I looked closer at the Elderwoods core, its swirling core the same hues of red and green as poison and soulfire. Considering what I just figured out and how difficult poison and soulfire are to Control as well as draining a lot more so than any other element I had access to, What is with this core?
"Well, only one way to find out." I meditated focusing in on the Beast core, The vast empty plane Of my mental state while meditating appeared, And out of the shadows the Elderwood Guardian appeared, The Guardian was a more sickly green than when I had fought it, the vines that comprised its body looked to be made of a swirling liquid poison mixed into the vines; If this is how the Elderwood Guardian really looked I must have not been able to tell due to the cavern not being the brightest even though it was enough to fight in.
The Guardian had a blackish spot on its neck which seemed to be the corrupted section of the guardian remained, If Tess were to use this will it would take control of her and Agrona was able to manipulate her through it.
The Elderwood raised its right arm made of vines, the poison leaked out of its vines and condensed into its drill spear and thrust it towards me.
Acting on its own mind my body in my mental space activated its beast will, My body instantly becoming more draconic than human, the frost aura around me surged freezing the Lance of poison, causing it to crumble along with its arm.
turning around I could see my beast will, It was made of a cloud of storm magic resembling the Storm dragon from which it originated, it gave me a firm nod like Bahamut used to do as well, seems like some fraction of hiss soul or something is still in there.
turning back to the Elderwood I saw the black portion of its neck through the mana perception of the Storm Soul, The black area looked to be a Malignant Cancer slowly spreading from its neck towards its mana core, or more aptly in this situation the core of the beast will.
I launched myself at the guardian, my hand encased in an erratic fury of Frost Fire and Lightning the crazed smile stemming from the joy of battle rising on my face as the sense of superiority from the power of asuras slowly encapsulated my being.
With a wave of its drill spear, a tsunami of poisoned vines tore its way at me, each one raring to rip and corrode me into a pile of sludge.
[Mutilating shell]
The biting winds around me turned erratic and sharp, spinning around me like a whirlwind, the winds moving around me so fast it roared out like a thousand swords whistling through the air accompanied by a legion of whip cracks.
I flew through the sea of corroding vines like a cannon through a tree. The winds burst forth slashing, bisecting, severing, and mutilating the vines that got close. the poison that flowed through the vines being blown away before they could burn me.
I emerged from the other side of the ocean of vines with a burst of severed tendrils and the blast of the sound barrier-breaking behind me. I appeared on the cancerous side of the Guardian's neck.
"time for some surgery big guy, hope you're fine without anesthesia!"
I slammed my hand into its neck like a scalpel, my magic set to only freeze the corrupted mana from it.
prying my hand out the frost fire froze a 3rd of the Guardians neck who was trying to tear me off but to no avail as my wind barrier simply reduced the vines that attacked me to ribbons.
My hand slammed into the frozen section digging my claws into the frozen vines, I augmented my body tearing out the section like it was a blanket on a bed. My lighting mana burned tore through the rest of its body burning out any remaining trace of its corruption.
I jumped back off it having purged the beast will of the corruption once controlling it.
The Elderwood Guardian looked less Sickly green and grey and now a vibrant green, but I could sense the poison mana still flowing through it, As well as seeing the soulfire healing its wounds.
The guardian bowed down to me and I could see its beast will trying integrating into my core, Just then My dragon will lashed out at it about to tear the elderwood's beast will to shreds, I stopped meditating on the core breaking the connection and stopping me from destroying the will.
Opening my eyes I could see the Elderwood guardians will in the beast core, mingling with the small amount of soulfire and posion mana. I couldn't sense any of the mana that corrupted the will still present.
"Well Tess is going to have one hell of a present from Arthur." I spoke aloud, the mana was still in there as well so it would boost her core a good bit maybe even a few levels as well.
I deactivated Storm souls activation in my eyes and was met by a throbbing headache and my core throbbed in pain as if I had just used storm magic for 5 hours consecutively, only about half my core was drained of mana from the inefficiency of the magic as it was completely untrained and only possible from the aspects of realm heart that Storm soul contained.
standing up, I Walked towards the manor I saw Reynolds finish up his last beast core and stand up to stretch, I focused in on his mana core and was pleased with the results.
"Congrats, Rey. Now that you're at solid orange stage, I think it'll be okay to teach you something." I tossed the towel onto a nearby chair.
Giving me a curious look, he beckoned for me to continue.
"so you know how the color of fire usually indicates its heat and power right?"
"If you're talking about mana theory, it's not anything new to me, Al. For augmenters, since we produce mana from within our bodies, the farther the mana travels away from us, the more diluted and weaker it becomes."
"yes that's true, spells are always stronger the closer the target to the source of the spell, this applies even to me."
"you can make fire magic stronger by a few different methods, the fist is compressing the mana together making the spell denser and have more range, this is kind of like how a sharped stick goes into the ground easier than a blunt one. The second is increasing the efficiency by using more pure fire or by adding more combustible gasses to fuel it."
"Ok that makes sense, but I'm not a wind mage so I cant do the latter." Reynolds relied slowly wrapping his head around my heavily dumbed-down explanation.
"that's where I can help you, so hold out a small fire spell, it doesn't have to be a strong one at all just make a flame that you can control well."
Reynolds held out a small flame about the size of a ping pong ball it was a dull red flame.
"ok, I'm going to make the flame burn more efficiently by giving it some more air that burns better." As I said this I increased the oxygen and hydrogen content in the air feeding into the flame.
The fire went from a red to a more yellowish color, Rey's face visibly brightened upon seeing his flame get brighter, I didn't stop there. The last demonstration took a bit more time since I had to manipulate, very carefully I lessened the CO2 getting to the flame and added more oxygen and the fire attribute mana in his palm. After a couple of minutes, produced a dim blue flame, which made my uncle's eyes go wide. Upon throwing the blue flame at the towel, the towel instantly combusted and the fire spread rapidly, eating away at the towel until only ashes were left.
"Are you sure you're my nephew?" Rey gave me a suspicious eye before smiling.
Smiling back, I replied, "Who knows, who cares, your family to me"
Just then, Elijah walked out, his hair a bird's nest and his glasses crooked. He cast a drowsy glance toward us, taking in the sight of me clinched in a headlock by Rey who was squeezing hard at my nose as I tapped in resignation.
"What are you guys doing?" he said as he yawned, rubbing his eyes.
"Training." We replied in unison, my voice coming out nasally through my pinched nose.
I told Rey that he can achieve the same effect with enough practice of his mana veins by producing more pure fire mana for his spells and that if he needs more help to ask Arthur.
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The next day after I finished some light training and sparred a bit with Arthur it was time for me to meet Claire and train her, packing up swords into my dimension ring as well as some wooden copies of Balmung and Tempestarii, And a few spell beads with some weak sound spells, as well as a few that's just concentrated wind mana to replenish her core to keep up with me.
I met up with Reynolds that was in the backyard training his fire magic with Arthur, Elijah was there as well a bit further training his control of his earth magic using my training drill of making weapons or constructs with as much detail as possible on small scales without chanting.
"hey, uncle Rey I'm going to go off to train someone for like 3 or so Hours ill be back for dinner."
"what, Al explain," they said in unison.
"Director Goodsky had asked me to train one of the members of the Xyrus Acadamy disciplinary comity in wind magic, and the pay is good so I accepted." I lied but it was a reasonable statement so they believed it, although they were still surprised she asked for a favor.
"Who are you teaching?"
"Kaspian bladehart's niece, Claire Bladeheart." I said casualy.
"Arthur come over here we need to have a discussion." I called Arthur over.
"what is it?" he asked perplexed.
"come with me inside." I said seriously, Arthur understood it was important and followed me to my room without question.
"leave Sylv outside."
Arthur looked at me confused but did as I asked, Once inside my room I locked the door and surrounded us in 5 layers of sound barriers to be on the safe side.
"we need to have a talk about the Elderwoods core and who I really am."
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Al having more than one beast will is a hint to his lance code, ill let you figure guess what it is but I won't reveal it till it is covered in like the war arc or something.
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