"My Lord, I have some ideas. The Elemental sword seal was a spectacular discovery, but we have been too crude in utilizing it. Its current development is highly inefficient. We can start from the construction of its spell, making it more unrestrained, more seamless. After the construction of the basic sword seal, we can use the basic sword seal to reconstruct the elemental sword seal."Every time Cohen suggested something to me, a bunch of jargon that I can"t comprehend will start to crawl into my ears. Then I will start sighing, wondering who was the mentor and who was the apprentice.
"Prodigious wizard who works hard to become a knight, while learning alchemy and magic at the same time. She is Kathleen Solia from the Gentlemen"s Alliance. My knight squires are a bunch of weirdos." In a sense, those three people were not considered brilliant. It also seemed like they were steering further from the path of becoming knights, especially the little Cohen who is standing in front of him. However, he has fully showcased his talents without me taking notice.
Incantations? The formula to construct a spell? I can do all these instinctively, without putting much thought in it. To a son of elements, magic was just a manifestation of will. Usage of general spells was only a process to that prove the formulation that has already been generalized, just like a mathematician who casually comes up with new formulae, the son of elements can casually create unlimited numbers of new magic.
Now, I could finally understand why Harloys wanted me to deceive this little Cohen. The humans" son of elements, the dwarves" son of lightning, and the elves" son of moon were considered G.o.d given children. The son of lightning is good at fighting and smithing. The son of moon is a prodigy in theurgy. Both them are astonis.h.i.+ng prodigies in their own fields. In a way, they are actually very similar. It would be a shame if all these talents went to waste. My ideas on four elemental swordcasting were general and simple. An ordinary soldier could handle a certain level of the strain of using the power of elements by skipping the knowledge of basic theory. Naturally, they will be able understand all those magical theories when they become skilled elemental casters.
"The first step is always the hardest. There are a lot of people with the potential to become powerful, but most of the time, they lack talent. They cannot even make the very first step." To Cohen, this was a brand-new world.
It was true that my arms were weak, but I had the sword that did the heavy lifting in place of my arms.
It was true that I cannot run fast and jump far, but I have my mark of wind that becomes my wings.
It was true that my sword cannot penetrate the scale of dragons, thus I will have my mark of lightning summoning to serve as my sword edge. The dream of becoming a knight motivated and kept Cohen moving forward. On the other hand, Harloys became the contributor of an uncountable number of theories. There were new results and advancements every single day. Based on what I observed, this kid, Cohen"s level was increasing at a lightning speed. Yesterday, he was a level fifteen, four elemental Mage Knight. Today, he is a level seventeen Mage Knight. It is safe to say that in two more days, he will become a level twenty Mage Knight. His dedication had brought out the best in this brand-new cla.s.s, the four elemental Mage Knight.
"Sword seal of Black Tortoise—The Coiling of the Glacial Serpent" The magical power of ice will spread through the ground without being seen and it would surprise its opponent by appearing under their feet, freezing them to the ground. "The most important thing about the properties was that ice can freeze, lightning can paralyze, and flames can burn. If we only treat it as temporary enchantments to increase the effectiveness of our attacks, it will be a total waste. We can fully utilize their natural properties to come up with completely different magical sword skills."
"As you know, the magical power of ice spreads rather slowly. Even if we tried to enhance our swords to freeze our opponents, it would still take a longer time to achieve its goal. Due to its ability to stay hidden, we can totally take our time, battling against our opponents."
Still, there was a limit to Cohen"s ability. Also, he had not come up with any new sword skills. But, by changing his method of battling, by utilizing the right elements, the total combat effectiveness of this brand-new cla.s.s has been increased by three times. It was imperative that Cohen gains the ability to hear the whispers of the elements. It would actually allow him to discover a new way for this cla.s.s to improve and develop other elemental sword skills.
[Congratulations Master, for acquiring new magical sword skill, The Sword Seal of Black Tortoise – The Coil of Glacial Serpent. This skill will be automatically included in the cla.s.s system of the four elemental Mage Knight. System notification: Looking for the reward of inventing new skill? How dare you ask for a reward? What did you feel when your own apprentice taught you this new skill? Don"t you feel ashamed? How long do you think you can deceive him from the rate of his improvement?]
Unsurprisingly, the system mocked me. In order to protect my master"s dignity, I will put more effort into the research. There is a saying, humans perform better under pressure. Harloys was very impressed by me when I combined the power of frost and death to form a Deathly Frost sword seal. The sword seal possessed the magical powers of corrosion and freezing, and it was highly lethal against mortal. The only drawback of this sword seal was that it took a lot out of its user. In some inexplicable way, using this sword seal became my privilege.
Of course, the straightforward way of naming this sword seal without any sense of technicality was definitely not my work. I sulked for quite some time when the name, Sleeping Tortoise sword seal was rejected by them. "The magic power of death is from the Sloth Sword Seal and the magic power of ice is from the Black Tortoise Sword Seal, when the two are combined together it became Sluggish Black Tortoise. Did it actually mean sleeping Black Tortoise? The way you name your sword seal is way too cool. In consideration of other apprentices" future, please leave this place and entertain yourself at your own home.
What was with all the bulls.h.i.+t? But, when I saw everyone around me nodding their heads and agreeing with comment on my sword seal"s name, I had to accept this bitter fact. "Actually, I thought of a name for your sword seal..."Elisa said. Soon enough, Elisa, who held the dominant power in this small group had also invented her own personal sword seal. Her sword seal was the combination of demonic force and the force of flaming sea. It was extremely powerful and evil. It was pretty obvious that no one else could use it.
"Let me guess. According to your unique naming sense and poor choice of words, you will think that demon represents anger; and the flame represents phoenix. So, the result will be Angry Phoenix?"
"No, it should be Angry Bird. And the sword seal of yours with the combination of fire and ice should be named as, The Song of Fire and Ice! Too bad, I still have a few other names that I have not used. The combination of wind and earth, Azure Dragon and White Tiger can be named as The Fighting of Dragon and Tiger! The combination of ice and wind, Black Tortoise and Azure Dragon should be called The Romance of Dragon and Serpent!" I said it with pride and joy. The apprentices around me did not say anything. They just nodded and left the place one by one. n.o.body else asked my opinion in naming sword seals anymore.
Maple City, it was a small and less-known city in Sleuweir Kingdom. Yet, it had a special place in my heart. Back in those days, I had a war against the armies of beastmen. If I recall correctly, this city used to be a temporary command center. The war left behind quite a number of historical marks. There was a war museum somewhere in this town. Now, this city had become the focus of every northern countries. This was due to the fact that this city was near the capital city of Sleuweir Kingdom, Antuen. The area in front of Maple City had become the territory of the beastmen. Naturally, this city became the gathering ground of reinforcements coming in from different countries.
I got in the city before dawn, and the gate of the cities were still shut. The guards were trying to stop me from going in. In some way, on this ground, my face was the best gate pa.s.s. The soldiers were stunned for a moment when they saw me. They saluted excitedly and then the door was opened wide for me to go in.
"Open the door! Here comes the Lord." I nodded my head politely and stepped on the ground that had not yet been completely frozen. There were squeaky sounds as I walked on the ground. I became silent when I saw a beastman"s head hanging on the wall. I am not a good person, and neither do I have a compa.s.sionate or sentimental heart as well. On the contrary, when I saw this phenomenon, I was actually happy and relieved. Well, there were similar sceneries at the villages that were being attacked by the beastman. Some human heads were left hanging as well. According to their culture, they intended to build a tower of human heads. There were mutilated young ladies" corpses and mangled toddlers who had been thrown to their deaths. That made me even more silent.
This is war, and I hated war, because war was the ugliest thing on this earth. War legalized every single criminal activity and also turned humans into cold-blooded animals.
This was war, my favorite war, I used to think that the only way of protecting my race was through war. The only way to destroy war was through war. Along the way, I was called hero, devil, butcher. There were mountains of bodies behind my back and I"m afraid that the so called "butcher" among the beastmen will never catch up to number of living souls that I had reaped.
When I was known as a hero, I had slaughtered an uncountable number of living souls. I was the hero among human being, but among beastmen, I was known as the butcher and the devil. I was used to scare the beastmen"s kids if they didn"t stop crying. The reason? Well, I guess I was the first one to actually carry out their culture of building a tower of heads with the help of ground and aerial units.
This was war between countries. The racial war between humankind and beastman. I had no idea how much grudge both sides have retained. When the war began, even the worst crimes will be seen as sacred and heroic. Was I a hero? A butcher? A devil? I"m afraid, I"m all of the above. I had never considered myself as a saint, but before all those who constantly stir up war are put to rest for good, it was necessary for people like me to continue existing in this world.
Small time war criminals like me will not be willing to sleep alone when the real villains sit atop the temple, being wors.h.i.+pped by the people. Sinners have to be judged. The least I can do was drag them to h.e.l.l with me. "Walk faster! b.a.s.t.a.r.d beastman!" The soldiers yelled. A group of beastman were being chased out by the soldiers. Judging by their human-made attire, they should be the permanent residents and businessmen of this place.
In some way, Sleuweir Kingdom"s open and peaceful strategy was working. There was a few decades of trading history between humankind and the beastman. With the constant trading between two races, there were a number of permanent residents staying in the city, along with traders who dropped by regularly. Well, obviously the war happened without any prior notice, so the humans who were staying in the beastman"s kingdom and vice-versa had no chance of returning to their own kingdoms. They became the first victims of the war and also the punching bags of their opposing races. I"m afraid that the heads of those beastmen that were being hung on walls, belonged to spies who tried to scout this place and spy on the permanent resident here.
"Are they spies or scouts?" After a moment of doubt, I decided to stick my nose into this matter. I could care less if they were soldiers, but even then, I will never slaughter civilian, even during my craziest moments. "You….You are Lord Roland." The young soldier spoke out my name excitedly. However, the beastman were paralyzed when they heard my name and the children were already starting to cry. It seemed like my name still held some power after so long. If that was the case, the rest should be quite easy to handle. After some clarification, I got to know that they were actually permanent residents who had resided in this country for a few decades. Now, they were being sold to the slave market. Perhaps, I will just spend some money to buy their freedom.
Of course, the children were crying louder than before. I was probably the worst possible idea that can exist in their minds. They were probably thinking that I had bought them to make some soup and barbecue their meat. "Elisa." Roland said.
"You are still a hypocrite at some random places but this is what I like about you. Your wish is my command. I will check out the chamber of commerce here. I can"t guarantee the chances of surviving, but it"s still better than becoming a slave. If they are sold as slaves, even the kids will become the retainers of those rich kids."Elisa said.
I did not speak much after nodding my head, Elisa was better than me when it came to this kind of matter. If she was ever incapable of doing something, I would have even lesser success. Hypocrite? I cannot refute this fact. I know that I"m a hypocrite for saving a few beastmen, and yet here I am now, thinking about killing more beastmen. "Where is the joint command center? Where are the n.o.bles? Why has the war not started? Are they planning to witness Antuen"s destruction?"