Later that night Leonard sat on the windowsill in his room and watched the unscathed adults repair the damages from the bandits‘ attack. Due to the power boost from the fire spell his friends have cast earlier, he didn’t feel tired at all, so he just went out and asked the adults whether he could help them. Leonard caught them off guard with this question, because he usually sleeps at that time, but still they accepted his offer, because they could use a hand or two.
Leonard met his friends the next day and they were amazed about how full of energy he was, so he told them how their combined fire spell not only healed him, but charged him up to the point that his battle magic was much more powerful than ever.
Jack raised an eyebrow and asked "Our… combined fire spell… fully healed you…?" and Alex looked at his twin sister Selena in disbelief, before continuing Jack‘s question "And had an incredible… amount of power because of it…?" Leonard nodded to both questions, which made both boys mumble a quiet "That’s dope!" in response.
Then Leonard said "I still don’t understand though, what made you want to learn how to use magic…" and Lilly responded "Well… rumors spreaded like wildfire about you learning how to fight with swords, so we decided to take lessons in casting magic at the local magicians' school that Jack's father owned… why don't you come along with us and take some lessons yourself?"
Leonard raised an eyebrow and asked "I already know how to use magic, so why do I need these lessons?" and Jack responded "It's simple… picture this: maybe there's a situation when you can't use your sword and can't transform either… what do you do? Fight with your fists? I doubt it… that's why casting magic without any physical expedient could come in handy." Jack then threw an Aranithium-Glove towards Leonard, who caught it and admired the azure glove that shimmered in rainbow colors and he also found the eleven gemstones on its back to be very pretty.
Jack then said "This one is yours, my father already had one made for you, because he anticipates that you'll be taking lessons eventually… so at least consider coming to do so." Leonard then tried it on, realizing in amazement that it was a perfect fit.
Some time later Leonard's friends went to attend their lessons to cast combat related magic and Leonard went with them, just to watch at first.
The teacher, Mr. Viper then said "remember kids, to cast spells you must learn to control your flow of Mantrum to concentrate in your hands, to release it through your Aranithium-Glove... just like this!", after which he raised his hand and cast a magic circle in front of it that spewed out numerous shards of ice.
He then let his students do some spellcasting themselves to show their progress and it looked like most students already knew very well how to control their flow of Mantrum, but others failed to do so.
Sparks of electricity flew all over the place, mixed with flames, shards of ice and metal, some even cast plants to grow out of the ground, others cast rain clouds, light flashes and even gusts of strong wind.
Mr. Viper was impressed by this showcase of different elemental magic spells mixing with each other, but then noticed Leonard just leaning against the wall next to the classroom's door and asked "Hey, uh... Leonard, right? Why don't you come over and try to cast some spells yourself? I want to see, if you're as good at casting spells as you are at fighting with your sword."
Leonard shrugged and did what he was asked, he cast a giant eruption of fire that came out of a magic circle on the ground and then let that outburst of fire turn pitch black, showing Mr. Viper that he indeed was a great spellcaster, at least when it came to fire and darkness spells.
Leonard then tried to cast spells of other elements, but this proved to be difficult, because he couldn't find the right amount of concentration to do it right.
Shards of ice that he cast were melting immediately, shards of metal corroded, making them pulverize on impact, plants withered instantly, gusts of wind were too weak to be called an attack at all and lightning bolts were just small sparks instead, but he was determined to learn and so he practised long and hard, so at the end of the day he could finally cast lightning magic as well, so he made at least a bit of progress.
After the lessons ended for the day, the five friends headed to the village center and Jack said to Leonard "Hey Leo, I found out some neat details about your sword… its name is Lunargand, right?"
Leonard was surprised about that and responded "Yeah… how did you know?" and Jack responded "Easy… there's a book I borrowed from Garmun's library and coincidentally, it contained information about your sword… it seems to be a so called 'god weapon' and it's extremely powerful!"
Then the usually very shy Selena asked "Wait… if it's really such a powerful weapon, why wasn’t it sold long ago...?", but Leonard only shrugged.
Jack then answered Selena’s question "Well… according to the info given in this book, Lunargand is one of the few sentient god weapons… which means that it chooses its wielder…", which left not only Selena speechless.
Suddenly the conversation was cut short by heavy rain and so everyone said goodbye and they hurried back home.
On the following day the five friends did a hike through the forest and due to the adults always saying that the forest is dangerous, all of them had their Aranithium-Gloves on and Leonard had Lunargand with him as always.
Rumor has it that Leviathans, which are giant sea serpent-like dragons, were using the lake in the center of the forest as a nesting place and now the five friends wanted to check, if these rumors were true.
While they were on their way to the lake, Selena wasn’t so sure anymore whether this was a good idea after all to check, if these rumors really were true.
"What if… there's really a Leviathan nesting and we're just appearing there when the mother is alone with its hatchlings…? You shouldn't mess with dragons like that, if you value your life, which I honestly do…" she stammered nervously, but her twin brother Alex calmed her down "Leviathans are harmless, as long as you leave them and their hatchlings alone" and then he looked at her with confidence in his eyes.
Some time later they already saw the lake in the distance, but something seemed to be unusual and as they got closer, they saw a brown light emitting from the middle of the lake, but it was very faint, so whatever glowed like that must've been on the ground of the lake.
The five children went to the lake to see what's wrong but before they reached the shoreline, a male voice that was coming out of the forest behind them told them to stop.
As they turned around fearfully, Jack's father, Mr. Viper walked towards them and Jack yelled out of confusion "Dad…?! What're you doing here…?"
"I could ask you the same question… you should never go inside this forest without an adult…" Jack‘s father replied.
Leonard's attention was then drawn to the lake's water, which was casting waves more and more violently.
Leonard then said softly "I got a really bad feeling about this...!" as a Leviathan suddenly rose out of the water. Jack's father also noticed the Leviathan and told the kids to stay calm.
As the Leviathan then inhaled deeply to charge up an attack, Jack's father jumped in front of the kids, crossed his wrists and made the amber on the Aranithium-Glove on his left hand and the ruby on the other Aranithium-Glove glow.
Afterwards he screamed "Combination Magic… MAGMABARRIER!!!" and quickly spread his arms, which made a wall of magma burst out of the ground in front of him, just mere moments before the Leviathan shot a jet stream of water towards Jack's father.
The Leviathan's attack however was powerful enough to not only rip through the barrier, but it also sent Jack's father flying until a tree stopped him, knocking him out cold.
Leonard watched this in shock and Jack ran to his unconscious father to desperately wake him up, which sadly was in vein.
Now Leonard got angry, but before the Leviathan could charge its next attack by inhaling deeply, he noticed a brown crystal placed on the Leviathan’s forehead that looked out of place.
Suddenly he heard meowing and saw a black cat that drew the Leviathan's attention to it. Leonard jumped towards the cat, then grabbed it to save it from the Leviathan's attack that came mere moments later, ripping through the ground like an oversized pressure-washer.
"Enough is enough!" Leonard then said aggressively, put the cat back on the ground and turned into a demon to raise himself into the air.
He then quickly moved his arm back and out of his arm a shadow-arm extended as he aimed for the brown crystal on the Leviathan's forehead.
Shortly after he let the tip of the shadow-arm that was shaped like a fist engulf in purple flames and flung the shadow-arm back to his arm to throw the flame like a projectile that then got so fast that the human eye couldn't follow it.
The flame could only be seen again upon impact with the crystal that then sent a burning shockwave across the crystal's surface and the impact itself created a shockwave behind the Leviathan's neck, after which the crystal bursted into a thousand pieces and the Leviathan flopped over sideways back into the water.
When Leonard landed next to the riverbank, his friends stood around Jack's father, still under shock about what happened, but then he heard an unfamiliar voice that distracted him from his shocked friends by saying "Thanks for saving me, young demon!" and Leonard turned around to where the voice came from.
He however just saw the black cat that he rescued, so he looked around and shouted "Who's there?!", after which the voice was heard again "Down here…" and Leonard looked down to the black cat with a puzzled look on his face. The black cat sat down to reveal its red eyes and Leonard noticed that it wasn’t all black, its chest and the tip of its tail were actually white.
"Yeah, I just thanked you… guess you're not familiar with talking cats yet, huh?" the cat then said with the same raspy male voice that Leonard heard earlier, which made him look at the cat in disbelief and he stuttered "Uhm… to be honest, I never met one before…"
"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself… I'm Nero… please forgive me, but it's so much fun to see people's reaction after hearing me talk for the first time, because most of them aren't familiar with a cat talking like this" the cat then chuckled.
Leonard then looked to the side with an annoyed look on his face and said "Oh, I see…" quietly.
Nero then asked for Leonards name, which was told to him immediately.
"Leonard, huh? Nice to meet you… I'd like to accompany you on your journey, if you don't mind of course, as a demon cat I could be useful for you..." Nero then said.
"Demon cat…?" asked Leonard, while he slightly tilted his head out of confusion.
"Not familiar to you either, huh? Well, we demon cats live for an awfully long time and we aren't only capable of speaking the human language, but also possess magic powers… well, what do you say to my question?" Nero then responded impatiently.
Leonard wasn't sure about how his mother would react to this, so he said "First of all, I have to ask my mother… would you like to come home with me?" and Nero agreed to it.
After that Leonard also went to see how Jack's father was doing, right at the moment when he awoke.
"What… happened…?" Mr. Viper asked when he sat up, while groaning in pain.
Leonard told him everything that happened after he was knocked out, while Nero stood on his shoulders, after which everyone went back home.
Upon his arrival Leonard asked his mother "Mom? Could I keep this cat? His name is Nero!"
She was immensely happy about this, because she always wanted to have a cat inside her home, until Nero said "Thank you, Milady, you're too kind!", which surprised her, but didn't change her mind, even after Nero revealed having red bat-like wings that he used to fly inside the house next to Leonard.
