My name was Valen Corenthias. I was the training master at the training center of Soren Town. I was an explorer when I was younger. I was pretty successful if I said so myself. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down when my wife got hurt when I was away. 

Out of guilt, I decided to abandon my adventurous life to live in my hometown with her. The transition was quite harsh. Most of the time I was bored out of my ears. In my new job, I had to take care of the training grounds and to teach anyone who asked weapon mastery. Problem was, no one asked. So apart from cleaning, I had nothing to do. 

As per customs, the training master could only teach someone who passed the training dummy's test. After twenty years of cleaning and training by myself, someone finally did it. That person didn't asked either but no one should fret over such small details. The important thing was that I was getting an apprentice and that I wouldn't be bored anymore.

I should have taken heed of the saying. Be careful what you wish for. My student was great. He was diligent, bright and hard working. It just wasn't how I imagined things to be. In my imagination, my diligent, bright and hard working apprentice should be respectful, courageous and have some honor. Reality was harsher. 

The first time I met my apprentice, he ignored me when I was talking to him. Then he proceeded by insulting me and after that, he started whining about the unfairness of life till my ears bled out. The worst was that he didn't even notice how much he complained. I wasn't a happy camper. He had two sides to him and his second side was seriously getting on my last nerve. 

However, I kept with traditions and started teaching him. I was surprised and pleased with how diligent he was. For a few weeks apart from a few quips from him I was nearly able to forget that he had a shitty personality. 

But it all came back when he received his graduation gift. I genuinely thought he would be pleased to receive the quest. From my experience, adventurers became ecstatic each time quests and rewards were mentioned. I should have remembered his personality. He insulted me, insulted my goddess and complained about the quest. 

I should have been pissed but I was just genuinely fed up with him. I threaten him and watch him flew away so fast I didn't have the time to tell him that he could take a weapon with him. At this view, I had a pang of guilt. I mean I could have run him off more gently...or not. I've taught him everything I could and now, he wouldn't show up around here anymore. All was good. My duty was done.

I passed my wife down the hall as I headed out.

“Don't be late for dinner, I made your favorite.”, she told me with a shy smile. My wife was an angel. She was just so cute. Now that I was done with passing down my knowledge to some one, maybe we could take a long vacation just the two of us. I knew she would love it. She liked it when I spent more time with her. 

I left my house and went to the library. There, I met Gary Brooks formerly known as Gary Cornwall. I met him for the first time twenty years ago, while I was an explorer. At the time, he was the Archmage of Beleheim. We became friends and had kept in touch ever since.

Twenty years ago when Beleheim was invaded by monsters, he decided to move to my country. It was not like he had anywhere else to go. And Anaheim was close to Beleheim's border. He tried to build an army to reclaim the kingdom but it was an arduous task. 

The Beleheim king didn't want his kingdom back. In this country, he lived the life of a king without all the duties that went with it. He preferred living a life of debauchery in the Capital of Anaheim. That in itself wouldn't caused any problem but even though he didn't want Beleheim, he didn't want anyone else to have the kingdom. So he did everything he could to prevent the kingdom from being saved. 

Gary Cornwall, the archmage was accused of trying to assassinate the Beleheim King. The latter even convinced the King of Anaheim, his cousin, that the archmage wanted to dispose of him and then, use his army to reclaim Beleheim. It was false but the the King of Beleheim's followers produced evidence and witnesses. 

I knew he was innocent so I helped him out by giving him a new identity and sponsoring his appointment as librarian in my hometown. It was the closest city to the Beleheim border if you go through he Cali desert. 

Through the years, he was able to build a trusting network of people wanting to reclaim Beleheim. One of them died in town a few months ago. Before dying, he gave a message to be delivered to Gary. Unfortunately for everyone, he gave it to my dear student. Did I mention that kid had the shittiest personality ever?

He refused to tell Gary anything and then, when the latter transformed him into a nature spirit to get the information out of him, he even found a way to piss the guy off. I mean he was a nature spirit. He was supposed to be unable to lie, be docile and weak. 

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

But my dear student sure as hell could lie. When Gary wanted him to answer his questions, he fled. He was only docile when it suited him. 

Basically, he was the worst nature spirit to ever exist. 

“Weren't you supposed to bring that kid back here?” Gary asked me, bringing me out of my musings.

“Hmm...He kind of flew away.”

“What do you mean “flew away”?”

“He flew away. Just flew away.” I knew he wanted to know why but I couldn't say that I scared my student so much he fled away from me. It was embarrassing.

“And how am I supposed to turn him back into an elf if he isn't here?”

“Well...He loves it as a spirit. He didn't want to change back.”

“Did you really explain to him what was a nature spirit? No one in their right mind would want to be one.”

I knew I was screwed. A nature spirit was docile, weak and couldn't lie. Despite the name, a nature spirit couldn't control nature or any such things. They basically had no powers. They could gain them but they weren't strong. Their name was just to differentiate them from the other spirits.

Everheart, despite his talent and his personality quirks was still a nature spirit. He didn't get level or stats as fast as other races. It was kind of obvious if you actually look at his stats and all the hard work I put him to do. But thankfully he didn't notice, so he didn't have the chance to whine about it. 

“He's not a regular nature spirit. He's definitely not weak.”... for his level was what I didn't add. Because Everheart was still level 2. With all the training we did, he was just a little stronger than a normal human at level 2. “And it's your fault you shouldn't have transform him into a nature spirit.”

I knew it was a low blow. Gary transformed him because he had no other choice. The information passed among the members of his network could get any one of them executed without a trial. He couldn't take the chance that Everheart babbled to anyone about it. 

So he converted his soul into a nature spirit. I couldn't fault his logic. He needed to keep a gag and an eye on a loose end so he chose to cast a conversion spell that would guarantee it. Who would have thought that Everheart would be such a hard-to-deal-with nature spirit? Gary gave me a look meaning exactly that. 

“Huh huh. It's your apprentice's life after all.”

“Yes, he's my apprentice. I taught him everything he needs to survive in this world.”

“So did you give him the class?”

I knew I forgot something. But in my defense I was all prepared to give him the class after he received the quest. He pissed me off. It was his fault he didn't get it. I had been extremely patient with him. If he had just said “thank you”, everything would have gone according to plan. But no, he had to let his bad attitude out.

I excused myself hastily from Gary. I knew he wouldn't buy my explanation. I went back to the training center. I decided to clean off the place while thinking of a good excuse on why I didn't give my apprentice the class. The next time I saw him, I was sure that Gary would want to hear it.

As I cleaned and thought about it, the quest I helped him find was pretty difficult. As a nature spirit, he has no chance whatsoever to complete it. If he was an elf and had the Shamansword class, he would have had a better fighting chance. 

Shamansword contrary to what its name suggested wasn't a hybrid class. Shamansword should be read as shaman's word. It was a class which allowed a person to act as intermediary between the natural and supernatural worlds, to use any type of magic, to foretell the future, to control spiritual forces and to use any weapon he wanted. 

Unlike a regular shaman, a shamansword could contract any kind of spirits as long as he could get their word which meant their real name. There was no mana cost, no penalty on the number or on how powerful the spirits could be. Basically even at level 2, as long as he knew the word, he could summon a Spirit Lord and controlled him.

I was able to recognize that I might have screwed up. Only someone with the class could give it to someone else. I was the only person alive that could give him the class and I scared him so badly he wouldn't come near me again. 

“Well, if he ever show up again I'll give it to him.” Finding no other solution to my problem, I shrugged and went back to cleaning.

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