Wild Dragon of Rome 41 (Patreon)

“The food was delicious,” I congratulated Astrid. It was not entirely true. However, considering the reason, I chose not to mention it.

Lillian wasn’t as considerate. “Just slightly overcooked,” she commented with a big smile. “Were you doing something to distract you?” Astrid’s blush was spectacular.

“I’m sure she was just busy recovering her mana,” I commented, interrupting Lillian. “She had spent a lot of mana to tame her new beast, after all.” I ignored Lillian’s pointed glare as I ruined her fun. Though, it was fun to see her act freely. She was a different person with more people around.

However, it might be also about the fact that, for once, we weren’t running for our lives.

“That. Exactly that!” Astrid replied. That made me chuckle. She might as well shouted that she was doing something illicit. I wondered just how long it would take her to realize I could easily catch her peeking. I could have done so even without my enhancements.

She wasn’t a particularly good huntress. I guessed that her duties as a priestess didn’t leave her much time.

“What next?” I asked.

“It’s time to build a vegetable garden,” Lillian commented. “Astrid. Do you want to watch?

“Are you going to use your druid magic?” Astrid asked, almost as excited as she had been peeking at us. Lillian nodded. “Then, yes,” she said, then frowned. “Isn’t it a bit wasteful for you to spend your energy on ordinary food?”

“It’s better than foraging every day. The valley is not exactly teeming with vegetables.”

It was true. While wild plants were common, not all of them were edible, and a majority of the edible ones didn’t taste particularly well. Using her mana would have been still wasteful … but saying that we had mana to waste was an understatement.

“It’ll be fun to watch an expert at work,” I said. We walked to the spot Lillian picked. A sunny patch near the spring.

“First, the preparation,” she said as she waved her wand, and a thick column of water pulled from the spring. Astrid tensed at the display, but said nothing. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“You’re tense,” I said.

“It’s the elemental magic,” Astrid said, her tenseness clear. “It’s just cur— unnatural,” she said, barely correcting herself halfway. Still, it was progress.

“I understand your feelings,” I said even as I took a step behind her, and started rubbing her shoulders. I might not be as perceptive as Lillian, but after the number of times she peeked at us, it was clear that she would enjoy my touch. Add in my identity as her savior, it was a good way to counter her negativity as she watched Lillian. “But, does using elemental magic for farming is such a horrible thing?”

As for her comments about elemental magic being cursed, I had no idea about it. It might be the truth, or it might be a complete nonsense.

I could proudly claim myself an expert of elemental magic, for anything below the domain of sorcerers. Not just the practice, but also the theory. Even as an apprentice, I could have leveraged the elements in ways most others couldn’t even contemplate, healing with fire, strengthening with air, and enhancing the mind through earth.

Unfortunately, that knowledge didn’t extend to the history of magic. Astrid’s whole argument for her distaste relied on elemental magic being some kind of a curse, a taint. Whether that had any truth, I had no idea. I just needed to make sure Astrid didn’t feel so hostile.

So, as I rubbed her back, we watched Lillian use her water magic to infuse earth, plowing the earth with the efficiency of a small army of peasants. It took merely a minute for her to finish preparing an acre of land.

I was impressed by her performance. When we first met, Lillian was barely able to control a water blade, focusing on efficient usage of her mana for subtler applications of magic, like creating a mist to feed some fragile mana plants. When we fought, she was able to create one water blade, which wobbled under her control.

And, now, she was able to use half a dozen water plows simultaneously with great speed, each leaving lines of upturned earth behind. Impressive, even though the lines she created were a bit crooked. A part of it was her developing vitae. She was several times more powerful than when we first met, which certainly helped her, and accessing a limitless amount of mana was certainly beneficial.

However, while there was no doubt that her power and utility had increased, the same couldn’t be said for her control. The blades of water weren’t stable, changing shape as they constantly bled their energy, and attempts to utilize them were wasteful.

Not that I blamed her. With her raw power increasing that much, it was an inevitable end. I had noticed during our escape, but at that time, prioritizing power had been the more reasonable option. Now, I needed to come up with an exercise for her.

I already had designed some exercises for my eventual breakthrough — before it developed toward an unexpected direction — but I didn’t hate her enough to subject her to those.

Still, coming up with an appropriate exercise would take some time. I loved my grandfather, but there was no arguing that he was a true madman, and since I had been trained by him, my own perception was a bit warped. I needed to find something less resembling torture for her.

“I have never seen elemental magic used for anything but killing…” Astrid whispered as Lillian continued to prepare her vegetable garden.

“I won’t lie to you and say that it’s common practice,” I admitted. “There’s not many mages that bother to spend their time doing menial work. Why bother, when they have peasants and slaves to handle everything. Still, it’s not the fault of the magic itself, is it?”

“True,” she muttered reluctantly as my fingers continued to dance on her shoulders, relaxing her further. “But, that doesn’t mean the elemental magic is not cursed and against nature.”

“True, but we all work with what we have,” I admitted, not pushing her about the topic. It didn’t matter whether she was right or not. I just needed her to drop her outright hostility, so that if she noticed my damaged elemental cores while helping me, she wouldn’t suddenly panic.

Once Lillian finished preparing the garden and started planting the seeds, Astrid relaxed noticeably. The reason: Lillian had stopped using her elemental magic, shifting to druid abilities. She placed a seed before she closed her eyes and let a drop of blood fall on the seed before covering it.

As she progressed, some of the earlier seeds had already sprouted, showing the impressive ability of her heritage. I could enjoy it even if I closed my eyes. The subtle flare of mana the plants let out as they grew gave me a comforting sensation.

Under that feeling, I couldn’t help but feel that Astrid had a point. Even if elemental magic itself was not cursed, the way Rome had used it to destroy the heritage of the others certainly was. Invading Britannia wasn’t enough, they had also destroyed every druid they found to make sure there would be no rebellion.

Indeed, disappointing.

“You’re much more comfortable watching her use her druidic abilities, right?” I asked Astrid.

“Yes,” Astrid admitted. “I don’t exactly know how her blood magic works, but I could feel it align with nature. It’s not touched by the curse of the elements.”

“Really,” I asked, curious. Inevitably, I thought about my own sudden calm, one that I hadn’t felt since my botched breakthrough. I closed my eyes to focus, only to realize, for once, that the crystal embedded in my heart was not throbbing wildly, pumping mana.

Instead, it was almost slumbering. That was an unexpected development. Unfortunately, I didn’t think that it was a solution to my problem. Even as my foreign instincts calmed down, I could feel that it was something temporary. Underneath that facade of calm, unlimited power was still vibrating wildly.

“Of course. As a priestess, I’m particularly sensitive to the state of the plants,” she declared, like it was something obvious.

Interesting. I thought about questioning her in an indirect way, digging for answers without ever alerting her, but that wouldn’t work. “And, why is that?”

“It’s because of our vitae. We’re sensitive to all life, but particularly the plant life,” she said. I didn’t ask another question, but my fingers moved faster. “Since we carry the essence from the Tree of Life, we—” she started, only to freeze, tensing under my fingers. Not only that, but I could feel her heartbeat driving me crazy.

I suspected that she had just let out a huge secret…