"Just remember the movement I taught you and keep practising it." Lord Titus instructed me
"Alright, let's go."
"But Lord Bloodfist I thought we were going to train for the whole day?" I asked Lord commandment in confusion.
"We were until he changed his plans. I have to take you to his restaurant after our brunch. Just practise your sword movements there." I have heard that the 3rd lord had a restaurant. But it was so expensive that only the rich and nobles could afford it.
The only time everyone in the empire could taste his food was during the end of the plague, and the taste of the food was still familiar to his mouth, although he was incapable of even moving at that time.
Wait, taste? Didn't the lord feed me when I was nearly dead? Did he cook that food as well? No wonder it tasted so great back then.
I hope I can taste his food again.
"We will see if he will cook for you in the future. If it does then it will quicken your training progress." Said Lord Titus as I followed him into the dining room.
"Huh? What do you mean my Lord?" I asked confused at how the food was able to shorten my training time.
"Wait you don't know? I thought he personally cooked for you last week?" Lord Titus stopped and turned around to ask me confusedly.
"His highness did cook for me and fed me personally but what about it? I don't understand?"
Seeing my confused expression, he looked at me strangely. "I am pretty sure he fed a beast ingredient according to the reports I received. Did you not feel an increase in your accumulation, after you were healed?"
Increase in accumulation. I did feel it, but what has that go to do with his highness. "Wait, you don't say that his food is capable of increasing accumulation?" I asked as my eyes widened in shock.
"Well, why do you think everything in his shop is so overpriced?" As we walked towards the dining room Lord Titus explained to me the nature of beasts ingredients, and how getting high conservation rate for beast ingredient was practically impossible.
"So the only person who can make a high conservation food out of beast ingredients is his highness? And it was because of the uniqueness of his food we were able to recover from the plague. Is that right?" I asked back in shock and disbelief about this new information I just learned.
I was aware of beasts and their dangers to the people. But I had never thought there would be people who were crazy enough to eat them, due to what happens when you eat them.
"Pretty much yes. Not only is his food able to give you magi accumulation but for both award users and magi users, it's able to heal you from any wound and return you to your youth.
He is an extremely valued national treasure, that all factions covet. If not for his soulless condition, he would have easily won the competition to become the next emperor. But we know its useless as he only has few years left.
This was the reason why a few days ago an attack was launched on him and his bodyguard to capture him. We thought the attack was aimed at him by one of the enemy faction, so our faction rallied public support to ensure his safety from his majesty. But it later turned out that he wasn't the target but his bodyguards. They wanted to use his bodyguards as a bargaining tool against him for his secret to his cooking.
But by the time we figured it out it was too late, as the preparators who wanted to keep this a secret became aware that most of us were aware of their true goal. They wanted to stop other people from targeting them once they were aware of John's secret, hence the importance in their secrecy.
So, they went missing along with the bodyguards. We expect the bodyguards to most likely be dead and any trace of their remains to be incinerated. We are still trying to trace the group, but they were extremely prepared and went into hiding.
If John hadn't pointed it out we would have never noticed it and would have lost him along with his great ability."
Ellis was made aware of awards and its power this morning. He was shocked at that fact there was a power other than magi. Then he remembered that there were two locked abilities in the shop. So, one of them must have been award then.
He also remembered that to officially be registered as a rank 1 magi in the magi association, they had to fight an extremely strong magi.
He remembered seeing a fight and how the higher-ranked magi easily crushed the rank 1 applicant so easily.
It was always a one-sided fight against that person, rarely has anyone ever emerged from there victorious. The way you were judged to pass the exam was if the judges observing your fight along with the combatant themselves think you are worthy to pass, or if you even managed to win. Throughout the history of rank 1 tests so far only very few people have emerged victorious against the combatant, and they were labelled as geniuses of the magi association.
He now realised that the person they fought wasn't a higher rank magi but rather a rank 1 award user.
From what he was told although an award user was limited to one kind of ability but when an award user ranks up, unlike a magi who experience small improvement in their physique, they will have a massive overall upgrade in all their capability ranging from, physical, mental even to their award ability. Not to mention when ranking they could choose to evolve or upgrade certain aspects of their ability.
Along with that their award ability was much stronger than their magi counterpart. For example, if an award user of rank 1, who was capable of using fire ability fought against a rank 1 magi who cast a fire spell, then the awards users will always come on top of strength, and destruction.
A major advantage a magi user holds to an awards user is their versatility of spells they could use. So, a fire award user could be countered by ice magi, water magi or it can be stopped using earth magi shields.
Another advantage is that a magi couldn't easily lose control of their magi particles unless they purposely decide to do it, while an award user could if they went beyond their limits.
An award user sometimes have certain limits to their ability and they tried to draw their power without following those limits then they can easily lose control of their ability.
I was told his highness' mother had the ability called berserk which she derived from her rank 1 ability to predict other peoples emotions.
While evolving and upgrading her abilities she transformed it into an award called Berserk. The more angrier she was, the stronger she became, however, she could only use that ability when she was angry.
Because of this ability, she became what is known as the one-person army. Even if you managed to hurt her in a fight that will only make her angrier, thus increasing her strength.
However, due to an urgent situation one day, she had to break that rule and draw out her power rather quickly without getting angry. This caused her mind to snap and rampage before having to be slain by her teammates.
Because of this many award users easily lose control if they break any sort of limits of their award.
He never understood the point of fighting an extremely strong magi as part of their ranking process. But now he saw the point of it, it wasn't fighting against a higher rank magi, but rather see your capability of fighting against a rank 1 award user.
If you put up a decent fight then you were judged to pass and advance a rank in magi association.
"But why did they capture his bodyguard and not just his highness?" I asked in confusion
"2 main reasons. 1st reason is that if someone were to capture him, we would have turned the empire upside down while declaring martial law, to find him or the preparators who would have gotten his secrets by then, leaving no chance for them to escape.
The 2nd reason is that the preparators must have got information that John would rather die than reveal his secrets. Because of that they used his bodyguard. Those bodyguards held a special relation to John, they thought they could use them as emotional leverage against him."
"What!? He would rather die than reveal his secrets?" I asked in shock.
Lord Titus nodded "It's understandable, he is an already dying person, using death threats against him is useless. He would rather kill himself than lose all advantage he holds, and we all found about it the hard way, and it took us the second time for us to realise how strong his conviction to die was rather than take something from him." Lord Titus explained.
What does he mean by the 'hard way'? I suddenly saw that there was some sort of emotion passing through his eyes, the hair on his arms was standing. Was it cold here? If not why is his hair all stood up?
I was about to ask him what he meant before he interrupted me and said "Don't ask me about it kid. I don't like recalling that terrifying moment, in fact, no one who witnessed it will be willing to happily remember that helpless moment in the past. It's a stain on our reputation and prestige as nobles.
It was the only time we realised how helpless, the almighty commandments, nobles and empire, were before him.
Keep this in mind kid, never get on his bad side. We all suffered that day just because 1 person pissed him off in the past."
We walked in silence until, while I contemplated what I was just told.
We reached the dining hall. "Anyway, if he decides to cook for you then you can skip out on your rigorous hours of accumulation and just focus on training. Best way to train right?" He said as both of us took our seats and prepared to eat the food in front of us.
All the food were covered on the table by a lid, soon some servants came in. Strangely they all were protected with a wind barrier.
"Oh, I forgot, if you don't want to lose control of yourself when they open the lid, I suggest you cast a rank 1 wind barrier."
What does he mean by losing control? "I am sorry my lord. I am not aware of how to cast that spell yet."
"Oh yeah, I forgot you just recently became a magi. Tell me the spells you want to learn. I will have someone deliver them to you later on. Anyway, nothing bad will happen if you lose control, so don't worry."
I was still worried about what he said about losing control. What did he mean by losing control?
Soon the lid was uncovered, and I was hit by a fragrant smell of the food. My mind went blank as the only thing I could think was to devour the source of the smell.