When Reivan woke up, the beautiful orange sky was the first thing he saw.
And then he saw Helen’s pretty face staring down at him — a bit too closely, he noted.
‘What…’
Reivan pushed her face away and quickly regained his bearings, seeing nothing strange around him. The grass was still immaculately trimmed and maintained, having been protected from their spar by Valter's energy. There were hedges that resembled walls and fruit trees somewhat farther out.
Soon, though, he realized that Zouros had already returned to its usual spot within his soul. With the lack of contact between his head and the grass, plus the fact that Helen was staring down at him, Reivan surmised that he was using the girl’s lap as a pillow at the moment.
Again.
He was using her lap as a pillow again.
Both of them didn’t mind physical contact anymore, so Reivan didn’t rush to sit up like the first time.
“Are you topped up?” he asked.
“Mhm.” Helen nodded, her hand gently stroking his hair — an act she liked to do with his mother’s fur too. “About an hour ago.”
“Huh. And how long have you been awake?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Uh-huh.”
‘So fast…’
Reivan was once again slapped in the face with the fact that compared to warbeasts and hybrids like him, humans not only had a bigger mana pool — they also regenerated their magic power faster. Even though they had both depleted their magic power at about the same time, Helen had fully recovered already while Reivan still had about a quarter left.
‘I really need to find a way to deal with this racial weakness…’
Ideally, he wished to find some kind of medicine that recovered magic power. That way, he could mass-produce a higher-quality version of it for the kingdom of Aizen. Sadly, that was out of the question since even old man Rolf had never heard of such a thing, only saying that the higher-ups in Arkhan's Spirit Tower knew something.
Luckily, with all the downsides of his lineage, having a trace of warbeast heritage had its advantages too. Otherwise, he really wouldn’t have a choice but to cry out in injustice.
‘Anyway…’
“Did you learn that aetherblade art I told you about yesterday?” Reivan yawned as he gazed up at her.
“I did.” Helen took out a long metallic tube and placed it on his chest. “Here’s the scroll back. Thanks for letting me borrow it.”
He quickly stowed it away and nudged her lap with his head. “Show me. Hurry, hurry.”
Helen nodded before she hovered her forefinger above Reivan’s face. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes in focus before purple cracks appeared on her finger. The root-like cracks pulsed with light, seemingly in tune with Helen's heartbeat.
'So close!'
Reivan grimaced as he grabbed her wrist and pushed it away a little.
A moment later, it was as if her finger vanished, replaced by a constantly flickering clump of electricity in the shape of her finger. Conventional physics wouldn’t have been able to explain how electric currents could maintain a form on its own.
But this was a supernatural phenomenon.
After about five seconds, Helen’s finger returned to normal. She bent forward and brought her face a little too close. “How was it? Did I do well?”
Seeing the desire for praise hidden beneath her expressionless face, Reivan smirked and nodded. “Yep. You’re amazing.”
‘She really went and learned it…’
The aetherblade art that Helen had shown him was dubbed the “Lightning Transformation Art” and was one of the more complex lightning attribute arts in the royal archives. Despite it's difficulty, every knight compatible with the lightning attribute eventually learned the art, though the age at which they learned it differed.
It quite literally transformed one’s body into lightning energy, pushing the efficiency of magic power when using lightning-based techniques far past what was normally possible — all while becoming invulnerable to physical attacks and moving faster than normal lightning.
Sure, what Helen demonstrated may not have looked impressive, but soon enough, she would be able to use the technique on her entire body. At that point, all the strategies he had thought up to beat Helen would become obsolete.
‘Heh. And I’m the one who gave her the technique, so it's technically my fault if she beats my ass next time…’
Not that it mattered. Helen was an ally, so her rising prowess was something to celebrate. And besides, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t stand to benefit from it as well.
“Again. Do it again.” Reivan’s unblinkingly stared at his friend’s finger, his focus unwavering.
“Okay.” Helen acquiesced, performing the technique again. She seemed quite happy by his earlier praise.
“Hmm…” The young prince hummed in thought, his eyes narrowed. He raised a finger and stared very hard at it, but nothing happened aside from the tip growing slightly hotter. Quite sure that he would be showered in the face with his blood if he continued, Reivan gave up for now.
‘Damn. They weren’t kidding when they said this was crazy hard.’
In fact, the keeper of the scrolls warned him not to try it until he mastered slightly less complex techniques. But Reivan respectfully ignored his advice.
After all, he had one of the best helpers when it came to learning aetherblade arts.
It wasn’t Donovan since that bastard only trained his body and discipline. And although Valter had taught him a lot, the guardian knight wasn’t the best at helping him either.
The lofty title undoubtedly went to the girl who owned the lap he was resting his head on.
“Again,” Reivan requested once more.
But even after multiple tries, he still couldn’t do it. He felt he was getting close though, as if he was just missing one little thing.
Helen yawned and rubbed her eyes before she asked. “Should I do it again?”
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“Wait. I’m thinking about something.”
“Like what?”
“What I’m missing. I feel like I can do it, but it’s just not happening for some reason.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds rough.” Helen nodded and took out a flask. She unscrewed the cover and gulped down the contents. Then she offered it to him. “Want some? It's grape juice.”
“Maybe later. Anyway, you got any advice?”
"On whether you should drink grape juice while lying down?"
Reivan rolled his eyes, knowing that this was one of the rare instances the little genius joked around. "No, dummy. Advice on the aetherblade art you just demonstrated.
“Advice…” Helen dodged Reivan's attempt to pinch her cheek, then stared into the orange sky for a few moments, seemingly thinking hard about what to say. Soon enough, her head tilted to the side. “Just do it, I guess?”
“Just… Just do it, huh?”
“Yep. Just do it. That’s what I did.”
‘What the hell was I expecting…’
Despite the title he’d given her in his heart, Helen was, in fact, a horrible teacher.
Maybe it was because plenty of things came naturally to her, or because she was bad with words from the very beginning, but Helen couldn't articulate her thoughts in terms that an ordinary person could understand.
As such, Reivan gave up on doing so. “Just shut up and do it again.”
"Mhm."
‘Let’s just stick to what works, I guess.’
Helen sipped at her grape juice with one hand while demonstrating the lightning transformation art in the other. She even started showing off, doing it with her entire hand instead of just her finger.
“Hmm…” Reivan rubbed his chin, his [Supreme Insight] working on overdrive as he carefully watched her demo. “Can you try to do it for longer than a few seconds? Maybe a minute…”
“I can do that.”
Helen’s confidence was not unfounded, since she really did maintain the technique for one minute. In fact, she would have gone for longer if her magic power hadn’t run out.
‘The consumption is crazy. I guess this technique is meant to be used in short bursts to avoid attacks and to reposition, rather than keeping it in an activated state throughout the battle.’
Helen tapped his forehead, her breathing growing ragged from exhausting her mana pool again. “Switch with me.”
“Sure.”
Reivan got up and allowed Helen to lay her head on his thighs. While she shifted around for a comfortable position, Reivan thought back on what he saw.
‘Since this is an aetherblade art, I unconsciously tried it like all the other ones I learned…’
But through viewing how Helen's mana acted within her arm, he finally discovered what he was doing wrong all this time. With a smile on his lips, Reivan brought a finger up to his face, focusing his mana on just the tip.
‘Normal aetherblade arts have you run magic power through your mana circuits. But this one…’
Feeling slightly apprehensive, Reivan gulped before forcing the mana to reach out beyond his circuits.
“Fu—!” Reivan stuffed his other hand in his mouth to stop himself from cursing.
‘IT HURTS!’
He was no stranger to pain but he couldn’t help but be surprised by the sensation. It felt like a needle was inserted into the space under his nail.
Luckily, Helen had already fallen back to sleep. Otherwise, she would have seen his finger become a bloody mess.
After cleaning up the mess he made and healing himself with [Effect Reproduction], Reivan tried again.
And again.
And again.
And again, and again.
It was only after five tries did he finally see a glimpse of success. It was only for a fraction of a second, but the tip of his finger vanished, replaced by a clump of electricity.
Minor Success in the [Lightning Transformation Art] has been accomplished!
‘Let’s fucking go! I did it! I’m a genius!’
Reivan’s smile threatened to split his face in half as he laid his back on the grass. The average knight would have likely spent a few days learning an ordinary aetherblade art. While something complex like the lightning transformation art would have taken roughly a week to an entire month — maybe even more.
And yet, with Helen’s help, it had taken him less than an hour.
‘It really is like cheating…’
For the past few months, Reivan had been exploiting this method to learn dozens of lightning attribute aetherblade arts, as well as a few that didn’t have an attribute.
Basically, he would hand over the scroll with the aetherblade art’s details to Helen overnight. The genius would naturally spend a few minutes reading it and then learn the technique within an hour or two. Then the next day, Reivan would just have Helen show it to him while he watched her closely.
A little bit of trial and error would follow afterward, but he'd usually be successful in learning the technique within the day.
If, for some reason, that wasn't enough, he could just have her repeat the technique and try it for himself an infinite number of times within [Glimpse of Eternity] — that said, he found far better results when doing it in real life.
Of course, this fraudulent method of learning arts only worked because Reivan had [Supreme Insight] to help him.
The fact that it basically granted him the ability to see status screens like he was the main character of some trashy LitRPG story was its most noticeable effect. So much so that one may forget that it had other, more subtle, abilities.
Like giving him the best set of eyes that no amount of money or genetic superiority could obtain. His eyes were so good that they could pierce through the everlasting fog that plagued the Outlands.
And with those eyes, he could see how a genius did things.
‘I wonder what I’ll have her learn next?’
While Reivan tried to remember if there were more aetherblade arts that seemed useful, his hands were suddenly grasped. When he looked down, he saw that Helen had grabbed him in her sleep, her rough and callused palms sandwiching his own.
‘Cute.’
With puberty on the horizon, Helen was growing more and more into a woman. At the moment though, her most prominent features were her shortness and her slightly chubby cheeks — in other words, she appeared nothing more than the adorable child she had always been.
But soon enough, she would surely blossom into a beautiful young woman just like Stella. This also meant that soon enough, their physical intimacy would no longer be viewed as skinship between children.
‘A shame. But it is what it is. Maybe I should start creating distance now, while it’s early.’’
Despite this, Reivan wasn’t going to totally avoid her or anything. First of all, he didn’t have a whole lot of friends. So he would really be kicking himself in the balls if he reduced that number further. There was no reason to stray away from people that made him happy.
Second, Reivan and Helen now had a mutually beneficial relationship that almost seemed like it was crafted by fate.
Reivan learned numerous techniques from working together with Helen. And Helen got access to aetherblade arts she normally wouldn’t have access to because Reivan could bypass all restrictions just by asking his father — or telling his mother to coerce his father. Furthermore, both of their combat skills improved rapidly because of their sparring sessions.
Their close relationship accelerated Helen’s rise to greatness, which was nothing but a good thing for Reivan and the kingdom.
It would be the height of foolishness if he missed out on all the benefits just because he was afraid of what other people thought of them.
‘We’ll probably still spend a lot of time with each other… Well, that’s what we’ve been doing from the start though.’
With a chuckle, Reivan summoned Zouros to help him lift Helen up carefully. He would have loved to wait for her to wake up, but his schedule was packed.
There were just so many things to do!
Reivan had to surprise his other best friend with a gift to celebrate their achievement. After that, he had a dinner appointment with his little sisters at Starwater City.
But that wasn't all. A prince had a great many things to do on the side, even on days he wasn't loaded with royal responsibilities.
One of them was running an underground organization in a foreign country.