The high elf was more than happy enough with his arrangement, personally attending to his teaching. Aki felt like asking why, but then he looked around again and noted how they had not made to get up despite this looking nothing like some kind of throne room, nevermind the heavily trapped and guarded way to reach this person. They were bored. Incredibly so.
He didn't complicate things further and simply accepted the arrangement, taking out the sword, which seemed to cause a cascade reaction he had definitely not expected. First, everybody was extactic, reverence and happiness on the eyes of the elves, the players practically drooling on the suspiciously shiny sword. When it began to shine and vibrate, Aki was honestly quite close to simply draining the life force he felt inside of the thing, dismantle the whole circuitry himself, but fortunately, it simply released the ghost of an old elf.
He seemed confused at first, looking around with expectant eyes. Than he saw Aki.
"I see you have succeeded in bringing the blade towards my decendants despite your initial reluctance. Know that even for a being such as you there is still re..." Then it disappeared back into the sword. That seemed to make mostly everyone freeze up for some reason, but the young man couldn't give less of a fuck. The pseudo spirit might look like a soul of a departed but his nature was simply that of a ball of plasma splattered onto the sword and injected with copied memories related to it's use, historical factoids, religious texts and a duty to be of use to a certain family. It was hardly an intelligent A.I, nevermind a person.
The system said it had a restriction about the use of it's magical abilities for those that did not posses a certain elf bloodline, which explained why it was not with the king or something of the like since it was quite good, but Aki wasn't planning on using the thing for it's magical abilities despite the utility of having snares and buffs that were instantaneous, he planed on using it as a battery and maybe as a blade until he found anything better at cutting, then the spirit would become the only thing useful in it, though it's regeneration was rather embarrassing from how slow it went, that didn't matter if he personally filled it with mana.
Having dispersed the mana keeping the projection going, he simply placed the above legendary item in the hands of the high elf in the room. They seemed to be the only person that wouldn't be considering immediately stabbing him with it after all.
"Did... did you just kill the sword spirit?" They stuttered to ask.
"Obviously not. That would break the most useful part of the item! I just dispersed it's energy so it could not start nagging me again. It will be back if you or the angry guy hold it after it's full." Aki shrugged, refuting their words. "Say, when do you think we can start our lesson? As of now i understand you will be busy for a while, but a quick session for you to understand my prowess should be fine in some three to four hours, right?" He asked, confusing the elf for a bit, but they thought for a bit before nodding.
*****
"..... And you never had a proper education on this?" Asked Nes, who'd even agreed to the nickname when questioned, their eyebrows twitching as their blond hair fell to their face when their back curved a bit. They seemed jealous, though that couldn't possibly be it. They were a high elf for fuck sake.
"Except for fantasy stories and some book i found, no i figured all the intent and basic form of my magic by myself." Aki reinterated. It'd only been a couple of hours before he was summoned back to the room where his teacher resided and he'd just made small demonstrations of most of his magic, his hidden techniques still hidden. No dragon, god or awakened had come after all.
"And you are eighteen years old?" They questioned for the third time, getting another patient nod. "OK. So, how do you feel your energy?"
"Well, i am constantly councious of it much like my own heart pumping blood or my lungs filling and emptying nowadays, but before i simply meditated hard enough till i reached a mental state i hardly had attained in my short life through basic exercise and exhaustion, like feeling a different pulse within your body, the more i did so the easier it became to feel it, particularly when i was fighting, than i just willed my emotions and meaning into shaping the energy inside this state and things happened. Experiment after experiment i somehow didn't blow my arms and legs thanks to railing in what i used in the begining and kept going through the paces until i could hit stuff with it, improving a bit battle after battle when i did manage to do that." He explained.
"By the holy mother, it's like Azrael all over again." They murmured into their hands after slowching down a bit.
"I will take that as a compliment." He smirked. "Since if our talents are similar despite the racial differences, than that means i'm actually better. Though through which factor it is hard to determine." His expression suggested it was a mystery, but any scholar would immediately point to his ego and then to his madness, which were clearly much greater than his innate talent.
There were reasons for a villainous character becoming weaker as an ally after all, but it simply sounded like bullshit. The problem with that kind of thinking is that magic was actually just that ridiculous and figuring wether someone was serious or not about an explanation took as much skill as casting spells. Similar as to how a programmer may add pokemon names to the list of scripts they know to mess with someone.
"No, your personality is just like him too. Anyways, let's go over your imagery. What do you use for your elements?" They said after recomposing themselves.
"Mostly existence itself, but not just the land we live in, the stars, sun, moons, their surfaces, weight, the in between that exists, the nothing that might exist without that which surrounds us, will itself, etcetera." He shrugged, not mentioning his three complimentary concepts.
".... You know beginners generally go with something like a tree, a rock or even just a normal tempest, right?" Questioned the high elf. While using higher concepts, if successful, would result in much greater growth and power, but energy consumption would be much higher if you didn't have a proper grasp on your images, which was generally the case.
"One of the reasons i want your blood. Would help immensely if i developed a high elfen constitution, blessed by the world and such." He shrugged.
"I don't feel very blessed right now." Said his teacher with a blank face.
"If it is a physical pain than i can likely heal it." The disciple cheekily grinned.
"It is a wound of the heart, only time can heal it."
And so they kept chattering with a light hearted tone. While Aki was indeed a great genius, that didn't mean he had experience, knew tricks, incantations to simplified spells, so on so forth, meaning he and Nes ended spending a lot of time discussing how and why he should do something different while casting, lunched together, then got to discussing spell formation of certain cleaning formulas, dinned together, ignored the change in the guard, talked about water conjuration in specific, then discussed their views on the change of temperature and maintenance of energy inside of a cicle, separated or not from surroundings, then Aki started going over how temperature control could technically be put under a branch of magic related to force as well because of vibrations, which was actually present in five out of the six elements generally used on the system of spell casting in question...
It took two days and a half for someone to actually come and disturb them, neither really needing sleep for their own reasons, though the young man was forced to go to the bathrooms four times during their discussions since his body had not yet reached the level of being able to absorb any dejects produced from digestion and such.
"And how big is this passing army? Do they seem equiped to detect our pressence?" The leader of the rebelion asked when their general came in to the room with a rather worried look.
"Your holiness, they are extimated to be a thousand strong, though we were unable to determine if they are equiped to search for our bases on the way." After that there was silence for a moment, but it was rapidly broken as Aki interfeared.
"Do you want me spoil their resources? They'd be unable to keep marching forward and a forest so dense isn't exactly the easiest place to pass a suply line through, so they'd have to retreat and the whole base wouldn't nescessarily be exposed since it might have even been a noble that ordered such." He suggested, still sitting on a chair next to the tree throne.
"Isn't that too risky? If you are seen..." They didn't elaborate further, seeing Aki's smirk.
"They will what? Think i'm trying to desert? Not everyone knows i'm a vampire just from looking at me." He scoffed. "Besides, it's not like i can't use the chance to assasinate a noble or another. Though that would certainly be more suspicious, so it's on you."
"Ok, just go for their supplies, i will ask the other guests and Queen to take care of sabotaging their supply line." Sighed the high elf, a bit sullen to be alone again.
"Oh, cheer up, i will even rob every piece of jewerly that isn't offencive for you." Aki mentioned, lighting tapping their shoulder as the elf smiled a bit at his antics.
The man who delivered the orders seemed constipated however, not knowing wether to be angry a vampire had just touched their leader and spiritual guide while talking so casualy with them or confused at the fact said oracle was so heartly smiling.
*****
Time passed with few interuptions, Aki not much concerning himself with the outside world while not in a quick mission or the other, only one really trigerring a side quest as he had to travel to a neaby town to assasinate a noble and their mage as they had been geting close to discovering important information on the base, which yes, at this point had mostly been discovered. There wasn't any good way of running however. Instead, everyone prepared for a final battle, reuniting troops on the forest and preparing for a siege.
The other players had left a day before the army reached though, the special event yeeting them out and away from the base after they refused to join in. It was a rather strange exchange, as when they 'left' their bodies remained behind and ran away from the place with what seemed to be A.Is simulating their personalities, not that anyone seemed to notice the diference besides him. To be fair, the diference was certainly minimal.
"Aki, why DID you stay anyway? The sword isn't worth your life, and you don't seem interested in taking it by force despite showing the ability to do it." Vanes asked, their bare feet hanging from the hidden balcony as they held the railings from their sitting position on the edge.
"Well, there's actually something i really want. I just have to try and get it, but there's no way i can do so if i run from a mere twenty thousand strong army." He shrugged, siting behind the tense elf as he massaged their shoulders made it a useless gesture, but his words got the meaning across.
"You can probably take it already. Without you the threat we'd be facing would be much bigger... we might even have a chance if i succed in my mission." They said, holding back a wince and a moan a another knot was untangled by the man with a super human dexterity score, medical knowledge and magical perception.
"Most men would think you are talking about yourself." Aki said, stopping his massage as he hugged them from behind and wispered seductively in their ear.
"And you know just like me that i am not. I'm not supposed to, it'd be against my duty." Nes somberly said while placing a palm on the arms holding them.
"And a part of me will always hate you for that." He admited in a chiper tone. "Here's what i actually want to talk about though..." His cheer droped, tone becoming serious. There was a lot to do.