Blood Elf Monarch

"This is…" Tristan's eyes lit up when he saw the scroll. The spell on the scroll was [Pyro Blast], a tier 5 fire spell.

'A tier 5 spell! Herrera, who had been closely observing Tristan since the beginning, almost rushed there from her excitement.

Seeing Tristan's satisfied expression well as Herrera's excitement, Illiana had a proud look on her face.

Tristan did not wait any longer. With the scroll in his hand, he began learning the skill. 

He initially thought that it was going to be relatively on the easier side since it was basically a powerful burst of fire. However, after about a minute, his brows furrowed.

'It's pretty difficult.'

It was only after a few attempts that he got the gist of how the spell worked. And even after that, he still did not fully understand it. The spell required him to intertwine the strands of energy while making sure it kept flowing. Not only that, but he also had to slowly compress the density of the energy at the same time.

After a while, he finally opened his eyes. However, he became annoyed. He was clearly dissatisfied with how it went and turned to Illiana for guidance.

Herrera looked at the two. At the moment, Illiana was patiently guiding Tristan, and Tristan was listening intently. The two seemed to be absorbed in their own world; it was as if she was not there.

She had never seen that spell before, so she was not sure that she would be of help, but still… Tristan instantly called Illiana when he needed a hand without even sparing her a glance. Didn't that show that he didn't think that she would be of any help at all?

'I also specialize in fire magic, and yet…'

She was never the jealous type, but she was reminded of the time where she taught Tristan his first fire spell and  now that Illiana was here, it was as if there was no need for her anymore.

She felt replaced. At the same time, she was reminded of something.

'Is this how Serene felt?'

With this thought, she felt that she understood Serene a little but then she quickly returned to her sense and once again happy for just being able to stand near him.

"Like this," Illiana said as she began to demonstrate the spell. After a brief moment, flames blasted to the metal plates in front of her. Even Herrera, who was at a distance, could feel the blazing heat.

After the flames disappeared, they could finally see the state of the mithril plates; her [Pyro Blast] melted the corners of the plates as well as their surface.

"Try it again," Illiana pointed at another row of plates.

Following the steps from the scroll and what Illiana just taught him, Tristan then released the energy from his palms.

BOOM!

A short, but powerful blast of fire came out. Looking at the form of Tristan's [Pyro Blast], Illiana knew that it was imperfect. Even so…

'It's definitely more powerful than mine.'

The dark elf could not believe her eyes. Not only did Tristan learn the skill she took almost a week to learn in such a short time, but his [Pyro Blast] was even stronger than hers!

Tristan looked at the mithril plates in front of him. His [Pyro Blast] melted a lot more than Illiana's [Pyro Blast], but it was clearly uneven. A few of them had until almost half of the surface melted, but there were also plates with less than a quarter melted.

"That's amazing," Illiana admitted, "with more practice, you'll definitely be able to perfect it. It'll be much more powerful then."

Tristan nodded, and Illiana went back to her previous observing position on the side.

Now that Tristan finished learning the tier 5 spell, he browsed the scrolls again. Almost right after, he found another powerful spell.

[Flame Tornado], a tier 6 spell.

Definitely something he must master, he thought.

Without delay, Tristan began learning the spell. However, it was too complicated. Even after repeating the steps over and over, he still could not understand it. The branching of energy to numerous different veins, the conversion and compressing of the energy strands; everything. It was too difficult.

He looked to Illiana to ask if she could help him, but the dark elves shook her head. Apparently she has not yet mastered tier 6 fire spells.

Seeing that Illiana could not help, Tristan went back to learning on his own with furrowed eyebrows. Even after two hours of going through it repeatedly, he still could not understand it. At this rate, he might go crazy.

'This won't do.'

He was wasting too much time.

Although he really wanted to learn it, he knew that he had to stop. He already spent a lot of time on all the other preparations, he could not afford to waste any more time.

With that thought, he put the tier 6 spell scroll back into the box and looked through the other lower-tier spells. Even though he preferred higher-tier spells as they had greater destructive abilities, he did not look down on lower-tier spells. After all, destructiveness is not the only thing that defines the usefulness of a spell.

After a short while of browsing, a spell caught his eye.

[Fire Infusion], a tier 2 spell.

From the brief reading he did, the spell had a similar function with his tier 2 [Fire Aura]. But unlike [Fire Aura] who enhance the body with fire emery, [Fire Infusion] enhanced objects the caster touched with the fire element by transferring converted spirit energy to said objects.

However, as Tristan did not have a spirit core and used blood essence instead, he had to convert his blood essence into the fire element. This made Tristan think.

'Will I be able to convert it?'

If he could, then he would be able to use it together with his [Blood Synthesis], and if they could synchronize well...

'If this spell can also work with it…'

Then the strength of the weapons made using his [Blood Synthesis] would be able to become stronger to a certain extent.

Of course, how much the spell could enhance will also depend on his ability, but that did not reduce its potential. Instead, with that requirement, he might even be able to break the spell's limit. Without delaying another minute, Tristan began learning the spell.

As he followed the scroll's guidance, he noticed something. As a tier 2 spell, this spell was easy to learn. Its fundamentals were so simple that it took him less than a minute to fully understand everything. 

In order to test the spell, he made a blood daggett using [Blood Synthesis] and cast [Fire Infusion] on it. And upon seeing the result, his mouth curved into a slight smile.

'It works.'

The blood dagger in his hand now had a fiery glow surrounding it. He walked toward a mithril plate and cut it into two. It was very smooth. The blood dagger cut the plate like a hot knife cutting butter, and the cut was clean.

Tristan was quite satisfied with the result. Although his blood dagger would still be able to cut the tier 3 plate even without [Fire Infusion], using the tier 2 spell allowed him to do it much more easily. 

Not only that, but the method of casting the spell allowed him to smoothly practice converting his blood essence into the fire element, so this spell was useful to him both short-term and long-term; short-term for the enhancement itself and long-term for conversion practice.

'If I can improve my blood essence conversion, it'll greatly benefit me when learning more difficult fire spells in the near future.'

He just hope it would help him master that tier 6 spells before the enemy arrived