I stood outside in a large open dirt training ground. I had to make sure that James told everyone else to evacuate the premises and leave us alone for a few hours since I didn't want people seeing me clumsily test my powers.
A paranoid thought popped into my head, "James what are the chances that there is a wind mage near by spying on us?"
James clarified that there is nothing to worry about. "There are only 3 known advanced wind mages in this Kingdom. It is very unlikely one would be here to spy on you specifically. You shouldn't think of the advanced level spells as if they are common place. Most people never see an advanced level spell in their whole lives."
That was a weight off my shoulders. "Ok let's get started."
There were 3 training dummies about 100 feet away. I decided to start with my basic spell. I chanted, "Lightning bolt!"
I could feel power flowing through my body. After it began to swell, a streak of lightning shot out of my hand. It flew off into the sky far away from where the dummies stood.
"So it materializes from my hand. That is good to know. I need to practice my aim a lot more."
Then, I tried using the Lightning bolt spell again but this time with the added control that an intermediate mage gets. This time the lightning came out of my hand but instead of shooting forward, it stayed suspended in air.
I started trying to move it with my mind and it started to swirl around my body quickly. I started making it go faster and faster to see what was the limit. It was going at a speed my eye could barely keep track of when I lost control for a second and the lightning scraped my arm. A sharp pain filled my body and it left me incapacitated for a few seconds.
James ,watching from a safe distance, laughed at me. "Be careful, you can only touch the lightning yourself when you are using the intermediate level spell."
"That is good to know…", I muttered while still hunched over from the pain.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead and started my next experiment. I chanted the lightning bolt spell twice in a row so now I was controlling two streaks of lightning at the same time. I was able to move them separately by imagining one was moved by my left hand and the other was moved by my right hand.
"Lightning bolt!" I chanted the spell again to see how many I could control at once. Disappointingly, I already lost control of the lightning bolts after I tried to conjure a third. I was hoping that I could have at least 10 lightning bolts active at once so I could shoot my lightning like a turret.
"Two lightning bolts was always your limit," James chimed in.
I nodded my head. Nothing I can do about it then. Next, I tried to widen my lightning bolt so that instead of the thin streak it started as, it could more be like a lightning net that could trap multiple people.
Sadly, it was impossible to change the width of the lightning bolt. I turned my head over to James.
"Isn't lightning magic too single target focused? Is there any way that lightning mages have learned to have an area of effect attack?"
"Well…some lightning mages team up with water mages to create a combination attack where the water mage supplies a huge amount of water and the lightning mage shoots it with lightning to charge it and then anyone that touches the charged water will be immobilized for a few seconds."
That made a lot of sense to me. "Oh, I see. So who is the water mage that I usually team up with?"
James hesitated before he spoke, "actually, combination attacks are looked down upon because it is seen as announcing that your own strength isn't enough to beat the enemy in front of you. Because of this belief, only weaker intermediate level mages will resort to combination attacks in battle."
This thought process pissed me off. "How many of our soldiers died in the war that happened two years ago?!"
Seeming to see where I was going, James spoke through his clenched teeth. "5,000 men were lost."
5,000 was not a trivial number to me. "How many men do you think we would have lost if all our strongest fighters used combination attacks?"
James lower his head, "it is hard to say for sure, but I would guess only 3,000 men."
I was boiling in rage. "Then what the f*ck are we doing?! Is some stupid pride about not wanting to look weak worth the lives of 2,000 men?!"
James did not respond to my tirade, but I could see the palms of his hands starting to bleed because of how hard he was clenching his fists.
Seeing that he shared my anger calmed me down a bit. "What is your opinion on this topic, James?"
"Nicolas, I was actually one of the weak intermediate mages that used combination attacks. I had a partner who was a wind mage that could power up my flames with his wind."
Tears started falling down his cheek, "after we experienced the massive power of combination attacks, my partner and I tried to convince anyone who would listen to us that using combination attacks was the way to go.
But most people just laughed at us! They said that they would never be so weak that they need to rely on combination attacks. I didn't care at the time because I was on the weaker side for a Royal mage and I just wanted to survive.
However, the day that you came and saved my life was also the day that my wind mage partner died in battle. He died while my squadron had a water mage and lightning mage that refused to use their magic together.
It still haunts me to this day thinking about what would have happened if they had put down their prides and worked together at the time. Would my partner still be alive? He had a wife and kids at home…
After that experience, I wanted to stay as far away from the battle field as I could so I decided to swore my loyalty to you and become a butler instead of continuing as a Royal mage."
There was probably a heavy story like this for every single one of the 2,000 men that could have been saved in the latest war… My resolve that hardened.
I stuck my hand out to James, "keep working as my loyal aide and we will make sweeping changes to this Kingdom. There are a lot of things I find wrong in this Kingdom and I will fight with all my power to correct them."
James wiped the tears from his eyes with one hand and used the other to grasp my hand and shake it. "Of course Nicolas, I will follow you to hell if I have to."