CHAPTER 49: REAL TRAINING BEGINS

Mavis, shaking off all depressing thoughts, returned to her personal estate.

As she arrived, she moved through the silent halls with purpose, stepping into her private sanctum—a place few dared enter. She began unpacking a variety of ancient scrolls, relics, and sealed cases she had brought back from her personal treasury.

"Hm... the boy is fully healed, but he’s still weak," she muttered, laying out a dusty tome on her arcane worktable. "I’ll need to fix that."

She reached for a crystalline bottle pulsing with deep red light—essence distilled from a body-strengthening demidivine beast. "This could work. If his body can handle the shock..."

Then she retrieved another sealed box, this one humming with refined mana threads. "Hmm... I can also add these. Mana-dense marrow stones. Should help refine his veins and increase core conductivity. Though..."

Her smile curved, eerie and pleased. "They’ll hurt like hell. But if he can’t handle this much, he’s not worth grooming anyway."

She tapped her finger thoughtfully against her chin. "Still too much for him to absorb at once. I’ll need to prepare his body first. Step by step."

While Mavis prepared her training tools, back in the royal palace...

Fenric sat in the Royal Library, buried in scrolls and old tomes, when a sudden chill crawled down his spine. His entire body tensed, his breath catching in his throat.

It felt... like something ancient and powerful was watching him. No, not watching—judging him.

But just as quickly as it had come, the sensation vanished.

Fenric blinked, scanning the quiet, dust-scented air around him.

"Damn... what was that?" he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Shaking it off, he refocused on the parchment in front of him. The flickering mana-lamps overhead gave the library an almost sacred atmosphere. He looked down at the arcane notes scrawled in elegant imperial script.

Right now, he had access to Human Magic—and soon, if things went well with the Moon Spirit King, he’d gain access to Spirit Magic as well. Not to mention, thanks to his lineage, Dragon Magic now pulsed faintly within his mana sea.

But for all that, Human Magic was still his foundation. It was structured. Efficient. And, most importantly—it suited him.

He was human, after all. And the system was made for minds like his.

Unlike Dragon Magic, which responded to instinct and bloodline, or Spirit Magic, which flowed with emotion and resonance, Human Magic required discipline. Precision. Study.

The fundamentals were clear: one had to form a Magic Sense—a natural awareness of surrounding mana—then build that sense into a stable Mana Core. From there, they learned to construct spells through runes, glyphs, and mana circuit formations.

Tier 1 spells required basic formations.

Tier 2 demanded chaining of runic arrays.

And higher-tier spells? They were full-blown arcane architectures.

Fenric narrowed his eyes as he scribbled down a new rune onto the parchment—one representing "Ignis", the foundation of fire spells.

’This part’s not so different from the programming languages I used in my past life,’ Fenric thought, his eyes scanning the precise runic script. ’Syntax, structure, logic flow... it’s all here. Just written in mana instead of code.’

Unlike binary or compiled scripts, though, this magic system had will. Mana wasn’t just inert data—it was alive. It reacted. It demanded intent, not just precision.

It was challenging.

But he was adapting quickly.

After all, survival was the ultimate debugging process.

And with what was coming...

He couldn’t afford to crash.

The Next Day...

The training courtyard in Fenric’s private wing had been cleared—wards humming quietly, inscriptions laced across the stone perimeter like a quiet warning to intruders.

He waited, cross-legged on the ground, breathing slowly.

No one had told him what kind of training Mavis planned. But he’d felt it—the shift in the air. The subtle, oppressive gravity of a magic presence testing the wards hours before dawn.

She was watching.

She was evaluating.

And now, she was here.

Mavis entered without ceremony. No dramatic flares. No preamble. Just purpose in every step, a glint in her eyes that made even the silent stones seem to straighten themselves.

She said nothing at first—simply observed him.

He looked different now. No longer the dying prince wasting away in a quiet corner of the Empire. There was strength behind his eyes. Discipline in his spine. A hunger that didn’t need to be shouted to be seen.

Mavis smiled, faintly.

"I sensed your mana stabilization. Good," she said, arms folded behind her back. "You’ve systemized it."

Fenric rose, dusting off his robes. "I have to wokr hard if I want to survive here, and I am no longer the helpless baby they once posioned, Its my time to posion them." He said in cold emotionless voice that would send chills down any normal person spine.

She tilted her head.

"Interesting analogy. You might actually be more useful than I thought."

He didn’t flinch. "Was that meant to be encouraging?"

"No," she said flatly. "It was an assessment."

Then, without warning, she waved a hand—and the space around him shifted, shimmering with layered enchantments.

"From now on, this place is sealed," she continued. "Only you and I can enter. All noise is blocked, all magical traces hidden. If you scream... no one will hear you."

He blinked. "...Not ominous at all."

She smirked.

"I’m not here to coddle you, Fenric. You’re mine now. Which means you’ll either rise high enough to sit on the throne..."

Her eyes darkened, voice dropping to a whisper that still cut like steel.

"...or die trying."

And with that, she stepped aside, revealing what she had brought with her.

Rows of tools. Ancient grimoires. Spell-sealed stones. A floating combat puppet in the shape of a humanoid knight. Potions glowing like miniature suns.

And something darker. Something hidden under a silk cover... pulsing with restrained, ominous energy.

Fenric didn’t back away.

Instead, he stepped forward—toward his new nightmare of a classroom.

"...Alright then," he said. "Teach me."

Mavis smiled.

This time, there was no cruelty in it.

Only anticipation.

Mavis clapped her hands once. The air trembled faintly—an unseen pulse of authority weaving through the courtyard.

"Lesson one," she said, stepping toward the table of tools. "You are not a mage."

Fenric raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You are a weapon," she clarified, pulling aside the silk cloth to reveal a long black gauntlet adorned with golden runes—an ancient conduit of both defense and channeling.

She tossed it at him.

He caught it by instinct, feeling a jolt ripple up his arm.

"Put it on," she ordered.

He complied. As the gauntlet locked around his forearm, the runes ignited, reacting to his mana signature—fitting to him like it had been waiting centuries for this moment.

Mavis circled him slowly.

"You don’t get the luxury of theory anymore, Fenric. No more cozy libraries or speculative diagrams. From this day forward, you learn by pressure. By survival. By pain."

She gestured at the floating knight construct beside her. With a snap of her fingers, it activated—its eyes glowing cold blue, a heavy spear materializing in its grip.

"Lesson two," she continued, stepping back into the shadows of the warded arena. "Magic is a tool. Not a crutch. You will learn to fight while casting, or you will be replaced by someone who can."

The knight lurched forward without further warning.

Fenric barely had time to raise his arms before the spear jabbed toward his face. Instinct and a flicker of mana diverted it—just barely.

"Welcome to training," Mavis said calmly, arms folded. "Let’s see if you’re worth betting an Empire on."

—

What followed was less a duel and more a series of calculated beatdowns. The knight’s strikes were measured—not to kill, but to teach him exactly how unprepared he was.

Every time he tried to chant, it closed the distance.

Every time he tried to flee, it adapted.

Every time he blocked, it punished the hesitation.

And yet...

Fenric endured.

Battered, bruised, breath ragged—but something inside him refused to break.

The magic circles forming around his feet were sloppy at first. But after the fourth exchange, the fifth strike, the sixth hard fall—

They started forming faster.

Cleaner.

Sharper.

Mavis watched with quiet intensity.

Not praise. Not encouragement.

Just confirmation.

He was learning.

By the end of the first hour, the knight was still standing.

But so was Fenric.

And when he cast his first completed Tier I spell—a mid-air wind rune that boosted his jump just enough to vault over a sweeping strike—Mavis finally spoke again.

"Good," she said simply. "Now again."

Fenric spat blood to the side and nodded.

"Again."

The sun passed its zenith as the courtyard bore witness to a prince reborn in sweat and bruises.

Fenric collapsed to one knee, chest heaving, the training gauntlet sparking at the seams. His uniform was torn at the shoulder, his right eye swollen, and yet... the circles forming beneath his feet were cleaner now. More precise.

A water rune flickered to life—Tier I, imperfect, but functional. He used it not to attack, but to cleanse the blood from his brow. Adaptation.

Mavis’s eyes narrowed. That was the seventh spell in under three hours. A drastic improvement. The boy was burning himself alive to keep up—but he was keeping up.

"Enough," she said finally, raising a hand.

The knight halted mid-swing, freezing like a statue.

Fenric fell backward, gasping, arms splayed like a man crucified on fatigue.

Mavis walked toward him, heel clicks sharp against the stone.

"You’re not fast enough," she said coldly. "Not yet."