After Castor's punishment was done, Leo ordered him taken down from the pole, and he was gingerly carried off to be brought somewhere to rest. Leo gave strict orders that no healing magic was to be used on him until he was at least halfway healed, at which point he was to be healed and put to work. Prudence was put in charge of him, and the slaves were dismissed, with pale, downcast faces.

Felix had been putting on a strong face in front of the slaves, but once they left and he walked back inside with Leo and Scarlet, his countenance fell, and he broke in a sweat and hunched over, breathing heavily. Leo looked at him wryly. He knew Felix was forcing himself a bit the entire time.

"Don't worry cousin, you did good. No one is expecting you to have adapted over the course of a day." Leo said, patting him on the shoulder. Felix nodded slowly in response.

"Scarlet, he should rest, take him to the room next to yours so you can listen out if he needs anything." Leo said to Scarlet. Scarlet nodded meekly, looked at Felix tentatively, and grabbed his hand. She began leading him down the halls. Leo watched them go.

"I-I'm only holding your hand because you look like your soul has half left your body." Scarlet said, half-muttering.

Felix smiled meekly. "Thank you, Scarlet. It means a lot to me."

Eventually, Scarlet led him to a fairly large empty bedroom, which had a rather nice bed, cabinet, and desk. "This is your room now. Mine is right next door, so if you have any problems, you can come find me easily." She said. She hesitated for a moment, and then added "A-also, this probably goes without saying but please don't just barge into my room."

Felix looked at her and he could swear he saw a slight blush on her face. He was at least smart enough not to say anything about it. He just nodded. "Thank you Scarlet."

"Now, I know it's still very early, but you should rest. I'll have a slave deliver some food and tea in a bit. Make sure you actually rest, taking care of your mental strain is just as important as any physical ones." She said, heading for the door.

"Also, um... thank you." Scarlet muttered softly, so quietly Felix could barely hear it. Felix looked up, but Scarlet had hurriedly shut the door. He smiled and plopped in to the fancy bed, turning his thoughts inwards to his spell space.

"Arboro." Felix called out. Arboro turned her head to look at him gruffly. "What?" She asked, looking annoyed.

"...Thank you. I know you pushed me more for your sake than my sake, but still, I know you're trying to make me stronger." Felix said.

"It's good that you know. Things will only get harder from here, not easier." Arboro said coldly.

"I know. But I know that you're looking out for me and won't let me break. I can handle it." Felix said. Arboro nodded.

Felix had nothing better to do at this point, so he continued to work on constructing the Talc Skin spell. A few minutes later, a slave quietly entered and dropped off some food and drink, but didn't disturb him. Felix sensed her, but ignored her. As night fell, and the darkness element began to rise, he turned once again to Arboro.

"Arboro, what darkness spell should I work on during the night right now?" he asked.

"Well, I would say you should work on the slavery spells right now, but if you pull those from nowhere before the Belrose's give you the manual on them, they would be very suspicious. So, I think you should add another spell to your combat reservoir." Arboro remarked.

"That makes sense. What did you have in mind?" Felix asked.

"Well, since your elemental affinities lead you towards being an unkillable cockroach, and you don't possess an element with strong attacking capabilities like fire or lightning, I think you're going to be most well-suited to battles of attrition. So, I think that for darkness spells you should become a Hex Master." Arboro said.

"A Hex Master? What's that?" Felix asked.

"It's a dark mage who focuses on spells known as Hexes, which are a type of curse which can be swiftly casted in the middle of combat. They don't typically have a lot of up-front power, but they tend to slowly whittle down foes over time. They have a lot of various effects from muddling thoughts, aging, slowing bloodflow, hampering limb coordination... the more of them you stack, and the longer you can hold out in a fight, the more debilitating they get. They're not too difficult to break if you can get outside the range of the dark mage's power, but, I think you can use your wood and earth affinities to build a few spells to keep people from running away, like Supergravity, Binding Roots, and maybe Sandstorm." Arboro answered.

"That makes a lot of sense. How many hex spells do you know?" Felix asked.

"All of them, of course. I'm the grand dragon spirit of darkness!" Arboro said proudly. Arboro waved her claw and a little book appeared inside of the spell space. Felix looked at Arboro questioningly.

"I thought about all this while you've been busy, so I prepared this booklet in advance. It has every single Hex spell in it, in the order I recommend you learn them in. Of course, I can't force you, but, I think you know my advice is best heeded." Arboro said dismissively.

Felix opened the booklet to look through it. The very first Hex was called "Hex: Soul disruption". It looked like a wavy soul.

"Why do you recommend this one first?" Felix asked.

"Soul Siphon is, and probably always will be, one of your most powerful spells. The soul disruption hex interferes with the connection between the soul and the body, and among the small community of Hex Masters, is widely considered one of the most powerful hexes. It fundamentally affects everything that your opponent does, since actions spring from will, and will springs from the soul. At first their movements might just slow down a bit, but after a couple of minutes, they will find all actions becoming increasingly more difficult, as their soul struggles to communicate with their body effectively. Combine this with your Soul Siphon, which will be draining energy from their soul at the same time, and you can see how it's effectively doubling up on your current strength." Arboro explained.

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"That makes sense. Doesn't it fall into the same pitfall as Soul Siphon in that it will fall victim to someone who knows a spirit or willpower regeneration spell, though?" Felix asked.

"No, actually. It counters those spells because even if one regenerates their spirit and willpower, it doesn't target those at all, it targets the connection between the soul and the body. No matter how strong your soul and will are, if you cant communicate your will to your body, it's completely useless. And again, that's besides the fact that almost no one knows those spells anyway." Arboro said.

"Huh. Hex spells seem pretty strong." Felix remarked.

"They can be, but keep their strengths and weaknesses in mind clearly. They can be cast instantly, don't miss, and they have strong debilitating effects, however, they can be broken easily if your opponent can get a certain distance away from you, and they have absolutely zero burst power, it's only slow effects over time. If you can kill someone with a mountain of hexes in an hour, but they can kill you in five seconds with a Meteor, are you really better off than them?" Arboro explained.

"Right. I understand." Felix said, nodding. "Doesn't this mean I'm going to be incredibly weak versus mages who fight at a particularly long range?" He asked, with a thought.

"No one can cover everything. I wouldn't worry too much about it though, even if you are unlucky enough to run in to some kind of artillery fire mage who is trying to kill you from a mile away, you're an earth mage, so, you can just hide underground, can't you?" Arboro asked.

Felix supposed that made sense. He sat down and began constructing Hex: Soul Disruption. It was a powerful hex, so it had a lot of spell nodes. He estimated that even with his strong darkness affinity, it would take him a week to construct the spell, and that's if he spent the entire night, every night, working on it uninterrupted, which was obviously unfeasible for many reasons, sleep being the most obvious of them.

He wondered if he could just change his sleep time to be from dawn until the early afternoon.

After a while, Felix ate the food that had been brought to him, and when it got late, he went to sleep. He had a strange dream, but he couldn't remember it at all when he woke up. Based on how bright it was, he guessed he had slept until the late morning. There was already food waiting for him at his desk, presumably brought by a slave.

Felix ate his breakfast and left his room. He knocked on Scarlet's door, but there was no response, so he assumed she was not in her room and was elsewhere in the manor. Felix wandered a bit until he found a slave cleaning. The slave informed him that Scarlet (or, "The Young Mistress", as the slave put it) would be practicing with her whip at this hour in the backyard, and gave Felix directions. Felix thanked her, and found the back exit, where, sure enough, he saw Scarlet brandishing a long, dark whip and striking a stone target dummy a good distance away from her, while a slave watched from nearby. Her strikes seemed surprisingly powerful for her frame, and she was sweating and panting heavily, clearly giving it her all. There were several broken stone dummies on the field. Scarlet didn't notice him as he approached and watched her, and she suddenly looked frustrated and put in extra effort, viciously striking the dummy with all of her remaining energy. The dummy broke apart, and Scarlet dropped on to her knees, panting heavily.

"Good work, Young Mistress. You broke eight of them today, you surpassed your old record." the slave said, handing her a cup of water.

Scarlet was too busy trying to catch her breath to say anything, and she greedily gulped down the water. After she did so, she looked around and finally noticed Felix, at which point, she nearly choked on the last bit of the water, and she started coughing heavily. The slave looked like he wanted to help her out but he couldn't do anything but stand there awkwardly. After a minute or so, Scarlet regained her composure, stood up, and walked over to Felix.

"You didn't see anything except for me training." she said darkly.

"Of course not. I definitely didn't just see my cute cousin nearly die to a glass of water. Such a thing never happened." Felix said, smiling.

"Hmph! It's good that you know." Scarlet said, not meeting his gaze. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"With you looking out for me, how could I feel any less than one hundred percent?" Felix asked teasingly. Scarlet punched his arm, with surprising force (Not that it did much due to his Rock Skin), but she didn't comment.

"By the way, your brother has a whip too. Does everyone in the Belrose family use a whip?" Felix asked, curiously.

"We have our own style. Most people who bother to use weapons use more traditional weapons such as swords, especially since they can be more easily manipulated by magic to become something like a flying sword which goes out to stab people, or a pike or spear which can more easily be used to transmit a spell. So, we can be considered the foremost whip users in the entire kingdom, actually." Scarlet said proudly.

"Why the whip, then? If other weapons have those advantages." Felix asked.

"Several reasons. Firstly, it's clearly a symbol of our trade. Secondly, the whip has it's own unique advantage, in that it's good for disruption, and can sometimes disarm enemies, and can prevent running by wrapping around an enemy. It's killing power is low, but, it's a very flexible weapon, and since no one else uses a whip, basically no one else knows how to fight against whip users as well." Scarlet explained.

"How do you fight against a whip user?" Felix asked.

"Well, generally speaking, closing the distance is the best method. For example, if a whip user is wrapping your leg to prevent you from running, what happens if that person just runs at you instead?" Scarlet posited.

"Well, then the whip wouldn't be doing much of anything at that point." Felix said.

"Right. Similarly, the whip is a medium-range weapon. At a close distance, it's too awkward to use. You can't stretch it out like you need to, or flick it effectively." she continued explaining patiently.

"So how do you prevent people from closing the distance?" Felix asked.

"There's a variety of methods. Intimidation, having backup weapons like a knife, striking at their feet if they try to approach. I'm well versed in all of them." Scarlet said, puffing out her chest proudly. Felix coughed awkwardly and tried not to stare. Scarlet noticed what she did and blushed furiously, and then punched his arm again, in the same spot as last time. He swore it would end up bruised, despite the Rock Skin spell.

"I need to go take a bath, I'm covered with sweat, and I don't want to end up smelling like one of the slaves." Scarlet said. She walked into the manor, and Felix followed her.

"What, were you hoping to follow me into the bath?" Scarlet asked, poking his bruised arm in the same spot again. Felix winced slightly.

"Ah, no, I wasn't thinking. I just didn't know what I should be doing." Felix said.

Scarlet laughed. "Go wait in your room and work on your spells or something, I'll come to find you when I'm done." she said and sauntered off.

Felix didn't have any better ideas, so he somehow managed to find his way back to his room, and he sat down and slowly continued to work on Talc Skin.