Chapter 28: Training my new Skills

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: Training my new Skills

The Imperial Archive stood in the eastern wing of the palace complex, separated from the main royal residence by a long covered bridge of white stone. To most people it was a place of quiet study.

To Theon, it had become a place of secrets.

The moment he entered, the scent of old parchment and polished wood greeted him. Shelves stretched into the distance, holding records, histories, spellbooks, and knowledge gathered over centuries.

Ifrit glanced around, unimpressed. "This is your training ground?"

"Not exactly."

Theon walked deeper into the archive, passing empty reading tables. At this hour only a handful of scholars remained, and none paid attention to the seventh prince wandering past.

Ifrit lowered his voice. "Master, unless you plan to kill me with boredom, I still fail to see where we’re meant to train."

Theon stopped before a plain stone wall. "You really don’t notice anything?"

Ifrit narrowed his eyes. The wall looked entirely unremarkable. "No."

Theon smirked. "Your eyes aren’t as sharp as I assumed."

"Careful, Master. Pride is a dangerous habit."

Theon ignored him and pressed his palm against a small carved symbol hidden between two stones. A faint click echoed through the wall. Ifrith’s ears twitched as the floor trembled, and a section of stone slid sideways, revealing a narrow staircase descending into darkness.

Ifrith stared. "Well. I take back the boredom comment."

As they went down together. The air grew colder with every step, an old smell lingering in the passage like a current asleep beneath the stone. At the bottom, the corridor opened into a vast underground chamber.

Ifrith stopped in his tracks, Golden-crimson eyes widening.

The space was enormous, its ceiling arching overhead like the inside of a buried cathedral. Faint runes glowed along the walls, and the ground was reinforced black stone, scarred with old scorch marks, cracks, and patches of frost. It looked less like a hidden room and more like a battlefield buried underground.

"This," Ifrith murmured, "was built for high-level magic."

Theon spread his arms proudly. "Welcome to my training center."

"How did you find this place?"

Theon rubbed the back of his neck. "By accident."

"That is never a reassuring answer."

"I was reading in the archive one afternoon. Leaned back too far in my chair, my hand hit the wall, and the floor opened before I understood what was happening."

Ifrit blinked. "You fell into an ancient training chamber."

"Pretty much."

"And survived."

"I landed on a pile of old cushions someone left down here."

A long silence followed before Ifrit sighed. "Sometimes I can’t decide whether you’re blessed by fate or just too lucky to die."

"Probably both."

Theon walked toward the center of the chamber. "I’ve been using this place ever since."

Ifrith examined the runes more closely. "These formations absorb shockwaves and stabilize stray mana. Someone poured an absurd amount of effort into building this."

"Can we train here?"

Ifrith smiled faintly. "Oh yes. Here, you’re permitted to fail."

Theon raised an eyebrow. "That sounds ominous."

"It is."

They started with lightning magic.

Ifrith floated onto a broken pillar, his tone unusually serious. "Ancient magic isn’t ordinary elemental magic. Power was never the difficulty. Control is."

Theon nodded. "Want to see my current output first?"

"Do it."

Theon extended his hand. As mana surged through his arm, blue-white sparks crackled around his fingers.

"Thunder Bolt."

The spell exploded from his palm. A blinding flash filled the chamber, and the stone floor shattered outward. Cracks raced across the ground for dozens of meters, half the training field collapsing into a smoking crater as dust rained from the ceiling.

Silence.

Ifrit stared at the destruction. Theon also stared at the destruction.

"Master," Ifrit said.

"Yeah?"

"Reduce your output."

Theon coughed. "Right."

Ifrith pinched the bridge of his nose, despite lacking fingers to do so properly. "That wasn’t a basic spell. That was a small natural disaster."

"I didn’t mean to use that much."

"That’s precisely why I’m concerned."

The second attempt looked entirely different. Ifrit told him to circulate his mana slowly, compress it, and release only a fraction at a time. Theon closed his eyes and felt the mana moving through his body like a river. This time, instead of throwing open the floodgates, he narrowed the channel.

"Thunder Bolt."

A smaller bolt shot forward, cracking against the target stone without tearing up the ground around it.

Ifrit nodded approvingly. "Better."

"It feels easier," Theon admitted.

"Because you’re no longer forcing the mana to obey. You’re guiding it now."

He repeated the spell several times, each cast smoother and more precise, until a translucent interface notification appeared before his eyes.

World Archive.

Thunder Magic has reached Level 2.

Theon smiled. "It leveled up."

"Your growth is ridiculous," Ifrit said, sounding faintly amused.

Fire Magic came next. Flames swirled around Theon’s palm, carrying a deeper heat than before, tinged with something old.

"Don’t think of fire as destruction," Ifrit instructed. "Think of it as transformation."

"That sounds philosophical."

"I’m over a thousand years old. Philosophy is practically required of me."

Theon snorted and shaped the flames into a spear, then a ring, then a scatter of floating embers, the heat in the chamber climbing with every attempt. After more than ten hours. another notification appeared.

World Archive.

Fire Magic has reached Level 3.

Ifrit’s tail flicked with satisfaction. "Excellent."

Theon wiped sweat from his forehead. "This one feels more natural."

"Of course it does. You carry the Flame Emperor’s multi ring and it helps double your effort which helps you to level up ."

Wind proved harder. Theon kept producing violent gusts instead of controlled currents; one burst sent Ifrit tumbling clean off the pillar. The cat landed on his feet with offended dignity.

"Did you just attack your own teacher?"

"That was an accident."

"You produce a suspicious number of accidents."

After several failed attempts, Theon finally shaped a stable, rotating current around his body.

World Archive.

Wind Magic has reached Level 2.*

Water came last, and unlike the others, it demanded patience above all. Theon drew moisture from the air and tried to shape it into floating spheres. They wobbled, collapsed, and splashed against his face more than once, sending Ifrith into fits of laughter.

"Don’t laugh."

"You looked like a drowning fish."

"Ha ha ha Very helpful, thank you."

After several more tries, he finally held three stable water spheres circling his hand at once. No notification appeared this time, but the improvement in control spoke for itself.

When the session ended, Theon dropped onto a broken stone block, breathing hard. His body ached, but his mind felt clear.

Ifrith hopped beside him. "Well done."

Theon looked at his own hands. "So this is what proper control feels like."

"Yes."

Neither spoke for a moment. Then Theon’s expression turned serious.

"Ifrith. What happened to me in the cave?"

The teasing vanished from the demon’s eyes.

"When I lost consciousness," Theon continued quietly, "what actually happened?"

Ifrith was silent for a few seconds before answering. "You weren’t asleep. Your body kept moving. Your mana kept flowing and you kept fighting."

A cold feeling settled in Theon’s chest. "But?"

Ifrit looked directly into his eyes. "But you weren’t there."

The chamber seemed to grow quieter. "What do you mean?" Theon asked, his voice low.

"It was as if something unknown had taken hold of your body and forced it to obey."

Fragments returned to him then. A frozen world. A voice from somewhere far away. Eyes that didn’t belong to him.

"I felt like I was dreaming," he admitted.

Ifrith nodded slowly. "That’s the closest description I can offer. You were watching from somewhere distant while another will move through your body."

Theon’s hands tightened. "Another will."

"I don’t know what it was," Ifrith said honestly. "But for those few moments, the mana around you didn’t feel human."

A chill ran down Theon’s spine. He’d expected a simple explanation. Overexertion, maybe. Mana exhaustion. Not this.

Ifrit placed a paw on his arm. "Don’t fear it yet."

"Yet?"

"You’re still yourself. I would know if that had changed."

Theon exhaled slowly. It should have reassured him. But somehow it didn’t.

They left the underground chamber and climbed back through the hidden passage. The archive above remained peaceful, entirely unaware of the destruction buried beneath its floors. As they walked toward the royal residence, Theon tried to push the conversation from his mind, though the words lingered like frost he couldn’t shake off.

*Another will. Not human.*

By the time they reached his chamber, the afternoon sun had already begun to fade. Theon opened the door and stepped inside. Everything looked ordinary. Too ordinary.

He took a few steps, then paused as a strange feeling tugged at him, his gaze drifting toward the bed.

Slowly, he crouched down and looked beneath it.

A pair of Dark-golden eyes stared back at him.

For one split second, both of them froze. The girl’s eyes widened in shock. Theon blinked. She blinked. Then she scrambled backward in panic.

"Wait, wait!"

She burst out from under the bed and spun toward the balcony, but Ifrith moved faster, and the door slammed shut on a burst of mana. The girl stopped dead, her whole body trembling, fear flooding her face.

Then, to Theon’s complete surprise, she dropped to her knees.

"Please don’t kill me!"

The room fell silent. Theon stared at the bruised, orange-haired girl kneeling before him, chains hanging from her wrists, terror shaking her voice and realized that the mystery hiding beneath his bed was far more complicated than anything he could have guessed that morning.