[Claire Bladeheart POV]
It was Saturday, around 8 am, inside the Xyrus Adventurer's Guild.
I was in my uncle's office, sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, he looked like he was filling out some paperwork while I was just polishing the blade of my rapier. There was a smile on my face, I was very excited for what would happen today, I will start being trained by a novice adventurer, but who showed great skill in just 5 months, ventured alone in A-rank dungeons, and was seen by my uncle as someone who could defeat him in a serious fight, we didn't know his real name, but he called himself Diamond.
"Do you think he'll be late?" I asked, not being able to contain myself a bit.
"Calm down, Claire. He must be busy with something and he should be on his way. So far every promise he's made has been kept, and besides I've analyzed him, he's not the type to let people down." my uncle replied, not taking his eyes off the paperwork.
A few minutes passed and then I heard a knock on the door. "Mr. Kaspian, Adventurer Diamond is here." It was the voice of my uncle's secretary, Mary.
"Let him in." He said getting up and putting the paperwork on the table.
The door was opened and I could see that adventurer, he was a little shorter than me, he had dark clothes together with a two-sided cloak, one cyan-blue and the other that looked like a starry night. His mask contained some stars and a beam that passed through his left eye, the same colors as the outside of his cloak. And his blue eyes sparkled behind the mask, as he walked with a certain silent charm and looked around the room, until he looked into my eyes and walked towards me, instead of going to my uncle.
He bowed slightly to me. "I still consider it an honor that someone from the great Kaspian Bladeheart's family has the requirements to become my disciple." The voice was something I would expect from a 20 year old noble gentleman.
"I-it was nothing, I feel honored that someone like you wants me as a disciple." I said a little awkwardly, for not having expected that way of acting from him.
Adventurer Diamond soon walked up to my uncle, they shook hands. "I hope you had a great time with your family." My uncle said, reminding me that Diamond cutted his vacation in half, only to start training me afterwards.
"Fine. We had some problems. But what family doesn't have a little problem? Am I right?" Diamond said with a laugh.
"Anyway. Where are we going to start training?" he asked, taking a good look at my uncle.
"It will be in a special training room right here at the guild. Can you follow me?" My uncle said walking to the door, next to Mary.
Diamond and I left the room, following my uncle. We arrived in the same room where uncle Kaspian trained me before I joined Xyrus Academy, it gave me a nostalgic feeling. I went to a closet there and opened it, seeing all those wooden swords and rapiers that I used to have in my training.
"Have you trained in this area before?" Diamond said, startling me a little as I didn't notice him approaching from behind.
"Y-yes. How did you know?" I asked confused.
"I've seen people's eyes many times when they miss the past. So I deduced that." He answered me, while analyzing the other rapiers and practice swords.
"Kaspian, her first training is going to be more of a concept and use of buff spells." He said warning my uncle and then looked at me "Is there a problem?"
"Hmm... I'm in my second year at Xyrus Academy and I'm 14. Do I really need to learn... Concepts?" I asked confused.
"Of course, because I'm known by people close to me as someone who destroys common sense regarding magical knowledge. So my way of teaching has a chance to go against everything you know about magic." he answered me by going to the center of the room.
I followed him, still confused by it all, he continued to stand there, still and seemed to focus mana on his hands. He would put both hands close to me, one was coated with fire, the other was coated with wind.
"What do you see here, Claire?"
"You are projecting fire and wind mana." I answered.
"Exactly. When I do that, my mana channels release towards my fists. Isn't it?" he asked and I agreed.
"Great. Could you try copying me? If you have any problems, let me know." He spoke and moved a little away from me.
"Ignition." His body began to envelop itself in several violent flames, but they slowly became controlled, forming a thin layer of fire around his entire cloak and mask. I was quite surprised by the speed of control of his flames and soon I did the same.
Unlike him, I didn't have a spell for it, I just did it. And then my body was surrounded by fire, which erupted completely around my skin and then over my clothes.
"Apparently you've managed to cover your body. So keep following what I'm doing. Let's get some exercise with the active fire." he told me and i agreed again.
We started doing a basic warm-up with quick fist movements, spins, kicks and the like, without turning off the flames around us. But it turned out that after half an hour of holding this, my fire mana stopped flowing through my skin and I was panting from exhaustion. Diamond asked them to bring me a jug of water, he still had fire around his body, it could be the amount of mana he had that was greater, or maybe his efficiency in using it.
"You were good to last like that. But you were actually wasting yourself for no reason." He told me as he helped me into a chair nearby.
My uncle came over to us, handing me a glass of water. "I was also confused by what you said, Diamond." my uncle said looking at us.
"Well, I asked her to imitate me, she may have imitated me in the final product, but she didn't imitate me in the process." he spoke, as he repeatedly deactivated and activated the flames around his body.
Diamond said nothing, just kept repeating it over and over while looking in my direction, and then I realized something. Unlike me, the mana layer of fire forms evenly on my skin, he caused mana to come out of specific areas and then from those areas, the mana would cover the rest of the body.
"You're not wasting yourself using every possible mana channel.. You're using too few mana channels to fill your skin with mana... But that's counter-intuitive and strains your mana channels a lot, isn't it?" I looked at him, asking and saying what I had noticed.
"Good. You got that, and yes, it's pretty counter-intuitive, and can be done by someone who has mana channels strong enough to drop a lot of mana through each of them. But there are some advantages to that, the first one involves what happened with you" He said while walking far away and went back to me.
"You didn't get tired from using too much mana, you got like that because all your mana channels that connect with the skin were overheating for a long time."
"So one advantage you had over me was that you didn't have your entire skin overheating, just specific parts." Diamond clapped lightly at my sentence.
"Exactly, another advantage of this is something that involves wind." when he said that, I tilted my head, confused.
Then he pulled away from me and broke the fire around his body. Now activating a wind mana coating. As I drank water to cool myself off, he did some of the moves we'd done before, but still using wind instead of fire. With that, I noticed him starting to use fire and wind at the same time to coat his body, it looked like a beautiful image of green and red floating through his clothes.
"Wait... With this way you augmented your body, you're left with empty mana channels to augmented yourself with the other element at the same time." I said and he again clapped his hands lightly, nodding in agreement.
"And I still have mana channels available to use spells other than that." He spoke as he created a sphere of fire in his hand and then broke it apart.
I drank a lot of water and stood up, facing my mentor. He asked me to coat my fists with only one type of mana each, I did without any problems, the difficulty came when he told me to expand the area where the mana touched me. Slowly I covered my left side with wind and right with fire.
"That uses up a lot of mana…." I complained a little.
"That's because you're only using the mana channels in your fists. Slowly try to use the ones in your shoulders and waist as well." he said touching the areas he mentioned, making me blush a little.
Once that was done, he looked at me and then at my uncle and the receptionist. "Excuse me, you can go back to your work, 6 jugs of water and those lovely cookies you brought are enough for us to be training non-stop here in this training room." he said quietly as he adjusted his mask.
"Okay, but be careful with my niece." uncle Kaspian said as he walked out of the training room.
"Relax! As I said before, today will be just spells and concepts." Diamond said and just like that, now it was just him and me in the room.
I could feel a wind magic being active, and when I looked around, I saw that a kind of illusion was created, making it look like we were in a green and peaceful field, if it weren't for the floor of the room still visible, I would think I was teleported. Diamond was still in front of me and he removed his cloak, leaving it on a chair.
"Just answer me with yes or no, under that uniform of yours are you wearing a tank top or training top?" he asked taking me by surprise.
"Y-yes, a tank top, why?" I said blushing a little with this question out of nowhere.
"Well, you can just keep the tank top anyway. To help you maintain those two mana, I need to inject mana directly into your body." He answered me without looking embarrassed about it.
I took a deep breath, I was thinking too much about something unnecessary, after all, he was my mentor and he had logic in what he said. It took me a few minutes, but I pulled my uniform off the Xyrus Academy I was wearing. Now I had on a beige tank top and long pants that went up to my ankles. The adventurer put his hands on my shoulders and started pumping mana into me, my left shoulder with wind and right with fire. He was pumping mana like that for like 2 minutes without stopping.
"You're feeling it, aren't you? I want you to keep that feeling now, but instead of mana coming in, make mana out. I'm going to do the same process on your waist. Any problem?" He said letting go of my shoulders and I did as he was told, keeping the mana out there and still through my fists. I nodded in agreement about allowing him to do that.
He placed both hands on my waist while injecting mana in the same way, stayed like that for another two minutes and then walked away. My job now was to keep the mana flowing and after a few long minutes of trying, I managed to get my body torn between a half coat of fire and wind.
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"Good job, for now, you won't be doing the same thing I did, using fire and wind at the same time all over your body, stay half and half to get used to it. Let's train!" he said anxiously.
We stayed to train punching, kicking, turning and some defensive and attack-initiating positions. After that, we fought a bit, using nothing but our augmented bodies, he was reversing between those who used soft moves and those who used more aggressive moves, thus training the common fighting style of a fire Augmenter and a wind Augmenter.
At night, according to the adventurer's illusion, he deactivated the spells and put the cloak back on his body. "See you later?" It was his question so far that made me the happiest.
"Okay!" I replied excitedly.
"That's the spirit! You can rest, your body today is still in the process of relearning some things." he said waving and walking out of the practice room.
My uncle seemed to talk to him outside and then he went into the training room to check on me. I couldn't hear it properly, there seemed to be a sound spell active, my uncle seemed initially confused but then quite proud, by the way Adventurer Diamond said I did well for a first day. But what I heard coming out of Uncle Kaspian's mouth when he spoke to me made my eyes wide.
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[Luz Leywin POV]
"That's the spirit! You can rest, your body today is still in the process of relearning some things." I said, walking out of the training room and eventually seeing Kaspian there.
"Should we see that now with him? It's kind of complicated for you to train and guide the girl just at these times." Zalgnity spoke in my mind and I let out an imaginary sigh in response.
"Kaspian. I need to talk to you about something." I looked at him, still adjusting my hood.
"Hm? Any problem?" The guild's leader asked.
"None, in a normal situation. She learned well for a first day, but still, I feel like we won't have that much time, after all it will only be 2 weeks every 6 months by what we agreed previously. I should stay close to her and train her as much as possible." I answered him.
"So, do you want to keep training her longer than these 7 hours?" he raised an eyebrow.
"More than that, during our workouts, she's going to have to use mana in a way that's totally counter-intuitive, as you've seen before. And to make her body get used to it faster. I'm going to have to keep injecting my mana into her, so that her mana core can learn without too much effort on Claire's part." I said, but he seemed a little confuse.
"Today, it was as if I had to hold her hand and hold it tight throughout the training, when I'm gone for 6 months, she won't have my hand to hold and that way she'll have a hard time training alone." I explained in advance the reason for this idea.
"This is interesting and honestly great compact training... But how are you going to find the time for that and regular training? I mean the only way you can do these things the way you're thinking. Would be to do it while she's... Wait, are you really giving this idea?" Kaspian looked at me with wide eyes.
"Relax, I have complete control over my feelings and I won't do anything wrong with her." I said raising my hand as if swearing an oath. "But you have..."
"Visiting rooms? Several actually... Okay, you can come with us when we leave the guild building." He completed what I was going to say and even answered me.
"I didn't like him completing your sentence..." Zalgnity said mentally, I could hear Sylvia's laughter in the background.
"Fine. I hope nothing goes wrong with that. I don't want to make a 14 year old girl freak out about these things." I told him with a sigh.
"The way I saw you training with her. I can tell there's a big focus on these things.. So I don't know why I'm worrying. But are you sure?"
"Of course, I feel like I'm still very much indebted to you for allowing me to go through rank A dungeons alone."
"Okay. I'll tell her then, you can stay at the reception waiting for us" he said and walked into the training room while I went to reception.
After a few minutes, I saw Claire and Kaspian leaving the guild by the reception, Claire looking at me with slightly reddened cheeks, while Kaspian informed using his right hand, for me to follow him. So I got out of the chair I was in and went with them. A carriage was waiting for us outside, I got in with the Bladehearts and we headed out of the Guild's territory. Claire seemed to look out the window as I sat across from her, Kaspian was sitting next to me.
"Hmm... I hope it's not really a bother, Claire." I said slightly uncomfortable with the weather inside, to the point that I used sound magic along with the wind, so that the gales around the carriage produce calm music for us.
"It won't be. After a few minutes talking to my uncle, I realized that you're doing this because you see potential in me and want to use everything possible during this short period. But what would that mana injection you said to him look like?" she asked curiously.
"It will be simple actually. While you are sleeping and meditating, I will place my hands on your shoulders and slowly make your mana and mine flow between our bodies as if they were one. That way your mana core will slowly get used to functioning as mine, the same goes to your mana channels."
"Hm... Okay! That's fine with me!"
"She really wants to get stronger no matter how she achieves it." Sylvia mentally said to me, I agreed this was both bad and good. A lot depends on how she decides to achieve that goal.
For a short while, we chatted about my adventures in those 5 months, there being more details than before, while Claire made some comments about Xyrus Academy and how things were going. That way we arrived at their residence without noticing the time passing.
Entering there, I saw a very fancy house, but still very simple. The decorations that demonstrated the level of nobility were focused on specific areas, while the rest of the place demonstrated simplicity, with the maximum decoration being potted plants along the corridors. Kaspian warned the servants that I was a guest and they should find a room for me, while we were waiting for a room for me to be ready, the guild leader invited me to the table to have dinner with them. I didn't refuse out of politeness.
I sat with them at the table, halfway back, but claire decided to take my side. Dinner was a kind of soup together with toasted bread. I lifted my mask slightly, revealing the area below my nose to my chin, with my hood down. I tasted some of the food.
"Hmm...thanks for this food and I would, if you don't mind, get this recipe." Said trying to be polite, Kaspian chuckled lightly in response to what I said.
"We can deliver this recipe to you. It's a soup with ingredients that can be found at Beast Gladers, so it's a very simple thing to make if you explore a lot." he answered me while I tasted some more of the soup.
"That's good to know, from what I know of Note's tastes, he's going to love it here." I said, remembering my brother and the conversation we had.
.......................[Flashback].......................
I was arriving at the guild after a hearty breakfast at home and having said goodbye again to my family and the Helstea family, I ended up seeing Arthur, Jasmine and Elijah in the reception area, in front of the quest boards. I approached from behind them using illusory magic.
"Boo!" I tried to scare them away, but only Elijah gave a small squeal as he flipped back into combat stance, making the three of us laugh at the scene.
"Good to see you back, Diamond. How was your visit?" Jasmine asked.
"It was all right so to speak. I had a light reunion with the royal family and such, it went slightly wrong with the king giving me hell while the queen and their children protected me" I said quite openly.
"Wait! Do you know Sapin's royal family?! And how do you say that so openly?!?" Elijah said in shock.
"Eeh... He put up a sound barrier... And is it ok to say that with Elijah listening?" Arthur answered the young earth conjurer and asked for me.
"I don't see a problem, after all Elijah is adopted by a noble family, besides that he is part of our little group of friends. And what is the very first rule we created for the Party?"
"Anything that is said within the group can only be said outside the group with the permission of everyone in the group at the time. And you can never do that with people who are temporarily outside." Elijah and Arthur said in unison.
"Exactly. Oh and our sister and mother sent you a big hug. Dad is proud of the high starting rank we've achieved." I told Art, and he just put a hand on the back of his head.
"Ooh. So you're brothers? That's why the matching uniform?" Elijah said with a smirk as he adjusted his glasses.
"So to speak. We are foster brothers." I replied, even as I gave this information to Elijah, I knew from his essence and the vague way I said things that he would never think to comment on anything other than us.
"It was nice talking to you guys. But I need to go now, I have something to do and in two weeks you can come here and pick me up and we'll get back to the regular dungeon schedule." I warned them.
"What will you do within these two weeks?" Jasmine asked, even though she spoke in a neutral voice, I could sense her curiosity.
"Kaspian Bladeheart and I made a slight deal, remember when I talked about him allowing me to go into dungeons alone?" They nodded in agreement and then I continued to say "So, I can't see the profit he makes from my loot as enough. So I decided to train his niece. She told me that she was looking forward to it, especially because of the things that Mr.Bladeheart said about me."
"Wow, did you earn that much respect from the Guild leader in just 5 months? Amazing." Elijah said with a smile on his face, since the 'leader' of our Party was someone like me.
"And she also studies at Xyrus Academy. So getting to know more of our future seniors is a good thing." I only said that to Arthur, with a second layer of sound magic that prevented Elijah and Jasmine from hearing. But I soon deactivated both layers of that magic.
"We'll see you around." I said as I walked away from the staff, waving at them, heading towards the Mary secretary so I could head over to Kaspian.
.......................[End of Flashback].......................
"Oh! That's good to hear." Kaspian said about my comment, bringing me back to reality.
"Hmm. Excuse the question, but what are you and Note? Just colleagues?" She said curiously, but I could see Kaspian's gaze on her, I understood the situation. He thought it rude for his niece to try to get information about a mysterious adventurer, even if it was a friendly conversation.
"Relax Kaspian. It's okay for me to talk about Note. But the most I'll say is that he's someone I consider a brother for so much we've been through together." There was no lie in my words.
"And he's as good as I am. But I feel like there wouldn't be any patience in him to teach you anything. So don't even try to look to him as a substitute mentor." With my comment, she started to laugh a little.
"It's interesting..." Kaspian spoke out of nowhere, as if trapped in thought.
"What?" I asked.
"No big deal, it's just that in business moments, you have a strong and overwhelming presence, but in more sociable moments, it's like I'm with an old friend."
"Well, a lot of people say that...like Elenoir's royal family, Sapin's royal family, even Miss Goodsky." I said finishing my soup and my bread.
"Oh! Do you even know Cynthia Goodsky? Adventurer Diamond, how influential are you?" Kaspian asked, while Claire looked at it all in shock, even dropping her spoon from her hand.
"Well, I'm not that influential when I wear my mask. That's why I have it, if it's to get the attention of large families and people, being an adventurer, let it be for my current achievements and not my past." Kaspian even clapped his hands lightly at what I said as Claire looked at me with eyes glowing red and green.
"I think you've gained another admirer~" Zalg and Sylvia said in unison teasingly in my mind, but I ignored them.
After everyone had finished eating, we went to our rooms. With my things left on my bed, I left and went straight to Claire's room, knocked on the door and when she allowed me, I walked in. It was a very fancy room, but still simple, like the rest of the house. She was sitting on the bed in long beige pajamas that covered most of her skin, but the fabric seemed to be thin and light so she wouldn't be bothered by the heat.
I approached her carefully. "You can lie with your shoulders up near the edge of the bed." I asked and she complied with a slight smile on her face and slightly red cheeks.
"Hmm... What am I supposed to be waiting for?" She said curiously.
"No big deal. I'll keep mana flowing through you while I create a peaceful illusion. After all, doing this while you sleep is the way your body will be more relaxed and your mana channels will be sensitive."
"I see, so an illusion for me to sleep and you're going to do all the work?" She asked to confirm and I just nodded.
"Exactly, but there is a chance that you will be dreaming about the elements fire and wind, they can be common dreams or nightmares, already warning you in advance." I said and she took a deep breath looking at the bedroom ceiling.
I put my hands on her shoulders and activated an illusion spell around her body only. She would be feeling like lying on a lawn in a northern field and relaxing with the night being warm and the wind being gentle. She soon seemed to sleep easily and I was slowly injecting and absorbing the green and red colored mana repeatedly. It felt like the transparent mana wanted to enter Claire's channels as well, but I stopped it, allowing only the two manas we had in common.
I spent 3 whole hours doing that process, until I saw that the progress was good for today and left her room deactivating the illusions. Going towards my room and when I entered, I activated countless layers of illusion magic for my protection, while I remove my clothes and mask, leaving only my long black pants.
"Her progress was good for a first time." I talked to myself as I sat up in bed.
"It looks like the progress was 5%. The minimum for her to be able to do that form of control that you do, I guess it's at least 70% necessary." Sylvia said in my mind.
"Good to know... Anyway, good night, Sylvia, let's see if I this time I go to my mind realm." I said laying down on the bed and covering myself completely.
"Good night, Luz." Sylvia spoke in that extremely soft, motherly voice she had as I began to drift off to sleep.