Chương 95: Book 2 Chapter 47 - A Hidden Monster

Victor watched her go with his magic sense, taking extra care to only passively take in the signals that were already coming to him, rather than actively extending the sense to seek additional details like he normally did. Once she was out of his range, he counted to one hundred in his head, very slowly, then finally allowed himself to relax. He massaged his temples and breathed out a large sigh, releasing pent up tension from his shoulders.

He had been getting too comfortable around Shian, too familiar in their interactions, and she had clearly come to reprimand him for it. He had gifted her an enchanted sword? What had he been thinking?! Well, in all fairness to his past self, he didn't know at the time what he knew now, and the idea had merited some consideration. Her reaction to the enchanted weapon was supposed to give him more information, more data points to use as he drew his conclusions about who exactly Miss Yountal really was.

Well, now he had his answer. She was a tier 7. Ascended. Immortal. He was an ant in comparison, walking in a tiger's shadow. A clueless ant trying to gather information about the monster in front of it, when in reality he should have been worried about accidentally getting stepped on. Luckily, she seemed to have a sense of humor, and possibly even enjoyed their little game of 'Victor spying on House Yountal'. If not, certainly she would have eliminated him by now.

He let out a shaky laugh as he thought back on the interaction they'd just had. The way she had gushed about the blade, getting him to open up about its enchantments and even his own magical prowess. Asking him to call her 'Shian' instead of Lady Yountal. Ha! She truly enjoyed toying with him. And to think he had actually called her Shian at that moment. He buried his face in his palm. What a gullible child he was in comparison to that ancient monster. And she had to be ancient.

Reaching Tier 7 took many decades or centuries, and the Central Kingdom hadn't housed any known tier 7s in all of Victor's ninety long years. He cringed as he thought back to the interaction. She had masterfully guided the conversation to get Victor feeling comfortable, then proud, then somehow tricked him into weakening himself by expending mana to recharge her weapon for her, something she could have easily done many times as easily as he had.

And then, after building it up to that glorious crescendo, she had demonstrated not one, but two impossibilities right before his eyes. She had touched his sharpness-concept-enhanced enchanted blade with her bare finger. He had watched her press her thumb down onto the blade without any effect. She had even made sure to cut a metal coin in half first to prove to him that the enchantment was still active! Victor knew how sharp that blade was. He was actually quite proud of it.

Everything he made was top notch, but he had taken extra care with that blade, knowing who he was gifting it to. The edge on that blade would have taken his thumb clean off if he had pressed that hard against it, and as a tier 5 he was quite durable himself. He had once been present during a squabble between commoners at a bar. All of them were drunk, and none of them knew who he was. They were fighting amongst themselves, and the fight ended up near where Victor was sitting by chance.

One of the commoners had punched Victor in a blind stupor. Victor could have easily dodged the hit, but was curious enough to let it happen. It had been decades since anyone had openly been aggressive towards him, and he was interested to know what it felt like to be hit by a mortal. Any mortals that knew who he was would never punch him all out like that drunk man had done. The hit had barely ruffled his hair. It hurt less than when Victor lightly slapped his own arm to kill a mosquito.

It honestly felt like a gentle loving tap on the side of his cheek, the kind he suspected a wife or girlfriend might do endearingly. Thoughts of a wife or girlfriend brought up memories he spent most days actively trying to forget, so he quickly re-routed his thoughts back to Shian Yountal. Her thumb hadn't even bled after touching the blade, which was unfathomable for Victor. He knew that tier 7s were on a completely different level than he was, but he hadn't realized by how much.

He had even verified that she didn't have a mana shield active, which he now kicked himself for, looking back. What if she had taken offense at that? He needed to be more careful in her presence in the future. It wasn't until a second or so after she touched the edge of the blade that Victor had seen the second impossibility. The area of the blade that she had pushed her thumb against had gone dark. She had somehow disabled the mana construct in the area she touched, and yet the enchantment remained active.

Without holding the sword, he wasn't able to do a full deep dive into the state of things, but his magic sense was easily able to give him a high-level overview. The enchantment had still been active, but had been momentarily hindered somehow from generating and maintaining the mana construct it was meant to. A few seconds later, the mana construct had slowly reformed, and that portion of the blade had lit back up in Victor's magic sense.

It was a display he had never seen before, and even now he couldn't think of a way to accomplish it himself, even given his vast knowledge of magic theory and his competent command of magic itself. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Victor prided himself on his mastery of magic. He was a researcher at heart, and over the decades, he had studied and learned more about magic than most institute professors would ever hear about in their entire lives.

Any magic problem that was presented to him, he could instantly think of multiple solutions to achieve the desired result, sometimes even dozens of solutions. There were very few areas of magic that he had yet to explore, and yet… he wasn't sure how to even begin doing what Shian Yountal had just done with a single finger. He hadn't seen her expend any mana or form any spells, which really only left one alternative.

It was something he should have been expecting, honestly, but hadn't really seriously considered until now. As a tier 7, she would have an elevated domain. He knew that a tier 6's domain could change things, modify the world around them slightly. He had seen it done, back in the capital. But even then, what he had seen a tier 6 do was akin to a potter shaping clay into a new form, rather than turning clay into wood, or wood into stone. Victor could form stone from his mana, but that was quite different.

Reshaping the world around you wasn't quite the same. It certainly wasn't possible just by willing it to be so, which is what Shian had done. Or at least, that's what every single one of his senses was screaming to him as he remembered watching it happen. He would take some time to think about it, but as far as he could tell right now, Shian had just given him the final data points that he needed to draw his conclusions.

If, after some thought, he decided his current conclusion was correct, he would probably need to report it. Not to Count Dremond, of course, the count wouldn't know what to make of a tier 7 in his county, but Duke Esborne might know how to proceed, and at the very least would want to know about it. The royals would probably need to be informed as well. Neither of those meetings were something Victor wanted to do, so it was probably best if he really took his time coming to a final conclusion here.

There was really no rush, and he wanted to avoid returning to the capital unless he absolutely had to. * Over the next few weeks, Kiara continued sparring with Handel each day. She apologized for missing their session the day she had gone to Portish, but Handel had assured her it was fine. After two solid weeks of sparring, Kiara was landing more and more hits on Handel. She was able to enter the flow state quite easily now, and the skill gap in between their levels of mastery was quickly shrinking.

She was landing about half as many hits as Handel did, something that he seemed torn about. After their two weeks were up, he asked if she'd like to continue practicing a few times each week. She, of course, readily agreed to continue sparring regularly, as she was finally seeing progress in her skill level again after feeling stuck for so long in the intermediate class. After their sparring session, Handel took a seat in the dirt, and Kiara followed suit.

"You're progressing quite rapidly still," he began. She flashed him a smile.

"Thanks! But why do you seem slightly bothered by it?" He sighed, leaning back with both hands behind him.

"I just wish I was improving as quickly." He paused for a moment before continuing.

"Did you know there is a weapons tournament every year in The Capital?" She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

"In Portish?" He shook his head.

"No, not the county capital. The kingdom capital, on The Central Island. People just call it 'The Capital' for whatever reason." Eshela, often called The Central Kingdom by its residents, had territory on all three of Yonu's primary continents, but the kingdom capital and most of the ducal capitals were on The Central Island, a large island situated perfectly in the center of all three continents. Kiara had never been, which was true for most mortals.

Long distance travel simply wasn't feasible in any affordable way. Handel continued, "They have a few different formats, but I've been participating in the single sword tournament for the past few years. Last year I placed third. I lost in the semifinal, then won the subsequent match between third and fourth place." He shook his head ruefully.

"The frustrating part is that I think I could have beaten the second place finisher too. I lost to the winner in the semifinal."

"Ah," Kiara said gently.

"Sorry, that sucks." He laughed.

"No, it's fine. I've been improving each year, doing better each time, but I struggle to find worthy sparring partners to help me progress. Asking you to spar frequently was honestly as much for me as it was for you. This year's tournament is in just a few months, and practicing with you has helped me shore up quite a few of my weaknesses already." He studied her for a moment.

"You should think about participating, honestly. You have a fair shot at winning." She blushed slightly at the praise. He exhaled loudly.

"I'm learning so much that I want to keep sparring. And as your instructor, I've watched you learn from the ground up, so I'm so sooo proud of how far you've come. Watching you improve makes me happy." He smiled lopsidedly.

"But it's also hard to see you learn so quickly. You'll pass me up before long. So if I make a sour face from time to time, that's why. It's just me being jealous." Kiara understood where he was coming from. It would be hard to work all year towards a goal and then see someone else come along and snatch it at the last second. She didn't really want to travel all the way to The Central Island, especially not with everything that was happening right now in Easton and with the Silver Serpent Clan.

She resolved to help Handel train as hard as she could for the tournament, but she wouldn't go herself. Hopefully he could win it all.

"Well, thanks for the compliments," she said.

"I couldn't have gotten this far without your help. And while I love your vote of confidence that I could compete at that level, I don't really have any interest in attending. At least not this year." She caught the slight look of relief on his face as she said that. It would be one less talented competitor for him to compete with in the tournament.

"Let's keep sparring though!" she said enthusiastically.

"Especially leading up to the tournament. Whatever you need, I'd love to help you train for it." He smiled at her with just a hint of shame.

"Thanks, Shian. I really mean that. Our sparring sessions are helping me more than you know. More and more, actually, the better you get. I find myself spotting less and less mistakes now from you, and instead of offering advice I've started taking notes." She blushed again. That was high praise, coming from Master Handel.