Chapter 53: Practice Never Stops

Prince Kelvin was stunned when he examined Chris more closely. At first, he had thought him to be another elf, but contrary to what he had expected, he looked like a human.

He turned towards Aelonen with wide eyes. "He’s... a human?"

"Yes, he’s a human, just like you." Aelonen nodded. "It’s a long story, but he knows about us elves, and he was asked to accompany me here to protect me."

Kelvin nodded before looking at Chris with a smile.

"Welcome, welcome! Any friend of Prince Aelonen is a friend of mine! My name is Kelvin de Narta. You can call me Kelvin." He approached and bowed his head slightly. "Thank you for saving us. We are greatly indebted to you. If there is anything I, Kelvin, can do for you in the future, don’t hesitate to ask!"

Chris shook his head. "There is no need. It was just a small exercise, nothing important."

Looking at Kelvin, he couldn’t help but confirm what he had heard earlier. The young man was tall and handsome, with bright purple hair and matching eyes. It was exactly as he had heard about the royal family of Narta. They all supposedly had the same hair and eye color.

Next, a burly, middle-aged soldier approached and bowed slightly as well.

"Thank you for helping us, young man. We owe you."

"No worries. I don’t want anything in return. I’m Chris. What’s your name?" He smiled.

"You can call me Derek. I’m a royal knight, serving His Majesty, the King, and a protector of Prince Kelvin. I must admit that I’ve never seen someone your age who was this strong." He spoke with admiration.

"Strong? You’re mistaken." Chris shook his head. "I’m far too weak at the moment. I was only able to kill that beast because it was severely injured and I had help from my beast." He glanced towards Azreon.

Kelvin and Derek also looked towards the dragon, intrigue and a hint of fear in their eyes.

"So you’re a beast tamer. What kind of beast is that? I’ve never seen anything like it in my life," Kelvin asked.

Chris shook his head. "Azreon’s species is extremely rare. I’m afraid he might be the only one of his kind in the world. But if you ever find another one, do let me know. He’s a dragon, by the way."

"A dragon? I’ve indeed never heard of such a thing." Kelvin nodded. "Let me introduce you to my party."

Chris turned around and saw four young people approaching.

"These two are Kenna and Denna. As you can see, they’re twins. Kenna is our tracker and scout, while Denna is a healer." Kelvin pointed towards the two girls. They both had short brown hair and looked almost identical.

Chris nodded. "Nice to meet you."

"Thank you for helping us! You were awesome!" Kenna said admiringly. "Please don’t mind my sister. She’s a bit shy around strangers." She pointed towards Denna, who looked like she wanted to say something but couldn’t dare to find the words.

"Haha, no worries." He waved his hand.

"Next, this muscular guy is Melvin. He’s our tank." Kelvin pointed towards a brown-haired young man standing nearby. The guy looked like a bodybuilder.

Melvin nodded back gratefully but didn’t say anything. He seemed like a man of few words.

"And last but not least, this frail-looking guy is Max. Don’t be fooled by his appearance, though. Max is a summoner. He can summon dozens of spectral beasts to fight for him."

Chris looked at the frail-looking, black-haired man with some interest before nodding. That was the first time he had met a summoner. It was a very rare class these days.

Max nodded back.

"And what’s your role in the party?" Chris asked Kelvin.

"Me? Haha, I’m a warrior, so my role is to deal damage, or DPS, as people call it. I don’t have as much defense as Melvin, but my damage output is the highest in the party." Kelvin proudly struck his chest.

Chris nodded. "You have a nice party."

They all smiled with pride. They were one of the most famous and talented parties of their generation.

"Ehm... Is that your pet?" Kenna suddenly asked Chris.

"Hm?" Chris looked at his shoulder, only to find that Aura had climbed onto it at some point while watching the others.

Cold sweat appeared on Aelonen’s forehead. He didn’t know how to react to someone referring to the Guardian as a mere pet.

"Yeah, she’s my pet." Chris nodded without a second thought.

Aelonen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had confirmed it so casually! And the Guardian wasn’t reacting at all?

Aura simply remained silent. It would have been strange if a small fox suddenly started talking, after all.

"How cuuuute! Can I pet her?" Kenna asked, making Aelonen almost faint on the spot.

"Grrrr." Aura immediately showed her displeasure, making Chris almost burst out laughing.

"Pfft... Sorry, sorry. She doesn’t like being touched by strangers. Maybe in the future, okay?"

"Ah! It’s fine. Sorry!"

"We should get going. The transportation is waiting for us. It should take us a few days to reach the royal dungeon, and we don’t want to be late." Kelvin suddenly spoke up.

Chris took out his beast pouch and pointed it towards Azreon. "Let’s go, buddy. Just like we practiced."

Azreon understood immediately. In the next moment, he turned into a streak of light and disappeared into the beast pouch.

"Wow! What kind of artifact is that? I’ve never seen one before," Kelvin asked.

"It’s just a gift from a friend. It can store tamed wild beasts, but it can’t hold many."

"Oh, even so, that must have cost a fortune. You must have a great friend to receive such a gift."

Chris smirked teasingly towards Aura. "Indeed, a great friend."

"Grrrr."

"Lead the way, then."

Together, they left the forest and headed towards a small town near the kingdom’s border. After arriving, they entered a large armored vehicle that was waiting for them. It looked like a bus, but it was enormous on the inside. It had separate bedrooms and even a cinema. It was practically a house on wheels.

"This will be your room. Please, make yourself comfortable." Kelvin opened the door to one of the rooms for Chris.

"Thank you. I’ll go rest first." Chris nodded before entering.

The others gathered in what looked like a living room, but Chris didn’t bother socializing. He had other matters to attend to.

Sitting on the floor of his room, he pulled out a deformed sword and began concentrating.

Soon, a small flame appeared at the tip of the sword. He carefully controlled it, making the flame slowly envelop the blade, but it proved to be much harder than he had expected.

The sword began glowing red and deforming slightly. Judging by its condition, it seemed he had tried this many times before, always with the same result. That was why the sword looked so deformed.

"Sigh..." He shook his head before trying again, and again.

Hours passed, but he didn’t seem to be making any progress.

Originally, he had planned to practice the technique Aelia used with her sword, but it turned out to be much harder than he had expected.

At first, he had made slight progress. However, it hadn’t taken long for that progress to come to a complete stop. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get it to work.

Still, he didn’t want to give up. Whenever he had some free time, he practiced again and again, trying to make it work. His affinity for manipulating fire mana had increased by leaps and bounds since receiving the legacy alongside Aelia. Even so, he still couldn’t get the damn technique to work.

"Why don’t you give up? You’ve already tried so many times." Aura jumped out and asked while looking at his deformed sword.

"Why would I give up? I’m sure I’ll make it work one day. Besides, it’s not like I have anything else to do, right?"

"Hmm, that’s true. I like your persistence, but if you continue like that, it won’t work, you know?"

"Do you have any advice?" he asked.

"Heh, you’ve finally remembered to ask. I know a lot of things, you know? Of course I can give you some advice." She puffed out her chest, which looked even more adorable in her fox form.

"Then why didn’t you say anything before?"

"I was waiting for you to ask."

"Sigh... Fine, please give me some advice." He sighed, wondering if she was getting back at him for something.

"First, you’re approaching it completely wrong. You’re trying to envelop the blade with your fire element, only controlling the shape of the flames instead of their direction."

"Hmm? What do you mean by direction?" He looked confused.

"Think about it more deeply. Imagine a small flame. Where is the most heat from that flame concentrated?"

He thought about it for a moment.

"At its tip?"

"Right, but also a bit wrong. It’s slightly above the visible tip of the flame. There’s an invisible tip beyond the visible flames, and that’s where the most heat is concentrated."

"So how does that..." He suddenly thought of something. "Wait!"

He created another ball of flame at the tip of the sword and carefully controlled it to spread along the blade. This time, however, he controlled the direction of the fire, making it point away from the sword so that most of the heat would be concentrated outside it.

The sword was now completely enveloped in flames, but it didn’t start glowing or deforming. It seemed to have worked.

"Oh!" He became excited.

However, the sword soon began glowing red again, and he immediately stopped, letting it cool down.

"Shit..." He sighed.

"Hmm, you still don’t have enough control over your fire elemental mana to pull that off," Aura added.

"I can clearly see that. I was hoping my affinity and control would increase over time, just like when I used my white energy to purify your injuries. Hmm... What was it called again?"

"Gwenor. The white energy you used is called Gwenor."

"Yes, Gwenor. Why is it called that, though?" He asked curiously.

"Gwen means pure, or white. Gwenor basically means ’to purify’ or ’to cleanse’," she explained.

"Oh, that makes sense." Chris nodded.

"The reason you can’t increase your affinity for fire elemental mana that way is quite simple. When you used Gwenor to cleanse my injuries, you repeatedly exhausted your mana by doing so. Only by exhausting your mana can you increase your affinity." Aura explained. "If you only use a small amount of mana at a time, you won’t be able to increase your affinity, no matter how hard you try to control it."

"That... also makes sense. But I can’t do that. If I use any more mana than this, the sword will just be ruined. I don’t have enough swords to practice on. And if I use too little mana, I can control it well enough to avoid damaging the sword, but then the flames are so weak that they wouldn’t help me in a fight."

Chris was growing frustrated by now.

"Who says you need to practice that exact technique while exhausting your mana? You just need to use your fire elemental mana until your mana pool is drained. That way, you’ll naturally gain more control even while practicing other things."

"Ohhh!" He finally understood. "Excellent! When we enter this dungeon, I’ll focus on exhausting my mana pool!"

Aura watched him with amusement. "You know, most people try to preserve their mana as much as possible when entering dangerous dungeons so they can use it in emergencies. And here you are, planning to train."

"Danger? I’ve grown numb to it." Chris shook his head.

Aura watched him for a moment before smiling. "Anyway, there might be another way for you to use that technique now."

"Really? Tell me quickly!"