The next morning, Night appeared in Ernest’s room coming out of the shadows. The boy who had trained all his senses and never truly fell into a deep sleep and was somewhat attune to shadow magic becauses of his familiar, suddenly opened his eyes and saw Night looking at him upside down with his yellow cat like eyes.

“What did you go do?” he asked.

Night just grinned, “You will eventually find out.” He chuckled and turned into a red light before returning to the familiar seal while his chuckle echoed in the room.

Ernest laid down and rubbed his head and opened his eyes looking at his right hand. The tattoos covered his hand.

Ernest was actually a high level talent just like Silvia, he was currently maxed out at level 30 but his familiar was level 35. This last bit of difference that was marked on his hand was an immense gap. The gap between a level 30 and level 31 is like a gap between a level 1 and level 20. It was a high milestone that was very hard to break even when he pushed himself greatly to his limits training to the limit of his endurance.

Ernest just closed his eyes once more and let the remaining bit of night time pass.

***

KLANG! DING! DING! DING!

The sound of swords impacting was heard from the training field early in the morning. At the center of this sound was Xero holding a regular sword and in front of him, a yellow armored knight.

The two kept clashing one into the other. This was Xero’s earth sword Sword Devil minion. To try out its power Xero had left him resting in the ground the night and come morning he found the knight sitting cross legged sleeping while the sword remained in the ground still absorbing mana.

When he called it, the red glowing eyes appeared. Xero had been curious about their strength and borrowed a pair of iron swords.

Apparently the body was a physical manifestation of the sword spirit but the true body was the sword. As long as it stayed in the ground it would slowly absorb mana to sustain the body.

For a magicless spar, it would not fade away so Xero took it to battle and discovered something. The Minions were like newborns, although they have sword magic, they lacked swordsmanship skills.

They waved the swords like waving a stick so during the dawn hours Xero had taught it just the basic fighting form of the sword fighters. It soaked up the knowledge like a newborn and quickly adapted to using it but it had a lot of wasted movements and energy.

Although the physical strength was unexpectedly around level 24 or 25, the way it moved and attacked were reckless, slow and inefficient while Xero’s small body moved and dodged by a hair's breadth as best he could and attacked areas with openings causing the Sword Devil to collapse.

Xero would then explain what it did wrong and the two would spar once more. He would try the same thing again and find that the Sword Devil would somewhat fix the problem and block or try dodging before Xero takes it down in another form.

Skill triumphs strength as long as it is not a situation of absolute strength, even within the same level rank, normally within the same 10 level range, skill can outdo strength.

Soon the young guards and knights woke up and discovered Xero and the Demon Knight sparring from early on.

Only after a while, Xero was covered in sweat that he called an end and went to take a bath while the Sword Demon just sat back down in front of its sword absorbing more and more mana to sustain itself.

Ashley eventually came out stretching as if she had just woken up while still wearing her swordswoman suit. “Morning master~! That sleep was so good.” She said and smiled at him.

Xero just looked at her with his mouth a bit open.

“Master? Is something wrong?” She asked before blushing and fidgeting, “Or did you finally fall for my charm and want to make me your official wife?” She asked.

Xero shook his head and pointed up, “Your horns.” He said.

“My horns?” She said and touched them. As soon as she touched the tip she took it off blowing her fingers that had been burned and was peach color and slowly was covered by the blue color once more.

She frowned and looked around and found a mirror and looked. What she found was that at the tip of her horns were two very small blue white flames. She looked curiously and held out her finger and saw a spark of the flame come out before she was able to somewhat manipulate it with her mana but suddenly her arm caught fire as she controlled the flame even without touching it and soon the fire spread from inside and she was withdrawn to the seal.

It was a strange thing that Xero saw but after a moment, she respawned frowning, “My Sword Devil’s Flame is evil! It hurts!” She pouted, “Stupid thing.” She said but what was amazing was that a hiss came from the two little fireballs and suddenly her sleek black horns turned shiny white and she shouted in pain. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!” She shouted and slowly the horn returned to being black except the tip.

“What is going on?!” Xero asked.

Ashley was tearing up as she held her horn but not touching the flame. “I-I’m still too young and weak to properly control the flame.” She said tearing up due to the pain that she was feeling in her horn and head. “These flames are alive, because it has Holy mana, it gave them basic sentience. I would probably hurt myself each time as I control it because I still have no resistance to Holy Fires.” She said looking in the mirror at the little flames and sighed.

“For now, it seems the flames will kill you with each use but they don’t seem to endanger you during the forging process though.” Xero said.

“Yeah, their primary focus is forging so they would allow me to control them in the forge but afterward there will be a backlash I think.” She said pouting and looked at her master, “Master, I will go refine master’s Volcanic Obsidian sword now. Then master can go train the Earth Demon minion, they will learn almost anything master teaches them including how to efficiently use magic. If master teaches them how to build magic formulas and such, they would even build masters magic formulas for you.” She said.

“Can Devils learn to build spells themselves?” Xero asked.

“Devil’s yes, it's what sets us apart from demons. We are the sentient race of hell after all and it is how we improve our own spells beyond the basic natural upgrades. We also can steal magic formulas by looking through the soul of demons and devils defeated by us.” She said.

“Okay, I’ll go train it to just fight for now.” Xero said and went to take a bath and rested up before going outside and finding the sword minion sitting down.

Xero found one of the knight trainers and asked him for his help because the minion did not know how to properly fight. In the end, the huge armored creature was put alongside the recruits to swing the sword constantly until its form was properly.

Xero joined as well because it would help him improve his skill and like all the recruits, a very powerful restraint was put on his arms and legs to force the legs and arms closed so that they built strength and force them to be conscious of their position and movements.

With nothing that anyone could do, days passed and soon weeks. Ernest soon healed under Meldie’s healing magic that was placed when he would go to sleep and in the morning Pou would come out and usually he would heal some more afterward before it stopped when he woke up.

Along the first few days, a total of four sword minions joined the training. The first was the yellow minion that had been there, the next was a short female devil in light green armor, the next was a male devil that was as big as the first but it’s armors were black with red and it released heat from within and a red glow appeared through the cracks from the inner flames existing within. The final one was another female with compressed wooden armor but she was 170 and her armor was a bit thicker and like a classic knight but not heavy armor.

The green wind sword had become light as a feather unlike the volcanic rock and earth swords. The most unique was the wood sword, strangely the wooden sword became ‘metallic’ but the wood had many red veins hat was the enhanced skill from the Bloodvine tree ability it had absorbed. It was hard as steel and sharp as a razor and unlike the other long swords. This one was a one edged longsword while the other side was blunt. It was light and had a very slightly curved blade and was a very swift, hack and thrust sword that was perfect for drawing slashes, unlike the common longsword.

Eventually Ernest also joined them once his leg healed so that he could recuperate his legs strength.

After almost a month like this, the Sword minion’s movements became smoother. As they end the morning exercise and spar Xero sat down and Meldie walked over and handed him a waterskin with a fruit juice meant to re energize the drinker.

Meldie was blushing as she handed it to him but still smiled, “You're incredible Xero, your skills grew so much in just a month. Your tattoo even shrank down half way down to the wrist already. Doesn’t that mean you’re level 21 at least right?” She asked.

“Thanks for the drink…” he said with a small pat on her head, “As for my level, who knows? Only when school starts again we will check.” Xero said.

Every start of the year, the levels of all students are checked for summer progress.

“That is true.” Meldie said.

“Hey girl, it’s been nearly a month, is there any word on the barrier yet?” Night said irritated.

Meldie’s smile faded and nodded, “Word just came in to father, the Merchant’s order, his royal highness and the church of Light all forced the closure to come to an end. Father got in contact secretly with some of his allies and someone is coming to take everyone out without any problems.” She said solemn.

“Great! That said, Ernest, we shouldn’t return to the school, it would cause more trouble, we should hide out somewhere until summer break is over.” Night said to Ernest.

“I know.” Ernest replied simply.

“If you want somewhere to hide, you can come stay with me and my family, our village has both Light and Dark Ice and Fire church as well as the Dark Holy Church in the borders. You can get protection from them since we have a good relationship with them.” Xero said.

Ernest showed a shocked expression and smiled wryly before nodding, “If your family will have us for the remainder of summer then we would be thankful but we hope we don’t draw trouble.” He said.

Xero shook his head, “I don’t doubt they might try something but I also don’t doubt that the Dark Holy church isn’t hiding someone really strong to protect my family.” Xero said.

Meldie looked confused, “Why would they protect your family? Is it because your two older brothers both summoned Demon familiars?” Meldie asked.

Xero smiled and shook his head but didn’t say more because they were still near a lot of soldiers and even if they were part of the Donima family he wanted to keep exposure, especially in this nation, to a minimum.

They waited for two days until the transport arrived and to Meldie and Xero’s surprise, Univa stood in front of them. Her drake had gone from 7 meters to 12 meters long showing that it had undergone a growth spurt.

“Young Miss Crost, I thank you for helping out my daughter and her friends.” Francis said.

“Eh?! Me?” Meldie said.

“Of course dear, I very much don’t want you to get stuck in the nation once more by the stupid actions of the church so she will be taking you as well.” Francis said and walked over to Xero and patted him on his shoulder, “Take care of my little girl out there and come visit when times are less… troublesome.” he said.

Xero smiled wryly, “I’ll see if I can do that.” Xero said.

“Good! I’m quite happy Meldie brought home such a good son-in-law that is so trustworthy and hardworking.” Francis laughed.

“FATHER!” Meldie said.

In front of Tryus, Univa almost choked on the water she was drinking when she heard his words and looked over in shock. “Xero… you got married with the halfling?!” Univa asked in surprise.

“NOO!!!” Meldie shouted and ran back inside red faced.

Xero scratched his head and sighed, “It's just them calling me that for… some reason. I didn’t get married and don’t really plan to since I’m still too young.” Xero said.

Univa let out a breath, unlike halflings, humans only marry after 16 but an arranged marriage within nobility would still be planned before that and normally the birthday of the one that turns 16 last is also the engagement date so her shock was mostly towards that but unfortunately for her, a certain demon was currently out of his seal and grinned as he floated over.

“Oh my what’s this? The little princess of the Crost family is feeling nervous when she thought that Xero was married?” He joked and laughed.

Instantly her face turned bright red as she pulled her wand and from the tip she compressed wind and released it as a shockwave but how could her low level hurt or not be seen by the level 35 demon? He easily vanished from her view and appeared next to Ernest laughing.

“You~! Control that blasted demon!” She shouted at Ernest.

The boy in question sighed and recalled Night before he caused more problems.

Eventually Meldie came back out after calming down but her face soon burned when she saw Xero again.

As for Xero, he had all the Sword Minions return to sword form and strapped them to his back to transport them without raising much attention from other people but Univa was still quite curious about them and their strength level. She was startled to find they had physical strength in the level 20’s from the get go but calmed down when she found out that their minds were undeveloped but they had a fast growth rate.

It made her curious about the swords so after they took off on the back of the dragon, her, Xero, Ernest and Meldie, she asked about the specifics of how they came to be.

***

Only after a few hours the drake was able to arrive at the border. Univa explained that the barrier actually did not affect dragon type beasts under the familiar seal of a specific few bloodlines. Hers being one of them. Not only that, Francis has paid a good price for the Crost family to liberate a one time use medallion that would undo a small section of where they pass so that they would not be identified when they crossed through.

It went without a single problem while the medallion broke down into dust after it was used and they crossed through the barrier without any fear whatsoever.

Only after about ten minutes Xero suggested trading mounts. He said that although Tryus was fast, Edge was quicker and eventually they agreed and they jumped upon the expanded flying sword spirit that picked up to max speed soon enough heading towards Lurian.

Unexpectedly, Univa actually wanted to go to his village since it was summer and she had nothing to do during the summer since her home was too stressful to stay in at the moment.

Meldie was in a similar situation and so they had nothing to do so Edge simply expanded and the swordsmen would spar on top or he would train the Sword minions but not for a long duration due to the sword consuming energy unable to connect to the land, though the wind one had no problem as it could connect to the wind mana.

Like that 10 days went by before they finally reached the village.

Xero was shocked to find that the number of residents and the expansion of the village had grown so much.

All around the manor there were masons working to pave the packed earth with stone bricks going all the way to the three gates. The north, northwest and northeast sections of the city were completely cleared of wood while the outside the village, more than 50 acres of land was open and most of it was filled with farm land that was already bearing a large harvest of different crops, though only the original 30 acres.

The new land was slowly expanding and was already being tilled for the summer/fall harvest while the current grain on the field was already being harvested slowly by the serfs and farmers.

“Wow! Your village grew so fast!” Meldie said in shock as she saw the constant flow of merchants heading near the Lord’s plaza and several dozen wooden buildings being built around it while within the Lords Plaza there were serfs selling fish, herbs and meat as well as traders hired by the Null family negotiating building materials and land rent for shops as well as size of such buildings.

One very particular set of building was built together within the Lord’s manor, near the edge of the on the west side. It was made of stone and had a few chimney while another was built of wood and had a large number of people coming and going.

“Oh they built a brewery and Tavern already, your parents aren’t stingy for sure, to actually hire dwarven brewers to supply a steady stream of ale. It will take out a lot of grain from the harvest but the money it will bring is probably even higher.” Univa said praising the construction.

Over on the west side, from far they could see that fishing piers were built at the river and fishermen were pulling out the fish and even some monster fish with the nets while being careful. Monsters in the water drew lots of people with water based familiars and these were considered hunters of the water, almost all of them worked to hunt water monsters that paid much better the common fish while the fishermen themselves were actually clearing some areas around the river to form ponds to cultivate fish for easier production.

Soon Xero flew over the manor walls without reservation and landed at the front door. Within the walls of the manor, a number of guards, most of which were men, as well as young children dressed as maids or butlers, were walking around. On the north east side of the manor was a new large building that was the servants quarters next to the gate on the south side of the wall, there was a stone barracks for the young knights.

Only outside of the lord's manor, near the south gate, the north east and north west gates, were the guards quarters and their training field was also surrounding each barracks.

Xero happily walked inside, followed by the others, “Mother! Father!” He called out.

The head maid had been walking by and saw him and stopped before doing a bow, “Young master, you have returned and it was unannounced?! What are those guards doing?!” She complained.

“Don’t worry, I flew over the wall too quickly for them to arrive before me.” Xero explained.

“Understood, young master, I shall get Lord Nil and Mistress Opal.” She said and clapped her hand making a few young maids come out. “Go prepare some tea for the young master and his friends.” She said clapping to shoo them away while she lead them to the meeting room where soon the young maids walked inside and poured tea for them.

“For a Rank 1 noble house, your family sure invested a large amount of money, also how come they are training knights?” Univa asked.

Probably not being up to date Xero explained, “We are already Rank 2.” he said and a that time a small grey wolf pup ran in and to Xero’s leg.

“Hi Silver.” Xero patted.

“Greetings little boy.” She said enjoying the petting but it shocked the visiting guests.

Just behind the little wolf, Nil walked in with a smile, “Son, you’re finally back.” Nil said and Opal appeared smiling with Zilch in her arms while Nero poked his head out from behind here.

“Big bro!” Nero said and ran over and hugged Xero.

“Hey there Nero, how have you been? Did you cause mother and father trouble?” Xero asked jokingly.

He pouted and looked up while still hugging, “No~! I’m not a bad boy! Big bro! Teach me magic like papa’s!” He suddenly said.

“Like dad?” Xero asked confused and looked at his father.

“The boy’s been asking ever since I took him on Silver for a run and ran into a few monsters where Silver handled the battle easily. He also saw when we battled the bandits back then so he seems rather fixated on Ice magic.” Nil replied.

“Oh!” Xero exclaimed and looked down, “Be a good boy and I might teach you.” he said.

Nero pouted, “I am a good boy!” he exclaimed and ran over to Opal and pulled at her, much nicer silk dress that was still very simple but beautiful showing off her mature womanly curves, “Mama! Have big bro teach me!” He said.

“My my~! Nero don’t pressure your big brother, he just got back and magic is really complicated.” She said with a smile.

He pouted even more, “Nero, I’ll teach you something later to start training your magic, is that okay?” Xero said.

“Really!” He said.

“Really.” Xero nodded and finally let the subject rest as the little chestnut haired boy smiled brightly. Finally Xero looked at his father and turned to point at the others. “Father, these are some friends that I met from school. You know Meldie already from when she came during the winter.” Xero said.

“Ah yes, the little Halfling, thank you for taking care of my boy.” Nil said.

Meldie blushed and nodded.

“That is Univa Crost, she is from Radiance Empire’s Crost Family. It was her brother and family that took down the Trolls and goblins to the northeast.” Xero introduced Univa who stood up while putting down the tea and did a small bow.

“Ah, I remember. To meet the young miss again, it’s a pleasure.” Nil gave a little bow as well.

“And this is Ernest…” Xero said and froze.

“I’m Ernest Wais Nelmoon, I am an orphan raised in the Evergreen Forest by the elven people near the borders close to the human nations. I am currently part of the Holy Institute and I’ll be going into my 4th year this year.” He introduced himself when he saw Xero forget his complete name.

“Oh, I am honored young paladin. I am happy to see my son has such a reliable friend.” Nil said, “Well I have come to see if my son is well, I wonder you children have come to visit? Will you be passing the summer here?” He asked.

“Yes sir, there were… problems when we were in Radiance empire but they are mostly resolved but we wish to refrain from being out in the open.” Ernest said.

Nil’s face turned serious and looked at Xero who smiled and explained.

“I see, Xero, don’t return to that empire until you can properly defend yourself.” He said and Xero just nodded.

“Good, now I need to go train the knights and the guards, the number of people have been rising and the guards need to keep increasing to support the security of the town. If I can’t get it to a specific strength we would lose a big chance for our family.” He sighed.

“What chance father?” Xero asked.

“You didn’t hear?” Univa asked.

Xero shook his head.

Univa smiled, “A Dungeon appeared in the West.”