Leon slowly exhaled, his chest rising and falling in time with the wind. Down below where he sat upon the throne platform, Xaphan watched with great interest. There wasn’t much wind in Leon’s soul realm under normal conditions, but there was still more than in his own soul realm. However, now that Leon was quietly meditating with the Thunderbird in her human form sitting right beside him, it almost seemed like they were actually outside, sitting on the side of a mountain in the physical world for how real the wind seemed.

The fire demon had to admit that it was a pleasant change of pace. The air in Leon’s soul realm wasn’t exactly stuffy, but it was a bit too still to be natural. To add in some decent wind made it seem a lot more lifelike, and thus, a lot more tolerable.

Of course, if Xaphan wanted to, he could probably get Leon to let him outside for a while, but that would be both incredibly risky in such a demon-phobic land and incredibly demeaning. Xaphan wasn’t a dog to be let out to piss in the grass before coming back inside, he was a Lord of Flame. He would deal with the very mild discomfort of his situation for as long as he needed to.

Besides, the wind magic that Leon was learning was making him stronger, and the stronger Leon became, the easier it would be for Xaphan to recover. With the Thunderbird now personally training Leon, it seemed like Xaphan would be seeing some fringe benefits relatively soon.

Up above, on the marble platform, the lantern chamber that would cover the throne had been built, but Leon and the Thunderbird were sitting on the platform landing at the tops of the steps outside of the door. It was best to practice wind magic outside, after all, for however much ‘outside’ counted in Leon’s soul realm. But that wasn’t the point, Leon would practice with more seriousness in his villa’s yard later, but right now he needed to get the proper technique down pat.

He managed to get the hang of creating wind mana thanks to the Thunderbird’s patient instruction, and now he was practicing its use. Perhaps it was the Thunderbird’s blood within him, but the longer he thought about the concept of flight, the more he felt restricted with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He could fly in his soul realm, but it just wasn’t the same.

He needed to learn how to achieve real flight, and wind magic was the way to do that—to that end, he’d gone so far as to put his study of water magic on hold until he could liberate himself from the ground’s tyrannical grasp.

Right now, he’d conjured a small cyclone around him. It was a weak thing, barely strong enough to lift dried leaves off the ground, but it had been created with Leon’s magic power. Since he was in his soul realm, that had the effect of summoning a gentle breeze to flow through the place, but that had little effect on his performance.

“A little bit more…” the Thunderbird whispered as Leon started to struggle to maintain the cyclone. “If you can’t manage this, then flight will forever be beyond your reach…”

Leon held on. He’d only just gotten a handle on creating wind mana a week or so ago, so it was still quite difficult to maintain for longer than a few minutes at a time. Fortunately, the Thunderbird seemed to be more than a little embarrassed and ashamed at the lack of assistance she had provided in the past to the rest of the clan and was determined to fix that with Leon. In that spirit, she was giving him no small amount of instruction.

“Keep it moving, keep it moving,” she commanded, closely observing Leon’s cyclone. She made no comment about how weak it was, nor did she make any onerous demands of him. She just wanted to push him to use wind magic as long as he could. The more he pushed himself, the longer he’d last.

But this was a new kind of magic for Leon, and he couldn’t hold it for long. With a deep gasp, he released his hold on the cyclone and it spun away from his body, quickly dissipating into the air of his soul realm. The wind that had filled his soul realm correspondingly died down.

Leon’s magic body didn’t sweat, but he was still exhausted and mentally spent. He had plenty of magic power left, but even so, he needed a few minutes of rest before he could try again.

“Not bad,” the Thunderbird said as Leon collapsed onto the marble platform, which had essentially become a porch for the small throne room. “Not great, either. Your father was much better with wind magic than you are when he died.”

“He was thirty-eight, I’m only nineteen!” Leon protested.

“Excuses are just that: excuses,” the Thunderbird said. “Another’s circumstances don’t forgive your own failures.”

“You really have a way with words…” Leon sarcastically grumbled. “More motivating words have never been spoken.”

The Thunderbird shrugged and replied, “You’re doing fine enough, I suppose. You could be doing better, and better is what I want you to do.”

“I’ll get it, I just need more practice,” Leon said.

“Don’t neglect your other elements, though,” the Thunderbird warned. “Wind magic is incredibly useful, but you would be much better served-“

“Yes, yes, I know all that,” Leon said, interrupting his ancestor. “I’ll never be good enough with wind magic to use it in a fight, because to become good enough I’ll have to practice to the point of neglecting my training with lightning magic. Since my blood gives me a greater affinity for lightning magic, it’s more efficient for me to train with lightning rather than wind…”

“You’re not wrong,” the Thunderbird admitted.

“But I want to fly, and I’ll train as hard as I need to in order to get there,” Leon said, his eyes blazing with an intensity that was only present when he thought about getting vengeance upon those who’d destroyed his family. “Speaking of, any progress with that transformation stuff?”

“None to share with you,” the Thunderbird said. “As I told you previously, my descendants never managed to transform into more thunderbirds, or even take on any of my physical traits. As a result, I’m working with essentially no information here. I can’t even guarantee that I’ll find a way, especially since I have no physical body to experiment upon…”

“Are you asking to experiment on me?” Leon asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Maybe I am, would you be willing to indulge me?” the Thunderbird asked.

Several minutes later, Leon found himself back in the physical world. He stood alone in his expansive backyard; Elise was at the Heaven’s Eye Tower, Naiad was doing whatever she filled her days with, and Anzu was training with the beastmaster in the front yard.

[Good…] the Thunderbird gently whispered into his mind. Leon had raised his arms above his head and began to channel his power, but he didn’t change its element type, it was just his regular old mana flowing through his veins. [Walk forward,] the Thunderbird commanded, and Leon complied, walking across his yard all the way to the dock.

He paused there, waiting for further instruction. He didn’t care what the Thunderbird demanded; if it meant he gained transformation powers, even if that transformation was limited, then he would do whatever was needed.

Within reason.

[Call upon lightning, but don’t actually use any of it,] the Thunderbird ordered.

Leon quickly compressed his magic power and let it flood his body with lightning magic, though he restricted it enough to hide its power from anyone who might be watching. A few arcs of lightning escaped his body despite his greatly increased control over his power due to the Thunderbird’s lessons, causing his body to spark and crackle with golden lightning.

[Now wind…] the Thunderbird said.

Again, Leon changed his mana type to wind, but it wasn’t nearly so smooth a transition as it was from element-less mana to lightning mana.

[Water…]

This part wasn’t so easy. Leon had only the barest grasp of water magic, but he managed to form some water mana anyway. It seemed to be enough for the Thunderbird because she gave him no more commands.

[That’s all I need, continue to practice as you see fit,] she said, and like that, she was gone.

Leon briefly considered making some kind of sarcastic quip about her lack of goodbye, but given what she was doing for him, he held his tongue. She could be as rude as she wanted and he would take it, because she was training him, she was his ancestor, and she was looking into transformation for him.

Well, maybe he wouldn’t take it entirely lying down, but the Thunderbird’s pride wasn’t so fragile that she’d fly off the handle over a few sarcastic retorts.

Fortunately, Xaphan wasn’t so restrained.

[Look at that,] the demon said, finally gaining the license to speak again with the Thunderbird gone, [flying away like she owns the place…]

[Got something to add, demon?] Leon asked as he sat down upon his throne, returning to the physical world. [Like, say, that mental communication technique? I noticed that Naiad uses something similar, maybe I should just ask her for instructions…]

[Oh, please do, I don’t mind sharing responsibilities,] Xaphan lazily replied.

[I get it, you know,] Leon said, his tone turning far too reassuring for Xaphan’s tastes, [I get why you don’t want to teach me. It’s that you can’t, you’re too much of a failure to do so. I don’t pretend to know your problems, but there’s clearly something preventing you from fulfilling your side of our bargain. You’re obviously not all you’re cracked up to be…]

[So all those fire enchantments I’ve taught you, those don’t count for anything?] Xaphan testily asked.

[Nope,] Leon cheerfully replied. [Compared to psychic communication, a few new ways to set things on fire are nothing.]

[It takes a true uncultured cretin like you to boil all I’ve shown you into ‘a few new ways to set things on fire’,] Xaphan growled.

[Prove me wrong, demon,] Leon shot back, reveling in Xaphan’s slowly rising anger.

[I could, there’s nothing technically keeping me here in your soul realm,] Xaphan said.

[Wait, what?] Leon asked.

[If I wanted to, I could come and play a little bit…] Xaphan said with a strange and uncanny air of playfulness.

[So, if need be, I wouldn’t need to call upon your power, you could actually come out to fight?!] Leon demanded to know.

[Potentially,] Xaphan answered. [Doing so would doubtlessly out you as being associated with a demon and likely land you a one-way trip to the headsman’s block if I were to be seen, but if things were to be dire enough, I could come out and fight. If need be. If I must.]

[Why am I only hearing about this now?!]

[I might have an answer for you, but it seems you have an audience that you should probably take care of first…] Xaphan said with the smile on his face evident in his tone.

Leon scowled, chalking this up to the demon being his usual lazy self. It wasn’t the first time that Xaphan had omitted a few details about their relationship, and Leon suspected that Xaphan had more capabilities that he wasn’t letting Leon know about. To an extent, Leon understood, since Xaphan claimed to be much weaker now than when he was at his prime and coming out of a safe place to fight in a largely strange and unknown place wasn’t the smartest of ideas. Still, there were plenty of times when Leon would’ve liked to know that Xaphan wasn’t stuck in his soul realm and could’ve helped more than he did.

But Leon didn’t dwell on it for longer than a couple of seconds. He was used to the demon acting purposefully and almost spitefully mysterious, and it was always better to act like it didn’t get to him rather than giving the demon the satisfaction of seeing him getting upset over the matter.

Leon turned to see what Xaphan meant by ‘an audience’ and found Naiad standing on the back porch watching him. She didn’t have any smile on her face, she wasn’t even staring at him like she wanted to devour him whole as she often did, she was just calmly watching him train.

It was actually a little more disturbing than her usual behavior. Leon was a bit apprehensive about what this change might mean. He cocked an eyebrow in curiosity and began to hesitantly walk back to the villa from the dock.

“What’s up?” he asked Naiad once he drew close enough to comfortably speak.

[Thinking,] she said.

“What about?”

[I… I would like to continue working on fulfilling our contract…] Naiad gently whispered into Leon’s mind. She didn’t make eye contact with him, as if she were embarrassed at the admission, and her uncertain tone lent to that impression.

Leon nodded. They’d already had sex once, but that had been weeks ago. Still, his reluctance to do so again wasn’t that high, he’d just been waiting for Naiad to make her own move.

“Let’s wait for Elise to get home,” Leon said, not wanting to do anything with Naiad without his more ‘official’ lover there with him.

After all this time, while Naiad wasn’t accepted as anything more than a guest, Elise hadn’t treated her with outright hostility or like she was imposing upon them by staying in their villa. It was a cordial relationship, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be cheating if Leon and Naiad did something sexual together without Elise’s knowledge.

Naiad nodded her acceptance of that, and the two walked back inside to wait for Elise to come home.