Chapter 9 Dragon Demon Princess (3).
Chapter 9 - Dragon Demon Princess (3)
From that day forward, Azell spent four days with the laborers. He joined them in the work of excavating the ruins. The job was mainly physical labor. Currently, the ruin’s entrance was completely caved in, so no one could enter inside. That was why he had to dig near the grounds of the ruins. He continued to move the rubbles around the collapsed ruin entrance for several days.
‘Jeez. This was built for the sole purpose of protecting me.’
For the past couple days, he had been gathering information from the other laborers. He found out that the entrance to the ruins was completely sealed before Azell woke up. It was protected by a powerful magic, and the magicians were struggling to find a way to open the entrance.
On the day Azell woke up, part of the magic that was protecting the ruins failed and the entrance was destroyed. Did it happen at the exact moment Azell woke up?
‘Did he want me to stay in instead of coming out?’
Maybe he just had to open the coffin door instead of using his energy to get to the surface. If it was a facility initially built to protect the sleeping Azell then there should be things that would be helpful to him inside…
However, he had already exited so he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t go back and excavate the destroyed grounds where he first came out of, could he?
‘He must have prepared the magical force for me.’
Azell reviewed the moments when he woke up. When he gathered the strength to blow the coffin door open, there was a great amount of magical force injected into him from an outside source.
He wondered why such an event happened when he woke up, and he decided Carlos arranged it to be like that. When Azell woke up and disturbed the magical force, the mechanism allowed the stored magical force to flow into him. Carlos must have done this after predicting what Azell would do after waking up from his sleep.
‘He’s a meticulous b.a.s.t.a.r.d.’
Azell let out a bitter laugh, while thinking about his friend’s face.
While working as a laborer, Azell continued to train in Spirit Order. The excavation site only operated during the day, and the laborers rested during the night. In the morning and evening, he would have short sparring sessions with Giles and he would also talk with Rick inside the medical barracks. He didn’t have anything else to do, so he had plenty of spare time.
All of a sudden, Rick asked a question.
“So, Azell, why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Why do you make a magic aggregate and then drink it.”
Normal spirit order pract.i.tioners produced magical force by resonating the mana, and they would absorb it through their pores. Azell’s method of drinking the mana aggregate that was supported by his hands was too bizarre.
Azell turned his head in puzzlement.
“I don’t know?”
“What do you mean I don’t know….”
“What can I do when I can’t remember the reason? I just learned it that way. I think that is why I do it that way.”
“Jeez. Your amnesia is quite convenient.”
“I really want to remember.”
Azell grumbled.
Of course, his att.i.tude was a made-up lie. He had a clear reason why he was using this method.
‘It’s better to use this way to fill my energy pulse with magical force in a short amount of time.’
It couldn’t be said that Azell’s method is absolutely better than the normal method used by ordinary spirit order pract.i.tioner. In Azell’s situation, this method was better for him.
Normal spirit order pract.i.tioners received magical force through the pores of their entire body, and this revitalizes the energy pulse. At the same time, it works to strengthen the energy pulse.
However, Azell’s energy pulse had only dried up, and it didn’t lose any function. Therefore, he only felt the need to fill up his magical force. The goal was to only increase the amount of magical force. Instead of receiving the magical force across his body, it was way better to gather it in one place as a highly dense magic aggregate and drink it.
‘Normally, my energy pulse wouldn’t be able to receive it all and most of it would have dissipated.’
This was the reason why Azell initially made and drank the magic aggregate. By doing so, he was checking to see the state of his energy pulse. If his energy pulse was unblocked, then this method would be most effective.
Of course, he couldn’t continue to use this method indefinitely. Although, Azell’s energy pulse hadn’t been blocked, it was a fact that it had shriveled up and weakened. Currently, he was expanding his energy pulse until the limit before he would combine it with the normal methods to strengthen his energy pulse.
‘At any rate… Let’s do this first.’
After all the hard work, Azell was able to form one complete ring of life.
It defied common sense. However, Azell was not a Spirit order novice. He was a figure that had reached the highest realm. This was why he was able to zip through his recovery, while his energy pulse was unblocked.
He only had one, but he was able to obtain a ring of life. Now he would be able to better utilize the Spirit order. However, Azell wasn’t satisfied by this.
‘It’ll take some time, but since I’ve already come this far, I’ll attempt the dual banding.
Dual Banding was a new stage of Spirit Order he would have completed if he was never cursed by the Dragon Demon King Atein. The ring of life could be called the core of Spirit Order, where it has a set magical framework. The ring of life has a uniform thickness and it surrounds the heart. He could increase the number of rings by one, so the number of resonance with the heart beat increases. This was a way one could increase a spirit order pract.i.tioner’s strength.
There was a reason why the thickness was constant. It was the maximum thickness that allows the spirit order to take in the magical force’s nature without it becoming unstable.
There was a physical limit to the surface area of the heart, so the exact number of rings of life one could have was fixed. Therefore, a spirit order pract.i.tioner reaches the final realm when one become a Decuple master(10 rings of life). There were no known pract.i.tioner who had reached this realm. Even Azell, who had defeated Dragon Demon King Atein, was an Octuple master(8 rings of life). To Azell’s knowledge, the person with the strongest magical force was a Nonuple master.(9 rings of life.)
However, Azell came up with an extreme method where he made some changes. He layered another ring of life of similar length over an existing ring of life. Azell named this method as Dual-Banding.
Carlos estimated that this method would produce an exceeding stronger power compared to someone with the same number of rings of life.
The two of them ran simulations with magic for confirmation. They even made scaled models using animals as test subjects to confirm the result. However, he fell asleep before he could substantiate the result by using it on himself.
‘Right now is my golden opportunity.’
At the time, Azell had already formed 8 rings of life so it was difficult for him to make any more rings of life. After forming a certain amount of magical structure, it was hard to maintain it within one’s body.
However, he was in a situation where he had to make all of the rings of life from the beginning. So it was easier for him to attempt the Dual-banding.
‘There are enough secondary data, but it isn’t guaranteed that it’ll work on my body. Still if I succeed… I’ll be able to aim for a higher realm.’
Truthfully, Azell wondered why this generation of spirit order pract.i.tioner didn’t use this method since it’s been 220 years. By looking at Giles, he was able to determine this method wasn’t used.
Azell fell asleep before he could disseminate this knowledge to the world, and he presumed no one had developed this method yet. Even if the knowledge was known, it was kept hidden and it wasn’t spread widely.
Suddenly, Azell asked a question.
“By the way, Rick, what happens to the healers?”
“What do you mean by what happens. Of course, they learn about the art of healing.”
“No, that is… Wasn’t the healing arts used by the temple’s priests originally?”
“Long time ago, it was like that.”
“Long time ago?”
“Of course, there are some priest from temple who use it… Currently, there is a medical a.s.sociation that trains the healers.”
The medical a.s.sociation was an organization that was formed by combining the healers and the alchemists. The basics of healing arts consists of medicine, and it is made by the alchemist. So it was inevitable.
“Originally, each temple kept the recipe of medicine a secret until about 60 years ago? Sage Baion succeeded in producing the medicine by himself, so the situation changed.”
It wasn’t known for certain, but Baion held a grudge against the temples, who had kept the medicinal recipe a secret. It was surmised that he had lost a precious person, because of this.
Azell was in awe after listening to the explanation.
“So that’s what happened. The man named Baion changed the world.”
It was an event that couldn’t have been imagined in Azell’s time.
The healing arts was an important tool of the temple to leverage influence all over the world. Their techniques determined which humans live, so even the rulers couldn’t go against the temples lightly. If certain religious body’s forces were strong in a country, some corrupted temples would spread all kinds of diseases on purpose.
Baion was stuck between this tradition that was pa.s.sed down for a long time yet he was able to stop it.
There were huge changes while he was asleep, Azell felt a really novel sensation. After waking up from his sleep, the world had changed so much?
Rick spoke.
“Well, this resulted in a path that allowed people like me to become healers and earn my keep. So I am very grateful.”
“Being a healer is just a way to earn your keep?”
“Of course. Did you think I became a healer because of some n.o.ble intentions to save lives?”
“I guess not.”
Azell realized that values had also changed, so he spoke while laughing.
Rick spoke at that moment.
“So Azell.”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have any muscles yet?”
“That’s…..”
“You said you’ll make some bulging muscles in couple days to show me. I guess that didn’t happen.”
“…….”
As the words indicated, Azell hadn’t made much progress in developing his muscles. In the past couple days, he had rapidly obtained a body worthy of being called a human, but when he flexed his arms, there was only a little bit of definition.
“Hnnghh.”
Azell could only frown at Rick, who snorted as if he knew this would happen.
5
Dragon Demon Princess.
It was a t.i.tle only one person could have within each generation of the Rulain Kingdom.
This existence was not a pure human, but a halfling who had received the blood of a cursed dragon, who was part of the dragon demon race. They were called Dragon Demons.
This singular being in the Rulain Kingdom is called the Dragon Demon Princess. The most famous person in the kingdom was going to visit the ruins found inside the Balan Forest.
After telling Azell this news, his reaction was far beyond what Rick could have imagined.
“What is a Dragon Demon Princess? The Dragon Demon race made a kingdom?”
Rick stared at him as if he was the most idiotic person in the world. Azell reacted angrily.
“Since my memory is fuzzy, it’s possible that I don’t know about her.”
“With all do respect, how can you not know about the Dragon Demon princess?”
“I really don’t know… I don’t remember anything even if I hear about it.”
“I’m at a loss for words.”
Rick clicked his tongue and he stared explaining about the Dragon Demon Princess.
“There is no way you don’t know about the Dragon Demon war?”