Feeling déjà vu, Adrest rubbed his back tenderly and looked around to see Alissa standing with a proud smile in front of him, as if everything went according to her plan.

Staying on the ground, Adrest said nothing to the hellish instructor and stared into her judgingly, anger bubbling under the surface.

The standoff continued for minutes, with the cocky sure grin slowly wilting from her face under Adrest’s gaze and losing any semblance of authority, she pouted, “What!?”

Almost too calmly, Adrest stated, “You grabbed me, took me up who knows how high, then dropped me with no warning. You were expecting me to know how to USE A BODY PART I DIDN’T HAVE UNTIL 5 DAMN MINUTES BEFORE!” his anger taking over towards the end and Alissa who was bearing it, shrank in on herself. Both seeming to forget she was the mighty A rank dragon.

In response Alissa said quietly “But… but that’s how I was taught. And besides I was watching you the whole time, ready to catch you!”

Regaining her confidence, she continued “I was just about to swoop down and grab you after a few branches swatted you.”

“So you were still going to let me get hurt?”

Turning red she mumbled “only a little” and something about dragons being tougher before quickly trying to shift the subject back to Adrest.

“Think you can do it yourself now?” She asked Adrest.

He decided to drop it for now, nodding before closing his eyes and focusing on that feeling of the mana circulating out from his core, and through the wings.

Time passed, and suddenly the large raven wings started flapping, slowly at first, then picking up momentum. Adrest was still a mask of concentration even after raising himself a few feet off the ground.

As Alissa clapped, he opened his eyes and smiled at the encouragement.

"Does it always take so much focus?"

As he levitated mere feet off the ground, Adrest was using almost all of his focus on keeping the wings moving.

Giggling at the sight, Alissa responded, “They’re the same as any other muscle, the more you use them, the easier it becomes. And after I’m done, people will think you were born with them!”

Seeming to fire herself up, poor Adrest faced the consequences in the form of brutal flight training for the rest of the day and into the night.

That night, worn out both physically and mentally from being forced to fly away from the purple haired monster slashing at him whenever he slowed, he loathed to admit it, but the spartan training was effective. By the end of the first day, he could at least comfortably fly in a straight line without needing to be constantly thinking about it.

Now that Adrest could find and manipulate his mana, the next part of his crash course to power was learning the basic spells of each of his affinities. Alissa had managed to teach him the basics of fire with ease, hurling fireballs in no time. The same was true of body strengthening, the most basic application of the body path of magic.

Even metal, though it was a tough school of magic to learn, she was able to teach Adrest how to reinforce his sword using metal magic as she had that element as well.

However, Alissa could only give him introductory lessons, explaining the basic abilities and strengths of the darkness and space elements as Alissa possessed neither, and couldn’t clearly explain how the magic should flow. But she did encourage Adrest to play with the darkness mana in him and experiment.

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Alissa explained, "Darkness magic was auxiliary, whether it's manipulating the shadows to bind someone, hiding oneself, or even condensing the darkness and using it as weapon and armor; it all was all the same in that it does directly cause damage, unlike, say a wind arrow, or fireball. Overall, practicing it should be safe."

The opposite was true of his spacial affinity, according to the twin horned teacher, it was very rare and just as dangerous. Alissa told him stories of others using it to sever limbs, transport someone to the center of a volcano, or to send someone’s attack back at them. In short, it had the potential to be incredibly useful, but Adrest would sooner kill himself or lose an arm than be able to control it by himself right now.

He felt cold sweat on his back at that and nodded in agreement, imagining how many ways practice could go wrong.

Alissa also didn’t slack on his physical abilities and fighting prowess. Every day she would force him to fight increasingly dangerous monsters. It started with her dropping a fully grown, enraged elk monster that she called Enreiner into his campsite with no warning.

While Adrest had nearly been gored and trampled, he overcame the shock and managed to slice his sword into it after letting the animals’ horns get close enough to grab and force its head down and pin it, slicing his palms nearly to the bone in the process.

After the confusion and adrenaline of having a half ton of anger dropped on him from above wore off, Adrest finally saw the culprit. A purple haired girl floating in the sky with a wide smile.

“You passed! Now the real training can start.”

Adding a cheeky wink, she grabbed Adrest who was still trying to figure out what happened, and flew to the skies, this time throwing him at an unsuspecting black wolf prowling below.

That fight had been tougher for Adrest. While he had seen the beasts from afar before, he could only now see just how menacing its claws were. Each was razor sharp and glinted in the midday light. Now that its attention was fully on Adrest and was snarling in anger at the sudden assault he could see a mouth full of long, jagged teeth that could without a doubt tear through Adrest like a hot knife through butter.

Their standoff lasted only for a scant few seconds before the fiend pounced, legs extended to paw through Adrest.

In nothing but reflex and luck the stunned managed to raise his trusty sword to take the blow aimed for his throat and parried the paws to his side. However, the beast moved too fast for him to properly retaliate so the deadlock continued. Pacing each other, they were in a circle, waiting for the first sign of an opening.

Suddenly Adrest lunged forward throbbing with mana enhanced muscles, his silver sword wreathed in flame, putting the magic he’d been taught to good use.

The beast was undeterred by the assault and opened its maw wide, teeth gleaming with wild saliva spraying outwards, intending to rip Adrest’s throat out. It happened in an instant, Adrest with a pounding heart and his brain screaming to run, he ignored the warning and pushed forward, his blade met flesh.

Adrest felt more resistance than he expected, like trying to punch through tough leather. The blade went in nonetheless, piercing the wolfs chest landing through its heart. While the blow was fatal, it didn’t stop the monster’s momentum. The body crashed into Adrest knocking him off his feet, and the wind out of his chest.

Panicking for a moment, not yet positive the beast was dead, Adrest shoved the beast off himself with abandon but relaxed when it showed no movement.

With not even a moment to bask in the achievement, Alissa’s voice sounded from above, where she was watching on a tree branch up high.

“Congratulations! You just killed a lone direwolf. They’re pretty weak, around D rank on their own, but the annoying thing is that they always live in groups of up to dozens.” As if to prove a point, in the distance he heard howls accompanied by the shifting leaves growing closer.

That day Adrest learned the difference between combat and survival, in this case, running for your life. As Alissa had departed into the leaves after saying,

“Now get back home as fast as you can, and NO flying, that’d be cheating.”

And so he ran. Adrest knew roughly where they had come from and thought he could find his way back but was unsure if he could do it with a dozen or so angry large wolves on his heels.

For some reason, the thought of disobeying Alissa’s rule on flying never occurred to him. While brutal, Adrest had come to trust her teaching style as he couldn’t argue with the results. Plus, she might be brutal, but it was always for his own growth.

So he literally ran for his life, weaving around tree after tree, desperate for the wolves to give up. While they were too close for comfort, Adrest was just barely able to keep them from catching up by hurling balls of fire behind himself, he had tried to use darkness magic to trip the pursuers, but they tore the shadows apart without pause.

Finally, over an hour later Adrest saw his salvation. Ahead of him was the river that seemed to mark the start of Alissa’s, and now his, territory.

Gasping, exhausted, and unsure of just how much time had passed, Adrest knew that this was the home stretch, so he gathered the last bit of his strength and started sprinting towards the river.