The Pendragons

Chapter 2 - The Pendragons

By theMadLad

The next morning, I headed out of my room early. Still cloaked in night robes I wandered towards the mansion's study.

It was a large library containing a massive amount of books, scrolls and documents. Examples include the tactics deployed by Alexander such as the Phalanx Formation, weapon designs from the ancient Macedonian army, and accounts of the battle between Alexander and Darius III.

Most importantly though, it held massive amounts of magic tomes that my family had collected throughout the millenniums.

The most common tomes are things Alexander actively used during on his army, such as defensive, strengthening and healing magic.

There was also some chants for Olympian magic, but I would definitely prefer not to use them.

Olympian magic is used by invoking sacrifices or prayers to the gods in order to borrow their concepts to use magic.

While far more powerful than normal magic, I'm a firm believer in the only strength that one should rely on is his own, as it will never fail you.

Although parts of the collection also contain books and tomes gathered throughout Alexander's conquest of Asia, such as Zoroastrianism Magic from Persia, Egyptian Magic and even knowledge on Hindu and Buddhist teachings such as Chakras and Taoism from India. There is also more updated books of Merlin-style Magic.

Zoroastrianism Magic is not very useful for me as it involves things like curses and voodoo, fortunately it also gave me insights on how to defend against them.

Egyptian Magic is more about darker subjects such as summoning the undead or necromancy, but it also has some extremely useful subjects such as alchemy.

The Hindu and Buddhist techniques helped me with becoming a sage but I refuse to 'ascend' as that would tie me intimately to the Hindu Pantheon as a buddha, specifically to Indra, and I'd rather not become his lapdog like Cao Cao or Sun Wukong.

The Merlin style magic is useful with my perfect memory compounded alongside it, but not really my thing. I dislike using calculations of all things to perform magic, but I still learned it regardless.

The last thing I have been putting most of my effort into in this library is some scrolls my family was able to recover and save from the Library of Alexandria while it was burning down. These scrolls contain magic that are mostly secret to the world, such as divination, sealing, and contractual magic.

Divination wasn't useful for me currently as I actively already know the future, but I wasn't going to say no to it.

Sealing Magic took most of my time as it is immensely useful in a world full of Sacred Gears, it also encompasses barrier magic as well, another extremely useful magic.

And lastly, Contractual Magic. This is still commonly used by Devils with their contracts along with normal magicians' contracts and geases. Interestingly enough, the scrolls aren't just about regular contracts but soul binding ones as well.

I took the time to practice some of the magic while reading through more scrolls and books, with my perfect memory I sought to read everything in this library. While I already have knowledge on tactics, strategy, economics, logistics and more, I still prefer to gain insight on other's experience and mistakes to prevent making the same myself. I may have all the strategic knowledge in the world, but I am still lacking the wisdom to use it.

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"Alexander are you ready?" My father asked with a slight smirk.

"Dear, why must we always ride this thing? Why not take a plane for once? Or we could just teleport?" My mother questioned my father in annoyance.

"Where's the fun in that?" He replied as he got on to the vehicle we will be taking to Britain.

With an excited face, I watched as the vehicle snorted in reply to his words.

The Gordius Wheel, Alexander's chariot of divine bulls he acquired after severing the Gordius Knot.

"Yeah, where's the fun in that." I agreed with a smile before jumping on.

My mother just sighed while getting on as my father chuckled before taking the reigns. The bulls snorted once more before taking off into the air with thunderclaps left in their wake.

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As the Gordian Wheel traveled over Europe well past the speed of sound, I couldn't help but yell out in laughter as we zoomed through the skies.

"Hahahaha!" I shouted as the air ruffled through my clothes and hair.

My mother and father watched as I cheered with wide smiles.

For me, this was the euphoria of being reborn in a fantasy world, to see and feel with your own two eyes the impossible. The opportunity to know that if you truly try your hardest, you might be able to grasp even the world between your hands.

I watched as we flew through the skies with an entire continent's distance being covered in minutes, and soon enough, Britian came into view.

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As the carriage slowed and landed down onto the pavement with a thud, I looked in wonder at the estate we arrived in.

The place was covered in protective barriers when we arrived and after passing through them, we landed at the front of the house.

The aptly named, Avalon Estate, was a large and beautiful home straight out of a fantasy novel. The large mansion was filled with iconic English architecture and even had spires reminiscent of a castle.

Standing at the front of the estate's entrance was 5 people and older man a with fancy tailored suit, an older lady with an extravagant dress, a young boy around my age who I assumed to be Arthur and a young girl probably around a few years younger than me who was probably Le Fay.

Trailing behind them was a girl a bit older than Arthur and I's age, she had long black hair and was wearing one of those classic anime maid outfits.

Nice.

To the sides of them was a long row of knights plated in decorative armor leading all the way towards out carriage.

The divine bulls snorted as my father stepped out, turning to assist my mother out of the carriage. I hopped out the carriage and landed softly on the ground.

My mother glared at me while I patted one of the bulls with a smile, "Thanks for the ride."

The bull responded with a nod and snort as I walked off to fall in line with my parents towards the Pendragon family.

The knights at the side stood still as we slowly walked forward to greet the Pendragons.

My father walked up adjacent to the older Pendragon before greeting him with formality,

"Lord Pendragon." My father greeted with a nod while holding out his hand.

"Lord Macedon." The older Pendragon replied shaking my father's hand with a smile.

"Hahaha! Good to see you again, Uther." My father suddenly laughed as he dropped formality.

"And you as well, Philip." Lord Pendragon replied with a grin before speaking once more, "I haven't seen you in years, come let's go inside!"

"Aye." My father replied, walking alongside Uther while making small chat towards the entrance doors to the estate.

I glanced towards my mother and saw she was already in a discussion with Lady Pendragon, which seemed to be quite heated.

I was stunned at seeing my father and mother, who never dropped formality, so comfortable and informal around others. Perhaps the ties between our two families were greater than I thought.

Looking to the other two Pendragons left behind alongside me, Arthur and Le Fay, they looked just as stunned from their parents behavior, perhaps even more so than me.

The maid behind them cleared her throat as Arthur immediately snapped back to reality before schooling his expression with a quick glance towards me. Le Fay took much longer to do the same, blushing at the attention while meekly looking towards the maid.

She gave me a shy glance while I replied with a smirk before nodding my head towards our parents and walking to catch up.

The three of us, well four, counting the maid behind us, walked on in silence as we entered through the estate's doors.

I was a bit stunned as I walked through the doors of the estate, revealing a stunning interior with a large gilded chandelier over a grand staircase.

Walking into the room alongside our parents they than sat down on the large furnishing. My father then looked towards me before addressing me, "Here, Alexander, this is my old friend Uther." He spoke while gesturing to the older man as I greeted him. "This here is his wife Igraine."

The older woman beside my mother looked to me with a fond smile before greeting me.

"Come let's talk." Igraine spoke towards my mother before turning towards Arthur, "Arthur, be a dear and give our guest a tour."

"Yes, mother." Arthur replied.

We left the room as I turned to introduce myself, "Nice to meet you two, I am Alexander." I spoke with a nod.

"Nice to meet you as well Alexander, I am Arthur." Arthur replied with all the suave of a noble man.

"I-I'm Le Fay!" Le Fay yelled towards me with a red face before burying her head in her hands.

'.....probably developed a crush on me.....' I thought after seeing her strange shyness along with the twitch of Arthur's eye.

I could hardly blame her, with the combination of my three Essences, the Essence of the King along with the Essence of Humanity, I was truly unequal in appearance and even that was before considering the boost both essences aquired from Essence of the Blank.

If someone were to describe me it would most likely be as a 'Peerless Pretty Boy' with my wild red hair and steel grey eyes.

My charismatic looks along with my bearing that screamed regality made it difficult for me not to draw attention in general, not to mention a little girl who hasn't even reached puberty.

I chose to ignore her crush for now and just interact with her normally, I'm no lolicon after all.

I then turned to the maid and address her as well, "And you miss?"

She seemed a bit stunned that I addressed her before replying with a smile, "This maid is Elaine Wescott."

"Well, it is nice to meet you Mrs. Wescott." I greeted her with a smile.

Her cheeks dusted a bit pink as I noticed Arthur's other eye twitch while giving me a slight glare.

'Ha...I'm sorry Arthur, don't worry bro, I won't cuck you.' I thought in my head after noticing his hostility when I spoke to the maid.

Arthur then turned to me and spoke, "Do you train swordsmanship?"

"Hm, yes I do." I affirmed.

"Then, let's have a spar." He responded with a fierce determination in his eyes.

But, the image was ruined by the red dusting on his cheeks when Elaine and Le Fay giggled at him in knowing.

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Alright that's all for now.

Next chapter will show a hint of Alexander's true strength.

Keep in mind not every girl will just fall in love with him off the bat. Elaine only blushed because Alexander is peak bishonen. While Le Fay is very young and impressionable and Alexander is the most attractive person she has met in her rather closed off life as she has not joined golden dawn yet.

Here's some character images of the characters.