"We're going to be fighting a horde of F-class monsters. They're about as strong as us so fighting a lot of them all at one time is going to push the newborns to their limits and help them improve more. This training method was taught to us by your grandparent, Gorgon." Simoy explained.
"The battle maniac? He scares me so I never really showed myself to him." Lawod didn’t look very pleased when he heard the name Gorgon. Clailip wondered why that was, his grandfather was an absolute sweetheart, he couldn't imagine anyone hating him.
'Battle maniac? He’s super sweet though… He was the one that taught me to never fight unless needed so I can't imagine him liking fighting at all.' He thought.
"Yes, that Gorgon. He was terrifying indeed. Anyway, the point is that by pushing the newborns to their absolute limit, they'll grow stronger faster. This is the most efficient way to train them. We only have one year 'till your grandparents get back. By then we should at least be strong enough to follow them into human societies." Simoy finished up his explanation and gestured for the tiny boy to follow him and Lawod.
Clailip got up from his comfortable sitting position and started walking with them. While walking, he kept practicing his magic. He was finally getting good at basic spell casting, and Lawod told the boy earlier that he just needed a bit more practice to be able to use basic offensive and defensive spells. This was an absolute win for Clailip.
'Though, I do wish that they'd teach me about magic circles already. I want to do what Granny Lucia does, just holding up those pieces of cloth and making the scary monsters explode into a bajillion pieces was always super cool to watch.' Clailip imagined himself making bombs and making random things explode, from small pebbles to gigantic dragons, no one was safe from this boy's imaginative mind.
'Lady Diana most likely doesn't approve of that, though. Pacifism and meaningful violence has always been her main teaching… but it's so cool.' Clailip knew that his core attributes wouldn't allow for any explosions. He'd either have to learn how to use attributes that would allow it, or be very creative with his current attributes.
'Pressure and stuff should work… but I'm not really sure…'
Lawod threw a small ball of water at Clailip, quickly snapping him out of his thinking.
"Hey! Now I'm all wet!" He whined, the clothing he was wearing were all that he owned at the moment, everything else he did have were burnt down and disposed of by the intruders a week or two ago.
"We kept trying to talk to you, but you wouldn't answer so I had Lawod snap you out of your thoughts."
"You could've just smacked me with your wind like you always do!" He took off his soaked brown shirt and put it to the side. He kept his shorts on, though, as he didn't want to fight completely naked. It wasn't like he had any underwear on, the last time he changed clothing he forgot to wear a pair.
His body was still wet and so were his shorts, though it was the middle of summer, he could feel the cold gnawing at him with each Gust of wind that hit his body. This was all because the northern part of the Eastern Isles suddenly became a basin for corrupted ice-attribute mana. Clailip knew this as the spirits had mentioned it to him during one of his training sessions, they complained about the cold too, seemingly able to feel the sudden spike of ice-attribute mana in the environment.
'How can corrupted mana even get here anyway. Mama always told me the lands under the Floating Isles were the only place corrupted mana could survive, the Isles' guardians automatically purifies the corrupted mana that manages to get here. Gosh, the intricacies of mana is very hard to understand.' Clailip cursed the humans, if they didn't attack then he would have started formal schooling and get to understand magic and this world's science way better.
"We're here." Simoy announced.
"I don't see any monsters though?" Clailip tried looking for any signs of monsters, animals, or the like. But the only thing he could see was a clearing of flowers.
It was a magnificent sight though, the sun shone down directly on the clearing's mint-green grass, the colorful lavender flowers that populated the clearing grew in patches. It would be a lovely place to have a picnic in, as the flowers secreted a powerful, yet relaxingly pleasant, floral smell that is similar to freshly bloomed jasmines and mango flower tea. Clailip wanted to go on over and pick one, he loved flowers and liked making crowns out of them, he wasn't very good at it despite having practiced it a lot in his past life, but he just wasn't gifted with hands dexterous enough in her past life.
"They're everywhere you know." Lawod pointed at the patches of flowers that grew irregularly around the clearing.
"So, the flowers are the monsters?" Clailip asked, it would make sense, the flowers are way too perfect.
"Yes, and no. The flowers are a lure. Under those flowers are mud golems. Try casting an offensive spell and aim it just above the flowers." Lawod instructed the small boy. Clailip scrunched up his face and was about to object, but the expectant look in Lawod's eyes made him give in.
'It's not like I'd have anything to lose anyway.' Clailip didn't think for a second that he'd be able to cast offensive magic yet, so he did as he was told reluctantly.
He focused his mana and let it flow into his hands before finally compressing a good amount of it on his palm, he carefully aimed just above the flowers. He looked at Lawod to see if he was aiming in the right direction, when the water spirit nodded, he focused back on casting his spells.
"Droplets of hope bead at my palm, Dew." Clailip recited the incantation for the basic water spell, Dew. As a sizable water droplet formed in his hand, he then started giving the spell instructions on what to do. Things like, 'Form a bullet' and 'Be pointed'.
"Fly, fly away, Gust." He recited, this time it was for the basic wind spell, Gust. He mixed the wind-attribute mana with the Dew spell, and it started to turn into ice. After concentrating for a moment and confirming that everything was in place, he gave the ice bullet the command to 'shoot'.
And shoot it did, it pierced through the air cleanly and without losing momentum, creating a whistling sound.
Clailip watched the flying ice bullet, his face of reluctance turned into one full of excitement. He was about to jump up in happiness, thinking that he was finally able to cast offensive magic. But, his face of excitement quickly, the ice bullet turned back into water as it passed by a patch of lavender flowers
"Oh…" Clailip sighed heavily, very disappointed with the results of his spell casting. He looked at Simoy and Lawod who seemed to be proud of him.
"You did a great job, Clailip. You successfully managed to cast an offensive spell." Simoy patted his downcast head, messing up his wet brown hair.
"But it dissipated." He said, dejection in his voice.
"No, the mana was just eaten by the flowers. The mud golems eat mana and the nutrients in the soil, and their flowers serve as both a lure and as their mouths. The lure is used to attract animals, when the flowers are touched, they will emerge and drag any animal back into the ground, where they will serve as nutrients for the soil." Lawod corrected me.
Clailip's expression brightened, he beamed as the realization set in. He was finally able to use basic spells!
Simoy lifted him up in the air with a powerful updraft. He gestured for the excited boy to calm down and stop, the newborns were finally ready to brawl with the mud golems. Clailip was also interested in how exactly the newborn spirits would fight, so he calmed himself down and directed his attention to the spirits while mid-air.
'I wish I had my shirt on. It was cold and my shorts are still very damp, I'm gonna make Simoy dry them out later.' He thought as he relished the sensation of the wind whirling all around him, while shivering from the unnatural coolness of the summer air.
Clailip looked closer and saw that the newborns were already equipped with their weapons.
The water spirit formed an axe with their left hand.
The wind spirit formed two blades with both their hands.
The ice spirit formed… Well, there was no weapon to be found. But they were letting off a really thick mist that almost looked like clouds.
"Can I practice my magic while I watch?" Clailip asked the two spirits beside him and they nodded. He was planning to imitate how they fought using dolls made up of elemental mana, both to train his magic and to use it as a future reference for his own fighting style.
The water spirit took the liberty of stepping onto the flowers first, the ground shook and below them, a mud golem rose. It had massive arms and body, though, it looked like a kindergarten child's failure of a clay sculpture due to its disproportionately small head. The area where a humanoid's heart was supposed to be was a black crystal that I assumed was some sort of vital for golems.
'Maybe it's a core of sorts? Golems in video games have cores right?' Clailip hummed as he practiced my mana control.
He was currently using Dew, and formed it into a crude shape of the water spirit's form. He was not skilled enough to make it detailed yet so he settled for this. He imitated the spirit's movements with the water.
It was hard, but he could feel his mana becoming easier to control as he did this. The crude shapes slowly were being refined and adjust by Clailip as he found it easier to manipulate the magic.
The water spirit was standing on the head of the golem, it jumped and let the weight of their axe guide their body. This, in turn, led to her flipping mid-air and dodging a slow attack that the mud golem was going to throw at them. They ended up chopping off the mud golem's arm. Which instantaneously regenerated.
Seeing this, the water spirit looked shaken, they most likely didn't know how to deal with golems yet.
The water spirit backed away and assessed the situation, she unknowingly stepped on a mud golem's flower and spawned another one. This prompted the wind spirit to join the fight too.
The wind spirit dashed at the newly spawned golem and tried aiming for the head. The spirit succeeded, but, unfortunately, it grew back. This shook the spirits even more and they looked toward Lawod and Simoy.
The two spirits looked to be in distress, it seems that they tried communicating with Lawod and Simoy, but they didn't get an answer that would help them with the fight.
By now Clailip was using both Dew and Gust, he kept them separate, so as to not accidentally make a crude doll of ice. He tried his best to make them mimic the spirits' actions but controlling the two is a very hard task. But I can still manage, though, if the ice spirit were to join the fight he probably wouldn't be able to handle it.
After almost two hours of trying to figure it out, they finally managed to find the weak spot of the golems. It seems that the black crystal on their chests were just distractions and their true cores were hidden in their stomachs.
The two spirits let out cries of triumph, I don't exactly know how they managed to not step on any more mud golem flowers, but they finished the fight without spawning any more. It's probably related to elementals' natural ability to see mana.
The ice spirit, learning from the others' fight, stepped in. It seemed that they wanted to fight alone. The other two stepped back and the ice spirit ran and jumped on three mud golem flowers at once.
Clailip quickly made a crude doll of ice and started copying the ice spirit's movement using it. He even copied the mist by changing the wind:water ratio of his ice magic. Lawod stole a few looks here and there, inspecting Clailip's odd use of magic.
Clailip put his full focus on the ice spirit's fight against three golems. He copied ithe spirit's swift movements as it ducked, jumped, and slid on the ground to dodge the three golem's attacks.
To his surprise, the mist was actually the spirit's weapon. It condensed and hardened into translucent spears that poked at and hurt the golems. Their cores were hard enough that they weren't being destroyed in one hit, well, that, or the ice spirit just wasn't strong enough to break them in one hit.
Frustrated, the ice spirit materialized its mist into a hammer and struck at one of the golems in the area where a mud golem's core should be. It was a direct hit, killing the mud golem as the core shattered inside of it.
But the ice spirit focused purely on offense and forgot their defense, as a result, they too, were directly hit by an attack. They flew through the air and crashed into a tree, their body wavered and they let out an inhuman sound of pain.
The other two spirits were enraged at the mud golems, they wanted to avenge their dear friend. So they quickly jumped into battle, unknowingly stepping on mud golem flowers and spawning around six more. They were completely surrounded.
'I'm getting very good at this.' As Clailip got better at controlling the dolls, he was also optimizing how he used his mana. Maybe it was due to this that he now found it easy to conjure up the dolls and change their attributes. Controlling them was still difficult, though, as the dolls he was controlling all had janky movements reminiscent of amateur puppet plays.
The two spirits seemed to calm down, though, and stopped hacking away at the golems, they quietly observed their enemy, predicting the simple attacks of the mud golems. Though they were outnumbered, they had the advantage of higher intelligence.
It took a while but the ice spirit seemed to have recovered and joined the fight, this time they were careful and kept their cool. The ice spirit formed the mist around them into blunt tentacles that shot at the golems, creating small craters in their stomachs that would expose their core. The wind and water spirits would then attack after seeing this opening.
Clailip was now controlling three dolls, it was extremely hard at first, but he soon got the hang of it. He wasn't sure why this was the case, he's always had problems with magic so just having this feeling of ease while handling it was very foreign to him. All he knew was that he was optimizing and handling his mana, taking it to its limits to better accommodate the three dolls he was puppeteers. Then after a small bit of doing this, everything suddenly got easier, like something inside him clicked and he was finally able to use his magic easily.
'Maybe my slow progress is due to me focusing too much on optimization?' He asked himself. He was the type of person that focused on his method and not his progress.
He set the thought aside as he watched the water spirit deal the finishing blow. He stopped copying their movements and loudly cheered for them.
"Ah, good job everyone!" He yelled from the other side of the clearing, jumped up and down to get their attention, it seemed that they noticed me as they started waving back at me. They were proud of themselves I think.
Clailip happily hummed as he watched the spirits run towards them. He watched as he saw them getting ever closer.
'Oh no, wait, they're running specifically toward me.' It didn't process in his head until later that he was going to be stampeded.
When it did sink in, he was already too late. When he was about to turn and run away, he was caught in the tight embraces of the spirits. It was surprisingly comfortable, Clailip wasn't wet or cold, he felt as if he was just hugging oddly shaped pillows. They then started telling Clailip how good they've gotten and how much grateful they are to him for providing them with mana, a body, and power. After that, they proceeded to thank Simoy and Lawod for training them and teaching them how to fight.
They didn't realize that they taught themselves how to fight, and that Simoy and Lawod just taught them the very basics. Both of them weren't spirits that normally fought after all.
The three settled down after a while, the ice spirit refused to let Clailip go so he just sat on his lap, apparently the creepy feeling he was getting from the spirit was misdirected, the other two were the extreme ones.
'If sitting on their lap would save me from the other two trying to fight over me. I'd gladly just sit on their lap.'
The reason for this is because the other two spirits were what you would call Clailip Fanatics.
The wind spirit, who he just found out was a male whose name was Aery, saw him as a god. Which would explain his priest-like clothing.
The water spirit, who was a female that called herself Alon, took every word Clailip spoke as a command and always insisted that he order her to do something. Though that was the extent of it, Clailip found her persistence very annoying.
If he were going to be left alone with one, he would be most comfortable with the ice spirit, who was a male named Glacies. He just acted a lot like Clailip's older brother, Rungan, just a lot more affectionate, so Clailip wasn't really bothered by his actions. Though Glacies was weird too, as he would only really talk to Clailio. Apparently, the other four spirits kept trying to talk to him but he'd either not reply, or give single word answers. He would only become somewhat approachable when Clailip was around.
Clailip would really rather have that than have a woman who kept pestering him for chores or a man who would say 'Praise the lord Clailip' each breath he would take.
'Spirits are way too loyal.' He concluded. He didn't want to use his spirit manipulation to give mana to elementals anymore. He doesn't want to accidentally 'make' a spirit way worse than these three.
And so the day went on, the snake and carabao that Clailip somehow tamed yesterday were both waiting for him back at the village, or what remains of it. He briefly contemplated making them his pets before they settled down for their dinner.
