The courtyard of Ironhold was quiet now. Everyone from the Knight Academy had packed up and left Ironhold, except for Alaric.
Alaric remembered his roommates bidding him goodbye.
"You survived a demon, and now you're staying at the Duke's private estate?" Jarik had said, shaking his head with a grin. "You even have the Duke's attention now, Alaric."
Alaric wasn't the only one left behind.
Lucia was here as well. The Church had sent urgent messengers demanding her immediate return to the Holy City for her official coronation as the Saintess. They wanted to parade her in front of the masses.
Duke Thorne had sent the messengers back with a simple, terrifying message: “She is traumatized. If you want her, come and take her from my fortress.”
The Church, wisely, decided to wait.
Alaric wiped sweat from his forehead, standing in the center of the elite training grounds.
For the past two weeks, he had been getting beaten into the dirt. Not by magic power, but by the reality of warfare.
Through the sweat and bruises, he learned the realities of power and the limitations of humanity. He also learned the specific structure of the kingdom's military.
First, the Royal Army. They were the massive, standard military force. They manned the borders, fought huge field battles, and handled law enforcement. They served the country as a singular, massive force.
Second, were the Knight Orders.
These were not soldiers; they were elite human weapons. Their numbers were small, but their purpose was specific: to protect humanity. They guarded high nobles and hunted threats that adventurers couldn't handle, demon invasions, high ranked monsters, and magical anomalies. It wasn't that they wouldn't fight in wars, if it came to protecting their mother land or if ordered, they would. But it wasn't their primary focus.
There were four official Knight Orders in the Kingdom:
- The Templars (Holy Knights): Under the Church of Elyss.
- The Royal Knight Order: Directly under the Throne.
- The Thorne Knight Order: The Shield of the South.
- The Larethin Knight Order: The Shield of the North.
In terms of raw combat strength, the hierarchy was generally accepted as:
Royal Order = Thorne Order > Larethin Order > Holy Knights.
There were knights who privately worked under noble houses, but these groups weren't large enough to be considered "Orders." Crucially, Alaric learned that all knights, even the private ones were trained and certified under the Royal Knight Order before entering service.
Alaric watched the knights running drills in perfect synchronization.
In terms of mana, Alaric analyzed, I am probably stronger than all of them individually.
But mana wasn't everything. What made the knights different was their experience, their group work, and their weapons.
The weapons here were best of the best, enchanted with various magic. Duke Thorne’s armor, for example, was built with Sky Dragon Scales. It had high magic resistance and a Light Magic barrier imbued into it. That was why someone like the Demon General couldn't instantly harm him.
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If I fought a knight without gear, I would win, Alaric thought. But if they are fully armored and I am not...
"Again!"
Alaric snapped back to reality. He was sparring with a veteran knight. Alaric wasn't using his sword. He was learning the command structure, to move with a unit, and to read the flow of a team fight.
Up on the balcony overlooking the training yard, two figures watched.
Duke Thorne stood with his arms crossed. Beside him was a man with a shaved head—Vice Commander Selzer of the Thorne Order.
"The boy," Selzer muttered, watching Alaric weave three different spells together in a split second. "He uses various magics and compounds them with the precision of a veteran Sage."
"He is talented," Thorne agreed, a hint of pride in his voice. "We just need to temper him."
In the evenings, when his muscles screamed for rest, Alaric retreated to the Duke’s private library which he got access to.
It was a treasure trove of knowledge that commoners would kill for.
Alaric sat at a heavy wooden desk, an ancient tome open before him.
He had found it. An Ascendant Level spell.
"Tempest."
It was a Wind Magic spell. Unlike the tactical spells Alaric usually used, this was a strategic weapon. It created a self-sustaining cyclone capable of washing away an entire city.
The problem was the complexity. The spell itself was long, long enough that it officially took almost 20 minutes of chanting and consumed 15% of his massive mana reserve.
I need to visualize it, Alaric thought, closing his eyes.
He closed his eyes. He wasn't memorizing the words; he was trying to visualize how the mana moved and was manipulated during the chant. If he could understand the structure of the spell ,the compression of air, the rotation, then he could bypass the chant.
He ran the simulation over and over. His goal was to cast "Tempest" in under one minute.
If I master the visualization, I could probably cast it in under a minute without chanting everything.
He had also found an Ascendant Level spell for Earth Magic, but he closed the book on that one.
One thing at a time. Master the Wind first.
The next afternoon, the training session was brutal. Vice Commander Selzer had run Alaric through endurance drills until his lungs felt like they were burning.
Alaric collapsed onto the grass of the training field, gasping for air. He stared up at the blue sky, his limbs heavy as lead.
"Water," he croaked to no one in particular.
He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, a shadow was looming over him.
He looked up.
Lucia was standing there. She was bending forward at the waist, bowing slightly to look at his face. Her silver hair hung down, framing her face against the sunlight.
From Alaric’s position on the ground, looking up at her bending over him... the angle was quite favorable.
Alaric, trying to flirt through his exhaustion, grinned weakly.
"That's certainly a beautiful view, Saintess."
Lucia froze.
Her face turned a brilliant shade of crimson. She shot upright, straightening her dress frantically, stumbling back a step.
"A-Alaric!" she squeaked, covering her mouth. "You... shameless!"
"Just admiring the scenery," Alaric chuckled, though it hurt his ribs.
"And stop calling me Saintess!" she complained, pouting. "Call me Lucia."
She looked around. The knights were busy on the other side of the field.
She sat down beside him. She was wearing a lovely pale yellow dress, costing more than Alaric’s life savings, but she sat right on the dirt and grass without a second thought.
"Here," she said softly.
She handed him a towel.
"Thanks," Alaric said, taking it to wipe the sweat from his body.
They sat there in silence, watching the clouds drift over the fortress walls. It was a quiet, peaceful moment in a world that was rapidly becoming dangerous. For now, the training and the politics faded away, leaving just two people enjoying the afternoon sun.
"You're getting stronger," Lucia whispered.
"I have to," Alaric replied, looking at his hands. "So I can keep my promise."
Lucia smiled, a genuine, lovely thing that made the harsh training worth it.
"I know you will."