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C366 - Bow Down!

"Hey, hey." Jerach jogged to keep up with Leonel, his heavy armor causing the paved roads to quake.

Leonel looked back and couldn't help but smile.

"You know, for someone with such a strong wind affinity, shouldn't you wear something lighter than this, baldy? Who knows, your hair might grow back if you stop straining yourself so much."

"What do you know?!" Jerach snapped like a cat that had its tail stepped on. Clearly, his baldness was a soft spot. "It's precisely because I have a high wind affinity that I should take full advantage of it. Who else could wear such heavy army and yet still be so fast?"

Leonel shook his head and didn't reply to these words.

They sounded logical, but the truth was that Jerach's speed would never reach its full potential like that. Just from what Leonel could see alone, he would easily be two or three times faster if he took his armor off.

On top of that, he would never be as sturdy as someone with an earth affinity either. So, he was essentially becoming decent at many things in exchange for losing out at being excellent in one lane.

In a world where your life was on the line at every turn, Leonel felt that this was a mistake. But, he didn't press Jerach too much. He still needed a bodyguard, after all.

"… So who are you really?" Jerach asked curiously, leveling out his steps with Leonel.

"I told you already, Leonel Morales." Leonel replied casually, looking toward the next monument.

"You know that's not what I mean. You use a translator, so you're obviously not from this world. I hear you came out of the same carriage as Syl, but you both deny being betrothed – you should probably hide that from that madman, by the way. If he finds out that something like that happen, he might kill you for defiling his little sister."

Jerach rambled.

"I'm from Earth." Leonel finally responded as Jerach had a pause.

"Earth?!"

Jerach's steps stopped.

Leonel frowned, looking back toward Jerach. "Is there a problem?"

"… No." Jerach shook his head.

Leonel raised an eyebrow. Was there a need for such an exaggerated reaction? Terrain was just as bad a name as Earth, after all. It could be said that all their ancestors needed some better naming sense.

Leonel wanted to say something about Jerach's weird reaction, but he realized that they had already made it to the first monument. On the way to the Emperor abodes, Leonel had already mentally marked the locations of a few monuments.

Unfortunately, Leonel was so focused on the monuments before him and how they could help him find Aina that he had completely missed the complicated gaze Jerach looked toward his back with.

**

After a full day, Leonel fell into his thoughts, organizing everything he had seen.

The Eastern Sector had 33 monuments and Leonel had been to them all. However, there were only a minority of them that caught Leonel's attention at all.

The first one was of a bowman.

Unlike what Leonel had with his Spear Domain, he didn't have a set path to follow with his bow. However, it would be a shame to ignore his talent for marksmanship. The only issue was finding sources that could help him continuously increase his skill.

Of all 33 monuments he had been to, only one of them depicted a bowman. Even now, Leonel could remember her valiant aura and golden armor. She looked like a goddess descended toward earth…

Just from the few scenes Leonel saw, he could tell that she could control the flow of a ten kilometer radius just with her bow and arrows alone. It was a level of skill Leonel couldn't even imagine in his current state.

The second monument that caught Leonel's attention was of another woman. The only unfortunate part was that she was a fire mage and not an earth or light mage.

Leonel still remembered being entranced. This woman stood in the skies wearing a fiery red robe so long it extended tens of meters past her feet. Her fiery red hair was of an obscene length as well, whipping about like rays of crimson amidst the clouds.

The domain that surrounded her seemed burnt to ash. The air was dry, the ground was black, the wind was scorched. It felt as though one was standing in a perpetual hell just being around her.

Leonel remembered being in awe when he came out from the illusion before soon being disappointed. After all, he wasn't a fire mage. And, even though he had Dream Sculpted all the Mage Arts of Camelot, regardless of element, he had never even so much as used a Fire Element spell before.

However, that was when something shocking happened. Leonel realized that when he looked around him, Jerach and the others who had surrounded the monument at the time had separated their distance to him by a large margin.

At first, Leonel had been confused, but when he look around, he found that there was a radius of scorched ground around him. In fact, the only things not burnt to ash near him was the little mink napping on his head without any worries and, luckily, his clothes.

It was then that Leonel came to realization… His Scarlet Star Force.

Top ten amongst Star Elemental Forces. Top three amongst Light Elemental Forces. And…

The very best amongst Fire Elemental Forces.

Without realizing it, Leonel's affinity for fire magic had surpassed his affinity for both Earth and Light Elemental magic. Whether it was his Metal Synergy or Snowy Star Owl Lineage Factors, they were all overshadowed by his Innate Force Node. This could only be expected, after all, a Lineage Factor is passed down and must be slowly unlocked whereas an Innate Force Node was all to a person's own.

Of course, Leonel's Scarlet Star Force also vastly improved his Light and Star Element affinity. Compared to others with Light and Star Elemental affinity, Leonel was amongst the very top few now.? However, even compared to that increase, his fire affinity still gained the greatest leap.

Even though he couldn't use his Innate Force Node to its full potential now, simply by virtue of having it, all flames in the world bowed down to him!

To be continued