A Message

In the following days, Gerald took it slow. The Black Onyx Mansion hired another maid and a servant to help with the growing number of people living there.

Blum and Warren spent a few days just familiarizing themselves with the place and the latter was quickly recovering with the help of good food and potions. They joined the girls in daily exercise and trained with them to improve their mobility and strength.

A part of the training also consisted of a meditation-type exercise where they would stare at pictures of all sorts of fantastical magic spells and then try to imagine themselves doing it.

It was the best Gerald could do to stimulate their mind since they didn't have any magical movies or video games.

He similarly spent most of his time meditating, however, he was doing it for a completely different reason. The little demons in his mind were pissing him off and he couldn't do a damn thing about it. The best he could do was try to empty his mind and ignore them while keeping his anger under control.

And it was helping, although just a tiny bit.

The beasts became quieter and less aggressive, and he wasn't sure, but he could swear there were more of them at the beginning. Maybe the meditation was affecting them too?

Eeeyaaaa!

Bam, bam, bam!

Gerald took a deep breath, and slowly opened his eyes. In a corner of his room was an iron cage with the Pixie monster contained inside. It was currently screeching loudly and banging on the metal bars of the cage.

"Shut up, or do you want another beating?!" Gerald shouted. The creature inside looked at him hatefully and hissed, showing its sharp white teeth, however it stopped nonetheless.

"I'll get to you eventually, don't worry. Just wait until my magic recovers, we'll have lots of fun then," he grinned and then closed his eyes once more.

He brought the Pixie back to study it. It was the first creature that used Light magic as its main form of attack, and it was a powerful illusionist on top of it. Somehow it was able to even affect his mind as well, and Gerald was dying to be able to study it. Unfortunately without the ability to detect Mana, it was impossible to discover anything at the moment.

He did make sure to drain some blood each day, however, and store it away for later use. He was otherwise taking good care of the Pixie, feeding it good meat and Ether Crystals to keep it strong.

Blood from a Light magic creature was exceedingly rare and almost impossible to get. At least Gerald couldn't find anyone willing to sell some.

This world considered Light an almost useless Element on its own. It couldn't be used in the battle directly, and even those that knew how to make illusions still needed something else to damage their opponents. Its main use was for lighting, and even that was reserved only for nobility.

Because of its low usefulness, it was considered a fancy gimmick, nothing less, nothing more. It was similar to Space magic. Since nobody knew how to make good use of it, it was not on the same height as the other four Elements.

Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire could be used in a variety of ways and had simple but powerful spells.

Gerald became convinced that these categorizations only impeded the progress of magic, and was trying to combine them all into one. Just like Elemental Avatar, the Combat Art combining all four Elements brought out a much greater power than each of the Elements individually.

For that reason studying Light was a must! Too bad he could only sigh and endure until he recovered, pushing his frustrations aside.

***

A few more days went by, and the army, a thousand foot-soldiers, marched through the city gates towards the recent place of slaughter. The citizens learned of the tragedy, and although they didn't know all the details, they still wished luck to their brave men marching to battle.

Gerald was busy. Meditating in the morning, and teaching Blum in the afternoon.

The man started off full of enthusiasm and desire to learn, however after only two days he realized how little he knew, and the numbers started to hunt him in his nightmares. When letters replaced the numbers he could still keep up, however, then complex formulas and graphs started to show up and he realized just how horrifying monsters they were.

His mature brain struggled with the foreign concept calculus had introduced into his life, and he had to gather his all not to cry.

As minutes turned to hours, and hours into days, he started to wonder if maybe he made a mistake in his haste. However, it was too late for regret and he could only continue moving forward lest he becomes useless to his new Master and be discarded.

Warren also suffered, although the nature of his pain was quite the opposite. His torture was a physical one. Every day the girls would train him in the morning, and Gerald would tutor him in the evening.

They focused on speed and endurance when it was still dim and cold outside, running many laps around the Mansion, and later Gerald would teach him different fighting styles of hand-to-hand combat.

Having only one hand was not a disadvantage at all. With superior experience and physical strength, he was tossing Warren left and right for hours. Only when the night came did they stop, and Warren dragged his aching and bruised body back inside, where he received a warm dinner with a glass of Health Potion to wash it all down.

The combination of good quality meat and potions helped to quickly improve his physique, so much so that the most powerful steroids from Earth paled in comparison.

And that was quality muscle, all-natural and made to endure even the harshest abuse thrown at it. And yet, even with all of this, the man was still quite scrawny, a clear proof of how weak and malnourished he was before.

It has been exactly a week since they came home. Gerald was slowly recovering with the help of meditation and rest, and could already start feeling the particular tingling sensation when Mana flowed through his body. He couldn't quite detect or manipulate it completely though.

The voices in his mind also quieted down, and one by one they vanished. It was a good thing they did too because he wasn't sure he could concentrate enough to cast magic with them chattering all the time.

***

A raven came on that day, and it was carrying an urgent message for The King. A message of war.