Darius was in the garden, he was feeling strange, it was different to being in a child's body, it was as if he had to relearn everything, even though he had lived like this for eight years, his memories of his past life seemed more recent than this.
His sister was playing with one of the maids, this one was different from the one who stayed with him, her breasts were large and eye-catching, but they were very covered and you could barely see them, besides, the black clothes masked the volume.
Darius picked up a book that was with him and opened it, he could read quickly, but he could tell that it was in a language other than Japanese, the drawings looked like a mixture of several languages and there was a letter that looked like a Russian character that he didn't know the name of.
His father was in the garden and watched him with the book, this was a little different from usual, he had never seen his son reading a book, and he always thought he was slow, but after the baptism, he began to notice some changes in his behavior.
Victor, the butler was walking in the garden, he seemed to be looking for someone, after seeing Darius he approached, said something and Darius followed him. Someone was at the door wanting to talk to him, when Darius looked at the person he remembered, it was the dragon.
"Hello, Mr. Darius, I'm Kalynrae Duskveil, but you can call me Kaly," she said as she knelt down, Darius imagined that she would do something indecent, but remembered that he was a child now and she wouldn't do whatever perversion was on his mind. "It would be an honor to serve you, do you accept me?"
His father was watching and found the situation strange, but decided not to intervene.
"I accept."
As he said this a mark appeared on his hand and then disappeared, Kaly noticing his attention.
"Don't worry about it, it's a pact mark, now I'll be your servant until the end of our lives. In fact, the pact ends when one of us dies," she said, but only Darius was able to hear.
His father approached.
"What do you mean by serving?"
"I want to serve Darius and provide my services for him. As well as being his tutor, he's a mage, there's no better teacher in the kingdom than me."
"I disagree, I've already hired a teacher for him. I don't think your services are necessary."
"Not to be rude, but I don't think that person could beat me."
"She's the best mage in the capital, but that's fine, I'll call her here and if you win I'll pay you double what I'd pay her," he said as he left the entrance hall.
Kaly went with Darius to the living room and they sat on the sofa drinking tea and eating cookies. Darius' father, Lord Lucian, went to his desk in the study took out paper, and wrote a letter, then he rang a bell and a bird came to the window, he tied the letter to the bird and told it to be delivered to the sorceress Aelyn.
After a few hours of waiting, the magecame in a carriage. The mage was short and had big green hair, her clothes were a bit gaudy, she combined shades of green with gray and in her right hand she carried a staff with an emerald stone, the stone was large and seemed to float.
"She's the court mage, the best mage in our Kingdom, she's the niece of the King of Solsticea," said Lucian.
Solsticea is a Kingdom focused on magic, that's where the best mages come from, the Velmont School of Magic and Swords is the second best magic school on the continent, no other country can match Solsticea. Velmont, on the other hand, is the best at fencing, the place where the best knights come from.
Kaly approached and watched the mage, she stared and then said: "I'll make a single attack, but I won't use any defense magic."
"Are you underestimating me?"
"No, I never underestimate any opponent, I just told them my rules."
"Stay in your positions," Lucian said as he pointed to a marking in the garden that had been made with paint.
Everyone in the house was watching.
"Begin."
The mage cast a fire spell, it hit Kaly.
"You're so weak that you couldn't even dodge."
"Actually, you're weak, it would be a waste of energy to dodge such a weak attack. Cast your strongest magic."
"How did you manage that?"
"Your power is weak."
The mage was furious when she heard this. She accumulated mana and concentrated it in a spot on top of Kaly, from which several bolts of lightning shot out. While she was working this magic, her dress flew up, but not enough to see her panties. Darius was watching her movements attentively, her body didn't attract much attention, but it was covered in clothes.
"That messed up my hairstyle, I don't like it."
Kaly raised her hand and a small luminous sphere came out, it floated slowly.
"Is that strong magic?" the mage was laughing.
As the sphere approached her, the mage touched it, and a large explosion caused it to fly up and land on a bush, as it flew up Darius saw her panties, they were white and you could see a part of her intimacy, but only a little and only Darius and Kaly could see with their dragon vision. No one, apart from the mage, was hurt.
"Well, I wouldn't use protection magic on myself, I couldn't let you get hurt." She said, and then snapped her fingers, and a shield of energy disappeared. "I think I can teach Darius now, it would be a disgrace for someone like him to be taught by an amateur like this mage. Actually, I think the term mage is inappropriate."
Darius laughed.
"I think you'd better heal her."
"I'll do that."
She went over to Aelyn and used healing magic on her, she was slowly recovering, but she still felt the pain.
"She'll be fine, she'll soon recover from the pain."
She went over to Darius and they both returned to the room and went back to drinking tea.
"You'd better take her on as his teacher, she's beaten that challenge of yours," said Orphelia, Darius' mother."
He nodded in agreement, then went up to Aelyn and asked how she was. But she didn't answer, just lay on the floor trying to understand what had just happened.
"One day I'm going to kill her."
In the living room, Darius was talking to Kaly.
"How did you hide your wings?"
"In my human form, I may or may not have wings, so they only appear when I want them to."
"Another question, why did you want to serve me?"
"The goddess of nature sent me, she said there would be someone strong, I doubted it, but I know you have 8 blessings and you have 3 classes, so you can be strong. One day, if you train, serving someone like that is an honor. I'm a dragon, we're proud by nature, and having someone strong by our side is something I could be proud of. Even serving, since you might be stronger than me."
"I see, so I'll do my best, although I don't know what I really have to do," he said as he sipped his tea.
"First of all we need to get you to increase your mana, it grows until you're about 20, then it rarely increases, and when it does it's an almost negligible amount. So your training will be to increase your mana to its maximum limit, it will be tiring, but I think you can handle it." She paused for a long moment. "I'll show you."
They left the room and went out into the garden.
She approached him and placed both her hands on his head, giving him information on how to use magic.
"It's easier this way, you don't have to learn all the basics."
He raised his hand and a ball of water came out of his hand.
"Water isn't my favorite element, but if you want we can continue with that, or we can train all the elements and all the types."
"I think I'd rather get good at one type and then move on to another. Does that make sense?"
"Yes, I'll tell you what. Throw more water balls until you feel tired, do that and tell me when you feel like it."
He threw three more balls, then said he was tired and then Kaly approached him and put her hand on his navel, she used some magic that made his mana come back.
"That's an ancient magic no human knows how to use, with it I can regenerate anyone's mana," she said excitedly. "Now use more magic."
"He did and managed to throw four more balls of water until he felt tired."
"Let's stop here, his body will adapt little by little, if I use too much regeneration he might get used to it, so I'll only use it once a day."
They returned to the mansion and went to his room, she removed Darius' clothes and took him to a bathroom, there she scrubbed his body and gave him a bath, then used wind magic and dried his body, then she dressed him.
"Tomorrow I think you'll be able to cast at least six spheres or even more, but we need to start lighter until your body feels natural."
"How does mana growth work?"
"In your body there is energy flowing, it's like a muscle, everyone is born with this energy, some people more, some less. Everyone is able to use it, but some people are born with the mage class, which allows this energy to be used more easily. With this in mind, imagine mana as a muscle, every time you use it you're stimulating it, so it grows. But this is possible up to a certain point, which is the age of 20 when some unknown process takes place and mana becomes stable. So training from the time you take the class, or before, is important so that your mana grows and you become stronger."