Rise of Legends - DISCONTINUED

Mana Zone

Arthur POV:

"Haah!" Claire grunted as she thrust her rapier where she predicted my head was. I barely dodged her attack by using wind magic to shift it there. 

She then jumped and spun her body to dodge my horizontal slash and thrust her rapier down. The fire around her rapier turned hot blue while I used my own blue fire to parry it.

She then fired off more quick thrusts that I avoided by relying on my ever-improving instincts.

Still, my skin was cut through the air pressure from her last attack that reminded me of Kaspian.

"Impressive," I applauded, "Let's end our training here."

Claire nodded as she unsheathed her rapier. She then said, "Hehe, I finally hurt you Arthur!"

Her face was shining brightly and I couldn't help but get flustered for some reason.

(A/N: We have dense Arthur boys.)

"Oh yeah, I am going to start training with Paladins so I won't be able to train you as much form tomorrow," I told her. She sulked slightly to which I quickly added, "But you have been progressing well, so our training should be done soon."

For some reason, I didn't like the fact that our training would end so soon. 'Why is that?' I wondered as I looked at a sad Claire.

"It was really fun training with you, Art," Claire told me. "Huh?" I replied, thinking I hadn't heard her properly.

"O-oh sorry, I called you Art instead of Arthur. Is that fine with you?" she stammered out. I just nodded my head, failing to realise the heat rising up to my face.

'Is papa cheating on mama?' Sylvie cutely asked inside my mind causing me to freak out.

Luckily, I managed to stop myself from blurting out anything unnecessary but I still got a curious and surprised look from Claire.

'Ahhh, I should just dig a hole and die! Why did you say that to me, Sylvie? In fact, how did you even know the word cheating?' I thought while getting out of the DC room.

Sylvie replied in my mind, 'Uncle Elijah talks about cheating in the middle of night while sleeping, so I picked it up from him.'

'Damn you Elijah,' I thought to myself while making my way to the Paladins building.

Today was the first day of my training with Lancelot about mana zone. About much thinking, I decided to create a fire mana zone.

I entered the Paladins room and found it to be empty. 'Everyone must be inside the various training rooms or coming later,' I thought before knocking on Lancelot's training room.

The door opened soon enough and I entered after gasping. It was very different from most other rooms as there were many levitating platforms, probably hung up, as well as artificial hills and boulders. 

"You're late," Lancelot said before opening his eyes. He seemed to be meditating, probably purifying his mana core to reach a higher stage.

As if he read my thoughts, he replied, "I am close to breaking through to the silver core stage, so I'm just purifying my core for that."

My eyes widened in shock. 'Another silver core mage in Xyrus Academy,' I thought wryly before coming closer to him.

"Hmph! So you're the kid Lancelot is going to train," I heard a girl voice from Lancelot. I squinted my eyes before realising that the source was a tiny girl with wings sitting on his shoulder.

'That must be the wind spirit,' I concluded internally.

"Her name is Sylph. We both made a spirit contract," he explained to me.

Sylvie seemed to have woken up as she groaned, "Kyu!"

"Ahhhh! So cute!" Sylph squealed before appearing next to Sylvie. I let my guard down, knowing that she meant no harm and allowed her to pet Sylvie.

Sylvie seemed to enjoy Sylph's touch as she let out a whimper.

"Let the two spend time together, we should get started with your training," Lancelot said with a smile.

I nodded and sat in front of him. 

"A mana zone allows the user to take control of the ambient mana," he began to explain, "And so....."

After his explanation was done, he taught me how to make one and even demonstrated his mana zone. Chills went down my spine when I felt the air around me bending to his will.

Thus, our training continued.

4 Days Later:

After four days of training, all four of us were done with a simple mana zone training. For 'graduation,' the four of us were led to the biggest team training room where we were to demonstrate our mana zones to all of the Paladins.

Alistair went up first and activated his lightning mana zone. While it paled in comparison to Gary's, the mana zone itself was quite strong. I could feel my skin tingling from the current in the air.

I went next and activated my fire mana zone. The temperature immediately increased around us and everyone began to sweat fast. Kathyln released her ice mana zone after my demonstration was done to cool everyone done.

Tess activated her plant mana zone that caused all vegetation to overgrow and expand. It provided a weird sense of comfort to me as well. Finally, Elijah's mana zone didn't have any passive effect but it made the earth feel more... dangerous I suppose.

I couldn't help but notice how close Alistair and Tess were. 'I am a little jealous of Alistair,' I thought, 'Not because he is dating Tess, but because he has a significant other he can rely on.'

"Good job!" Gary said while slightly startling me, "All of you guys have managed to make a mana zone already. Your mana zone still has ways to improve so don't be scared to showcase it in front of the world. We actually want this technique to spread so it would be good if everyone learns it.

He paused before continuing with a more serious tone, "However, Tess, Elijah, you two need to be careful. You guys are still at the dark yellow core stage and that's a bit too low to use the mana zone properly. I would suggest waiting till you break through to the solid yellow stage before using it in battles."

They both nodded to his statement.

"I won't be holding you guys for any longer so you are free to go," he then announced before exiting the room.

(A/N: A shorter chapter this time but I'll upload three tomorrow so look forward to that. )