Chapter 15

“Can I take Hwi back with me?”

Silence fell the moment that question came out of Master Elara’s mouth. Everyone in the room was looking at her. Well, except for Seolhwa. She kept stuffing her mouth with grilled duck and only spared glances at us.

My mother stared at Master Elara before repeating her question, just to make sure.

“You want to take Hwi?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

My mother looked like she wanted to say something before my father cut in.

“Is it because his training isn’t finished?”

Master Elara nodded.

“That’s part of it, but also because there are more resources back in my country.”

“There’s an institution for mages to learn and train their magic called a Magic Tower. It functions very similarly to how martial sects are in this country. I hold the position of Tower Master of the Veynes Magic Tower, so Hwi being my direct disciple will have access to much more resources for his training.”

“So Lady Elara is the equivalent of a Sect Master. Well, that sounds like a good opportunity to me, but it’s up to Hwi to decide.”

My father turned his attention to me.

“What do you think, Hwi? Do you want to follow Lady Elara back to her country? I think it’s a good opportunity if you seriously want to learn magic.”

“Yeah! I want to!”

Without even thinking more about it, I gave my answer immediately with a very excited face.

There’s no way I’m going to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime chance!

Hearing my answer, my father just nodded his head and turned to Master Elara again.

“There you have it. Hwi will come with you, Lady Elara.”

“Is it okay to just decide like that, brother? Sister-in-law looks like she doesn’t agree.”

My mother’s face did look like she disagreed with my father, but she kept herself from saying anything.

Now that the attention of the room was on her, my mother sighed and started to talk.

“I don’t want Hwi to go to a place so far away, especially while he’s still so young. But I do understand that now that Hwi has already decided to leave martial arts and will walk on the path of magic, this is a chance he needs to take, so I have to let him go.”

She said that, but her face looked sour. She must have really hated the idea of letting me go.

Now that my mother had made her position clear on this matter and allowed me to go with Master Elara, it was decided that I would follow her back to her country, Britain, to further my magic studies and training under her.

“Thank you for allowing and entrusting your son to me, Patriarch Cheon and Lady Baek.”

“When will you leave?”

“There are still prior arrangements and preparations I need to make. I would feel bad if I just cancel all of them and go back after all. So I think it will be in two weeks.”

“Then we will help with your preparations.”

“Hm, actually, I already made a list.”

Master Elara handed a piece of paper to my father, and the moment he read it, his brows creased.

“What do you need this for?”

“It’s to make it possible to cut the travel time back to my country.”

I didn’t know what was written on that parchment and could only tilt my head.

…

“Hooohh…”

That’s enough coating for now.

I continued my training as usual. Lately, Master Elara has allowed me to do the coating by myself without her supervision, so every morning I went to the training ground to coat my finer blood vessels. It’s not like I have to do it at the training ground. I could do it in my room, but it’s a matter of mood. I just can’t get into the training mentality I need when I’m in my room.

Seolhwa, as usual, always did her morning practice here, so while I was doing my coating, Seolhwa also practiced her moves or just sat down beside me doing her inner energy training.

Now that I have coated more of my blood vessels, let’s see how much it changes.

Mana started circulating in my body as I prepared myself to use a spell.

“Fireball.”

A ball of fire appeared, floating above my palm.

The activation speed certainly feels a little bit faster.

The floating ball of fire then started to change shape into an arrow shape.

Changing its shape also feels a little bit easier.

After confirming the improvement in my magic after I coated more of the finer blood vessels in my body, I nodded to myself, satisfied.

“You’re done?”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

“Then let’s spar.”

Sparring with Seolhwa was something I had recently started doing every morning after it was decided that I would follow Master Elara back to her country. After that talk during dinner, Seolhwa came up to me, asking to have a daily spar every morning. When I asked her for her reason, she said that it was because after I was gone, she wouldn’t be able to experience fighting against magic as a martial artist, so she wanted to experience it as much as possible while I was still here.

It’s also useful to me because I can train using the Skate spell and train my mobility and footwork through sparring with her. According to Master, not many mages can fight in fast-paced close-quarters combat, and most mages fight by using long-range attacks. That’s why mobility is very important to reposition quickly.

In that regard, Seolhwa is the perfect opponent to train my mobility. She’s fast, after all. Every time I widen our distance, she quickly gets closer to me, so I need to constantly dodge and move while making traps and counterattacks.

Of course, I don’t use as much power as I used when I sparred with Master. As strong as Seolhwa is, she would get seriously injured if she got hit by the kind of magic I used with my Master. She can probably dodge, but just in case she gets hit, I need to hold back the power of my spells. I’m not holding back with the speed, though.

I jumped back, dodging her attack, and slid around her, targeting her opening. She dodged every Rock Bullet I shot at her and even cut some of them before she quickly closed in and got me within her range of attack.

She can even cut magic now? Anything goes with her, huh?

“Barrier!”

Thwack!

Immediately after the sound of her wooden sword hitting my barrier, I cast another spell to bind her in place.

“Snare!”

Threads of mana spread across the ground and bound her feet as I slid away from her and continued my attack.

“Water Ball!”

Now that she couldn’t go anywhere with both of her feet bound to the ground, the Water Ball hit her right in the face, drenching her.

“I won again.”

Seolhwa started to walk to the place where she left her towel to dry herself after I canceled the Snare spell.

We have three rounds of sparring every morning and started five days ago. Lately, I can feel the improvement I’ve made. So much so that now I can win against her several times. I still lose sometimes, but lately, I’ve won more of our spars.

To think that now I can match up with Seolhwa.

She turned her head to me after drying her face and hair, a small pout forming on her face.

“Magic is cheating.”

“Is that something you can say after cutting some of that magic? You even flung some of the spells right back at me. How the hell did you do that?”

“But you’re still holding back your power, Hwi.”

“You’re holding back too. Don’t think I don’t know that you barely use half of your strength in our spar.”

“It’s fine for me to hold back.”

She looked at me with a deadpan expression and continued,

“I’m a genius, after all.”

This little shit. Ever since the time when Master Elara told me about my bad habits, she has started to get closer to Master Elara, and somehow some of Master’s personality has rubbed off on her. She showed more of herself now, and that’s good. But of all people to imprint on, it just has to be Master Elara. She even started to glaze herself as a genius every chance she gets.

“Well, if you say that, then I’m a genius too. A magic genius.”

“You’re just a cheater. A genius cheater.”

“Cheater? Nothing I did is unfair, though?”

“Magic in itself is unfair.”

“Did you know that most kids in our generation think that your talent is unfair too? Your talent is also a cheat!”

Our bickering went on for some time after that.

…

“So you’re seriously going to leave the clan, Hwi?”

“Yeah. This is a big chance for me to learn magic in a very good environment. Learning under one of the seven greatest mages of the current age and having access to all of the knowledge and facilities she has, there’s no way I will pass up this chance.”

“What about language though? Lady Elara can speak Chinese somehow, but according to her, her language is very different and the letters they use are different.”

“I just need to put my back into learning the language and letters too!”

“Hmm… You said that like it’s easy.”

“I don’t think it will be easy, but there’s no other choice, right? I will have to live there for years, so I have to learn her language.”

A stillness fell between us as we sat beneath the shade of a tree, resting while also enjoying the wind and having our lunch, some simple meat buns.

…

“Well, it’s time for us to go. Are you ready, kid?”

“I’m born ready.”

The time of our departure had arrived. I carried a bag with just some clothes and necessities, and Master Elara also only carried a backpack.

I looked at my father and mother. I’m not going to see them for years from now on. I want to see both of their faces properly so that I won’t forget them. I hugged both of them tightly, tears falling from our eyes.

“I’m going, Mother, Father.”

“Yes. Go walk your own path, son.”

After saying my goodbye to my parents, I looked at Uncle Seong-Ho and Aunt Hwa-Yeon and gave them both a fist and palm salute.

“Uncle, Aunt. I will be going.”

“Why are you acting so formal to us?”

Uncle Seong-Ho ruffled my hair, and Aunt Hwa-Yeon hugged me.

“Be safe, Hwi.”

“Thank you, Aunt.”

The last one is Seolhwa. I turned to her and only said a simple goodbye.

“I’ll be going then.”

“Hm.”

She just nodded her head and then continued,

“Let’s have another duel after you come back.”

“Sure.”

That marked the end of my time in the Cheon Clan. From here on, I would go to a place completely foreign, and many new experiences were waiting for me. We got on our horses and spurred them forward, making our way to Britain.

…Was what I thought, but where are we?

After we left the Cheon Clan’s main estate, instead of making our way west, Master Elara made her way towards the Dabie Mountains and entered a cave there.

“Um… Master? Why are we here?”

“If we use the normal traveling method, it would take over a year to travel to Britain, so we will use a special way.”

As she said that, we arrived in a large cave room with a magic circle drawn on it.

It’s glowing…

“What magic circle is that?”

“That?”

Master Elara grinned.

“That’s a Teleportation Magic Circle.”