I have returned to my magic training. I was improving at a decent pace, just so you know. Now that I am familiar with the barrier spell, training to make it better and stronger was going smoothly. On the other hand, Mera was training with me and she was doing pretty well too.

That aside, I did a bit of reading of the beginner’s book of magic. I searched precisely about curing poisons. And I did find it.

There were indeed spells for it. Like healing spells, they also enhance the performance of the body. However, poison curing spells focus more on enhancing the performance of the body to repel and clean away the poisons or toxins. This was a beginner’s spell though.

I decided to ask Vernon.

“Vernon. Are there any cure spells? I mean against poison. This one here is for beginners, are there any variants?”

“Stronger ones, yes.”

“What’s the difference between those with this one here?”

“Stronger curing spells also involve magic itself to help clean the poison, that is basically the difference.”

I see. Compared to a beginner's spell that only enhances the body’s system, a stronger spell also has the support of magic itself, other than relying on the body alone.

“Can my family cast such a strong spell?”

“Yes, your father and prince Estevan can cast powerful anti-poison spells.”

That’s really a relief to know.

“I see… Can those spells cure all poisons?”

“... Most poisons. There are strong poisons that spells can barely be barely rid off. However, they are incredibly rare and can only be found on monsters.”

“How rare?”

“I say about… one percent chance of obtaining. Monsters of such potent poisons are very, very hard to fight with.”

Monsters, huh. I don’t ever want to see one. I’m not scared, I’m only bothered to think such creatures would exist. But… I can imagine them as bad and tough as tanks, heh. But whatever…

After obtaining that information, I continued my training. This time I expanded the barrier to cover my torso, the downside however, it was weak. That being said, I think my Mystic Medium was getting better judging from when I managed to harden it while it was wide.

By the way, Mera had already achieved this before I did, and apparently, she seemed to do it with ease compared to mine. It was unnerving really.

This almost felt like a competition. My nature of being unaccepting of being left behind triggered. Where I was educated, being left behind meant death. That was why I intensified my training.

I felt a bit of pain, but as my Mystic Medium got a bit better, the pain had lessened somewhat.

However, if I pushed it further, it felt like the intense pain came crawling again, so I stopped. I say that my Mystic Medium was restored about 20% now. Just a rough estimation of the feeling, might truly be lower than that.

I imagined the barrier made up of threads, then I tightened them together in hopes to harden it in some other way. I also imagined those threads having molecules being packed and pressed together to form something solid.

This was I think a good precise control of mana. Come on, I am expected to have good precision considering what I went through.

It was a bit rough to harden this, but I achieved the result I wanted. A faint smile formed on my lips. This should be way harder compared to the first time. Not only was it stronger, it was wider to the point it could cover my entire torso.

Mera may be able to cover most of her body now, but it was weaker than mine. How did I know? Vernon just smacked her barrier after all, shattering it in pieces before vanishing.

Oh yeah, it was now my turn. Look, I’ll show you how my shield has improved.

“Now then princess…”

I confidently held out my hand with an erected barrier of crimson.

“I should tell you, Vernon… You are going to need more than slapping it.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“We’ll see.”

He used his technique for a little then slapped my barrier. His hand stopped on the barrier, there was a slight shockwave in the air when it made impact. Both his eyebrows went up at the results of his attack.

My barrier was fine.

“Interesting.”

“Milady, that’s incredible!”

I smirked, although it must have looked adorable in the eyes of others.

“See? You’re going to need more firepower to break this.”

“Indeed. I guess I will need to give a bit more power into my punch in this one. That said, I need to be careful not to the point that I’ll blow you away.”

The barrier absorbs a lot of the impact, that was why being blown away wasn’t easy. But too much, you will.

“Be ready, your highness.”

I steeled myself. I made my barrier a bit stronger, I felt a bit of pain within me due to my straining Mystic Medium.

Then he struck the barrier with his fist. A force pushed my arm halfway.

I saw the barrier as several cracks, big and small, formed all around it, but not to the point that it would shatter apart. Although a little more slap from Vernon would definitely break it.

Vernon’s eyes widened.

“I’m, I’m impressed. I didn’t expect you would reach this level already. It would seem that your Mystic Medium is the only one restraining you.”

“And so it would seem. How much power did you put into it?”

“A third of my overall power.”

“Is that significant?”

“Yes. A common soldier would struggle to break your barrier.”

A common soldier means a plain soldier that had no support of magic whatsoever.

“I see. Then how would it perform when faced with a knight’s armament magic?”

I needed to have a basis, and I have witnessed the power of the knights. Their Armament magic... You know, that word’s a mouthful…

That aside, common soldiers were hard to use as a basis of strength for my barrier considering this world. So the knights’ magic would be a good thing to use for measurement.

“Hmm. A swing of their armament magic — your barrier will be able to block one, if it came from a below average knight, just a bit below.”

I suppose that’s good progress.

“I see. Then I just need to enlarge my barrier further once my Mystic Medium is restored more.”

“I should say, your highness. It is excellent that you have managed to precisely shape the barrier this much already.”

“I just got lucky.”

“If you say so.”

For some reason, I saw in Vernon’s eyes that he no longer seemed to trust some of my words when something impressive happened. Like he saw me as someone being humble. Well, I guess I was…?

With a little more training, we then went on to the kitchen. Vernon surprisingly didn’t give a lot of resistance to my decision. It was like he was looking forward to something when he agreed.

I didn’t think much of it and entered the kitchen. The only one inside jolted in surprise by our entrance. Or rather, by my entrance.

“P-P-Princess?!”

The person was panicking as his eyes shifted around trying to cope with what just happened. This was the young man within the kitchen who was instantly charmed by me even though we never talked personally.

I smiled at him.

He seemed to have regained his wits when he finally bowed deeply.

“G-Greetings, your h-highness!”

This young man, does he even get the girls if he’s this way?

But this only made things amusing.

“You are, Tenil Gerave, am I correct?”

His eyes went wide.

“H-Her highness knows my full name?”

“Um, yes, yes I do…”

He let out a breath of awe.

“You are alone…”

I said as I sat on the chair by the table.

“B-Both Ceruos and Allie went to the storage room to organize the newly arrived ingredients.”

“Allie also?”

I imagined there would be some heavy liftings, so a man like Tenil should be there.

“Allie’s ingredients for her own use also arrived, so she’s the one to go with Ceruos. She is very careful and meticulous to her own ingredients. So I am left here to watch the kitchen.”

“I see,” I shifted my eyes towards the cooking table behind him. “You’re making something?”

He hesitantly looked behind him with a bitter smile.

“I was trying something while the others were out.”

“Cupcakes?”

“Um yes. I just finished it, so I don’t know how it tastes now. I was about to review it”

“Interesting! May I try it? Of course, I’ll give my opinion about it.”

He was taken aback. He never imagined that the princess of the country would try out his experimental sweet.

“I-If it is fine with you, your highness.”

Before he could do anything else, I stood up from my chair and walked towards him. He froze in place, unknowing what to do about this. I went past him and reached out towards one of the cupcakes.

“What makes this different from others?” I asked.

“Uh, um — I extracted the liquid essence of Yukiohil fruit and Treukim by crushing them and mixing it with the other ingredients.”

I am familiar with some fruits from Estelia’s memories. However, those two I never heard of. I shifted my eyes towards the fruits piled together.

“Which one is the Yukiohil?”

He grabbed a yellow colored round fruit with bluish spots.

“This one.”

“And the Treukim?”

He then grabbed a yellow green oblong fruit which almost resembled a cucumber. Of course the texture was entirely different from that. This one looked a bit rougher.

“Fascinating, thank you for telling me what those fruits are.” I said with a bright smile.

“N-No, not at all, your highness.”

“Well then, I shall try your cupcakes.”

The cupcake had icing on top, although it looked plain. There was nothing much visually appealing about it. But I guess this was still in the experimental stage.

I took a bite. The moment I tasted it, I froze in place. I then slowly chewed it. My face was not particularly pleased by it.

I glanced at Tenil and saw that he looked frightened and worried. Especially more now that he saw my furrowing brows. I smiled slightly as I finished swallowing.

“Tenil, to be honest, it is too sweet, very sweet.”

“I… I see.”

He looked disappointed.

“And it is harder to chew than I anticipated from a cupcake. It should be softer than this, don’t you think?”

He nodded his head.

“No good then.”

He had a self-deprecating smile on his face.

“You looked devastated, but isn’t this a par for the course in making something new?”

He looked at me in the eyes then immediately looked away.

“I— guess.”

As I looked at him more closely, it would seem there was something else bothering him. It might have influenced his work that it ended up having this disappointing result.

“Is something the matter other than the cupcakes, Tenil?”

“No…”

“You’re lying, there is something, can’t you tell me?”

He looked at me once more, my faint smile relaxed him a bit.

“It…” He sighed deeply. “The others are always better at cooking, especially in sweets. I’m not good at it compared to those two, that is why I never worked much in making sweets for the royalty.”

Ah, so it’s that kind of problem.

“So you are always failing?”

“...You could say that.”

“But failure is to be expected, don’t you think?”

“But does failure have to be inevitable?”

I began to understand him a bit. He was a person who didn’t want to experience failure. A person who always wanted things to go well, to end well. And ended up considerably disappointed if failure happens or doesn't end in the way he wanted.

“Of course. That cannot be avoided. For failure is a lesson. How could we realize our mistakes without failure, Tenil? No matter how perfectly you want things to end, things can always go wrong, and that is a rule of this world that cannot be broken, no matter how hard you try. Failure happens.”

Of course there are situations where failure is unacceptable and must not happen. Otherwise you’ll end up dead. But this was a different situation. Stakes are low here.

He lowered his head.

“But Allie looks to be doing very well compared to me.”

Ah, also inferiority to the talented.

“She is always making good progress compared to me.”

And comparing himself to others.

“Tenil, humans are good at something, and bad at others. And some are just naturally good at things. But of course, they are just not born with it, they hone it to improve. Allie likely went through difficulties like you are experiencing now.”

“Your highness... Is that how it is? It doesn’t feel that way. It feels like she’s a natural at everything culinary related.”

“Tenil, don’t compare yourself to others. It will only make things difficult for you. I suggest thinking about what you should do to get to that level. Not what makes others better than you. Isn’t it exhausting doing so?”

“....... Yes…”

“Then…” I held his shoulder. “Don’t think about others, think about yourself, think about how to overcome them. Do not deprecate yourself over failures and then go on to agonize. Experience failures, then think how to improve. Failures cannot be avoided, but because of failure, our mistakes stick in our mind, then we make ways to overcome that failure. Do not be discouraged. Think about the future, not the present or the past. Think about what you will become, think about what you can do to get there.”

I was beaten up more than I could count just to defeat the opponent given to me during the education. I even almost died several times. There were always others better than me. I see them triumph, and I even fall before them.

However, I did not compare. I did not whimper and cry why they are better, skillful, and stronger than me. I only thought about what should be done. I thought about the future. A future where I will not be a loser. A future where I will live. Especially because I know there was hope. Thus, I worked hard.

At that time, I knew I must not become stagnant, or I would get left behind where demise was certain.

Thinking about why others are superior will only be tiresome. Think of only the way to crush and trample them beneath your feet. I did not grumble, agonize and cry because others can cast absurdly strong as hell magic in this world and did nothing, but I acted on how to gain the same power, and even how to overcome them. Because after all, it would be bad if I couldn’t fight back.

“Do you understand, Tenil?” I looked at his eyes intently with a nonexistent smile on my face.

“I…”

He was thinking hard, trying to process everything that I just said.

I was also curious about one thing…

Why does he suck at his own job?

I mean, how? Why?! Was this one of the greatest mysteries in human nature?

Thinking hard about this is way above my paygrade, so nevermind.

It was then that footsteps sounded from the back of the room. It would seem those two have arrived.

I then spoke to Tenil one last time.

“You may not understand now, but think about my words..... Will you rise? Or remain at the bottom?”