flesh, or damaging ones blood vessels. And the herbs are used to either weaken their effect or strengthen their affect. And then these poisons are generally coalesced to form a Crippling Toxin.
And mixed in this particular Crippling Toxin is several small doses of fatal poisons, and venoms as well as one particular venom that facilitates mana leakage.
While the pill constructed out of Blood Elixir contained several other elixirs and tonics designed to ease mana absorption, strengthen one's body, and assist the Elixir itself in repairing it. While the Blood Elixir itself naturally strengthened their bodies even after the first two hours of consuming it.
Now the purpose of these two pills is to break down the body, and then repair it rapidly, which would theoretically strengthen it. While the other poisons are present in small amounts, enough so that the tonics, and elixirs in the red pill can deal with it. But there's enough poison there for the body to build some form of immunity.
Now this sort of training could possibly be done through the use of repeatedly casing healing magic on oneself. After all you'd have to repeatedly cast a spell and use your mana, and that would create a similar effect of destroying and repairing the body. But to do this one would have to cast the spell [Cure] which increases the bodies natural regenerative capabilities with mana, instead of the faster [Heal].
But by allowing pills to do this, it becomes possible to uses this sort of brute-force strengthening method even while training. And naturally with a elixir as powerful as the Blood Elixir, it's ability to strengthen ones natural regenerative capabilities far surpasses [Cures].
And it even does so when the user is unconscious. After all the Elixir is so potent that even after diluting it so many times, the effects will still remain until the next day.
Though this method is extremely dangerous, if it weren't Azule and the Rosen clan the entire group might have turned into a bunch of cripples already. After all the one flaw that this training method has, has to do to with ones spirit.
Now I'm not talking about ones soul or anything, but ones mind, ones resolve. If someone were to use this absurd training method for hours upon hours a day, it's possible that they could reach a realm that no one has reached faster than anyone has ever before. But that's if they can withstand it.
This sort of training is a living hell, and it's no different from torture really. If Azule put any of them through this sort of torture for more than two hours, it wouldn't even matter if it were Satou his spirit would have been broken. And the training would have been completely pointless.
To ensure that didn't happen Azule even bought hundreds of medicinal herbs for that medicinal bath each imp had right after. The baths medicinal properties further strengthen their bodies, allow their bodies to more easily absorb all of the medicine from earlier, as well as cleanse them of any leftover toxins.
And only by doing all of this could the entire group experience such explosive growth. I suppose the only thing the group could really do to improve any more is a heaven sent miracle. Now everything will depend solely on the individual.
....
Satou sat down exhausted, he was mentally and physically exhausted. Today had all sorts of ups and downs like every other day, but today had more downs than anything else.
During the morning he was tortured, he lost his afternoon due to sleep, and during the evening he managed to improve his magic only to find himself at a standstill.
The World of Magic is just too large after all, and in the end the more spells Satou happened to learn the more and more he came to understand just how little he actually did understand. Just look at the first tier of magic, it seemed simple at first, but the more he looked into it the more complicated it got.
And Satou was also reaching a natural wall all mages have to eventually face that differs from person to person. And that is the insurmountable wall of talent. And for mages this has to do with the size of the mana pool your born with.
After all Mana is both a mage's greatest assets, yet their greatest limiting factor. Because no matter how proficient you are in a spell, or a style, or technique, because no matter how smart or wise you are a mage without mana just can't cast a spell.
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And increasing the amount of mana in your mana pool is no easy task, and this is obstacle is usually one most mages are just incapable of passing. This is simply because the size of one’s mana pool is inborn. Though your mana pool will grow over time, and there are a few methods to increase the size, but in the end you still need to be born with a large mana pool to have a chance at being a successful mage. So mage’s tend to correlate one’s mana pool to their talent, and potential.
This isn’t as much of an issue to Demons and Angels who, by increasing their rank can expand their mana pool and convert their respective energies into mana. But in the end those Demons and Angels born with larger mana pools typically tend to have the upper hand against their opponent.
Though it’s not as if skill has no part in this, a mage who can skillfully use their magic still has a chance against a mage who has a larger mana pool. But if both mages were to have the same amount of skill, the one with the larger mana pool would be the winner for the most part.
Because even if you were to reach an extreme mastery over all of your spells drastically decreasing the mana cost of the spell and increasing its strength. The battle will end in whoever is able to last the longest, and in most cases not all that usually tends to be the one’s born with more mana.
And there's nothing Satou could really do about his lack of mana, so instead he decided to turn his attention towards a certain technique called Sequential Casting, or rather it’s more commonly used name Active Casting. Too put it simply Active casting is sort of stacking one spell after another without dispelling the first one, or in other words keeping that spell Active. And since the spells aren't cast together, and appear in a sequence hence the name Sequential Casting.
Anyways this type of technique comes in handy in scenarios where you have to to maintain your defensive spells, while still casting offensive spells or buffs. This way you can maintain spells like [Lesser Barrier] while charging in with a buff like [Feather Foot]. Or you could use the techniques effects to stack one defensive spell over another like using [Lesser Barrier] with another defensive spell, or another layer of [Lesser Barrier]. This is known as Active Stacking.
You could also use Active Casting in conjunction with spells like [Arcane Bolt] a magical arrow that finds strength in numbers. By repeatedly casting [Arcane Bolt over and over and holding them active you can create a massive volley of spells. This is known as Active Loading.
And with these two techniques Active Casting has been able to match Simultaneous and Dual Casting in utility. After all knights could use Active Casting to stack countless buffs onto himself without a mage, a tank could stack an incredible amount of fortifications without a mage, and mages and archers could load massive volleys of spells and arrows by themselves.
And while we’re on this topic why don’t I explain the fundamental differences between Simultaneous and Dual casting, and that is the phenomenon produced.
Simultaneous casting is limited to spells who possess a similar nature, or element. And by casting two similar spells the two end up increasing each other’s strength exponentially.For example if you were using [Ignite] and [Heat] simultaneously you’d be strengthening [Ignite] by forcing the flames to radiate heat in only one direction, increasing the spell's destructive capabilities while protecting yourself.
While Dual Casting is when someone cast two completely different spells regardless of their nature. This way the spells won’t combine, and neutralize each other. And after one masters Dual Casting, they can move on to Tri-Casting, Multi Casting.
Satou sighed, if only there was something better to do. He lazily turned his head and peered through the window staring at the red sky. He was bored, even with everything he could do, he had nothing he wanted to do.
He could do something productive to do, after all there's always going to be work to do. But, Satou didn't really care about getting anything productive done. He just wanted something fun, something to spice things up a little.
But in the end life isn’t just all about fun and games, people have to work to live. They need to work to to survive.
Everyone except Satou. What reason does he have to work? Is it for a passion? Is it for a dream? But all of that’s temporary.
How long will Satou’s passion last? Can he practice Magic for an eternity? Will he practice Magic for an eternity? Can he live his life passionately? Is there such a flame that could burn eternally?
All of these questions floated through Satou's head, immortality huh.....
“Hey”
One of the imps, called out to Satou.
Satou raised his head, and recognized the imp as one of the twins, he introduced himself, “Hey, I’m Sa-Daemon.”
“Hey, Sada, I’m Bryt!”
“No, it’s just Daemon.”
Several other Imps walked over, and the second twin introduced himself, “I’m Wryt”
The largest imp pointed proudly introduced himself, “Darren”
And one imp after another started introducing themselves, there was Mat, Pat, Nat, Jen, and Riley.
Bryt energetically began asking, “Hey, Sada-”
“Daemon”
“Sada, why do you look so different. You kind of look like Azule and the Lord,”
Satou responded, “eh, well I don’t know exactly why, but I’m a vampire now.”
“Why?”
“How would I know.”
Bryt frowned,“Ehh, that's boring.....”
Bryt having completely lost interest quickly left the room, followed by his twin Wryt.
Satou stayed in the classroom striking up a few short conversations with the imps, before leaving. And with nothing to do, he began wandering the halls of the castle.
If there weren’t so many rooms, and if there weren’t so many peculiar sounds emitted from some of them Satou would have taken the time to check the rooms out. But instead, he simply wandered the halls greeting the occasional guard and maid.
Satou was rather conflicted, he was too bored to work and to lazy to play. He felt like doing nothing, but he was oddly restless while doing nothing. And as he wandered the halls, he noticed a little red figure almost blending into the red grass outside of the castle.
Satou leaned up against the large window, and squinted in an attempt to make out the figure. It was Maria.
Out of all the imps she was the only one he has yet to talk to, and she also happens to be the most mysterious one. That's right I haven't really talked to her that much.....
Satou, decided to take the opportunity to get to know her a little, who knows it might get a little interesting getting to know a Chimera.
Satou quickly ran through the halls, down the stairs, and straight through the large castle doors. He quickly had the guards open the gates and started chasing after Maria. He ran in the generally direction he remembered she was walking, and notice her enter a forest, she seemed to be heading towards a hill.
Satou quickly cast [Feather Foot] on himself and made his way over to Maria with ease. He quickly made his way through all the vegetation and climbed the hill.
And there she was, sitting atop the red hill surrounded by trees. She sat on the ground with her legs tucked into her arms. And she silently sat there and watching the orange sun set.
Satou slowly walked up to her, and asked, “Beautiful isn’t it?”
Atop the hill Satou could see far into the distance. He could see the vast red plains of grass, and forests, he could see a few other hills, and a mountains, and he could see the bright red sky dyed in the sun’s grand colors The world was like a color palette and the countless shades of red that filled the land, and sky began to mix and intertwine with the amber sun.
“Mmmm”
Maria quietly responded, causing Satou to smile wryly
“I’m Daemon, it’s nice to meet you Maria”
“Mmm”
Satou walked over to her, side and he laid down on the cool, red grass. He closed his eye’s and slowly basked in the warmth of the setting sun.
Quietly, Maria mumbled, “It’s…….warm”
“Yeah”
And the two silently rested underneath the warmth of the sun.
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Authors Note
So I bet y'all wondering why I didn't update last week right right?
Well I had a project I had to work on, so I couldn't do it on Saturday or Sunday. And I was gonna do it on Monday, but then all sorts of things happened. I could have done it Wed-Firday but I decided to work on that one Gotta Gacha chapter. And then I started a third serious called a Tale of Casual OPness. It's what Gotta Gacha is and something small parody that I can more easily update. After all some chapters of Gacha ended up with 7k words. I'm a try and keep that one to like 1k.
Now let's see if that Gotta Gacha Chapter pops up today~