Discussions Around A Bloody Campfire

Gently carrying Evelyn, Jack walked toward the bandits' camp now void of life and asked Laena to follow him. He then gingerly laid the small girl in the cleanest tent he found and looked at the elf who was standing next to him with a downcast expression.

"Do you know what you did wrong young elf?" He asked while sitting on one of the crates.

"Yes, I've been too careless. If I hadn't relied on Evy's shield to protect me and remained on the move I would have beaten them easily..." She replied with a saddened voice.

"No, you got it wrong." The immortal explained, making the elf look at him while her ears rose up a little. "Your teamwork was good, way better than what I would have expected from such a young team. However, you underestimated how resilient an human can be when he face death like this. Furthermore, taking them in the forest with a weapon as long as yours was a bad idea as you got little maneuverability."

Nodding, Laena thought about the mistakes she had made and noticed that she hadn't done those when they trained.

"You also overestimated their individual fighting power : they were merely bandits, not swordmasters. Remember how you've slain those orcs : Even if humans are smarter and faster, they are also weaker. Don't be afraid to take their lives because as you saw, they won't hesitate to steal yours."

"Yes teacher." The elf replied seriously. "Is... Is Evelyn alright?"

"She's fine, she just need to rest." Jack announced while feeling his pounding headache getting worse.

'I also need some sleep.' He thought and chuckled internally. Looking at the pensive face of Laena, he got up and patted her shoulder.

"No warrior is perfect you know. The key is just to make mistakes when you can afford to repair them. Don't overestimate yourself thanks to your performance against the orcs or underestimate yourself because of this one. After all, you are only yourself and a child in my eyes. Making mistakes is normal when you learn."

Raising her emerald eyes to watch her teacher's face, she smiled a little and thanked him. Those words weren't the nicest in the world but they meant a lot to her as she understood how big her pride had gotten.

'Learning magic and getting stronger doesn't mean that I'll be invincible... I shouldn't be this disappointed of this fight's result but still... I'm disappointed by myself. I will do whatever it takes to improve myself !' She thought and Jack laughed a little when he saw her ears move up.

"Good, that's the spirit. Can I ask you to watch around for a few hours? I would like to take a nap. Of course if anything happens or you simply want to talk, wake me up." He said before going into a tent as she nodded.

Waking up a few hours later as the sun was setting, the immortal sighed as he still felt exhausted but at least the pain decreased a little. Getting out of his tent, he frowned when he saw Laena practicing fire magic in the middle of the forest. Since she was focused on controlling the little flame in her hand she didn't hear him coming and was startled when she heard his voice.

"What the hell are you doing when you are wounded like this?"

"I wish to get stronger master." She said seriously while looking at him in the eyes.

"That's a good thing but please, don't do this kind of practice in the middle of a place where everything could burn." He chuckled before sitting down around the fire while she got a bit red thanks to her embarrassment.

Looking around, he saw that she had moved away the corpses and formed a small pile further away. Nodding because she had done that without frowning at such a gory task, he also noticed that she had brought their backpacks. Then, he took a serious face and asked :

"How do you feel about your first time killing humans?"

Waiting a few seconds to properly reply, she took a deep breath and said : "Surprisingly, I don't feel anything. They were people deserving to die and I simply gave them what they deserved. Still, the terror written on their faces when they desperately charged us haunt my memory but I think that I'll easily get over it."

"I don't know if I have to be happy or sad." Jack laughed.

"Why are you saying this?" Laena asked as she saw remorse on her teacher's face.

"Because once you enter the world of fighting for your life and killing humans you don't get out easily. Happiness isn't what's waiting for you at the end of the line usually." He said while sighing as he looked way older in a few seconds.

"Didn't we already made this choice when we decided to follow you?" Laena chuckled a little.

"You got a point. You can only blame yourself for your foolishness and thirst of power." He replied in a joking tone.

"Indeed, but that's why I left my home anyway. I'll take everything I can while it's offered."

"Since you want to get stronger, do you want me to tell you about gravity magic to continue on your way toward Stellar magic or do you wish to go further in fire magic?"

"Good question... What do you think I should do?" She asked while thinking about her future.

"Honestly, do whatever you feel right. The power you'll be able to use is mainly related to your affinity and understanding of your element."

"This doesn't help me at all..." Laena sighed while Jack shrugged.

"This world is made of magic, there is mana everything. Low level spells simply use yours while the high level ones draw a part of their components from your environment. As such, Stellar magic is a better thing to focus on because there will always be stars in the sky. Anyway, nothing is stopping you from getting better at fire magic and stellar one together you know. "

"Yes but I don't understand what am I supposed to do thanks to stellar magic... I mean, I get that fire magic burn things while ice magic freeze them but what does stellar magic do?" She wondered out loud while seriously looking at her teacher.

Noticing her burning gaze, Jack laughed and explained to her : "It's a pretty advanced field of magic, of course you're not going to get it like this. Don't be greedy young girl, your progression in casting is already awesome as it is, it will take you time to get your hand on such a complicated subject. However, I can try and show you a small spell if you wish."

"Yes please!" She said while excitation danced in her eyes.

"Fine, give me some time to create in as I'm not used to this kind of things at all." He announced while frowning as he weaved fire and light mana together with a tinge of stellar magic. After a minute he had finished and murmured :

"Sun Ray."

Then, the world went while as a powerful heat and light beam fell from the sky on a tree 30 meters from them. Opening her eyes after having been blinded by the spell, Laena stood still in chock as the poor tree got obliterated and only left a smoldering hole of a nearly 1 meter of diameter. Turning around, she saw her teacher having a pained expression and asked :

"What was that? And why are you suffering?"

"I mainly use Shadow magic. As I needed it's opposite, Light magic, for this spell my mana circuits are a bit damaged. Don't worry, it's not that bad and will go away in a few minutes. By the way, this was a downgraded version of the level 4 Sun Ray spell." He announced while smiling.

"Woah..." Was the only thing Laena managed to reply as she simply sat, thinking about how dangerous the spell should be in its original might. Making up her mind, she told her teacher :

"Please teach me about gravity magic ! I want to wield such power in the future !"

"Ha, look at you, greedy little one. Fine then. Have you noticed that whenever you jump, you'll always go down? This pull is called gravity and has been studied by many mages in my era. Your first exercise will be to negate this pull on an item in your hand and make it levitate." He explained and chuckled a little when she showed a face full of confusion.

"Here, look." He said while throwing the piece of dried beef he had in his hand in the air. Surprisingly, it simply continued to go upward and didn't fall until Jack cancelled his magic.

"Tha-That's awesome..." Laena muttered while dreaming of flying in the sky like this.

"It is but it's way too complicated for me. I never managed to get a lot further than this so you will have to go further into this field by yourself." The immoral laughed.

"Really? After everything you've shown to us I thought you were some kind of go- omniscient being." She joked and corrected herself before making a blunder.

"I am not that strong nor knowledgeable or I would be here with you unfortunately." He said while sighing. "Even I have fields of magic where I'm bad. For example, I can't cast Healing magic since it revolve around Divine mana and I refuse to have this in my body."

"Oh... So that's why we use healing potions and naturally heal ourselves..." Laena muttered as she looked at her painful wound.

"Nope, I just want you to feel what a sword cut feels like afterward as you won't get a healer around you all the time. There are many ways to heal something you know, relying on divine arts isn't something that suits me." Jack chuckled at the frustrated expression of his student. It felt good for both of them to chat like this and soon night came, bringing drowsiness alongside it.

Feeling quite tired, the young elf finally went to sleep while the immortal checked on Evelyn's condition. Seeing that everything was alright and that she just needed to rest, he smiled and started to work again on his bony weapons. Immersed in his work, he didn't see the time fly by as he only took breaks when he was out of mana or feeling pain and he stopped when he felt the sunlight on his skin.

Looking at his nearly finished scepter, he felt quite prideful as he managed to produce something correct with the meager means he had to do so. He still missed a few components to finish it but in it's current state it was already a good casting medium for his magic. The scepter looked like a twisted forearm as the bone fibers got twisted to form its body while the top had five spiky protuberances going toward the sky.

Groggily getting out of her tent, Laena saw Jack admiring a tortured bony stick and asked :

"What is this hellish thing supposed to be?"

"Oh, good morning young elf. This will be my scepter." The immortal smiled.

"Alright... Is this weird appearance normal though?" She dubiously said.

"This is the result of me changing its internal mana balance by adding mine. As you can see, the mana I use is quite... twisted." He said with a wry grin.

Laena simply raised an eyebrow and munched on some bread while asking how Evelyn was. Hearing that her small friend was fine, she relaxed and after checking her wound she noticed that she had gotten considerably better. Furthermore, she hadn't got any nightmares and slept quietly. When she explained all those things to Jack, he simply sighed and said that being happy of being able to sleep after murdering people was wrong but right to them.

Still wondering what he meant with this sentence, she finished her breakfast and just before she started to practice her magic she heard a faint grunt coming from Evelyn's tent.