Training Before The Mission III

"A torrent of wind forms around you when you cast the spell. You become a walking whirlwind that shreds everything in your path," Arc explained how the spell worked. "It is an extremely destructive spell and you must be mindful of your surroundings when you use it. It goes without saying that you do not want to harm your allies when using this spell."

Kies read over the lines for the spell again and made sure to remember them. This spell was going to be very useful in the future.

"I need to get back to the Archive now. There are still a lot of things I need to do."

"Oh, bye then." Kies thanked Arc for the two spells, and Arc told him that if either of them found something of interest, they would report to each other. After Kies agreed to that, Arc left. The bracelet dimmed until the lights all faded out again. Kies was back to being alone in this empty forest.

He spent the next several hours practicing magic and resting until the moon came out. Though he didn't need it, he thought that it was a good idea to sleep during the night since it was pointless practicing magic if he couldn't see anything. He might end up destroying the hut by accident with one of his spells.

The next morning, Kies had gained back all the magic that he used the previous day and tried out the second spell that Arc had given him. He traveled to a location that was somewhat far away from the hut and chanted the spell. "Winds, answer to me. Let me be the eye and you the torrent as we destroy all those who oppose me."

Just as Arc had warned him, the spell took a heavy toll on his magic. It took more than three-quarters of his total magic pool to cast the spell, but the cost made sense after Kies saw how powerful the spell was. The winds surrounded him and began to spin at incredible speeds until they formed a whirlwind around him. The poor trees that happened to be around him when he cast the spell were torn apart and were shredded into pieces when they made contact with the whirlwind.

The spell only lasted for a few seconds but the amount of damage it caused was surreal. Everything in the surrounding area had been destroyed. Even the grass had been dug up from the ground torn into tiny pieces until there was nothing left of them. There were swirly lines all over the dirt where the whirlwind had been. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it almost looked as if a small tornado had gone through the area.

After seeing how costly and destructive the spell was, Kies decided that he was only going to use that spell in case of emergencies. But then again, if he was ever in a predicament where he had to use that spell, it probably meant that he had tried every other spell he had, meaning that he likely wouldn't have enough magic to even cast the spell. In the end, he decided to not cast the spell at all for the time being until he grew stronger.

Speaking of which, Kies didn't really feel that he had been growing stronger. Compared to before, he was significantly stronger, but for some reason, it was difficult to tell if he was really growing stronger. If he were, then it was a very slow rate. He had been told many times already that the speed at which his race grew was fast, but it still felt somewhat slow.

Kies went back to the hut and rested for a bit to regain the magic he lost before continuing to practice. When it turned to night again, he went to sleep. He repeated this cycle for the next several days until Ammine appeared one afternoon.

"Hey, it's time to go," she told Kies while looking around with an amused expression at all the fallen trees in the vicinity of the hut.

"Give me a minute." Kies quickly tidied up everything inside the hut before going over to Ammine. He also grabbed the moonstone and dropped it in the dragonskin pouch he fashioned together the other day with some string he got from the demons and tied it to his waist. After making sure it was secure, Kies exited the hut and went to Ammine. He knew how impatient she was so he made sure to hurry everything.

"That's pretty impressive. It looks like you got a lot done in just a few days worth of time," Ammine remarked, still having the amused expression on her face. But she wasn't looking at the fallen trees all over the floor anymore. Instead, she was looking at the hut.

Kies had used some of the trees he cut down along with his wind magic to expand and improve the hut. It was now almost four times as big and no longer looked like a hut. It looked more like a small house now.

"I also sense that your magic has gotten stronger from when we fought that day. Nice job," she congratulated him.

"Uh, thanks?" Kies responded with uncertainty. In his opinion, he hadn't really done much in terms of magic. He took Arc's advice and didn't create a bunch of new spells. Actually, he didn't even create a single new spell at all. He had only been practicing the spells that he already knew in an attempt to gain more experience with them.

The only major accomplishment that he had was finally figuring out how to turn his wind blasts into thin blades instead. It took two entire days for him to get his winds as thin as a sword, and once he did, he thought that it would be a good idea to improve the hut since he was going to be living here from now on. He used his wind blades to split the trees into logs and turn them into planks and other pieces of furniture for him to use.

"Heh, the demons at the village would probably get extremely jealous seeing how nice of a place you have here." Ammine went back to being impressed by the hut and went around inspecting it. Ammine said while peaking through the window of the hut and at the insides. "Wow, you even made yourself some furniture," she noticed.

"Did you work with wood or something close when you were living with the humans?" she asked out of curiosity, clearly surprised by the quality of his handiwork.

"I don't remember what I did, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do that," Kies said while pointing to a pile of wooden objects next to a fallen tree stump. They were all his failed attempts in creating chairs, tables, and other stuff. It was easy to mistake them for some wooden debris, which was lying all over the place.

Ammine's eyes followed to where Kies' finger pointed and saw the pile of ruined furniture. "Oh." She turned her head back to Kies and said, "Well, enough sidetracking, let's go. I still need to introduce you to the rest of the team. Actually, it's just Jasyeu and another demon you don't know."

"Jasyeu's coming?"

"I'm just as surprised but she's apparently very strong. After you left, Jasyeu and I went back to the village. She wanted to spar with the demons as well after seeing everyone else fight."

"How did she do?"

Ammine crossed her arms and smiled. "She did well enough that no one argued when she was assigned to one of the teams for the mission."

"Huh." When Kies fought against her, he found that she was a pretty tough opponent. But even so, he found it hard to believe that Jasyeu would win against any of the demons in the village since they all looked fairly strong.

"It doesn't look like you're buying it," Ammine noticed the expression on Kies' face.

"Uh, I just can't see her beating any of the demons," Kies admitted, especially when the shortest demon in the village was more than thrice her height. But then again, Kies guessed that height didn't really measure one's strength.

"Yeah, in all honesty, I didn't expect her to be that strong either. You should've seen everybody's faces when she took out seven demons in a row, one after another."

"What!?"

"Yep, that's exactly what happened. The first two went easy on her since she was small, but after she completely destroyed them, everyone stopped underestimating her. Even when they got serious, they were still no match for her."

Maybe that was because Kies fought Jasyeu in a cave that she wasn't able to use her full strength since it might cause a cave-in? Well, whatever the case was, she was a lot stronger than any of them had expected.

"And who is the other person that is coming?"

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