Chapter 95

[Third Person's PoV] 

Thalia looked around, growing confused by the surroundings. "Wait, where are we?"

"Secret underground hideout I built to keep away from prying eyes," Lucian calmly explained.

Thalia gave Lucian a suspicious glance. "Wow, and you brought me here because…"

Lucian rolled his eyes, hearing her teasing tone of voice. "Oh, shut up. People were coming, and there would have been a lot of explaining as to why you were crying over my shoulder."

Thalia grew red with embarrassment. "Please forget about it. Let's pretend that never happened."

Lucian shrugged. "Sorry, I don't think I can. After all, it did lead up to a good kiss," he teased, causing Thalia to grow even redder.

Thalia reached for the door, unable to take the embarrassment much longer. But as she did, Lucian stopped her. "Before you leave, please fix your makeup. I don't want people thinking I did something to you."

Thalia nodded as she opened the door and headed towards the bathroom to fix herself up.

Meanwhile, Lucian stood on his own in his chamber. 'I should get started on the Treasure Seeker potion now that I've fully digested the Artisan one.'

Alone, Lucian began examining the notes he had on the next potion. "Here we go. It looks like I'll need 1,000 Golden Drachmas and the Essence of a Treasure-Hunting Mouse."

He sighed, looking at the main ingredients. "I did some research, and it looks like I need to travel all the way to Russia to get it. Talk about a pain in the ass. The treasure-hunting mouse is a thing from Slavic Mythology."

"The supplementary items are rather easier to receive… I need 5 pounds of Griffin feathers, Manticore Venom essence, Satyr hoof powder."

Lucian looked at the last one with a bit of a weird look. "I already know Grover is going to look at me weirdly when I ask him for some."

After checking for everything he needed, Lucian exited his cabin. Since Lucian didn't want to leave for Russia just yet, he decided to get some training in and then leave after a couple of days.

As Lucian made his way back towards the training facility, he found Artemis with her girls in the archery section. He gave a head bow towards Artemis as he saw her and said, "Ah, Lady Artemis, you're still here."

Artemis nodded towards Lucian. "Yes. We decided to stay and rest for a few days before going back hunting. The girls just decided to put in a bit of training. We're just trying to figure out how some of these objects work," she explained while pointing out towards what appeared to be a projector.

"Ah, that's something I built. Here, let's do a little show and tell," Lucian said as he walked up to the projector and hit the on button. To the side of the on button, there were controls with names such as speed and another one that said difficulty.

"It's enchanted and filled with some of the powers of The Mist, which would be able to create illusions of monsters that act like targets."

As the difficulty was only set to easy, there were just some of the easy types of monsters to hit. As Lucian turned the small dial, increasing the difficulty, different kinds of monsters appeared like Griffins, storm spirits, and monsters that Lucian had fought before.

Lucian then moved the speed dial, increasing how fast the monsters moved, making them almost impossible to see.

"This way, people can train to hit moving high-speed targets, which I think are better practice partners than a standing target," Lucian continued to explain.

Artemis listened with a hand on her chin. "This is actually pretty impressive," she genuinely praised.

Lucian turned his hand to the side, causing his ring to change shape and turn into a black and purple bow.

He conjured black fire from his hands, which quickly morphed into an arrow. Drawing back using the bow, he took aim towards one of the fast-flying Griffins.

Lucian then did something that surprised the others. He closed his eyes and continued following the illusion of the Griffin.

He moved his bow ahead a bit before releasing the arrow, which sailed through the air. As it hit the Griffin, it exploded into a purple mist. In the middle of the mist, a +3 appeared before it vanished. The mist flew its way back towards the projector and got sucked back in before forming another monster.

Zoe, who was close to Artemis, let out a scoff. "Show off."

Some of the girls were genuinely impressed, while Artemis was impressed by something else entirely. "Your hands…" she muttered.

Zoe looked at Artemis in confusion. "What do you mean, my lady?"

"Can you take aim once more?" Artemis asked Lucian, showing Zoe what she meant instead of telling her.

Lucian shrugged and did as he was told. He conjured a fire arrow, took aim, and stayed in that position.

As Zoe examined his hands, she realized what Artemis was talking about. "They aren't moving… like at all. They're perfectly still."

Artemis nodded in confirmation. "Yes, which is something really rare and a quality only some of the world's best archers possess." She turned to Lucian. "How did you do it? How did you train your hands to remain so steady?"

"It's due to my crafting," Lucian explained. "Just like how you need steady hands to fire a perfect shot, you need really steady hands when crafting and blacksmithing, so my many years of that have helped in my development."

Artemis nodded in understanding, and seeing this, Zoe looked at Lucian with narrowed eyes. "I want to challenge you. Let's face off against each other and see who can obtain the best score."

Lucian smirked. "Are you sure you want to do that? If you lose, then you would be shaming Lady Artemis, as you're basically her right-hand woman."

Zoe scoffed. "I'm not planning on losing, so I have nothing to worry about."

Lucian smiled as he retorted, "That's the thing about losing. No one ever plans their loss. They're called losers simply because they're not the winners."

Zoe narrowed her eyes towards Lucian aggressively. "I will enjoy thoroughly beating you."

Lucian pulled the bottom of his eye and stuck out his tongue. "To do that, you need to actually be better than me, which unfortunately you're not."

Zoe gritted her teeth and continued to glare at Lucian.

"Do you want to use the practice bows and arrows or go with our original weapons? I don't want you to later complain that I had an advantage," Lucian slyly grinned.

"Our own weapons. Only a bad archer would blame their equipment," Zoe replied confidently.

Lucian then nodded his head and turned towards Artemis. "Lady Artemis, I hope you can be the judge of our competition."

Zoe once again scoffed. "That is something beneath her Lady to do–"

Before Zoe could continue, Artemis interrupted by raising a hand, stopping her. "I don't mind. It's just a small competition between the two of you."

Artemis then turned towards Lucian and smiled. "I actually want to see how much you have improved since we last met and taught you."

Lucian performed a gentlemanly bow. "I shan't disappoint, my lady."

Zoe looked at Lucian in disgust, while Artemis smiled and shook her head at his antics.

"So, who will go first?" Zoe asked.

"You know what they say, ladies first after all," Lucian said teasingly.

"My dislike for you grows like no other," Zoe plainly said.

Lucian smirked. "That's good. I wasn't planning on making you like me to begin with."

Zoe ignored Lucian and made her way towards the center stage of the arena, nodding towards Artemis.

"You have 10 minutes to acquire as many points as you can. Are you ready?" Artemis asked, turning off the projector. She then cranked up the difficulty to the max.

When Zoe grabbed an arrow, put it on her bow, and nodded, Artemis nodded right back.

"And go!" she said as she hit the on button once more.