Chapter 22: After

Because of Lesser's suggestions Fang was now expecting to wait another five years. This however troubled him as five years could be considered a long amount of time.

‘Well master that’s because you messed up and that Lesser seemed quite clever. He was obviously planning something.’

Agreeing with East on certain points Fang decided not to argue the fact that she was making fun of him.

‘Plus we still have to figure out the whole artifact forging situation. It’s not something that can just be ignored.’

“You’re right. Then I guess I'll have to focus on threat and try to figure out the law level on my own.”

From the start Fang had never thought of finding a teacher when he went out on a journey, he would have no need to as long as he could figure something out on his own. Having said that now he would need to wait a while before he could go out.

With nothing to do and now way to truly advance Fang decided to head to the forge and help master Dan complete something he could give to the king as a prototype. on his way to the Forge no one followed him and other than the usual guard from his father he didn’t feel that anyone else was following him.

Once he got there he discovered something threatening at the entrance. Standing there as if it. Was perfectly natural was Lesser with a smug look on his face.

“You hid this well and for good reason. Though I can more or less understand the end goal the process is difficult to understand. And despite not knowing much I can tell most of the things recorded are very misleading.”

Because of his strength it wasn’t strange that Lesser could follow him without him taking notice but it was still hard for Fang to accept that he could follow him and then go through everything he had done while gaining some understanding.

“Now now don’t be mad. I'm here to help. First I'll tell you a good way to get stronger and what you have to do from now on to reach my level.”

Hearing this Fang was both suspicious and glad. Someone as powerful as Lesser would tell him a good way to reach an insane level. But his reasons were a bit suspicious.

“Ahh don’t look at me with those suspicious eyes, it’s to make up for what I did. All in all I can still be considered a friend of your mothers so helping you out a bit shouldn’t be too surprising. Then for the manner in which to grow. Put simply your fighting experience is great for your age and can be neglected for a bit and learning a law will be impossible without having stronger ki.”

Hearing Lesser speak up till here Fang wanted to frown as he was told that he would not be able to advance to the next level.

“You see your ki core has stabilized and will no longer grow nor shrink that means that there is only one way to increase what you can do, further refine your ki. Depending on your refining speed you'll be able to grasp a law in seven years or so… Don’t frown boy some people are stuck in this level all their life. As for anything else well they have a perfect teacher for you in Liz’s academy.”

At this moment the one to speak out was East.

‘Although the old man seems crazy he should be somewhat right. Although I think I could help you somewhat because I have a feeling that I kinda understand a law.’

“Didn’t you tell me that I would have been able to understand a law already if I had started three years ago?”

Questioning East who would have probably wrongly advised him Fang was feeling irritated that none of the methods he could choose would have faster effects. With nothing more to say to anyone Fang walked into the forge to get something and give to his father to present to the king.

* * *

Tal held a bronze sword of great quality in his hands ready to present it to the king. It had been three weeks since the incident with Lesser and he couldn’t be more glad that it was over. On top of everything his son had given him a very interesting sword.

The sword looked like an ordinary bronze sword but as a craftsman himself Tal could tell that the technique used in creating the sword would not lose out to what he could do. In fact because he had devoted himself to the military instead of his smithy he was certain that he could not make a bronze sword of this quality.

On top of the surprising quality of the sword the most astonishing feature was the fact that it could activate a spell his son called flame edge and if enough ki was inserted into the blade then it could even be shot out. His greatest surprise came when he noticed that the sword could be steadily strengthened by ki if it was done over time the metal would become harder and harder.

It was like it was being treated every time it was used for practice. Of corse it had a limit but normally for a matirial to contain a forigne ki or mana it would weaken it’s constitution in the long run. The only exceptions were matirials like oricalcum or mitheral, that’s what made this bronze sword truly astonishing.

“Although it’s not the blood tome this is much more suited to our dwarven race. The king should lessen the greed that’s been building up and feel some sence of security. Although the fact that Fang is selling them to him for spells and information isn’t really going to help. Plus he might sell them to other people. I'm sure Lesser already has one and it’s probably made of something better than bronze.”

This was in fact true, Lesser had helped them in getting to the stage of having a completed weapon. And through his understanding of fire ki he was even able to improve what they were doing. And for this Master do had made him a very detailed thin cane sword with a few mitheral ingots that he happened to have.

Using great matirial and adding some fire spells to both the blade and sheath Lesser could now go around pretending to be at least a level four fire magician. Of course Fang also got his hands on the spells that Lesser presented.

Without truely knowing what had happened Tal presented the sword to his king and promised more on the condition that Fang is able to trade the weapons for information and more spells to add to the weapons.

The king was slightly irritated and agreed as long as fang does not sell the spells he provides to others, after all the spells of the Dwarven kingdom had been passed down to the few magicians they had with the utmost secrecy.

And although the king wanted to know the production method no one had been able to follow Fang out of the city and he always left in a different direction. On top of everything the king truly did not want conflict, all he truly desired was a way to keep permanent peice in his kingdom. He had seen the blood tome as that solution and allowed greed to get the better of him.

But hearing the conflict between the blood elf and the Lesser war fiend even from his castle, he wanted no part in a war against them. Even if he belived he could come out victorious the losses he would insure would be to great.

* * *

It had been two years and not much had happened after the incident with lesser. In this time fang had continued to further refine his ki although the prosses was slow and somewhat tedious he didn’t have a problem and would sometime do so instead of sleeping properly.

Within those two years the only thing that Fang had advanced was his knowlege of forging, he could now make some satisfactory daggers and even turn them into artifacts, although his level was far below Master Dan who had taken to making artifacts like a fish to water.

In the last year he had even made the king's personal armor and axe which was enchanted to use a variety of spells depending on where one inserted ki. Makeing the king capable of using level four spells with ease. Some things were also requested for the other aristocrats but both Master Dan and Fang didn’t really care much for them and handed over some cheap works equal to what the army comanders were getting.

One time a noble even tried to barge into Fang’s house demanding a reason but stoped door when he realized he was looking at the Blood elf’s home. With fear that could only be considered a fobia the nobles would stay away from Fang’s mother. In this time the most exciting news however was Mathias’ great talent that scared even the elder who watched over the children. Not only was he a variant but he had several.

He was blessed with the lava variation or fire and earth, the diamond variation of earth, and the blood variation of water like his mother. The only slight disappointment was that he could not sence mana, if he was able to then the elder really might have died of a heart attack. In the two years his brother had also grown at a considerable rate, he seemed to be determined to grow taller than their mother while keeping the frame of a muscular dwarf.

And although it would still be a few years before he could fight or do anything of the sort with ki, his physical strength was at least double that of the average dwarf his age. This made his father more than a little happy as this had been his dream from the start, a dwarf not bound by their hight. With everything settled down Fang had been able to talk to his mother and father about leaving on a journey.

They had come to a compermise when a letter from Liz arived saying that having Fang join when he was fourteen would help her out of a troublesome situation. The situation was not explained but Luna was one of her closest friends and after debating for weeks the three agreed to send Fang to help her I whatever she needed.

“Boy you’re distracted, it’s not good to think of other things while refining ki.”

The most odd thing however was that Lesser would show up from time to time and give him advice. And despite it usually being good advice Fang didn’t like the old man very much so he felt more annoyed that anything.

‘Hahaha you’re listening to his despit that. Ahh Master you’re funny, but he’s strong and we’re almost done with what we are aplaning to do.’

Yes with what Fang had worked towards was strength and for that he would need to do some drastic things, like running mana through his body in order to strengthen himself. When Lesser left he held East in his hands as she turned into a tome and through her began controling all forms of mana around him.

Normally one would have to reach the Saint level to do so but East despite not knowin an spells could. When all the mana had gathered Fang began to transform it but not into an element instead he had it regress to the same form as in his previous life, pure energy.

‘Master this, this is incredible. Despite it haveing no real function it has plenty of raw power.’

In this world truly raw mana had never been seen and because of that even East who could strangle do and figure out almost everything was stunned. Having the pure energy flow around him wasn’t his goal however and he began to move small amounts to circulate into his body. He could not be reckless in doing so as it could kill him. Having gone through this before Fang was still taken aback by the pain.

From the outside he was bleeding from all orphises. After a minute even his pores began to bleed. This happened because his body was being destroyed and reconstructed by the pure mana. However that was his limit for now.

Stopping he felt incredibly weak. However his body had strengthened my a small margin and while minuscule it would grow untill his body was the same as those metals that could take the large amounts of ki and mana flowing through them. His skin and bones would be like those of dragons who reinforced themselves with mana rather than ki with no fear of destroying their own bodies.

:)