(One Month Later)
I've been absorbing mana, training, and trying to figure out how to heal the corrupted beast will for the past month. I'm still in silver core, but I could feel that I was on the edge of breaking into white core.
Arthur will be here in nine months, maybe, if everything is the same, and so far, nothing else has happened except for Uto attacking me.
Today, Princess Kathyln and Prince Curtis asked to spar with me, which is fine with me, I'm always down to train with someone new. That's where I was heading now, but before I did that, I wanted to see if Ellie wanted to come and watch.
I stepped onto the balcony where Ellie was training with her bow, and she turned to me, pointing her bow at me, then released it. I froze it in the air before it could even reach me and shook my head at her.
"Shooting a dangerous object at your brother?" I spoke questioningly. "That isn't very smart of you."
"Oh, shut up. I knew you could stop it." She turned away from me, and pulled another arrow back, this time aiming it at the target. I watched as she released it and hit the target dead on. "What's up?"
I walked over to where Boo was and started to pet him. He is now way bigger than me, but I think he is going to grow a lot more. "I'm about to go spar with Princess Kathyln and Prince Curtis, was wondering if you wanted to come with and watch?"
"Umm, I'm good, I don't need to watch you beat them." She told me, which I understood, I wanted to just offer it to her. "Don't hurt the future of our Continent."
"I won't." I told her, and rubbed Boo's head as he leaned over. "What if you spar with them?"
Ellie snapped her head at me. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that, even with you helping them, you guys won't touch me." I shrugged at her. "It's up to you though, we've never sparred together, unless my sister is scared."
"Let's go then, but are you sure they won't mind me being there?" Ellie swung her bow over her back and turned to me.
"I don't know, they probably won't care." I didn't know how seriously they were taking this. "We were supposed to meet there a couple minutes ago, so if you're coming, we should go."
I turned away from Boo and made my way off the balcony. Boo and Ellie quickly followed behind me. "Can Boo fight with me?"
"I don't think that's fair, but I don't care." I could control Boo's blond, I think at least. I activated "Blood Oath" and started to feel for it. Alright, I was right, I can control it, and I could sense that Princess Kathyln and Prince Curtis were already in the training hall, but there were three more people with them. It was the King and Queen, I remember what their blood felt like, and the last person was an old friend.
"Yeah!" Ellie exclaimed; happy she was finally getting to spar with me. "I'm not holding back against you."
"Please, don't, this is just as much training for me, then it is for you." I wanted to get stronger, maybe these weren't the strongest mages, but they weren't weak ones.
We stepped into the training hall where the five people were waiting for us. "Here he is, Virion Leywin, and his sister." King Glayder spoke as we approached them. I realized that Curtis's bond wasn't here, did he not want to spar with it?
"It's good to see you, Veer." Prince Curtis said as we stood in front of them, Ellie bowed to the King and Queen. "I'm happy you agreed to spar with us."
"Where's your bond?" I asked immediately, not trying to be rude or anything, but he needs that to be somewhat strong.
"He's in my room, I didn't think I should bring him." Curtis responded as he stared at Boo.
"Oh, it would have been fine." I told him and turned to Princess Kathyln. "It's good to see you, Princess Kathyln." I smiled at her, and then spun, keeping the smile on my face as I looked at the last person. "Claire, it's been a while."
She walked over and hugged me. "Veer, we've all been hearing about the things you've done, taking out a whole company by yourself is unbelievable." People still don't know about Uto, that might be for the best.
She let me go, and King Glayder spoke. "He's been a true hero for Dicathen so far." I'm a Lance now, well, not officially, but do I have to serve King Glayder. Arthur doesn't and he's a human, so I shouldn't have to. If we are being technical, I would have to be a dwarven Lance. "And a future hero as well, I can't wait to see his powers again today." Oh, great, he was going to watch me.
The Queen spoke for the first time. "It's good to see you, Virion." She sent me a smile, and I smiled back, trying not to be rude.
"Do you mind if Ellie spars too?" I turned to my sister who was standing in silence.
"With us?" Prince Curtis asked.
"Yeah, Princess Kathyln, Claire I'm assuming, Ellie, and you, against me." I took out two tubes of blood.
"Can you handle that?" I started to manipulate the blood, making it float around me, then placed the tubes away.
"Yes." I started to back away from them. "I took on one hundred Alacryans in a real battle, I can hand you five."
"Five?" Kathyln said, and I pointed at Boo. "Oh."
"King and Queen Glayder, I think you should move out of the battlefield." I conjured an ice sword in my right hand. "Let's say, if it's a killing blow, you have to sit out of the rest of the fight."
"Sounds good to me." Claire pulled her sword out, and it blazed with fire. It was nice knowing that the only reason she still has magic was because of me, but I shouldn't act like that.
They all drew their weapons and faced me. "Don't cry to us when we beat you!" Ellie exclaimed, causing me to smile, not because of being in battle, but because it felt like my sister was happy to be here.
"Alright, don't hold anything back." I could end this battle immediately, but let's mess with them. I pointed my sword at them, and thirty illusions of myself appeared around them. We all spoke at the same time. "Are we ready?" I moved away from the illusions, making myself invisible to their eyes, using more illusion magic.
They started to charge the illusions, and I sent them to attack. I watched as they dodged and swung their fake weapons as I just stood there. I started to move the blood I was controlling on the floor, it slithered like a snake as it arrived right below Prince Curtis.
I saw him look down, and his eyes went wide. I wrapped the blood around his ankle and pulled him to the ground. He shot fire at it, but I appeared before him, holding my blade to his throat. "I expected more." An arrow came for my ribs but froze as it got too close to me. I turned to Ellie, still holding my blade toward Curtis. "Do better than that, El."
I vanished from their line of sight, watching them look through the illusions. Curtis stood up and went back to fighting. I didn't force him to yield, so I let it slide.
This might be rude, but I conjured a clone of myself, with literally zero mana, it had a small, small, portion, but could maybe perform a spell. I sent the clone to Claire and watched as the two exchanged blows. The clone was holding an ice sword I gave it, and then, Claire swung her sword, and the blade went right into the clone, knocking it to the ground. I canceled out the illusion spell, except the one where I was invisible, and watched them all turn to the clone on the ground bleeding.
"Veer!" Claire said.
I noticed Ellie looking around the training hall. "That's a clone, he's playing mind games." Damn, I shouldn't have told her about that spell. The clone smiled up at Claire, and then melted into a pile of blood.
"Not cool!" Clare shouted, and I broke the illusion spell.
"My bad." They all turned to the real me. "No more illusions." I assured them.
Claire and Curtis launched themselves at me, and I activated "Blood Acceleration." Kathyln and Ellie prepared their attacks from a far. I disrupted the flow of mana inside of their cores and focused on the approaching Claire and Curtis.
Curtis swung his sword at me, and I sidestepped. Claire followed from the side, I parried her attack, brought my sword to Curtis instead, his sword started to heat up, I could feel it. My sword was about to hit him, but he rolled out of the way.
Claire came for me again, bringing her sword up to my face. The flames on it flew past me, and I spun, caught an arrow Ellie released after I gave them their magic back, and launched myself at her and Boo. I saw her eyes go wide, and Boo went to attack me, but ice was shot at me. I brought up an ice wall, blocked the attack, and waved my arms, causing blue fire to circle me, burning anyone that tried to go through it, even fire users.
The five of them circled me in the circle, feeling the heat it was emitting. An arrow and ice lance shot over the fire, and I spun out of the way with ease. I reinforced my legs with mana and launched myself through the fire at Claire. The blue fire erupted, blocking the path for anyone to help her.
"It's good to see you." I said as I swung my sword at her, she brought her flaming sword up, I disrupted her mana core, causing the flames to die out. My ice blade was still against her neck, I held it there. "I think you're out."
"I think so too." She raised her hands and started to back away off the battlefield. I brought the flames back to me and let them circle me again. Curtis, Kathyln, Ellie, and Boo stared at me through the flames in aww.
I started to walk up to them, the flames moved with me as I did. Who should I go after next, Kathyln hasn't been involved in the fight really, how about her? An arrow shot at me; I caught it and threw it to the ground. I sent a smirk to Ellie, who looked pissed at me now.
Ice started to spread toward the flames, but my flames melted it away. Let's try something new, I started to manipulate the fire, shaping it into a small, but decently sized dragon. They stared up into the sky as I had it fly up.
"Damn." Curtis said.
I had fire roar out of its mouth, now this was fun, creating a dragon out of fire.
I launched myself at Kathyln, her eyes went wide as I appeared before her. I sent the dragon toward Boo and Ellie, focusing on Boo more. I felt Curtis start to move, but before he could I froze him in his place, not allowing him to move using blood magic.
I swung my ice sword at Kathyln, she brought up an ice wall around her, and conjured an ice armor around her, like Varay does. She most likely learned that from her when she was being trained by her.
I kept on my attack, swinging at her as she backed away from me, not able to throw an attack at me. I brought up a wind wall behind her, not letting her back away from me anymore. Ice shards appeared around her, and she launched them at me.
I formed a shield made out of the blood circling me, and felt as the ice collided, doing zero damage to the blood. I released the blood, letting it circle me again, and then disrupted her flow of mana causing all her spells to disappear.
I pointed my sword at her, and she looked disappointed in herself. "Sorry." She didn't say a word to me as she removed herself from the battlefield.