13 CHAPTER 12 [Extra Chapter]

A few days passed in the blink of an eye, Avexis training was going well, but something was making him feel uneasy during the last few days.

Only some time ago he noticed that the size of the Templar squads patrolling literally doubled in size, and the ones guarding the forbidden section also got bigger, it felt like something was about to happen, and not knowing what exactly made him uneasy.

"Hey, Abraham." Rhys came through the library entrance and sat down on the chair in front of him.

"Rhys." He nodded.

"Have you noticed something weird happening recently?" He looked around, making sure that there was no templar around to hear them talking. "I think there is something going on and we are being left out in the dark."

"You mean the atmosphere, right? I also feel it..." Abraham closed his journal and leaned his back on the chair. "There is such a heavy feeling in the air recently, it's like we are about to fight something."

"Yeah, I heard from a friend of mine that there have been weird expeditions going into the forbidden sections of the stronghold."

"What kind of friend would be able to get this kind of info for you?" Abraham raised an eyebrow, he suspected that Rhys was speaking about that Cole, but he wasn't sure, and now felt like a good moment to poke the bird's nest.

"Cough... let's just say not many people can notice him." Rhys scratched the back of his neck and looked away. "What truly matters is that there is something happening, I tried asking the First-Enchanter but he always came up with some excuse to avoid the subject.

"Also, did you notice the bulletin board? The missions from the Circle and even the Emperor practically doubled, all of them about tracking down spies and reinforcing strategic positions in certain locations. I spoke with Sister Jose and she said that there has been some tension inside the chantry recently, the higher-ups seem to be preparing for something."

Hearing this Abraham couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, could it be that there was a major event before the three games that he wasn't aware of? What exactly is going on?

"Well, this sure feels weird, what places are the chantry recruiting for reinforcements?"

"Well, I only remember three locations, Larécolte in the fields of Ghislain, The Orlesian Army Outpost near Perendale, and the Fortress at Val Chevin..."

"You mean they are all around Nevarra? Could a new war be about to blow up?"

They looked at each other and frowned, the Nevarran were known by the Orlesians as a bunch of resentful bastards for a reason, they weren't exactly wrong for holding a grudge against Orlais, but that doesn't change the fact that they always tried to bite at them whenever an opportunity presented itself.

After all, the Nevarran were the best military strategists as far as history was concerned, and they always uphold this belief by virtually surviving all of the wars it participated in when no one believed it was possible, they were like cockroaches, always surviving the blast of the nuclear bombs.

"This doesn't look good, I just recently apprenticed myself to three senior enchanters, I might be requested to aid depending on the situation."

"Eh? Really?" Abraham couldn't believe what he just heard, wasn't he exaggerating a little bit? Three senior enchanters? Besides, how did he do that? Those old folks usually wouldn't accept to share apprentices... "Are you bribing them?"

"What!? No! They are doing this as a favor for my old Master! I don't know what he promised them, but it worked like a charm."

Abraham nodded after hearing this, this explained how he managed to do that.

"Master..." Before Abraham could answer, he heard his little apprentice calling out to him.

"Oh, Avexis, what is it?"

"Master, teach me another spell, I already know how to cast, Flame Blast, Winter's Grasp, and Lightning." Avexis pouted as she asked.

Looking at that Abraham sighed, and Rhys covered his mouth as he laughed slightly. Unfortunately for Abraham, the girl was much more talented than he expected, she reminded him of Oliver in a certain way, but this made her impatient, instead of refining her abilities, she wants to jump to another spell right after finishing the previous one.

Knowing he had to teach his apprentice a lesson he smiled mischievously and said. "Oh, is that right? Why don't we make a game then? I want you to cast those three spells one after the other in rapid succession. If you succeed I'll teach you another spell, if you fail I want you to keep practicing those three for one more week, do you agree?"

"Mm!" Avexis nodded, her eyes shined with determination, "I'll show master that I already know how to use the spells."

"Haha! This little girl is quite an inpatient child, isn't she?" Rhys commented as he looked at the girl approaching one of the training dolls.

"Sigh... Now I understand why my old master was always messaging his head."

"Hahahaha!"

Avexis stopped in front of one of the training dolls, she sucked a mouthful of air and focused her attention on it. She still couldn't do ancient magic like her master, but she was still a talented apprentice, every spell he taught her, she managed to cast on her first try.

Reaching out both of her hands, she cast Flame Blast, the familiar feeling of something being sucked out from her surged, and the spell successfully appeared. Smiling at her successful conjuration, she gave herself a boost of confidence and proceeded to cast Winter's Grasp, the feeling came once again and she succeeded, however, when she tried to cast Lightning, something went wrong, she felt like her body suddenly didn't respond properly and a wave of energy coursed through her making her cry in pain and fall on the ground.

"What!? W-why!?" Avexis asked herself, it was her first time failing to cast a spell, where did she go wrong? Was it something about the question, where was the problem?

"Hahaha!" Turning to her left, she looked at her master who was laughing, with a frown she stood up and went to him with a pout on her mouth.

"Master, why are you laughing?" Avexis was feeling quite angry, why was her master laughing at her failure?

"Haha, c'mon Avexis don't be like that, you don't have to be so serious about such little things, what you experienced is something I myself experienced in the past as well." Abraham smiled and gestured for her to sit down on the other chair next to his. "You see, when I first started to learn how to cast spells, I was overconfident because of my success, just like you, what I didn't know was that mana was like a muscle that needed to be trained, what you experienced is the equivalent of a cramp of a muscle, the only way to deal with this is practicing the spells you learn again and again until you are truly familiarized with it. You won't really notice if you only try the same spells, but when you start to conjure different spells in sequence it becomes clear."

Avexis nodded and after some time she turned to look at him and asked. "Is this why the books say that we need to wait sometime before casting the same spell again?"

"In a sense yes, it's to prevent this sort of situation happening, but with training and experience, you can reduce the cooldown between each conjuration."

Hearing the exchange between them, Rhys pretended to sniff, he looked at Abraham and said. "Oh... you're such a good master, almost like a father!"

Abraham's eyes twitched at that comment, but he decided to let it go.

"A... father?" Avexis asked, her eyes getting somewhat watery.

"Ignore him Avexis, this dumbhead doesn't know what he's talking about." Abraham gave her a reassuring smile and stroked her hair.

Although reluctantly, Avexis nodded and opened one of the books on primal magic on the table to read.

Abraham gave Rhys a penetrating look. Realizing his mistake, he smiled apologetically and promised to make up for the girl.

Having nothing to do today, Rhys decided to spend the rest of his day with them, and maybe study something in his free time.

Hours passed and when they less expected, one of their fellow mages, a guy called Thomas rushed into the library and shouted.

"Everyone, take your weapons! The circle has been invaded, blood mages are invading from every entrance!" Leaving this phrase behind to the stunned people inside the library, he turned around and left.

After the initial shock, he took Avexis hand and shouted for her and to Rhys. "Let's go to the mage quarters, we can't stay here!"

Rhys nodded and Avexis just let herself be carried away by Abraham's hand, she still didn't process what she just heard.

Leaving the library they turned to the right and started running through the corridor, however, when they approached a crossroad, they were surprised by the sight of three templars being thrown away by something.

They ran towards them and couldn't help but shake their heads, dead, turning around to see how that happen, they weren't so surprising after noticing what seemed to be two Terror demons, green creatures whose flesh and skin seemed to be made out of rotten wood and behind them, facing a group of apprentices were two Rage demons, creatures that resemble slimes made out of lava.

Gritting his teeth, Abraham couldn't help but curse his luck, without his stave, he would have to fight without a focus. It would make him have to rely on fewer spells but he would have to go with that if he wanted to survive.

"Avexis, stay behind us and only attack from distance! Remember to pay attention to the ground beneath you, if you see the floor becoming pitch black with green crakcks jump away from it as soon as possible!"

Avexis nodded and prepared herself to cast any spell whenever necessary.

Looking at Rhys, they didn't even have to exchange words, they knew what to do in such a situation.

Rhys lifted his stave and brought it down towards the ground, a wave of bright aqua-colored energy swept them, wrapping their bodies in an aura-like barrier. Abraham cast his body enhancement spell and reaching out his right hand, he grabbed towards nothing, and a blade of spiritual energy formed only of pure mana materialized.

Running forwards he slashed at the closest Terror demon, the creature jumped out of the way and let out a cry of anger towards him. At that moment Abraham noticed a punch coming from the side, using all the experience from his training, he lifted his sword and blocked the punch that came from the other Terror demon.

Using this chance, Rhys cast Winter's Grasp, freezing the demon that just attacked Abraham and giving him the opportunity to jump out of the way when the first one also tried to attack him.

Desperate to help, Avexis pointed her hand towards the demon attacking Abraham and cast a bolt of lightning. Although the damage was negligible it was still enough to distract it, allowing Abraham to launch a barrage of attacks at it.

The first two attacks managed to chop off one of its arms, and the last one sent it flying away towards the ground near the other Terror demon.

Seeing such a good opportunity Rhys didn't waste any time thinking and directly cast an explosive fireball, when it hit the demon on the ground a big explosion happened, launching a wave of flames towards the two demons and making them fly once again, the one who was frozen by him, let out a cry of anger and when it was about to fall on the ground it went directly through it, entering into the pitch-black surface that appeared beneath it out of nowhere.

The other still stunned due to the explosion, couldn't react when Abraham jumped above it and brought down his sword beheading the demon and killing it in the process.