Chapter 46 - King of the Lake

After becoming a Tier 2 Mage through using the pearl Ava found the days passing by quickly as the boat gently went down the channel.

Now that her soul has reached the standard of a Tier 2 Mage, she could begin absorbing and building up the Water Qi in her body refining it to a Tier 2 standard.

Althaea had also began teaching her Tier 2 spells as she had used her time on the ship to cement her foundation in becoming a true Tier 2 Mage.

Fortunately spells using Water elemental Qi of a Tier 2 was not destructive making it simple to practice even on the ship.

It turns out the ship has measures to guard against Mages, with there being means to sense the build up of a high amount of Elemental Qi signifying a spell is being cast, however because her spell usage was gentle and was primarily support spells it did not offset the ships defences allowing her to practice in peace.

And like that months went by very quickly with the trip up to this point being smooth and calm.

She had spent this time training everyday, using the time on the ship to continue her practice as a Mage and even running through the Longleaf sword style with her Father in the practice rooms.

They would eat meals cooked by Bao daily, although the quality was inconsistent determined by the ingredients Bao could get ahold of, the food all shares the qualities of something prepared by a Spirit Chef, with it being beneficial for training and nourishing the body.

It proved useful in speeding up her development in all areas, making her realise how advantageous it would be to grow up within an environment where you would eat such meals daily.

Her foundation for beginning her training as a warrior was almost complete to the point where her Father was prepared to begin teaching her a Battle Qi method soon, it was always important to build up a suitable standard for your bodily strength before starting the steps of warrior cultivation, yet Arwen informed him to wait as he would be able to provide a top class method that would allow her to reach the peak of the first realm with hope of becoming a Monarch as a Warrior.

Though it was clear by now they assumed her focus would be as a Mage, since she already shown good talent in Warrior training they saw no reason for her to stop and that it would be a good idea to continue investing some time into it.

A Mages greatest weakness was their physique and having insufficient time to build up their spells, if you give a Mage time they could reek untold destruction on a level far beyond what a Warrior could do, yet even still there have been plenty of moments in history where a Warrior claimed the lives of Mages with far stronger battle potential than them.

Therefore it was no harm in continuing her training as a Warrior as long as it didn't distract her too much, after all it was better to be an expert in one aspect than mediocre in two.

With that being said her mastery over the Longleaf Style had improved with her Father as a teacher, although she enjoyed learning under Hoatan she could tell Xandas was another level when it came to swordsmanship and he was a good teacher too.

She suddenly turned glum thinking about Hoatan, she wondered if he was still alive.

Unlike her Mother she did not see what happened to him in the end, though she was not sure if ending up alive but in the humans or Royal Clans hands would be better than death at this point.

She still held the hope she can save him, but knowing how the Royal Clan treats their kind she was not sure what condition he would even be left in by the time she grew strong enough to even try.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a sweet victorious sounding laugh as Althaea was once again retrieving another serving of food from Bao.

Originally the costs of their entry only covers one serving, but Althaea seemed to have the chef wrapped around her fingers as she flattered his food to no end earning the right to have extra portions much to the sailors protest.

Some sailors tried the same tactics complimenting Bao to no end, yet when Althaea's words made Bao's eyes flutter with hearts the sailors only made him briefly acknowledge them before providing a small portion.

Anyways it didn't matter much to her since Althaea's flattery brought about her receiving a good sized portion too.

The sailors were shocked when a little girl her size could eat that much with even Ava wondering why her appetite seemed to be growing larger recently, in fact she noticed her physical changes seemed to have been sped up since she entered the ship with her lower set of fangs growing out faster than she expected.

Inspecting the new gleaming set of fangs, she found them similar to the upper-most ones, they were extremely sharp and made tearing into meat even easier.

Thinking about the extra set of fangs, she found it strange all of the other elves she mad met did it seem to have them, but Ava thought it was something she would look into when she arrived at the academy.

After all there was suppose to be a library with all sorts of books there from what she had heard.

She was also able to 'learn' about the human language on the boat, also known as common. It was useful to her despite it being eerily similar to her previous worlds, except in some parts the pronunciations differed and there were some words with different meanings, with mixtures of Latin and English words as if whomever developed the language seemed to muddle the different languages together.

It was strange and made her think did her old world somehow had an influence on the culture here, or was it the other way around? Could be there such coincidences?

Finding her head beginning to hurt from trying to fill in the gaps about things she did not understand, she decided to move on.

At least she now learned four Tier 2 spells making her able to officially call herself a Tier 2 Mage now.

The spells Althaea taught her was, 'Detect Water', 'Water Armour', 'Purify' and 'Dry'

Ava found the spells were fairly weak though to be expected since she was still only Tier 2 which was classed as still an apprenticed Mage.

'Detect Water' is self explanatory and allows he to sense nearby water sources which at the moment was incredibly useless since she was surrounded by it, however she could see it becoming valuable in another environment.

'Water Armour' was a defensive spell, that formed a cushioned barrier of protective water coating around her body. The Water Qi would be dense and offer a means of protecting herself from physical and magical attacks, though it was fairly weak at this level but would grow stronger the more powerful as a Mage she becomes.

'Purify' would allow her to purify a water source by removing all impurities within, it would become more draining towards her reserves depending on the size of the water source she was purifying itself.

And finally 'Dry' sucked all the moisture out of an object by moving it somewhere else. Upon hearing the description of the spell she realised the potential lethality of it but quickly realised its downsides. Every person has some form of magical resistance, it works fine on an inanimate object but trying on another person would require an expenditure that she could not provide at this moment. Not that she has made an attempt but Cense explained to her the costs of the spell once she posed him that question.

Discarding these thoughts she realised it had been a least a few months since they had left Adruil. They should now almost be arriving at Kaldor, thinking it was good she was finally close to some land.

The time spent on the boat provided her the break she needed since that hectic fleeing from the elves lands but now she grew frustrated at being cooped up on the ship.

She wanted something exciting to happen, however as if fate wanted her to eat her words she heard a loud rumbling and sound of noise as the sailors raised a commotion.

She heard an explanation of a sailor as someone screamed, "What is happening! That damn Beast is here, how is that thing able to get so near without us being notified!"

And that was when she realised her quiet times were about to end.

The magical beast known as the King of the Lake has beset them and it wanted blood.