Within the 4 days Rolf spent with Bjorn, he had learned a lot from him. Not only was Bjorn a very good teacher, Rolf had quite the knack for learning as well as an inept ability to manipulate magic, specifically ice magic. By the end of the first week with Bjorn, Rolf had learned to feel his mana and even the magic around him to a certain extent. Although it's range was limited, he managed to do this within 3 days even though he was "talentless" with magic.
Rolf had also learned some basic spells that are apparently taught to everyone regardless of age. As long as they had mana and could manipulate it to some extent, then anyone could use basic magic. Basic Magic included, conjuring a small ball of water, fire, and some form of wind spell. Although Rolf's flame seemed unique, Bjorn thought it was due to his astronomical innate talent for ice magic.
His flames weren't red like others, they seemed to take on the colors of many of his elements. The were mostly a solid dark blue, with slight light-silvery colored lightning playing around the flame like moths fighting over the warmth; and lastly bordering around Rolf's flame was a dark and light aura that seemed to coexist and benefit off each other, well as the saying goes, 'light cannot exist without darkness', and vice versa.
Next was his basic water spell. Bjorn would have thought that the water would be normal but to his surprise, Rolf's water was nothing like "water". The water wasn't a normal blue/clear color, but it was once again, a dark shade of blue and had black wisp tendrils that made it look like something was alive in it. Honestly Bjorn was a little creeped out by it. Who would drink that in case of emergencies! What shocked him even more was that after he said water casted by it was consumible, Rolf put it in his mouth and then swallowed it!!
Wide-eyed Bjorn was utterly shocked how careless Rolf could be.
"OO~ surprisingly it's a little sweet," Rolf said after drinking it. "Would you like to try?" Rolf questioned.
"'Would I like to try? NO! NO! Never! How do I know what effects it might have on me? Ugh- that creeps me out just thinking about it. Don't ask scary things like that again!" Bjorn responded with a clear disgusted cringe on his face.
After no response from Rolf, they moved on to the last part of basic magic, wind spells. Surprisingly Rolf's wind spells had no significant uniqueness about them that Bjorn spotted which allowed him to sigh in relief after finding out all these weird things about Rolf. Little did he know that the wind Rolf had casted was very unique and had quite the "lively" shadow underneath…
After learning basic spells, Rolf was informed that there was one more basic spell that existed, but was rarely used in the Wintry Kingdom, and that there weren't many uses for it here anyways. That was earth magic, which allowed the user to manipulate the ground a little bit, and you could dig holes or make small walls. It was usually gigantified by earth magicians who could make large walls, and control rock golems. Too bad that in the Wintry Kingdom it was quite rare to even see the "ground" there. Everywhere one would look would only be snow. Even the kingdom itself isn't built upon the ground. The kingdom's ancestors tried digging to form the foundations but they stopped when they found deep underneath the snow was a more hardened and stronger snow, seemingly replicating the properties of stone.
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Like that, another year had passed learning underneath Bjorn, and Rolf had now become a Tier 2 magician.
Rolf wasn't told that but he knew compared to a year ago he was much much stronger. Rolf was happy that he's been able to make it this far and become much stronger, however what he didn't feel happy about was his torture that he's been receiving, each week it seems to last longer and hurt much much more. Sometimes during Rolf's 24 hours of rest period Rhea has had to stay within Rolf's clutches the entire time, otherwise Rolf's mentality would have snapped at some point.
Another thing about Rolf that is becoming more unstable is his core. Bjorn had noticed that in the past year his core became more and more shattered and the most recent time they had done a mana flow test he noticed the insane amount of mana and foreign mana that was contained in his core. He knew that Rolf was nearing a breakthrough, but even for him, his core and mana levels haven't been this crazy. After seeing Rolf's core's current state he decided to up the magic training and cram as much as possible into Rolf before the dam that is Rolf's core ultimately breaks.
From teaching Rolf that each basic spell is only the basics, and that every other spell he learns he must witness and replicate it unique to himself, or create spells within his mind and branch it off his current capabilities. The only thing that Bjorn was keeping secret from Rolf was that no normal magician could do that. For normal people it was all about chants, chants, and more chants. Rarely was someone able to use chantless magic, and those people were either soul magicians, aura magicians, or had a strong visual sense for magic. He also taught Rolf what it meant to use magic in battle.
Magic always causes a delay in reaction time unless they were casted on a subconscious level– like moving your body– which of course would take Rolf a while to do. In battles, magic would cause people to split their attention to the attacker and cast the spell which was obviously why in parties, magicians would usually be in the back and give support to the vanguard and mid-range attackers. When sparring with Bjorn, he was taught that spells for battle would either be of 2 or 3 types. First was attack magic, which would obviously be casting fireballs, ice spears, or any other magic that would directly attack an opponent. Next was support magic, support magic would usually be providing buffs to the party members and raise their physical and attack capabilities. Lastly what was what Bjorn called a sub-form of support magic, which was designed to be for battle mages and those who had little amount of magic and found it better to cast magic directly into themselves.
For example, it may be enhancement magic where the caster could increase their attack, agility, reaction time, or maybe even the strength of their body. Another example would be what Rolf did when his magic manifested itself outside his body, which was his ice gauntlets. Some battle magicians were physical fighters with low magic capacities forcing them to learn a unique form of magic suited for them, and that would be forming magic on their bodies that acted like weapons. These magicians would form gauntlets or other physical magic that would benefit them in battle such as full body armor, or other variations like magic gauntlets and blades, or weapons made from elements. They used their magic as extensions of their bodies.
Rolf's favorite magic was his battle gauntlets. He could manipulate the magic density within them causing them to either be weightless allowing fluid movement of his body, or could increase the weight of them causing a stronger force to be put behind his punches. He's also tried imbuing his other elements into them, but it was much harder than he thought, so he stuck to his mutated black ice magic; and for some reason he named it Stygian Ice due to it's unruly darkness. (A/N: this is not a percy jackson reference)
During the year, Rolf improved the strength of his flame and discovered the uniqueness of his wind element, which just made Bjorn sigh at how weird he found Rolf to be. Although not at the level of control and strength of his ice, Rolf's fire was truly on a level of its own. The only thing Rolf had trouble with was discovering the use of his other elements. He knew that he had a shadow element from the mutation in his wind magic but he didn't know about the light/silver colored element, another mystery was controlling the darkness element, as so far it just manifests with his elements naturally. Despite the mysteries Rolf had yet to uncover, he was impressed and happy with his elements, especially after finding out he could control water about as easily as he could with ice. Although water would seem to be easier for him to manipulate, he found that ice was always his favorite element, especially with all its complexities and it being the easiest and strongest element for him to use and manipulate.
Unknown to him, but the more he used his elements, and the more his core showed a breakthrough, other important events were happening…
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In a large castle in an unknown location, a discussion was happening between people of clear importance.
"My lady, I have a very important report for you," said a large old man with a scruffy beard. Despite his messy looking beard, it looked almost irreplaceable upon his face, like it shouldn't be anywhere but there.
"Speak," said a strict, cold voice that had a weird and charming… harmony?.. to it.
"I believe I have found someone similar to your description and they even have a condition that I found extremely close to your words you used to describe it," the old man spoke seriously.
"... I see…" said the cold voice, but had noticeably become warmer.
Without further delay, from within the shadows and darkness of the castle room they were in, emerged a dark figure that even the old man could never see through nor did he dare to. The dark figure was now beside the old man. Within the slight light coming through the windows present in the room, you could see a charming and seductive body that this dark figure had.
"I'm going to read your memories now, Heimdall," the dark figure coldy voiced before placing her hand upon the kneeling Heimdall's head.
"Yes, my lady," Heimdall spoke and immediately opened all his mental defenses to his body. Should he not do this, it may as well be a declaration of suspicion as well as an open threat to his master, since entering another's body via magic or soul link was a risk for both parties.
Seeing his memories play out for her, she saw a couple years worth of Rolf's nightly "phenomenons", his training, his thought pattern, and most importantly his core that Heimdall had scanned. After reviewing all of Heimdall's memories she let go of him and returned back into the darkness of the room and onto her throne.
After sitting down she looked in a specific location where her eyes began glowing in the darkness causing Heimdall to slightly shake in fear. Even by just using her perception abilities, Heimdall could feel a horrid aura and frightening pressure coming off her and the seeing her dark figure with glowing eyes made him scared to think what might happen if he were wrong or others were to find out about his secret mission. If that were to happen who knew what she might do to him.
After peering through the God plane and down into the Mortal plane, she found Rolf who was currently meditating to feel the elements. He was currently training his magic when he felt someone looking at him but finding no one he went back to meditating and made sure to stay alert.
Back to the mortal plane, Heimdall's master was peering into Rolf and checking out his soul.
'Fufufu, good job Heimdall, I may just have to reward you for this achievement, however maybe I need to punish him for finding "him" before I was able,' she pouted.
Unaware of her scary thoughts he snapped out of his own after she began speaking,
"Inform Idun that I have an extremely important task for her, if she is doing something important, take over that task for her, this takes the top priority over everything else. Also if either of you fail… well… let's just say you don't want to know what might happen to the both of you if you do…fufufu."
"Y,YES MY LADY! We will do our utmost to fulfill your orders!!" After a serious and loud declaration Heimdall disappeared the moment he finished speaking. He knew what would happen if he failed, since it's happened before, but what he didn't want to know was what would happen if they failed a top priority mission that came directly from his master's mouth.
'Fufufufu, I've finally found you… This time, I will make ANY sacrifice necessary to get you back… I can't wait to meet you again… fufufu…' Heimdall's master was truly unpredictable.
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Ignorant to what ruckus he had just caused, Rolf continued refining and strengthening his mana within his body…