*Somewhere in the Estian forest*
Aina led a small group of three through the forest in search of her little brother who had suddenly disappeared. She was making use of a tracker orb, a purple coloured crystal ball, to track his location.
The tracker orb hovered in front of the group, moving and directing them towards the pinpointed location of the target.
The search party had been walking for almost two hours now. It would have taken less time if it were only the two bodyguards, but Aina was not the adventurous sort and she almost never left the mansion, and as such she required periodic breaks.
"Haa..haa..haa". Aina breathed heavily as she was already tired and out of breath from walking for just a few thirty minutes.
"I think we should take a break here". Juan suggested and they all agreed.
Aina was very wise in chosing to travel with just John and Juan. They knew her very well and genuinely cared for her and as such, they had no problems waiting for her during the breaks. Even though they knew that they could easily and more efficiently cover more ground on their own, they respected Aina's wishes and let her be.
"I'm sorry for holding you guys back, it's just..." Aina said as she sat on a tree stump to catch a breather.
"No need to apologize m'lady. We are your humble servants and we will always be willing to wait for you". John said with a smile.
At John's words, Aina couldn't help but smile. She was very lucky to have those two as bodyguards and she knew it.
After a few more minutes of resting, Aina got up from the stump she sat on with a "hup".
"All right. I am well rested and re energized, so let us continue the journey. According to the orb, we are close to where he is supposed to be at". Aina said. John and Juan just nodded and the trek resumed.
They walked for about twenty more minutes before Aina abruptly stopped.
"What's wrong, m'lady?" Juan asked with a worried expression.
"Here..". Aima muttered in a voice which was little more than a whisper.
"What?"
"Excuse me?"
John and Juan didn't hear her words and were still very confused as to what was going on.
'could lady Aina be injured?' they thought uniformly. They decided to swing into action.
"I will check her for any ailments, you check the surroundings for any enemies". Juan said to the other bodyguard.
John responded by nodding. He stood and started muttering unintelligible words which were chants for an earth magic spell and Juan ran up to Aina and held her to perform a sort of check up with water magic.
"Locating Earth". John called out the spell's root chant and the spell activated. Mana was sent through the earth and it fed John information concerning everything making contact with the ground within a wide thirty meter radius.
The spell was created to only send in a sort of evaluation and cut out irrelevant details depending on the casters will, so John easily went through it.
"There are no potential enemies around us". He confirmed and Juan nodded back. She tried to approach Aina to perform a sort of check when she was stopped.
"You guys should stop". Aina said simply.
"M'lady! Please tell us what is going on!" John shouted out.
Aina raised her arm and pointed forward. John and Juan followed her arm to where she pointed and they saw a black jacket lying close to a tree. It took some time, but the two bodyguards eventually understood.
"N-no way..". John muttered.
"It's here. Levi is supposed to be here so....why is he not? Where is he?!" Aina asked, she started panicking.
Juan strode forward to where the jacket lay and inspected it. She discovered that the jacket was just stinking from sweat, there was no blood or tear. There was still hope!
"M'lady! I think he is still okay. His jacket here is unharmed so he should be too". Juan comforted her mistress.
"Yeah....there is still a chance that young master Levi still lives, if his jacket is still in this condition".
"He must have been kidnapped or something. If we hurry to the mansion, maybe we could explain it to the count and he wi-". Juan was cut off.
"No". Aina said.
"Pardon?"
"I said no. Do you know how much father earns from the travelling merchants each day? There is no way that he will close down the city for someone like Levi".
"What! But isn't he his son!" John shouted.
"He is, but you know very well their real relationship. My father couldn't care less about Levi's well being, only we can do this". Aina said.
"Seriously? Are you for real? Levi is his son, you are saying that just because the boy cannot ever use magic, the count won't even order a search for him! Is something like this really okay!!" Juan made known her thoughts.
"To the nobles, children are merely investments to secure the family's future. They would be treated well, but if they fail to meet up to expectations, then they would be cast aside in the blink of an eye. My brother, Levi, wasn't even given a chance to begin with". Aina said.
Juan wanted to say something again, bit her mouth closed just as quickly as she was at a loss for words. The nobles were truly scum.
"Let us keep searching. Juan will come with me, John you can go on your own so that we can cover more ground. We will meet back up at this spot at the end of the day". Aina ordered. Juan and John wordlessly agreed and the search continued.
*Back to our MC*
After the battle, Levi couldn't believe just how easily he had lost to the hurricane wolf, Raja. So he challenged him to another match, but he was refused.
"Let's go another round." Levi asked as he dragged himself up from the ground. Gripping his torn shoulder which was currently dripping blood.
"No." Raja replied.
"What?! Why?!" Levi asked. He really wanted to fight some more.
"No, and that's final. You may not pay attention to your injuries now since your riding on adrenaline, but they are quite serious for a human like you. Go soak yourself in the pond for a bit and you should be good." Raja said while walking away.
At Raja's words, Levi finally recalled something he had been taught some time ago. Elixir water has some potent healing properties and could get rid of some minor to mid grade external injuries. He finally understood why he did not have any injuries after he woke up.
'honestly, I expected a bit more, but this should work.' Raja thought as he made his way back into the den.
With a reluctant scoff, he eventually yeiled to Raja's request.
They entered back inside the den, Levi soaked in the elixir pond for about thirty more minutes under the watch of the hurricane wolf, before coming out to challenge Raja.
Raja agreed to a few more bouts, but they all ended the same as the first. In abject defeat. This continued till the sun gave way for the darkness of night, before they all retreated back into the den.
Levi was given raw rabbit meat by the wolves for dinner. He was extremely hungry and even the raw meat looked somewhat appetizing to the man, but he answered to his humanity and managed to light a fire and roasted the meat.
The lighting of a fire in the night would have attracted some predators, that was of course if Raja and his pack were not among the top predators in the forest. The fire signaled to many beasts, but they all turned back as they realized whose den the bright light of the flames came from.
"Tastes like cr*p. But I guess it's better than nothing". Levi said as he hungrily devoured the roasted meat and retired to bed. The wolves prepared a private room in the cave for him and he slept there.
Of course, the private room was just another spot in the surprisingly large and dark cave. He had to sleep on the floor again, but he couldn't complain. After all, it was better thank sleeping outside on the soft but cold grass, where he would literally be begging to get killed by wild animals and other mana beasts.
He did aether rotation a few times before finally sleeping off and welcoming the next day. He did his routine aether rotation and went out of the den to challenge Raja again, the wolf accepted and Levi kept on getting his a** whopped until the day ended.
The same repeated itself the next day and they day after and even the day after that and it became routine. Levi was on a seventy to zero losing streak. It would have been more, but he had also fought a few other wolves of the pack. He still lost, though less miserably than against Raja.
The pack members could not help but wonder the reason why their pack leader called the help of such a weak human.
On the fifth day, Levi woke up to perform his usual aether rotation when he noticed something unusual.
"Hmm. I have long since learnt to ignore the pain that happens when I use aether rotation, but did the aether always flow so readily through my vessels?" Levi thought aloud.
He focused and peered into himself to try and determine the cause. He felt his aether vessels had changed from a bright light to a blue shade.
The narrow and small tunnels that seemed to go on for eternity now had a blue hue instead of the original white one, and the small holes which felt like they were at the edge of his skin also donned the same colour.
The discovery gave hope to the mentally despairing Levi. He could not believe it!
"Wait! Could it be?" Levi thought aloud as there was only one explanation for his current situation. He had a hunch.
Levi opened his eyes in shock as he used his eyeballs to search for where he had dropped the shadow grimoire. The search proved to be quite daunting as there was no light in Levi's private room, but after a few minutes of eye squinting and blindly feeling up the walls, he caught a glimpse of the book's white pages hidden behind the very well crafted jet black cover.
He found it laying lifelessly against a rock at a corner of the dark room. He practically scrambled to where the shadow grimoire was and frantically turned the pages, trying to confirm his hunch.
The shadow grimoire had a link to himself so it could determine certain things going in with him. If his hunch was correct, then the next chapter of the book should have been unlocked.
He turned to the previously blank page and saw words written on it.
[Congratulations! You have completed Chapter 1's objectives 'create an aether structure'. You have unlocked the second chapter.]
'yes!! I finally overcame the bottleneck!' Levi shouted inwardly.
He turned the next page, and indeed the chapter two was there. The information was just sitting there, waiting to be digested.
He read the title of the second chapter and immediately started laughing.
'hahahaha! Let's do this!' Levi thought as a mischievous smirk drew itself on his face at the title of the second chapter.
[Chapter 2–Aether techniques]
Levi could not guess what sort of information was waiting for him within the chapter, but one thing was for certain. His aether training was set to commence in earnest.
A/N:
Special thanks once again to halis_eren_balaban, DaoistClJprd, Epic_Buddie123, idowu_basut_0086 and DB336 for their power stones and support. Thanks guys, really appreciate what you all are doing for this book.