A dark violet magic circle appeared around a meditating Eon. "Don't lose your concentration kid, this is the delicate part." Brute sat across him to the othertother side of the room, guiding him.

It had been almost two weeks since Eon first visited Brute's palace. The exams were over and results were out. Eon got fairly average grades except in biology, getting full marks while Evelyn as usual topped in every other subject. After that Eon had been visiting Brute for his exotic energy controlling classes, making steady progress.

Eon concentrated harder. The magic circle started to glow brighter. "Can you detect the foreign energy running through your bloodstream well enough now?" Brute asked.

Eon gave a nod.

"Good. We've been doing just the basics for weeks now. Let's take it a step ahead. You have to try to manipulate that energy and bend it on your own will."

Sweatdrops were visible on Eon's face. He concentrated harder. After a few moments of struggle he couldn't hold his grip on the energy anymore. He let out a short scream and an arcane violet aura very familiar to brute shot out from Eon's body. Brute jumped out of the way and evaded the accidental spell. He looked behind him to find three parallel deep lines across the wall.

"Holy Goddess help me. I'm sorry!" Eon apologized, trying to catch his breath.

"It's fine, I can get someone to come fix that later." Brute examined the cavities on the wall, probably imagining what would happen if he was not able to dodge the spell. "How about we call it a day here? We both could use a break."

"Yeah.. I guess you're right."

***

"Thanks for tagging along with me. I really appreciate it." Evelyn carefully leaped over an overgrown tree root.

"Well, it's my domain. Of course I'd guide you through these forests whenever you need to." Eon followed her.

"Do you often venture this deep though?" She asked curiously.

"No.. it's my first time coming this deep without Leonhart guiding me. But I guess we'll be fine."

"Of course we will, whom do you think you're travelling with? I'm the heir of Ignovor family, you may call me the Fire Princess, ahhahahaha."

Evelyn asked Eon to guide her through the southern forests as she had to look for some orange sunblooms. Eon heard Myera mentioning the flowers before but he never saw them in person. Evelyn assured him that it was fine and he could leave the searching part mostly to herself.

Her bossy attitude quickly faded away as some cockatrices decided to turn aggressive upon noticing intruders in their territory. Most hunters simply put a powerful shield around them and ignored these dragon-chicken hybrids. Wild cockatrice yield decent amount of money, but only if they are captured undamaged. For that one needs to prepare traps to capture them beforehand. Eon instead decided to simply scare them away by flashy spells like Ember, Flashbang and Smokescreen. When Evelyn realized how easy it was to scare these chicken dragons, she also started throwing powerful Fireballs at them.

"Talk about an overkill." Eon sighed.

After making sure they didn't accidentally cause a forest fire, they progressed through the jungle.

"Be careful, the foliage gets denser around here."

"If it becomes an issue I'll burn it down to ash."

"Can you please stop trying to set everything you see on fire!"

"Maybe it's in my blood." Evelyn shrugged.

A frown appeared on Eon's face as he stepped ahead to examine the tree trunk slightly ahead if them.

"Is something wrong?" Evelyn sounded a little worried.

"Eve, don't take a step closer.." Eon gestured her to stop, "I think we are being watched."

Before Evelyn could say a word, Eon rushed towards her, grabbed her by the waist, and shot his Grappling Hook hand towards a branch above them. Right when they were lifted off the ground a giant python rammed its head against the same location they were standing a moment ago. Instead of climbing on that branch, Eon just swung further to land on a comfortable distance away from the Python.

"I still find your detaching hand very creepy." Eve commented.

"Aw, it's one of my favourite spells!" Eon mocked some sadness in his tone. "By the way, it's a Glaring Python. Don't directly look into its eyes if you don't wanna get petrified for a short period. But the good news is they're non venomous."

"Oh let me remind you once again whom you are talking to, I'm the Flame Princess." She started advancing to the giant serpent.

The python locked its eyes with the orange haired girl wearing an expensive robe. Evelyn could feel a tingling feeling across her body. She realized she made a stupid mistake, and it was too late because she just couldn't break the eye contact with the snake.

"I thought you were the fire princess, when did you become the flame princess?" A shadow appeared before her, shielding her line of sight from the long serpent.

Evelyn snapped out of the petrification process, but Eon was standing like a statue in front of her. "Fire Storm!" She summoned a magic circle in front of her, a wavey beam of fire soon followed.

Despite of the large size, the serpentine monster revealed its agility by leaping out of the beam's range in blink of an eye. It easily kept evading the shower of spells Evelyn targeted it with.

As Evelyn started to run out of her mana reserve, she became more conservative about raining her spells aimlessly like that. Detecting an opening, the python started to use its tail like a whip to land a few hits on her. The girl realized the snake had been aiming its moves in a way that she ended up cornered against a boulder.

"Hey long guy. Take a look!" A voice came from behind. As the python looked at the source of the voice, a hand shot like a projectile groped its face. Eon closed in as he withdrew the mana thread attached to his arm in full speed, shooting himself towards the snake.

The snake swung its tail, sending Eon flying. "Come on!! Let me land my finishing blow for once!" He yelled.

After some aerial maneuvering the blue mage managed to land on his feet. Trying to catch his breath, yet not breaking an eye contact with the snake.

"You kind of remind me of cats." Evelyn commented from behind. It amused Eon how this woman didn't lose her cool even upon getting cornered like that.

The snake steadily stared towards Eon, the later doing the same. It slowly stopped moving, giving appearance of a very well carved statue.

"Would you do the honor, milady?" Eon asked comically.

"With pleasure." Eve laughed, summoning a large red magic circle below the Glaring Python.

She didn't stop the Flame Tornado till the giant serpent turned to a crisp.

"Judging by the 'glaring' mistakes you made today, I'm guessing this is your very first real combat experience?" Eon asked as the two carefully looked for the orange flower.

Eve didn't answer but she seemed embarrassed about her earlier mistakes.

"Well, you did pretty good for your first time. I ended up trapped in a hole when I battled a monster for the first time."

Evelyn giggled a little, easing up a little bit. "Maybe I shouldn't have blindly rained spells at the monster, huh?"

"Also you needed to stay aware of your surroundings. You got cornered before you realized."

" Yeah.. that too."

After a bit of pause Evelyn decided to ask another question. "Hey, Eon? How did you know the python was so nearby?"

"Remember the trunk I was examining? It looked like something crushed it with pressure from all sides. The outer skin of the trunk was completely chipped away with no fungus infection. It meant the snake was nearby and the tree was its favourite toy."

"Oh.." Evelyn was a little amazed at the boy's knowledge on such things. "And how did you remain so calm about getting petrified and everything? You could die right there if I didn't keep it busy, you know?"

"Oh but I was being protected by the fire princess. I'm sure she wouldn't just let me die, would she?" Eon smiled smugly at the flustered Eve, her face redding up like flames.

"Hey.. isn't that the orange sunbloom?" Eon pointed at an orange petal peeking out of a thick bush.

He approached the bush and found a dozen or so sunblooms on their full bloom. "Maybe we should get some extra. They yield a nice price right?" Eon looked behind to see no sign of Evelyn behind her.

"Get me out of here!" Eve's voice was coming out of of a hole near the bush.

"So much for staying aware of your surroundings." Eon sighed.