I wake up with a bang.

Literally.

The door to my room is busted open and a group of people rush inside.

I don't wait for anything and jump pout of the bed as I grab my sword leaning against the wall.

Four people in the back gather mana and release a spell as the five people in front stand guard.

Light shoots out at me at speeds I'm unable to dodge and hits me.

...

I can't move.

This is...blood seal?

All my movements are sealed...

Shit.

A young man I have never seen emerges from the crowd of people and looks at me in disgust.

"We got you now, you fake beast."

Who the hell are you?

Should I know you?

Why are you calling me fake beast?

Why did you want to capture me?

...

And most importantly.

Why do you think you got me?

I know everything there is to know about blood seal.

That includes all of its weaknesses.

I strain my jaw and try to open my mouth.

"Resisting is futile you-"

[Phantom roar]

"RHAAAAAAA!"

This is a technique I learned when I studied sound illusions.

It's a sound version of phantom presence.

The usefulness of this is debatable but in this situation, it's perfect.

The reason is, blood seal seals my movements as well as my ability to gather mana on the surface of my body.

What it doesn't seal, are my insides.

By using this technique, which releases the spell from deep inside me instead of covering my body, I can still cast spells.

The man topples over and an expression of fear appears in his face.

The others also pale in fear but keep standing.

But that small gap in their concentration was enough for me to smash my jaws together and bite my tongue.

I then opened my mouth slightly as my tongue started bleeding.

[Blood seal: cancel]

Their control was really sloppy.

I was able to cancel it with just a little bit of my blood.

After breaking out of the seal, I start gathering mana.

"Q-quick! Catch her!"

[Dark world]

With a stomp, darkness gushes out from beneath my feet and covers the floor.

Everyone standing on it is caught by black arms and dragged to the floor.

"Gaaah!"

"W-what-?!"

I wanted to kill them at first, but let's listen to them.

I walk up to the man while drawing my sword and aim it at him.

"Who are you?"

"H-how dare you do this to me you filthy swine!"

"You will face consequences for attacking this Robert Armundis, the second prince of the kingdom!"

...

Prince?

So the kingdom is my enemy...?

Was I lead to a trap?

"P-please stop this!"

When I look up, I spot another man standing outside the room.

Behind him are more armed people.

Enemy backup?

...no, he said to stop.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Gelvin Armundis. I'm the first prince of this kingdom."

He's also a prince?

"Please forgive the kingdom for my brother's reckless actions."

"He did all of this completely on his own."

"The kingdom does not want to be in a bad relationship with you."

"G-gelvin! You bastard!"

"BE QUIET YOU FOOL!"

...

The first prince looks visibly nervous.

But is he telling the truth?

It feels like he knew about all of this.

The second prince is both scared and angry.

He acts like he was betrayed.

"...you are lying."

"H-huh?"

"...you appeared as I was about to kill him."

"...you were waiting for this."

"N-no...that's...I..."

He clenches his teeth and looks down.

"P-please..."

"Take our lives, but don't take out your anger in the rest of the kingdom..."

...

Maybe he wasn't lying.

I don't know...

But to trade his life just to save his kingdom...

Ugh...

I really can't read people at all.

...

Hmm but what now?

Should I kill them?

...

No I don't really feel like he should die.

But this idiot on the other hand...

He is clearly hostile and feels no remorse for what he did.

...

I swing my sword and cut at his arm.

"Argh!"

To shut him up, I make the darkness cover his mouth.

The other prince is still watching from a distance as this guy starts bleeding.

[Blood flow]

After making a gap in the darkness on the floor, I use his blood and draw a magic circle on the floor.

[Blood contract: slave]

After I'm done, I release the darkness covering all the people and point my sword at the idiot prince.

"If you try to break the contract...I will kill you."

He looks even more furious and scared, but he can't do anything anymore.

The contract contained three commands.

Don't try to attack me.

Don't do anything that would hinder or block me.

Don't make anyone else do the above.

It was just some commands to make sure he won't bother me anymore.

Even if I made him listen to all of my future commands, someone like him would be useless anyway.

He and all of the others start getting up.

I feel hostility only from this guy, others are just terrified.

When I look toward the other prince outside, he gulps.

"...I'm done here."

"I won't contract you."

"...but if you attack me, I will kill you."

"U-understood."

After all that commotion, the idiot prince and all the others leave.

The first prince stays behind though.

"I want to apologize for what happened again."

"And thank you for your benevolence."

He bows down to me.

His behavior reminds me of Phil when we first met.

He seems to take this really seriously.

But even if they killed me, I would just come back.

Even if they managed to do blood contract on me, I would probably be able to break it.

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"...don't mind it."

After all of that, my audience with king was supposed to happen.

But because of all that happened, it was postponed a few hours.

Instead, I was lead to a dining room by a maid and given something to eat.

But surely, they don't expect me to eat this without suspecting poison or something like that?

So instead, I brought out a piece of boar meat I got during the travel out of my storage.

[Fire bubble]

I do it just like in the dungeon, because I really don't feel like getting poisoned.

The maids, who were looking, were a little startled from what I did and some of them frowned angrily.

Of course, when I frowned back at them, they shrunk back right away.

When I bite into the meat, I hear the door slam open behind me.

"Reiza!"

After turning around, I spot Blizzard standing behind me while panting.

"I heard you were attacked!"

"Are you okay?!"

And then she ran up to me and hugged my head while I was still chewing.

"Aah...I'm glad you didn't die..."

I felt like punching her away for a second, but decided against it this time.

Instead, I gently pushed her away while swallowing the piece of meat in my mouth.

"...it's fine."

"They were weak."

But why is she like this again?

Why does her personality randomly change into this?

"Ah...right...you are strong..."

...

"...why do you act so strange?"

When I asked that, she seemed to be a little caught off guard.

"W-what are you talking about?"

"I'm not strange."

You are obviously acting strange...

Well whatever.

It doesn't harm me, so I don't need to dig that deep into it.

"Well, whatever."

She breathes a sigh of relief and sits on a chair next to me.

"By the way...why are you not eating that food?"

"...in case there is poison."

"Wha-?!"

"You poisoned her meal?!"

Blizzard angrily looks at the nearest maid.

The maid takes a step back as she pales.

"N-no!"

"We wouldn't do such thing!"

Her frown intensifies.

"Then it's fine if I do a bit of taste testing?"

The maid calms down and looks back at Blizzard seriously.

"There would be no problem with that."

Blizzard then looks at me as if asking for permission.

I in turn push the plate and the glass toward her.

She sips from the glass and eats a piece of meat from the plate.

"Hm..."

"Looks like she wasn't lying."

She pushes the meal back to me and I take a bite.

...

This has got to be the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.

The meat I have been eating till now can't even compare.

After I finished eating, I chatted with Blizzard for a while.

And then, the door was opened again.

"Reiza, it's time for your audience with the king."

It was Belion.

He wore a very serious face and looked at me.

I stood up from my chair along with Blizzard and walked outside the room.

I was then lead by Belion through several hallways to a big door.

The two guards next to it opened it for me and I stepped inside.

41 days left to return.

----------------------------------------

Bonus:

Let's talk about master level magic of the basic elements.

But first let's talk about the lower levels.

How long does it take for a normal person to reach a certain level?

When learning your first element it usually goes like this:

From nothing to beginner level it takes about 10 to 20 days of practicing and studying.

From beginner to intermediate level it takes about 2 to 3 months.

From intermediate to advanced level it can take anywhere between 5 to 6 years.

And to reach the expert level, it often takes most of one's lifetime to reach from nothing.

Learning other elements after reaching a certain level is much easier and can take as little as a third of the time spent on the first element.

Of course, by having the ability to use multiple elements, you can be much more versatile.

However, you will remain weak.

By studying the same element and reaching higher levels, your proficiency and power can increase exponentially.

That's why the higher ranked magicians usually only know how to use a handful of elements.

Because it's just easier to overpower someone using small fireballs, ice shots and rocks with one big blast of fire.

So what about this master level?

How long does it take to reach it?

In reality, no human was ever able to reach it.

Only the earlier mentioned elves who became X ranked adventurers managed to reach master level magic among the human-like races.

It's said, that it took about 500 years after reaching expert level to reach the master level for those two.

And the master level is a little special compared to the previous ones.

The truth is, the expert level was called master until the elf reached it, at which point it was renamed.

But what's so special about it?

Well, unlike the lower levels, at master level of magic, there are no 'spells'.

At this level, you are able to control the elemental mana as if it was part of your body.

And as such, you can do absolutely anything with it.

It would be silly to call every slightly different move something else.

Or at least that's what those two elves thought.

They did not name their spells anymore.

They just commanded the mana to do their bidding differently on different occasions.

...by the way.

It was never mentioned, but Reiza got extremely close to reaching master level of dark magic.

Unfortunately, she then reached the dark griffon, who was completely immune to dark magic.

And as such, she had to learn a different type of magic to combat him.

In her case, it was fire, which became her main offensive element.

"Really?"

"Another huge block of text?"

"Why don't you leave space for me!"

Because nobody wants to listen to you.