Blood Elf Monarch

In the morning, Tristan brought the dark elf princess Illiana and the purple-haired magician Herrera to follow him.

Before he went to rest the previous night, he had asked Tobias for a place where he could practice without breaking the palace's property or causing any casualties. Without asking too much, the old wizard led him to a place.

Tristan led the two through the secret passage following the path that Tobias previously showed him. After about two minutes of going down and a few turns, they finally arrived in front of a large underground area.

Tristan was surprised when he saw Tobias at the side of the entrance. Although he did expect that someone would be here to explain to him about the place, he did not expect that Tobias would personally come.

"My king, I have arranged everything as you ordered," Tobias briefly reported. As Tristan already told him that he was going to use the underground practice area the previous night, Tobias made sure to inform the elder magi about it so they would not disturb Tristan's practice. The elder magi were a bit surprised by the sudden notice, but none of them made trouble.

The underground practice area was about the same size as the grand hall above, only shorter in ceiling height. Neatly scattered in the room, they could see several floating orbs illuminating their surroundings. Although the room was plain with gray walls surrounding it, the two women still looked around curiously, one more discreet than the other. In the end, Herrera could not contain her curiosity.

"My lord, this place is…?" Herrera turned to look at Tristan and asked. Meanwhile, even though Illiana did not say anything, she also turned to look at Tristan.

"Practice room for elder magi," Tristan briefly answered while looking around. There were a lot of training facilities in the area, from magic training dummies used to practice their accuracy to various materials used to check the destructiveness of their spells. Tobias briefly explained the functions of the facilities. When the old wizard saw that Tristan had understood, he excused himself and left.

Not paying any attention to the leaving Tobias, Tristan turned to look at the row of plates made of various different materials. Among them were also plates of tier 2 black steel and tier 3 mithril.

'These will be a good place to practice indeed.'

First, Tristan looked at the spells that he had mastered.

[Heat Touch - Tier 1]

[Heat Detection - Tier 1]

[Fire Aura - Tier 2]

[Fire Ball - Tier 3]

[Firewall - Tier 4]

Looking at his list of spells, Tristan could not help but let out a sigh. Tristan was reminded of the lieutenant of the space knights. Even though the man only had the rank of a lieutenant, he knew and had mastered [Hellfire]. The opponent had numerous tier 5 and 6 spells, yet he had only mastered tier 4 spells. If he wanted to have a chance of winning against them, he also had to learn stronger spells.

For this, Tristan took out a box. Inside there was a complete collection of the dark elves' fire spells given by his new father-in-law, the dark elf king, as part of the wedding dowry.

"My father likes you that much," Illiana remarked when she saw the contents of the box. Those scrolls did not just contain ordinary spells; they were rare spell scrolls that only the dark elves, the master of fire spells, knew.

Hererra could not help take a peek at the box. When she saw the contents of the box, she became ecstatic. Meanwhile, Tristan started browsing the scrolls and took one of the lower-tier scrolls first.  Tier 3 should be low enough to start his training.

[Ignite], a tier 3 fire spell. Following the scroll's guidance, Tristan poured energy into his spirit core and channeled it into his hands. After a while, he could feel burning heat gathering on his palms. At the same time, the marking on the scroll dissipated, signifying that Tristan had successfully learned the tier 3 spell.

"Wow, my lord, you learn so fast!"

Hererra was there when he learned his first few spells, and she still clearly remembered how it took him an hour before he could master the tier 3 [Fireball] at that time. This showed that his proficiency in fire elements had improved.

To test out the spell, Tristan touched one of the arranged plates in front of him. As soon as he used the spell, the scorching fire instantly bent the tier 2 black steel backward.

Herrera, who had been silently watching Tristan since he took out the scroll, let out a gasp when she saw him bend the tier 2 black steel plate.

Herrera's eyes widened. It was just a tier 3 spell, yet Tristan could make it bend a tier 2 material so quickly. The black steel bent so much in less than two seconds! If someone else told her this was a tier 3 spell, she would have thought they were taking her for a fool.

Her eyes sparkled.

On the other hand, even though Illiana was also slightly impressed, she was much calmer. After all, she was a dark elf. A tier 3 fire spell was not really much in her eyes.

Tristan turned to look at the bent plate again. '[Ignite]… From the looks of it, it's somewhat similar to [Heat Touch]. But unlike [Heat Touch], [Ignite] doesn't just emit heat; fire ignites upon contact with another object.'

With its faster and bigger combustion, it was practically an upgraded [Heat Touch].

'Not bad.'

Next, he took another scroll from the box; a higher-tier one.

[Fire Wave], a tier 4 fire spell.

Having a rough image of what the spell would look like, Tristan took several steps back. Like before, Tristan followed the steps given by the scroll and gathered his energy in his spirit core before channeling it into his hands. 

It took him a few minutes before he could feel an explosion of fire coming out of his two palms. The explosion turned into a huge wave of fire that rushed toward the row of plates.

The area of the wave was quite wide. As soon as the wave of fire hit the plates, most of them quickly melted while the rest bent with their edges slightly melting.

Tristan was very satisfied with this spell. Not only did it have a great amount of destructive power, but it also covered a wide area, making it extremely lethal against crowded enemies like an army. With this Tristan could use [Firewall] to defend and [Fire Wave] to attack.

With a satisfied smile on his face, he began to browse and read more of the spells.