The Curator
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Chapter 68: Flight Training
🕑 Added 2024-10-22 04:00:04 +0000 UTCAfter the guards had recovered enough, Thalion turned into an eagle and shot into the air. He tried to stay close, circling around their position while working on his body-tempering wind's grace. He managed to enter meditation quickly and felt the wind like he was swimming through water. While flying in circles, he always tried to change the position of his wings and felt how he got faster and faster without using more energy. He circled with incredible speed while he only beat his wings slowly. Next, he tried out different maneuvers, diving down or making fast changes in direction, and he was at the beginning again.
Soon, he managed to improve his movements; the quick turns were more difficult since the moment when he beat his wings was crucial to gain maximum speed. He tried out a lot, but the best result was when he just leaned in with all of his body in the direction he wanted to go without beating his wings, and immediately after he finished his turn, he started to beat his wings to speed up. He kept on training even after Sylas and the group had reached the base. Thalion improved quickly and tested more scenarios. If he was chasing someone or got chased, it took him some time to get the perfect response, but he learned faster than when he was flying circles, which was good.
Satisfied with his progress, he returned to his room. The sun would rise soon, and he wanted to absorb some of the gathered blood. He also wanted to improve his blood spells since the fight with the shapeshifters would happen soon. He planned to let some mages shoot him with lightning tomorrow in his bird form so he could advance in the lightning part of his body tempering, the thunderstrike pulse, which essentially was all about him getting hit by lightning and absorbing it. He entered the material warehouse in his human form, taking the two vials of blood that were stored in the spatial crystal.
The vials were tiny, but each of them stored easily over sixty liters of blood, and the time dilation made sure that it stayed fresh. Those would be easily enough for this night. Back in his room, he opened the first vial and started consuming the blood. It was all gobbled up by the sanguine thorn, which hummed with delight. It was like a black hole in his body as it sucked down the whole vial without any sign of being full. He should have brought more vials along, Thalion thought while he took out the next and fully fed it to the sanguine thorn, which happily devoured it.
Thalion felt how the plant in his body was slowly growing in power; this was very good. While the plant would digest all the blood or whatever it was doing with it, he would try to become better at controlling blood. His goal was to form armor or a weapon with blood; the first step he had to accomplish to unlock further stages in the scroll of sanguine mastery was the ability to harden blood. For practice, he had left a bit of blood in the second vial and now slowly moved the blood out of the vial. He had practiced sensing blood, and it turned out that moving it was not difficult at all. In some way, he had already done the same with blood harvest. Now, to harden the blood, he had to press the blood together and let them fuse into each other, creating a solid object in some sense. It worked out the first time he tried, and he shot the spike he created at the wall. The blood spike got completely destroyed while only leaving a small mark on the wall. "Could have been worse," Thalion thought while he summoned the blood back and let it flow in front of him, now in its liquid form again.
He tried out different forms, but the solution was to amplify the blood with mana. He tried to purify the blood, but it was not possible outside of his body. However, he could charge it up with mana, which made it stable enough to pierce into his wall and even keep the form for fifteen minutes before it turned liquid again and ran down the wall. It was about time; the sun had already risen while he had trained, and he soon would pay Zyra a visit. But before, he wanted to do a bit more smithing; he was almost out of mana from all his blood training, and he wanted to hammer something while he was recovering. He was also intrigued by how much the material of his sword had changed since he had left yesterday.
"Hey, Lucan," Thalion greeted the hard-working smith, who nodded in response, not stopping his work on a helmet. Thalion walked over to his sword and touched it. He felt how the material had even changed a bit; it managed to absorb a lot of mana to the point that the sword had a very weak, distant aura. He decided to let it absorb more and took one of the materials out of Lucan's stock, starting to work on it.
It took him hours to make another sword and incarved some runes only along half the length of the blade. He wanted to see the difference in weight and power. Then he left the smithy and made his way over to the alchemist Zyra; he was curious how much the plants had changed after he had brought them to her yesterday.
"Hi, you said the stories about you were exaggerated and you are not that strong, and only a few hours ago a guard told me that you easily killed four giant spiders close to level 40 alone after their group of eleven people didn't have a chance," Zyra accused him while pointing a finger at him. Before he could answer, she continued, "Now there are rumors spreading that you don't really care about the other shapeshifters, and you are much stronger anyway."
"Yeah, the night was long," Thalion answered, smiling internally at how fast the rumors were spreading. "Now show me what you got and how you did it."
"Sure, follow me," Zyra said, still annoyed while guiding him down a trapdoor into the cellar. The cellar was giant, and multiple magic circles were on the ground with materials in the middle of them. Zyra guided him over to a spatial crystal that was placed in the middle of one of the bigger magic circles.
"After some refinement, I did place the crystal in this circle; it is made to gather the mana from the surroundings and push it into the crystal and the materials in it."
That was simpler than he thought. He definitely needed one of these circles in the future, or could he use some of the magic circles placed on the tower and walls to empower his blood? He definitely needed one to put the vials of blood inside to push more mana into the blood, which should strengthen it a lot and power up the sanguine thorn even more.
"Could you give me the plans to draw such a circle? I got a lot of use for it," Thalion asked the alchemist.
"There doesn't exist a plan. It took me a lot of time to learn the runes, and I put them together for the best effect," Zyra explained, "but I can draw one for you in your apartment if you want."
"That would be perfect," Thalion nodded. It was not perfect, but he still was happy with the outcome.
"Do you have any preference for the affinity? This one here is targeting mana with dark affinity," Zyra asked.
"No, normal mana should be fine," Thalion said. He wanted to keep it secret that he planned on enchanting the vials of blood. He had already spilled way too many secrets the past days.
"Okay, but it will take me some time, and I have a lot to do today. Can I come by in the evening?" she asked.
"Sure, that's fine; I am in Kael's building," Thalion said. Then he grabbed the spatial ring with all the plants in it; a quick look inside confirmed that the plants were humming with power. Zyra had done a lot of work.
"Oh, I got another batch of plants; could you do the same here too?" Thalion asked while giving her another spatial ring he had picked up before leaving. It was even fuller than the last one. Michael and his followers were working hard indeed.
"Sure, it might take a bit longer, though. I've got a lot to do today; the guard got many new members who all need some stuff," Zyra explained.
"Great, that's no problem," Thalion assured her while they left the basement.
"See you tonight," Zyra winked. "And take care; the shapeshifters will definitely do something soon."
"Sure, I will," Thalion answered while he left the shop, making his way back to his room. He wanted to devour those plants immediately.
Back in his room, he transformed into the umbral predator and immediately felt the pure power the body held. Mists of darkness were slowly rising from his skin; he had completely forgotten how strong this form was. Next, he put out the first hill of plants, which were almost radiating energy. He could swear that the shadows around the plants were growing darker, but maybe it was just him. Tendrils of darkness shot out of his body, absorbing the hill of plants while he sat down and focused to make the darkness he absorbed fuse with his flesh. After he was halfway through the hill, he was already full, and it took him over an hour to absorb all the darkness in his body, even with him actively pushing it into his flesh and muscles. He had five more of those hills in the spatial ring; this would take a lot of time.
Maybe he needed to stop for a bit to go and train with the guards. Thalion tried to speed up; after he fully devoured the first hill and pushed the absorbed darkness into his flesh, the most time-consuming part was keeping the darkness inside his muscles and flesh until they completely fused. He tried to force the darkness into multiple parts of his body, but it was very difficult. The good thing was that he was not losing any of the gathered darkness since nothing could escape through his skin. Thalion slowly managed to speed up the process of absorbing darkness, and after six more hours, he was finished with the whole process.
It was already evening, and he really needed to get going for some training with the guards. He felt light like a feather when he stood up; the power-up from the body tempering was extraordinary. He felt much stronger than before; the body tempering in this form was the most successful one until now. He transformed back to his human form and made his way to the new training hall Kael had bought in the system shop. He left an information crystal at the entrance so Zyra knew that he would be training with the guards. Thalion opened the door to the training hall and was flabbergasted. Why were there so many guards? The hall was even bigger than the gathering hall, and there were easily over sixty guards training, who all stopped and looked at him with anticipation.
"Hello," Thalion said, now unsure of himself. Maybe he should have sought more about what would happen here.
"Hey! What took you so long?" Sylas said while he was flying over, landing by his side.
"Well, it took me a bit longer than anticipated. Why are there so many?" He whispered in Sylas' ear.
"They are here because of you. The guards from yesterday have told everyone what happened and how strong you are," Sylas said with a smile on his face, clearly enjoying the whole scenario.
"Great! So what are we doing now? Kael said we should just give them some pointers," Thalion whispered back.
"Well, just let them train. We're going to spar with some and give them tips when they mess up or, in general, help them out if they ask us something," Sylas explained.
"Okay, everyone back to training!" Sylas addressed the crowd. Some started sparring against each other, some were trying out new skills, and in an area in the back, archers and mages were shooting at targets to test the power of their strikes. This was the area where Thalion headed first. After a bit of watching, he made out multiple mages who had lightning spells. He had totally forgotten that he wanted to get hit by some lightning.
"Hey, you two, I could use a little help," Thalion addressed two young mages who were firing lightning bolts at some dummies, which was probably better than casting spells against walls like he and Sylas did in his room.
"Sure, what do you need?" One of the mages said with eagerness.
"Can you hit me with weak lightning?" Thalion asked.
"What? You want to get hit by lightning? Head on?" the mage asked in disbelief.
"Yeah, exactly that. Can you do that for me?" Thalion confirmed and transformed into eagly. A few of the observers were watching with interest.
"Sure, whenever you are ready," the mage said, unsure if this was just a joke.
"Okay, go ahead, but first don’t put much power into it. I don’t know how much I can handle," Thalion said. He still wondered which part was the best to get hit—probably the wings.
"What do you mean by pulling more power in? I can channel the skill faster, but I cannot pull more power in the skill itself," the young mage asked.
"Okay, just hit me. I’ll explain stuff later," Thalion said, but if they didn’t know how to pull more mana in, they probably didn't know how to make the spell weaker. It should be fine; he had the passive ability stormborn resilience that was helping him, on top of the body tempering method.
The hand of the mage began to sizzle with energy, and shortly after, the first lightning bolt flew at him and hit his right wing. To his astonishment, he fully absorbed the lightning. Thalion did his best to store the lightning in his muscles, like the first stage of the body tempering method instructed him, but it was not as easy as with the darkness. It felt like the lightning running through his body had a mind of its own, and some escaped before he could use it to temper himself.
"Are you okay?" the mage asked, worried.
"Yeah, I’m good. Keep firing," Thalion said, and so the next hour passed by with multiple mages throwing lightning spells at him while he was trying to absorb the lightning as best as he could. Between some pauses, or when the mages changed, he gave them some tips on how to improve their spells. Some never really tried to push more mana into the spells. Most had focused on casting the spells faster instead of charging them up since firing more spells was more efficient for a mage than charging them. There were, however, some who already could charge their spells. Here, Thalion tried to teach them how they could change the skill to better fit their needs, but the results differed a lot, just like when Sylas and he had tried it back in his room. One good thing was that there were mana circles on the ground that recharged one’s mana fast, so they didn’t need to use mana potions... another advantage of this training hall.
Thalion made great progress in his body tempering and was also trying the second stage if he failed to pull more lightning into his muscles. Stage two was called the Storm Hardened Scales and was all about hardening the feathers with lightning to better withstand lightning and magical attacks. This already worked very well with his passive skill, but when he wanted to make eagly a creature of the storm, he probably needed to withstand a lot more lightning than he did right now. He already had to drink a healing potion after some of the mages shot lightning bolts at him that were charged up, which sent him a few meters backward and burned his feathers a bit. But thanks to his flight training yesterday, he just opened his wings, made a quick turnaround, and soon after landed in the same position he had just been blasted from. There were no more than three mages shooting at him at the same time since that was the maximum he could handle.
With time, it turned into a game after he shot a lightning bolt back at a mage who failed to hit him two times in a row. After that, he shot back a lightning bolt from time to time so they could train to raise their mana barriers fast enough. Since he was an expert in using his mana barrier, he gave them some pointers on how to change the shape of the barrier. The other fighters had also mostly stopped their training. They had already been training for some time and watched him get blasted with lightning, laughing when he managed to hit one of the mages with a weak lightning bolt. After a bit more time, they had six mages firing lightning at him, which just showed how fast his body tempering was progressing. The bolts didn’t even hurt anymore. Even the stronger ones were just gobbled up and didn’t even throw him back anymore. He even started to improve the lightning bolts he shot out of his beak. First, he did it like the mages and just charged it with more mana. Then he tried to condense the lightning before he shot it at the mages, which warned them before him since his beak and neck were starting to glow with electricity.
Those lightning bolts were powerful, good thing he shot those at one of the dummies first since he was not sure if a mana shield of the mages could fully block one of those empowered bolts, and there was no need to accidentally injure someone. Sylas, in the meantime, was sparring against multiple mages at the same time and got his butt kicked, partly due to him holding back a bit too much. Thalion was confident that Sylas would win in a real fight, but he liked how the mage pushed himself. It was truly inspiring. The levels of the mages Sylas was sparring against were on par with his own, but they didn’t have a blessing and were probably also of a weaker class. It seemed that Sylas could cast spells without having any trouble running out of mana. Was that the effect of soul tempering? Thalion thought while he absorbed more lightning.
With every passing hour, more guards left since it was close to midnight and the shift change was about to happen; others were going out hunting. At some point, Thalion stopped his body tempering and started to watch Sylas spar against other mages. He was almost finished with the second stage of lightning tempering. Maybe he was faster as eagly with his body tempering because his body was smaller; well, what did he know?
He started to spar with two light warriors to train his swordsmanship and not only help out the mages, but it proved to be more difficult than he anticipated. Most of his skills were lethal, like all his blood skills, and he couldn’t blast the warriors around with tectonic slam or mana wave. Although he couldn’t use the active effect of manablade, which made it very difficult to respond to two warriors at the same time while only using his sword and movement skill. But even when he got wounded, it was very good training. The wounds healed quickly, and he could absorb the lost blood back into his body. He also really discovered the true power of heartbeat of the sanguine archon. The faster his heart beat, the more strength and speed he got. It was almost like he got stronger the longer the fight lasted and the more exhausting it was.
After another hour of fighting, he said goodbye to the ones left in the training hall. Sylas, even when bruised and exhausted, stayed to improve his fighting. That guy really was driven. Maybe that woman leaving him was the best thing that could have happened to him, Thalion thought while he made his way back to his room. On the way, he gobbled up all the vials of blood stored in the storage crystal. Hopefully, the alchemist would have built the circle so he could empower the blood even more before he consumed it. There would definitely be some power-ups coming before the conflict with the shapeshifters, he thought with amusement.
