Dragon's Tale 31 (Patreon)

I couldn’t help but feel disappointed as I left the hidden city behind, stepping onto the wild ground of Mount Pyrenaean proper once more. Without the protection of the wards, the magical storm raged around me, bringing the mists of the mountains to wrap around me, their fluctuations strong enough to bury a less competent mage. I doubted that I could have survived before my fateful trips, regardless of all the amazing tricks I had learned from my grandfather. 

No wonder Ceasar had picked this area to establish a secret headquarter. 

Even if he had been unlucky enough to be discovered, there was no way an outside force could attack against an established force hidden behind the wards. He must have shared my opinion, as he didn’t even bother to build walls around the city, relying on his wards. 

It was unfortunate that I didn’t have anything that could be remotely called an army. If I even had a small team of expendable soldiers, supported by a couple of mages, I could have probably defended the area against the legionaries' invasion. Of course, even if those hypothetical competent and loyal henchman that was willing to die for my suicidal strategies appeared in front of me, it still depended on one very important detail. 

Whether I could measure against a proper Sorcerer, especially an experienced one like a Centurion. 

I was several times stronger compared to before I had interacted with the dragon heart, but that didn’t mean I could win against a Sorcerer. I had never interacted with a Sorcerer. Neither my family, nor any family I had the ability to contact had any Sorcerer in their midst. Naturally, any family that was actually capable of raising Sorcerers would never waste time on a colonial island, moving to either Rome one of the cities in Italia, enjoying the incredible perks of proper citizenship. The only Sorcerers in the Britanium was the high-ranking members of the Legion XXI, which was responsible for the protection of the island. 

As a bastard scion of a local noble family, it wasn’t exactly a surprise that I wasn’t rubbing elbows with the Centurions. 

All of those factors led to my current problem. I had no idea how strong a proper Sorcerer was. There was no doubt that I had ascended to the ranks of Sorcery, but I had achieved this point through extremely unorthodox means, therefore had no clue about whether I was capable enough to actually stand against a Sorcerer —especially one experienced enough to lead his own Cohort. 

I didn’t even know my own limits, which was half of the reason I was taking this dangerous trip. I wanted to test myself as I searched for the mysteries of the mountain. 

A misty breath left my lips as I continued to climb toward the peak, the chaotic waves of mist getting stronger with each step. It wasn’t exactly a genius guess to assume whatever the mystery of the mountain lay on the peak. Of course, that required me to actually arrive at that location without losing my life. I only felt a moment of alertness before I ducked, and a semi-transparent figure passed over me. Fuck, I exclaimed as I immediately summoned the familiar power of the cursed fire, which was my biggest trump card, intending to destroy it immediately. Ethereal creatures were more magical constructs than actual beings, almost immune to physical assault or normal spells. Only something like a cursed fire had any chance to defend against it. 

However, the bolt of energy that left my hand was not the ominous flickering green of a cursed flame, but instead, a golden-colored ball of flame, surrounded by the crackling of lightning! 

I prepared myself to roll, unable to believe I had somehow managed to miscast the cursed flame. The cursed flame was not a regular spell. It actually contained a sliver of life energy, forcing it to burn an immolate, creating an unholy existence. As a result, while it was extremely hard to cast, however, once the life energy was pulled successfully, the results were clear. The worst that could happen was the failure to contain the spell, hurting the owner rather than the target —which, unfortunately, happened quite a bit, hence its reputation as a forbidden spell. 

Golden flame covered with lightning was completely out of expectation. However, before I could roll, the spell hit the ethereal beast, and it evaporated instantly. 

“What the hell?” I murmured as I looked at the smoking remains in shock. I didn’t have extended knowledge about ethereal beasts, but I knew that they were very dangerous opponents. The only reason they didn’t destroy towns and cities like the other monsters were their heavy magical dependency. They could barely survive anywhere other than locations with extremely dense magic, but there, they were almost invincible. Even with my cursed fire, I was expecting to scare it enough to pull back. Not destroy it in one hit. 

How interesting, I thought as I sat down a nearby rock, once again pulling a sliver of my life energy and replicating the process to summon cursed flames. Once again, a golden flame surrounded by lightning appeared. Even more, interestingly, it hovered above my finger obediently rather than raging without control, straining my willpower. 

“It cannot be just about becoming a Sorcerer,” I murmured thoughtfully as I tried to understand the reasons for the sudden change. Sorcerers were much stronger than mages, but based on everything I learned —which, admittedly, not a lot— working principles between a sorcerer and a mage shouldn’t be this divergent, especially when it came to a primal spell such as a cursed flame. Curious, I cast a simple flame spell, and it worked like it supposed to —except the resistance I felt, forcing me to spend some mana to enhance its structure. I cast a rune of pure magic, and it worked like it was supposed to, and it worked easily. Remembering the ease I felt when I was facing against the legionaries, I cast a simple lightning spell, and it jumped out of my hands enthusiastically, flowing more obediently than water. 

It was weird, I thought, repeating the same process for the other three main elements. Air, water, and earth spell similarly resisted my control. The pure magic was working as it was supposed to, but four core elements were resisting my controls, very pointedly. On the other hand, the fifth one, lightning, famous for its hard-to-control nature, was actually acting very obediently. Even more, my own life essence was creating a lightning effect. 

I have never heard anything like that. 

There were many esoteric magical branches, from soul to blood, but the two main schools of magic were elemental magic and pure magic. Pure magic, also classified as arcane magic, lay on the basis for everything that required immense control, such as runes and utility spells. Runes could also factor in the effects of the elemental magic, but only through containment and direction of pure magic, making rune effects several times costlier than just casting the elemental equivalent. 

The elemental spells, on the other hand, were conjured through a mage’s connection with the world. A mage had the ability to use pure magic as a conduit to essentially communicate with the world, calling and directing the elements for his need. Effects of the elemental spells were much stronger than pure magic, because the main power came from nature, the mage was only responsible for directing the flow. It was both slower and less flexible than arcane spells, but the power difference made it a worthy tradeoff. 

I was surprised with the experimentations of my result, because I had never heard that kind of elemental rejection. If it wasn’t for my extremely strong arcane capabilities, I couldn’t have cast any spell of four elements without significant backlash, but the fifth element, lightning, worked much smoother. People had their elemental affinities, most people limited themselves to one or two elements, but it was due to their personalities and their training. Each element reacted differently, and focusing on one to gain expertise was the easiest choice. Of course, very rarely people chose lightning despite its destructive potential, as it was by far the hardest element to control. Only through my grandfather’s sadistic training I was able to gain a competent ability across all five elements. Even then, I had never been particularly impressive when it came to lightning. 

After a brief consideration, I remembered the fateful moment of my ascension. I didn’t like to think a lot about it, as it made me remember the excruciating pain I had gone through, but I still remembered how four elements tried to kill me to the best of their ability, while lightning rained from the sky and actually saved me. Apparently, it went further than that, changing my whole nature. Combined with Lillian’s limited explanations about the ascension process, it turned even more mysterious. 

While there was no evidence, it wasn’t hard to assume that all of those somehow led to my foolhardy action of swallowing the dragon heart in the midst of desperation. Though it was possible that it was also about my mysterious ability to somehow survive the after-effect of swallowing the dragon heart. 

Regardless of the reason, I found myself in a very unique position, rejected by the four elements, blessed by the fifth. I still needed to get better control of my lightning abilities. Therefore, I moved forward, hoping to find another enemy to test the limits of my enhanced lightning capabilities. 

The next opponent turned out to be another ethereal beast, this time a wolf. Suddenly, the mountain’s reputation as a dangerous place made even more sense. If there were multiple ethereal beasts roaming even before arriving at the peak, no doubt people were scared to explore. 

“Come on, you little bastard,” I called even as I cast a lightning bolt, cutting through air violently. When it exploded against the shimmering skin of the wolf, instead of destroying it like my mutated cursed flame, it only pushed it back. Still, considering its ragged looks and pained yelp, it was more than I had expected. Angered with my daring, the wolf rushed toward me once more, only to abort its assault when I responded with another lightning bolt, this time thicker than my arm, bright enough to temporarily blind an unprepared observer. Unlike the previous probing attack, I had put my full strength behind the spell.

And the elemental response was even more spectacular than I had expected. The ethereal wolf dodged, but even with that, my attack left a charred wound on its side before going forward and exploding into flames, covering an innocent tree. 

The wolf immediately, but I only followed after casting a water spell to extinguish the fire. There was no need to start a forest fire, after all…