Approaching magic

Chapter 19: Approaching magic

Overall, the arena fights went well. Mercury made quite a bit of progress trying out different roles on the battlefield, working even harder to fill the gap left by Second and keeping that same pace up when he was back.

There was a simple reason for this. Mercury wanted to be a king who didn't get his subjects hurt.

He didn't feel like being a figurehead with no power, nor did he want to be a king who only has money. He didn't want to focus on bureaucracy or anything the like.

He wanted to make a nation that was safe for those he wanted to protect, and he wanted to be able to protect those people. He wanted power to be a king, not be a king to get power.

And in this world, that was possible. Stats made superhuman feats achievable, cutting down trees with single strikes wasn't much of a challenge to powerful individuals. Heck, there were probably dragons and heroes who could split mountains somewhere out there.

This came with a hefty downside too, though. If he wanted to protect everyone then he needed to also be able to beat those dragons and heroes, no matter what it took. This meant he needed to become stronger and thus, he spared no effort to become king.

He partook in the fights and analyzed every step of his, seeing where he could optimize his movement. He had Cherry attach weights to him when he wanted to run and he kept them on almost permanently. He meditated until he fell asleep and then woke up early for the fight the next day, slowly growing out the veins of Mana in his body.

And steadily, he was making progress.

[You have acquired the <Footwork>, <Endeavour>, <Self-Reflection>, and <Multitasking> Skills through specific actions!]

[Your Skills and Abilities have levelled up: <Meditate lv. 12 -> 15>, <Dash lv. 1 -> 3>, <Mana Veins lv. 1 -> 2>, <Footwork lv. 1 -> 2>, <Endeavour lv. 1 -> 5>!]

Status:

Mercury Rainfall Starlight

Lv.: 13

Species: Zetraspa

Titles: <Forest Usurper>, <Tutorial Completer>

Hp: 90/90

Mp: 271/271

Sp: 160/160

Strength: 25 -> 29

Vitality: 16 -> 23

Dexterity: 29 ->37 (+1)

Agility: 30 (+1)

Intelligence: 40 -> 45

Wisdom: 34 -> 36

Willpower: 34 -> 51

Luck: 16 -> 17

Ability points: 57

World points: 5

Skill points: 760

Gold: 2914

Beast familiars: 3/2 (123/150)

He also ended up increasing his mana by meditating, and even got bonuses to intelligence. Also, he got some Exp for pretty much everything he did to improve itself, be it working out or training his mana. He had made quite a bit of progress after a full month and was looking at his stats while eating.

Mercury was quite proud of how far he had gotten, but he still felt like his progress was slow. It simply couldn't compare to gaining Exp from killing monsters, which might explain why people who do so more often are stronger than average soldiers, who also have to take care of guard duty and such.

Actually though, Mercury was still expanding the pathways for mana in his body as he was thinking and eating, putting his <Multitasking> Skill to heavy use so soon after acquiring it. Unfortunately, he was also distracted from that fairly soon as the person in charge of feeding him today walked up to his cage after completing her round.

It was dim in the room, but with <Night Vision> he was still able to easily see the woman's face, her golden eyes and hair, flowing down to her shoulder blades, and the sword she kept at her waist at all times. Then, he also noticed that she was wearing what looked like plate armour that was specifically tailored for her, unlike the armour the colsseum handed out.

In short, he deduced that she had enough money to fund her own equipment, meaning she was probably some sort of big shot, so he appraised her.

[A celestial human.]

She was the very same person that stood out to Mercury in the very beginning as the only one of her race. Come to think of it, he had also never seen her fight in the arena…

"I know you can talk, little one."

"Meow?" Mercury wasn't entirely unfazed by what she said, but he wasn't just about to reveal how they did their fights, so he feigned ignorance. His composure was definitely thrown off right then and there, given that they had always sought out corners or hidden places to speak with each other.

It wasn't entirely impossible for someone to have noticed, but in that case, why would they go to him instead of asking Cherry to teach them about taming methods?

"I also know that you are trying to study magic," the woman calmly continued with a smile. "What I am offering you is mentorship, little one. I can show you how to channel mana like a mage, unlike those party tricks wizards study by heart. I believe that, with my help, you will be able to learn how to channel the energy gained from evaporating mana into-"

"Alright, charade's over. I'm listening, what do you want in exchange?" Mercury answered. It was clear that this girl wasn't about to stop, and honestly, he wasn't exactly in a position to turn down help if he didn't want the building of his kingdom to take many more years.

The girl replied with a slight smile. "Well then," she said while opening his cage door, "what happens to be your name?"

"Mercury Rainfall Starlight. Yours?"

"You may call me Teacher," she said, still maintaining her bright smile.

"No."

"Hm?"

"I said no. I'm not calling you 'teacher'," Mercury said while hopping from his cage onto the floor and looking up at the girl. "Miss celestial. I'm grateful for you offering to teach me, really. Honestly, I also think I could greatly benefit from receiving some guidance. However, I absolutely and unavoidably refuse to call you 'teacher', 'master' or anything similar to that. "

"This has a simple reason, really. I don't want to be on a lower step from you in a hierarchy if I don't know you. I don't want to be put in a situation where it would be easy for you to take advantage of me, simply because you're on a higher step. Been there and done that. I didn't enjoy it, so I have to insist on you telling me your name."

When Mercury was done, the girl shook her head a little. "Alright then, Mercury Rainfall Starlight. You may-"

"Not 'may'. I also have a problem with that. Giving me permission to call you by a certain name again means that apparently you're oh-so-much more important than me. Just tell me your name without 'graciously' giving me permission to speak it."

The woman froze for a second when Mercury interrupted her again and for the first time her bright, condescending smile changed into a somewhat more sinister one.

"Alright then, Mercury. My name is Yvette Lumineux. I'm looking forward to working with you."

Her slight bow genuinely sent shivers down Mercury's back, but that wasn't enough for him to step down. Not because he was brave, but because his words had been honest. So, instead, he nodded and gave her a small bow as well.

"Don't be too harsh on me."

And with that, a slightly uneasy relationship was formed between Mercury and someone he'd have very mixed feelings towards in the future.

From then on, the days in the colosseum seemed too short for him.

There was a simple reason for that - Yvette's expectations.

She wasn't okay with Mercury improving his magic level by 24 hours every single day. If he only brought forward the result of a simple 24 hours, she would get angry. This wasn't of much physical consequence - she had tried taking Mercury's food away, but he simply got it from Cherry or another tamer, and then told her to knock it off if she didn't want him to leave. He knew she had some form of attachment to him, otherwise she wouldn't teach him.

After her first idea of punishment failed, Yvette tried other things. First she attempted yelling, then name calling, then expressing her disappointment, but nothing seemed to work. Mercury simply stared at her with a weird expression she couldn't quite read before shaking his head and getting right back to practicing instead of taking new lessons.

It wasn't even that he was producing terrible results - he improved as much as if he did regular practice for quite some time even on his worst days, and he only had about 6 hours for magic. But Yvette didn't allow herself to be softer on him, or be impressed by this. She saw his arrogance and wanted to knock him down a peg, even more so after seeing that look in his eyes that got clearer every time she resorted to anger.

And eventually, she got angry for no reason anymore. She demanded more results from him when he was producing ones that went far above what she had wanted. After a month he sometimes managed to squeeze almost a day's worth of practice into his few hours.

His arrogance was justified, and so Yvette got even more furious with him. That look he gave her - it was inacceptable. It was degrading to look down on this inferior creature she decided to "help out" from the good of her heart. It was thankless, it was ruthless, it was condescending, it was-!

Pity.

Mercury looked at Yvette with nothing more than that. Every time she raged at him he sighed inside, knowing that her anger was futile. He knew it was because he wished to be treated like an equal when she so clearly felt superior, so he tried even harder to prove her wrong. He only slept for four hours every day, practicing his fine control by making walls in his core, splitting his mana into different puddles and then controlling those separately using <Multitasking>.

At the same time, he was spreading his mana veins further every waking second. While walking, while speaking, while fighting in the arena and while training he was pushing against the walls of his core and his veins, making new tunnels that spread to every inch of his body.

But of course, this wasn't enough for Yvette. So he also set aside part of his mana which he used not to practice his control or expand his mana vein. He evaporated it, gathered the energy created by it and used it in its simplest form: heat. He simply made his mana unstable and evaporate, creating energy that was released by the change in its form, and then he took that energy and converted it into heat.

After having heated his body up this way for a while, Yvette came up with a new task for him, wanting him to take this heat and return it back into magical energy in order to cool something down.

Of course, Mercury had to take a lot of time with this. He had barely learned to control his mana a handful of months ago and now he had to grasp not only it's liquid state, but also its gaseous form and control the energy created by transforming it.

When he first tried it, Mercury actually ended up leaking some of his mana. He brought it to the edge of his veins, had it evaporate and then focused on controlling the energy from there, not maintaining his mana, which resulted in some of the gas leaking out of tiny holes in his mana veins. So he had to add yet another task to the growing list of things to do simultaneously.

The third page was the hardest out of all of them, from Mercury's perspective.

It wasn't any harder or more grueling than the second, but there were problems he was encountering. First of all, his fatigue was accumulating and he got headaches faster every day. Secondly, Yvette's screaming was starting to gnaw away at his nerves. He didn't care about its contents, but hearing her screeching voice was not exactly pleasant. Third, his body was aching all over because of the mistakes he had made, and fourth, he couldn't even sleep thoroughly anymore, since his dreams were also all about magic, and so he ended up unconsciously reviewing what he learned, even in those.

It was enough for him to question his own movement forward multiple times. The medium pain, the fatigue, the yelling and the always-distant rest, it was simply weighing down on him. But then, on the seventh day of the third page, when he was just about to stop, he talked to Yvette again.

"What in the seven hells is this?!", she screamed once more. "You call this 'precise'? 'Skillful'? Did you drink during practice?!"

He was getting the feeling she only wanted to train someone to get her power fix, and now that he was neither allowing her to do so nor doing anything about her curiosity towards his past, she was getting more and more agitated with him. It was simply getting tiresome.

"Seriously, this sorry excuse that you try to sell off as magic will never be enough. You want to be king? Jeez, honestly, if I were you I would give up on it already."

Until she struck a nerve that is.

[You are suffering through exceptional circumstances. You have been given the opportunity to accept a trial. Completion condition: Go through the training and come back stronger. Failure condition: Give up. Reward: 4 levels, 5 Ability points, <Talent> Skill, <Tenacious Genius> Title. Penalty: Loss of 2 levels, 3 Ability points, regression of <Endeavour> and <Mana Veins>. Accept?]

Well, he'd be fucking damned. This wasn't nearly as painful as his last trial of the exceptional headache, but it definitely was more tiresome on a mental level. But honestly, there was absolutely no chance he was going to turn this down. Accept, please!

[You have accepted the trial. Good luck.]

There, now he simply had no choice but to do it. A truly flawless stratagem indeed.

And so, Mercury had found a new motivation to add to his list. First of all, there was gaining power to become a king, then power to protect, and power because magic was fun. Now there was also growth out of pettiness, and growth out of spite.

And this was the point at which Mercury also started dreaming about his training-regime. When his head hit the pillow he'd pass out from mental fatigue, but after just a few moments of quiet darkness, his field of vision would change. He'd be looking at a vast green field, stretching endlessly towards the horizon, a castle of glass with spires piercing the heavens to the west. To the east he saw a sinister mountain range, with a large door built as an entrance, red-black mist always obscuring the area. To the north there was a citadel of fire, dying the everblue sky with a calming orange and to the south he could see nothing but a small fountain, his eyes drawn to it even over the distance.

It was a surreal scene, but the weirdest part was his body. He didn't have to envision his core in order to see it or focus on his mana. In this space, every fibre of his being was constructed from mana. He wasn't tied down by muscles, skin or even a brain; instead, every single bit of his body was crafted from pathways of mana, making for a weird creature crafted from stone tubes in a vaguely cat-shaped form.

The first time this was bizarre for Mercury, but since he was fully aware that he was dreaming, he decided to shake it off and instead use this opportunity and use it well. He did the same thing he always did, sat down, closed his eyes and blocked out any external stimuli, using <Meditate> to help him reach the state.

He focused on checking out his body first, exploring every single tube that shaped him with droplets of mana to get a feel for their shape, and soon he found out that this weird new body of his was in the exact shape of his mana veins. So he figured that this was probably not fully a dream but had some grounding in reality, from which he then concluded that he could most certainly use it not only for relaxing, but also for training.

And after that conclusion, Mercury went to work. He checked the condition of his core and saw that his mana was still split into several vats, each of them filled with the slightly translucent, silvery liquid, looking like a sheet of moonlight. Then, he started moving them, all separately of course, making them spin clockwise, counterclockwise or even creating a vertical current sometimes.

Then, while doing that, he diverted part of his focus and mana to the expansion of his veins. He still knew the shape of his physical body very well and was also aware of where his limbs were in space, so creating mana veins that covered his normal, catlike body in this space wasn't too big of a problem. Thus, he broke down part of the walls of his veins and made them regrow a little more quickly than they would on their own, by boiling some of his mana and using the magical energy for regeneration, while making sure not to let any of the gas leak out.

While he was doing this at multiple places and keeping other parts of his mana moving using <Multitasking>, he decided to also start with analyzing his surroundings and drawing mana from them. So, he focused on the air around him, if he could call it that, given that he was unsure if there was even air in this dream. He sensed the mana in it, before drawing some tiny droplets and particles towards him.

And then, he found his limit.

He couldn't add any more tasks at this point, because he was already overexerting his mental strength. He was even unsure how he was thinking at this very moment, given that his brain was still asleep and probably incapable of thought processes as coherent as this. In any case, it was impossible for him to draw out any more thinking power in this scenario, so instead of trying to add additional tasks, he simply devoted all of his attention to what he was already doing.

After only a little while, a light headache set in and his veins felt like they were heating up. After half an hour, the headache was stronger and his body felt sore, while the heat was getting stronger and he was feeling a little feverish. Then, when he kept going, he felt like the muscles all over his body had been overexerted, resulting in him feeling muscle pains all over and after an hour and a half in total, his headache and fever had progressed to a point where they were more than mildly distracting.

But Mercury was motivated by pettiness and spite. Some growing pains weren't going to stop him.

He kept going, even with the headache growing ever stronger. Two hours after he started, his headache was overwhelming and he only managed to push it to the back of his consciousness by using <Endeavour>, and thus adding another task to his ever growing list of things to keep track of. This resulted in his fever progressing even faster and his muscle pains becoming stronger as well.

After two and a half hours he was panting heavily and his control over his mana was getting more than just shaky. He had to focus more on keeping the movement in control, rather than increasing his speed. By then he had to stop growing his mana veins because it just wasn't quite feasible anymore, so he had retracted all his mana back to his core.

This was a slight bit of relief, reducing the amount of tasks he was doing, but he was still more than overexerting himself, so his headache got even worse.

After a little longer, he also stopped gathering mana from the air and focused only on maintaining the movement of the currents he had started in his core.

Finally, after three hours, he decided to slow these down until they stopped, and even when his mana came to a halt, he could still feel it boiling inside of him because of just how hot his veins had gotten from the fever. Then, when he finally gave a sigh of relief, he forgot about holding the headache back for a second. And he was knocked out cold.

Only half an hour later he woke up, feeling none of the strain that he had experienced in his dream but all of the benefits. Heck, the world even looked a little bit more colourful to him.

[You have acquired the <Focus>, <Dreamwalking>, and <Astral Body> Skills through specific actions!]

[Your Skills and Abilities have levelled up: <Focus lv. 1 -> 3>, <Meditate lv. 15 -> 16>, <Endeavour lv. 5 -> 10>, <Self Reflection lv. 1 -> 3>, <Mana Veins lv. 2 -> 3>]

[Your max Mp have increased by 5]

It was quite worth doing so. He was excited for Yvette's reaction that day, especially since he still had quite some time left over. But first, there was something to do.

They had a fight scheduled today, against a well known contestant who fought in what Mercury could only see as the clothing of a typical gladiator back in the roman empire. He wore metal protection on his sword arm, covering it all the way up to his shoulder, while leaving his other hand free so he could move his shield more easily. His head was covered by a metal helmet with large, red feathers and a full-face visor, his eyes protected by metal lattice. He had a leather chestplate covering a large part of his torso as well as leather shin guards.

He carried a shortsword in his right hand and a rectangular shield in his left. This style of armor made it possible to defend against many kinds of attacks, the shield being useful for blocking arrows, swords, and spears while still leaving him with enough mobility to dodge heavy hammers or axes. The shortsword was perfect for stabbing from behind protection, making it especially useful against lunging beasts, and would also do a good job at hacking and cutting if he needed it to.

In short: their opponent was an all-rounder who had trained against the arena's beasts for a long while, and used equipment suitable to dealing with them. It was a tricky fight, for sure, and while they could probably get away with pack tactics, they didn't want to risk that. However, the strategy was decided when someone intervened in the middle of the discussion.

"I want to fight him," Gladiator said. "Not with anyone's help either. I want to use this fight as an opportunity to learn how to deal with human opponents. The ones that came into the forest were usually hunters so I hardly got the chance to go up against anyone using a sword, especially someone who's well versed against beasts. I want to fight him. One on one, nothing else."

Mercury thought for a bit about this. It was a bit dangerous, and definitely borne from Gladiator's love towards danger, but not an outlandish idea. It also made sense to let Gladiator, or rather the wolves in general, get some experience against opponents that had animals figured out. Though he'd have to come up with countermeasures in case something went wrong…

"I agree with Gladiator," Juno interjected before Mercury got to say anything. "It makes sense for us to get used to fighting against humans and-"

"Guys, it's fine. I agree with y'all. If you have ideas, just bring them up. Me thinking doesn't mean no," Mercury said while shaking his head a little. "You can fight him, one by one. If you're about to get hurt badly, everyone else will step in. After a full rotation you can challenge him again if you want to, at the very least as long as he still has stamina left. Sounds good?"

After confirming everyone's opinion, the group split up again, everyone going about their own practice routines.

Cherry was now also training harder with every passing day, having moved on from archery practice on targets to sparring matches between herself and other arena challengers. She was focusing on close-combat using just her body, as she didn't want to lose too much time from drawing a weapon.

First, she had simply practiced on the dummys and punching bags in the gym-area, but soon after, some guys trying to show off had approached her and after some thinking, she gleefully accepted the challenge - before promptly having her ass handed to her.

The first match ended with her sitting on the floor with tons upon tons of bruises. She had managed to avoid being hit for a while, but she never managed to get a good hit on the guy she was fighting. However, the next day she went up to the same clique again and asked for a rematch, only to be handed more bruises along with laughter.

The next day, they laughed a little less. Not because Cherry had improved a lot, her movements were really just getting worse from the bruising, but because they were just confused as to why she kept challenging them, especially always demanding to fight against the same guy.

After a week, one of them decided to ask. It was a lean, dark-skinned man, wearing leather armor with chainmail joints and a small chainmail shirt to protect his torso and neck. He had short, curly hair, blue eyes, thick lips, and a deep and mellow voice. He simply asked why she kept going, but Cherry couldn't help but smile.

"It's crazy, isn't it?" she asked. "I stand no chance but I keep coming back every day. I get bruises and add some more on top of those before even having healed up, heh. I might seem crazy to you guys, and quite frankly, I can't fully deny the possibility. But I want to keep up with my friends, that's all. They're all training hard, so I have to make sure I don't fall behind, so could you maybe give me another match?"

And when Cherry started getting up from the floor again, the black man spoke with a smile. "Let me teach ya a thing or two, kid."

A handful of hours later, the group joined forces again, this time at the foot of the stairs leading up into the arena. With quick nods, they made their way up, waiting in the small chamber for the gate to open and then stepping out into the bright afternoon sun, accompanied by the roaring cheers they had gotten so accustomed to.

On the other side of the arena, their opponent stepped into the light, The iron and bronze parts of his armor glistening as he silently raised his sword into the sky, before pointing it at his opponents. In the bright light his oiled skin looked like hammered copper and his smile was beaming out, even from under the helmet.

And then, they heard the announcer again.

"Ladies, Gentlemen and everyone in between! We are happy to welcome you yet again to this sacred battleground for one of our most highly discussed rounds yet! Today, I present to you the battle between two contestants whose names I need not even mention, for everyone knows them by now!!! It's the rookie who took this place by storm, the tamer and hunter commonly known for never getting hit, "Bloodfang" Cherry Silvers!!! But her opponent this round is not a simple one. A fighter who has braved the storms of the arena many times and returned sometimes bruised, sometimes scathed, but more often unharmed. A man who fights against beasts, humans and anything else he deems worthy of a look, the one we here know to be the "All-slayer", Cerno!! "

"Today, only one of these will leave the arena with glory in their grasp, but who will it be?! I believe it's time to place your bets folks, strike quickly, while the iron is still hot, because now, the battle… BEGINS!!!"

And then, with a huge roar from the crowd, two parties stormed at each other in a blaze of sand.