LONG CHAPTER

 

"Your majesty demands for your presence in the throne room, Mr. Himejima" Edwin said as he gave a little bow

"Alright, I'll be going there immediately"

 

After a few minutes, Saruhiko stepped into the throne room. Lillian saw him and smiled as she puts down her cup of hot chocolate that she was drinking just now

"I heard about the little stunt you pulled on the training ground."

"I sincerely apologize if I caused you any trouble, your....majesty" 

"Nah its fine! If anything, I should be apologizing for Estel's misconduct."

She laughs a little

"Anyways, onto the topic I want to discuss today"

Lillian waves her hand, a hologram map of the entire continent appears and zooms into one specific area: the Elven territory 

"This forest, I know it's hard to believe but bear with me," she said sarcastically and gave a little laugh "is the elven kingdom: Elenor. Recently, our spies amongst the humans obtained the information that the elves intend to establish an alliance with the humans despite our previous warnings. I believe that a punishment is in order"

  She zooms in on a portion of the wall that surrounds a small town located just outside of it

"This is Oronoris, a major trading center for other kingdoms since the other races are not allowed to enter the forest that the elves claimed that it is 'divine'"

The loli points at the town

"Destroying it means cutting Elenor off with the rest of the world, and this is where you come in" She points at me

"You alone will go there and destroy it 3 days from now"

"ALONE?! That's not possible! There HAS to be at least 100 men guarding a place of such importance!"

"Think of it as training, Himejima. This is a good opportunity to test out your strength, no?"

"you call taking down a fort.....practical training?"

"What's wrong with that? My father made me do it all the time when he was alive"

Saruhiko facepalmed 

"I guess demon lords are just built different"

Lillian giggles from the remark

"Well you sure are right about that. Anyways, you have 2 days to train with your skills before experiencing actual combat. I wish you good luck"

"....I don't have a choice, do I?"

"Fufu~ what do you think?"

"*sigh* Roger that"

"For the next two days, Estel will be responsible for your training. She is one of my most trusted men, I'm sure your power will increase by leaps and bounds with her as your mentor."

She takes a sip of hot chocolate 

"Estel is already notified about this, your training starts tomorrow."

 

Since he doesn't have anything to do for the rest of the day, Saruhiko does what he normally do during leisure time: read

There are tons of books, even those that other races considered forbidden ones, in this castle's library.

Saruhiko grabbed a book about the information on elves

"Lets see here.....'there are 3 different kinds of elves: normal elves, High Elves, and Dark Elves'" followed by a sketch drawing of each

"Huh, they look exactly like those 'Isekai anime' that she was so addicted to." He turns to the next page

" 'Normal elves look almost identical to humans except for their long and pointy. Most of them tend to have impressive talent of magic, possess 2 times the amount of mana reserve than humans followed by an enhanced vision, making them ideal archers' "

" 'High Elves are the elves who were blessed by the World Tree, which is located at the center of Elenor, upon birth. They have higher sensitivity to magic than any other race (with the exception of archdemons), an immeasurable amount of mana reserve, followed by an inherent skill: [Eyes of Truth]. Most high elves were born from other high elves, making them nobles amongst the elves' "

He noticed that the description of the [Eye of Truth] is on the top left corner of the page in small texts

" '[Eyes of Truth] has 2 abilities: 1. the ability to let the user see through people's true intentions. 2. grants the user the ability to naturally see spirits without making a contract with one."

" 'Dark Elves are the elves who chose to defect from their own race and join one of the 72 demon lords in pursuit of strength. Once a demon lord grants an elf their blessings, their skin will turn light brown, their once dazzling blond hair will turn pale while, and their eye color will become golden. Once their transformation is complete, their powers will even rival the High Elves.' "

"Hold on a minute, there are 72 demon lords?! I'll have to look into that later"

" 'Dark Elves has 10 times the physical strength of an average demi-human, mage talent and mana reserve that rivals the High Elves, and enhanced vision 5 times stronger than normal elves' "

" 'It is rumored that if a High Elf turns into a Dark Elf, their strength may even rival the demon lords. However, the elves consider consider this a taboo and marks all the Dark Elves as traitors and a disgrace to Elenor' " Saruhiko scoffs at the last part

"Hah, so much for 'taboo'. Whats wrong with pursuing strength? It is only right in this cruel world."

The rest of the book is about Elven history, mostly about why Elves decided to seclude themselves from the rest of the world. Apparently some idiots attempted to cut down the world tree and sell the wood for their own gains

He grabbed [Basics of Water Magic],  [Advanced Water Magic], and [Forbidden Water Magic] out of the book shelf and was  about to read them, but his stomach growled.

"Guess I'll have some lunch then"

Saruhiko brings the three books along with him before exiting the library.

 

On his way to the cafeteria, Estel coincidentally is heading the same direction as him

"Yo, Saru! How did it go?"

" 'Saru'....?"

"Yep! A nickname I came up for you"

"*sigh* call me whatever you want. Her majesty expects me to destroy Oronoris all by myself"

"Pfft! You sure have it hard huh?"

"Yeah, I reckon that place is guarded by at least 100 elves"

"PLEASE! 100?! Most of the elven forces are within the forces defending the World Tree. That place probably won't even have 70 men, much less 100!"

The pair enters the cafeteria and received  a hearty meal of boar steak, freshly baked white bread, and a cup of vintage wine.

Saruhiko took a bite of the boar steak and reluctantly sipped on his wine.

"Do soldiers always eat this well?" He asked

"Of course not, we receive this kind of treatment because we hold a much higher rank than them. Look at what they are eating"

I looked at one of the soldiers. He was eating what's called "powdered meat".

Its a prepackaged ground beef with a little bit of seasoning. All you need is to boil it with hot water to get an instant meal.....though it tastes quite bland.

 

Right before he left, Estel threw a book at him. He caught it with ease

"Her majesty wanted to give you this, along with this message 'every archdemon should have no problem mastering these spells' "

"Thanks....I guess"

 

 

He climbed onto the top of a hill to practice magic

"Lets see my stats now"

 

"I'm not doing too bad. Though my strength and defense need some extra work"

He spent the remaining hours of the day on the training ground, honing his beadwork and magic prowess.

"Hmm, I already got the basics of water magic down. Now all that's left is advanced and taboo water magic"

The [Advanced Water Magic] is mostly about Area of Effect water magic, how to create ice quickly and use them efficiently

When Saruhiko succeeded in casting advanced water magic even once, the skill lever on [Water Magic] went up by leaps and bounds

"Show them the ocean's horrors: Raging Vortex"

A vortex made out of the water molecules from the air began to suck everything in from the surrounding area before exploding into water vapor. If this was used on the battlefield,  it would cause nothing less than an apocalypse 

One of the many benefits of being an archdemon is the ability to comprehend and understand magic better than any other race, even high elves. It is thanks to this that Saruhiko can reduce a 10-verse spell to a mere sentence and get the same results.

He took out a mid-grade mana potion he prepared and drank the whole vial, replenishing his mana reserve to maximum

"Damn, one single spell costed me two-thirds of my mana reserve. Still got to work on that"

If any other mage heard this, they would spit out blood from frustration. Normally, a mage can only cast advanced spells when their magic has reached level 50 or above. If some "foolish" mages even TRIED to cast advanced spells at a low level, they would either run out of magic completely or even die as a result, 2/3 of the mages couldn't even reach level 5o in their lifetime. What Saruhiko achieved here was simply ridiculous 

Here is another benefit of being an archdemon, regardless if they are using a magic spell, sword skill, inherent skill, etc...the mana cost would be cut in half. In addition to the mana reserve surpassing High Elves and Dark Elves, it makes them terrifying opponents on the battlefield.

On the back of the [Advanced Water Magic], it gives a chart of mage hierarchy

 

"Huh, so this is why so many people pursuit the power of magic: to obtain an opportunity, a doorway to divinity"

He clenches his fists and lets it go, generating a pitch black orb. This is the most basic form of abyssal magic: Abyssal Orb.

"Huh, that was easy. Now lets try one of the hard ones-"

 

Half a minute later....

A MASSIVE beam of darkness was launched from the top of the hill, barely missing Lillian's castle by a few miles and erasing everything in its path, finally causing a huge explosion that generated a mushroom cloud.

Lillian stood up from her throne in panic 

"What the hell was that?! Estel! Go assess the situation"

"Right away, your majesty"

Estel got to the top of the hill in mere seconds to see Saruhiko laying on the ground unconscious with his left arm completely blackened

"Shit, what the hell did you do?!"

She carried him back to the castle

 

"Ah ha~ so he tried to use THAT spell!" Lillian said with an amused expression

'Pardon my rudeness, but what did he try to achieve that got himself hurt like this?"

"He managed to pull it off, I'm surprised he's even alive

A dark violet orb materialized on the tip of her violet finger 

*snap*

With a snap of her fingers, Lillian managed to heal Saruhiko's arm

"This boy is truly a blessing to our kingdom. Maids, if you would"

"""Yes, m'am"""

They carried Saruhiko back to his bedroom and tucked him in

As for what spell Saruhiko casted, it is a story for another day.

 

The next day...

Saruhiko jolted awake and gasped for air

"What....what the hell happened?!"

 

"Not bad, not bad at all-"

 

 

 

"Hah, now I like the god of the abyss more now"

"A'ight, wake up four-eyes! It's time for your training!"

he facepalmed

"Why didn't I expect this to happen?"

 

A few minutes later....

"Quite the ruckus you made yesterday"\

"I have no idea what you are talking about"

She points to the mountain nearby that has a hole instead of its mountain top

"You did that yesterday"

he came to a realization

'So that's why...."

 

Flashback...

Flashback ends....

 

"If you don't have any question, I'm going to start your training. Here"

She threw him the katana he used against the knights yesterday, he caught it with ease

"Don't expect me to go easy on you, got that?"