The next few years passed quickly; I learned several interesting pieces of information. Demons lived approximately five hundred years. My Dad was one hundred two and my mom was seventy-six. They are over fifty years older than I was in my past life, and they look to be in their mid-twenties, so I guess that’s good news for me? My younger brother, Ein Belphe Crowthorne, was born. He had our mom’s , . Our contact was definitely limited and supervised as every adult made it incredibly clear I was not to use around my little brother. Lux was also not allowed to ‘wrestle’ with my brother either. It was unfortunate, but when we did get to play and do stuff together it was fun. I still hadn’t met my grandparents from my mom’s side. According to my mom, they were far away on a diplomatic mission, and would probably be back in the next year. They regretted not being able to come and see their grandsons sooner but would try and make it up to us.
Thanks to my grandparents and uncles, my had improved immensely. My grandparents and Uncle Nox taught me and made me practice them relentlessly. My grandma made sure I could use to be able to run and hide from even her if need be; it took me half a year to learn that particular . My grandpa caught on to my grandma’s late-night tutoring and joined in on them. After was , a for moving silently. My grandparents drilled those two into Lux and I, and after a year of their relentless teaching, I was able to use them in tandem. I then spent the next year of their late-night teaching learning and being able to use the three consecutively. They made me practice my whenever I wasn’t practicing the .
My Uncle Nox made me run various obstacle courses, constantly changing the part of my body stressed the most, teaching me to reinforce my body with , and increasing how limber I was. Every single one of his lessons involved controlling my enough to traverse his blasted courses. Five-year-old me was in vastly superior physical shape than past me. When you added into the mix, it was no contest. Uncle Nez on the other hand, went full onto teaching me , and sprinkling in the occasional lesson after a year had passed with no incidents. After the second year of no incidents, I was allowed to learn again. Nez also instructed Helga to make sure I trained my at least two hours a day. I did not see the immediate purpose, but when I went to cast a , the effect was obvious; I could start to chain them with little mental drain. Any one of my family members except Ein could absolutely mop the floor with me with a flick of the wrist, but there was steady improvement.
Lux got a lot larger, whereas before she was the size of a housecat, Lux was easily the size of a mastiff now, if not slightly larger. She was lithe and had illustrious white fur. Small were on her shoulders, that went to her mid upper arm now. Lux had three tails now, and two small little horns were a little more defined above her black diamond eyes. Lux had gotten substantially faster than me unless I used . In a long-distance run, she would smoke me without breaking a sweat. According to my grandparents, Lux should be naturally capable of and , and they were looking into finding some way of helping develop her further. As far as I knew, they were currently unsuccessful.
On the bright side, I was able to ride her around now. She was a bit reluctant, but my grandparents made sure to hammer home she was my , we were part of an , and that we were bound for life; we had a duty to protect and help each other above all else. They also made sure we could maintain and while I was riding her to run and evade them. A skill that could save our lives one day they always quoted. They also made me practice recently being able to with Lux. They loved to borrow Uncle Nox’s obstacle courses and have us run through them working together alternating which of us was doing the movement while the other defended from my grandparent’s attacks. Currently, we were ‘needs improvement’ at best. Unfortunately, the glorious age of Nil did not begin with that win. Lux and I traded off victories from that day on. Neither of us managed two consecutive wins, even this morning I could not beat Lux, and I felt so hopeful too.
I also began attending Temple with my parents. I had confirmed with Kron that he was not the reason I was in Tenebrae. We had talks every week, and my parents did not find my constantly going to his statue odd. Of course, there were some murmurs about it, but I had no idea what they were about. Kron gave me pointers on how to use the to read , but currently the best I could get after three years of trying was the weather. I mean, convenient, but not overly helpful. I have the best power ever, I can tell the weather for the next week. According to Kron, it was substantial progress, but I had no way of measuring or determining if Kron was telling the truth or just trying to cheer me up. I was looking forward to tonight as we were celebrating Ein’s third birthday. There was to be a grand party, and I was finally allowed to attend! The last two birthday parties I had to stay in a safe room, this time I could be there in person! Currently, I was riding Lux around the castle. We were alternating who was moving the two of us around. Lux rapidly scaled the innermost protective wall, much to the dismay of the guards and Helga who was chasing us. Lux kicked off the wall over the extended hand of Helga, and I us back to the ground. Helga kicked off the wall and was in hot pursuit.
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We need to switch. Lux told me, clearly getting tired of maintaining a high speed to outrun Helga. allows her to catch up to Lux, I really need more practice.
Lux shrank her size before perching on my shoulders. I began sprinting and chained together three to elude Helga. We currently hid the and from Helga and our uncles, saving them for a rainy day, but was a different story. The third I sent us into the air and began running along the third story of the castle. Helga quickly scanned and found us, clearly confused that I was casually running through the air. She pursued, closing the gap. I could feel her prepping something to try and jam my . Unfortunately for her, I used to grab a window ledge, pulling myself up out of her range before I chained several again.
She looks quite mad. Luz informed me.
Small price to pay for the practice. Plus, it makes it so much more fun. I replied as Helga was looking incredibly annoyed.
Oh yes. Lux agreed with a mischievous smirk.
“Get back here this instant Crown Prince Nil!” Helga instructed, as we continued our sprint.
I was running through the courtyard, about twenty feet above the ground. She tore after us, trying to find out how to grab us. She doesn’t know . That is so helpful. Unfortunately, I misjudged how high Helga could leap up. She caught up on the ground and did an immense leap up, but unfortunately for her, Lux leapt off my shoulder, made a blade of light, and swatted her down towards the ground. I Lux back onto my shoulder, and even higher, hopefully outside of her leaping range.
“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Helga roared, and I felt an immense heat.
She is currently on fire. Helga is using fire to lift off the ground. Lux informed me.
Thrust using fire. Clever. Lux, I need you to take over while I prepare something to give us time. I instructed her as the Helga rocket took off.
I can do about a minute max; I am not fully recovered. Lux replied with a bit of a sigh.
Lux went back to full size, as the heat of Helga’s fire began making us sweat. I us back to the ground, and Lux began sprinting full speed. She reinforced herself with , which made her start to glow, and faster than Helga. I began prepping an intricate . First, I needed to hide the fact I was casting one. Thankfully, Helga seemed too enraged to be paying enough attention to what we were doing other than avoid her. Lux ran for a solid minute, before she started slowing down.
Hope you are ready. Lux snapped at me.
Just finished. I said with a smile.
I unleashed a spell over the entire courtyard. Instantly, gravity was in every direction, as I arranged where everything was, randomly assorted and changed. This spell was mentally taxing and used a lot of , but it was difficult to go through if you weren’t the caster. I was free of the , and quickly chained together three , vanishing as far as Helga was concerned. We quickly used to move away from where we landed without a trace before using to hide under a tree. Helga went where we landed, and then turned in spot, confused. Our trail simply vanished. She looked an interesting mix of angry and distraught. Regrettably, if we came out, Helga would be irate, which was bad for us. Out of nowhere, a knife impaled itself into the tree above our heads.
“Nil, Lux, that is enough hiding from poor Helga here.” Grandma tutted at us.
“How did you two do that? How did they get there? How could I not sense them?” Helga inquired, trying to regain her composure.
“How did you find us?” I asked Grandma.
“I saw where you landed. And you are distraught Helga, work on being better under duress. Their hiding work was sloppy, I guess from running around for ten minutes using all the in their disposal to stay ahead of you.” Grandma explained while glaring at us.
The last was sloppy. Lux teased me.
We should have used before the last to hide the landing. But I don’t think we maintained it well enough because we used too much running away. I replied to her.
Running at that pace uses too much . Lux whined at me.
The two of us worked hard on expanding our , but we could maintain that chase for about five minutes each. It was kind of depressing. Whatever we lacked physically, we were forced to compensate with . And unfortunately, only augmented what was there, so to reach what Helga was doing we needed to input a lot more than her. Our other saving grace, there was an on the castle that stopped things moving over a certain speed for security but did not stop . It was certainly easier to reach one hundred counting by tens than by twos though.
“I need to get the Crown Prince to his lesson with his uncles, Empress Mother.” Helga told my grandma.
“I will take them. I want to discuss their little escapade with words you cannot use. Please clean up the residual mess of my grandson’s . It seems to be well cast, so it's more to make sure there are no lingering effects.” Grandma instructed Helga.
“Right away Empress Mother.” Helga replied right before she ran off.
“You two love to make trouble. That was a good use of to evade Helga, and good teamwork alternating the load giving the other a light break while supporting in case Helga got close. Clearly you two need to practice more, and if you are going to use , make sure you are using it properly to hide. Use it before you try to vanish or someone observing from a distance can see you. Now let’s get you to your lesson.” Grandma lectured us.
