Her training with magic was not yet showing as much progress. In the tower, under Master Rambalt’s supervision, Ray had still not yet succeeded in performing a perfect enhancement of her arm. She didn’t feel like she had made any progress.

“Your image is too rigid,” Master Rambalt informed her. “Simply imagining a durable object is not enough. If durability is all that your arm has, then the force applied to bend your elbow or fingers would have to exceed the durability of your arm to ‘bend’ it. Not only is this not ideal but it would also be extremely difficult and, if done incorrectly, could result in you snapping your arm like a twig.”

Ray nodded as she prepared to make another attempt. Master Rambalt was not in the habit of spoon-feeding his students. He would give hints, such as the one he had just given, but only after he had watched them fail repeatedly.

When she had once complained about it, he simply told her that the best way to progress is to learn enough to get yourself into trouble and then work hard enough to get yourself out of trouble.

Ray focused on the hint he had just given her. Durability wasn’t enough, which meant that there was something else she needed to add to her enhancement.

But what could she add to durability…?

Her only other experience with enhancement thus far had been when she encountered Siegfried’s ‘steel skin’ technique and his face had also gone rigid. She had a feeling that his technique also focused on durability.

A short-term solution could be to ball her hand into a fist before enhancing only certain portions of her arm. However, when Ray tried that, Master Rambalt had not praised her as she had expected.

“Shortcuts are only efficient for short-term powerups. If you rely on petty tricks, then that will be the extent of your strength. You would do much better to focus on achieving a full body enhancement.”

Ray groaned in frustration as she leaned back in her chair and tried to think of something else to try. She couldn’t just add ‘flexibility’ or ‘elasticity’. She tried that once and Master Rambalt had merely laughed when her steel-like arm bent in half like rubber. There might be a use for such an enhancement in the future, but it wasn’t what she was aiming for.

Ray pushed her feet up against the desk and tilted her chair back until it balanced on its back two legs. She leaned her head over the back of the chair so that her hair hung down as she looked at the entrance to the room behind her.

Lexi was standing near the doorway, carefully observing the students. Ray smiled and waved as their eyes met. Lexi grinned and waved back.

Over the last week, they hadn’t had many conversations. Most of their waking time was spent in these lessons or eating and the evening was used for personal study time. Ray didn’t know why, but Lexi always confined herself in her room during those hours.

Ray tilted her head to the side and saw Jantzen meditating in his chair. Surprisingly, the fat priest hadn’t tried to do anything to her in the last week. He seemed to have learned his lesson from their first encounter. Leaving aside talking, he rarely even looked in the direction of Ray or Lexi. The one time Ray caught him looking at her, his face had gone red, and he had started sweating furiously.

There was one incident two days prior when Suzy had suddenly shown up to the lessons. It had been quite a while since Ray saw the crazy bitch and she still felt a thrill run through her when she remembered the sensation of stabbing a dagger up through her head and into her brain.

After their eyes met once in the tower, Suzy merely looked away, her face turning red.

“I’m sorry. Her Holiness told me that I was wrong about you…” she muttered meekly.

Her lips quivered as she stared at the floor, unable to meet Ray’s gaze.

Ray shrugged. The whole incident didn’t really bother her anymore. In fact, she was rather grateful for the experience.

Peter, on the other hand, was just annoying. He talked to Kelsey a lot, but he avoided Ray and Lexi like the plague.

Even now, Peter was talking to Kelsey instead of practicing. Kelsey seemed irritated but she put on a strained smile as she endured the young boy’s endless prattling.

“So, Kelsey, did you think about our offer? Do you want to join our team?”

Kelsey sighed.

“You already have a priest. You should think about recruiting a guardian to fill the frontline spot.”

Peter waved her statement away.

“You can never have too many priests! Why would we need a front line if we could have two healers?”

Kelsey just shook her head and ignored him as she tried once more to focus on her own meditation.

“Hey! Hey Kelsey!” Peter started again.

Ray tapped the edge of her chair, drawing both of their attention. She glared at Peter.

“Shut up.”

Peter went pale and the words he was about to say died in his throat. He masked it with a fake cough before turning and looking the other way.

Kelsey shot Ray a grateful look and then closed her eyes and continued with her meditation.

Ray returned her thoughts to her enhancement. She knew that there were multiple ways that she could enhance her body. She could modify the durability, the ductility, the elasticity, the flexibility, the permeability, or the chemical structure. Though she couldn’t do it yet, it was possible to change her arm entirely into another substance, such as metal or water.

She knew that the solution she was supposed to be looking for was not related to changing the chemical makeup of her arm, nor did it have to do with the permeability. Also, making her arm less durable would defeat the purpose of the enhancement.

Elasticity and flexibility. The solution to her problem had to lie in those two properties.

Ray looked down at her currently unenhanced arm. She deliberately bent her elbow and flexed her fingers.

Why did her arm function in an unenhanced state? What part of increasing the ‘durability’ made it unable to move? It already had some durability inherently. It also had flexibility and elasticity.

Or wait, that wasn’t completely true.

Ray pinched the skin on her arm and pulled. Like joints, the skin had high elasticity. Comparatively, bones were more rigid and presumably had higher durability. The joints connected the durable bones at a flexible, elastic point while the skin and muscles held it all together. Each component had its own durability, and the system was balanced.

The process was probably much more complicated than that, but Ray didn’t have detailed knowledge about the inner workings of the body and she didn’t particularly feel like opening her arm up to find out the minute details.

Eager to put her theory to the test, Ray closed her eyes and summoned her mana. She focused it on her arm and willed the entirety of the structure to become more durable. As she felt the sensation in her arm disappear, she focused on the joint in her elbow and imagined ‘flexibility’. While she didn’t know the internal workings of an elbow, she figured if she enhanced the flexibility of the joint, she would see results.

To Ray, ‘flexibility’ was a snake. She hadn’t met a snake since she became aware, but she remembered seeing the creatures moving their entire body. Snakes were flexible.

As she willed the flexibility of a snake into her elbow joint, she opened her eyes and attempted to bend her elbow. It slowly creaked as it shifted from its original position.

“Yes!” Ray cried out, her excitement bubbling to the surface. “I did it! My arm can move!”

She raised her arm and waved it in the air for all to see.

“Now focus on being able to move every joint in your hand at the same time.” Master Rambalt instructed, looking up from a book he had started reading at some point. “Also, it seems slow and sloppy. You should work on that too.”

Ray withdrew her arm and half-bowed towards Master Rambalt.

“Yes sir!”

She met Kelsey’s gaze and the priestess mouthed ‘congratulations’.

Ray smiled and nodded her thanks.

She returned to her meditation. She tried to focus on making the joints in her fingers and wrist more flexible. The more she tried to do so, the more she realized how difficult the process was going to be. Focusing on maintaining three or four enhancements at once wasn’t too difficult. Maintaining ten or more? That was hard.

The full body enhancement was still far away but Ray had taken her second step. The future looked bright to the young lady who enthusiastically dreamed of smashing stuff without breaking her arm.

***

After they returned to the temple and ate a quick meal provided by the priests, Lexi returned to her room. She had several hours until she needed to sleep and, just as she had every night since gaining her freedom, she intended to use that time to its fullest.

She stepped into the center of the room and closed her eyes. She imagined the stances and moves she had seen Ven practicing under the instruction of the Echo Fist. She recalled the demonstrations and then she opened her eyes and revealed a fierce and determined glare.

Lexi mimicked the stance she had seen, with her left foot behind her right and her legs spread a comfortable distance apart. She bent her knees slightly and rolled between the balls of her feet and the tips of her toes to test her balance.

Maintaining her resolute expression, Lexi took a deep breath. Imagining that there was a target in front of her, she twisted her body and arced her left leg in a smooth and powerful kick. As her foot impacted the imaginary target, she let out a deliberate and forceful breath, almost like a hiss.

With a practiced motion, she smoothly returned to her stance and prepared to replicate the motion.

After practicing the martial arts, she would meditate and work on enhancement, using the same clues Master Rambalt gave Ray.

Without any guidance, she couldn’t effectively practice the elemental magic she had started learning a month or so before her tribe was attacked, but sometimes she would spark a flame and roll it across her knuckles.

Martial arts and enhancement.

For now, she could work on these two things. Lexi focused on the mental image of herself dancing through the slavers while ripping them to pieces with fierce, powerful, and elegant movements.

Every time she imagined that scene, her heart beat faster and she felt a rush of adrenaline.

She punched out and sighed in satisfaction as she crushed the skull of her imaginary opponent.

Someday, she would meet those men again. When she did, she would be ready to return her sorrow sevenfold.

***

Duke Jantzen Rovar, one of the 31 Grand Dukes and son of the 43rd concubine of the Legendary Hero, was the presiding, and only, noble official over the border fortress town of Cairel. That he was placed in such an important position was a matter of great pride for him and his mother. He had accepted the appointment and forsook even the love of his life to preside over and protect the border region from the monster-ruled wildlands to the east.

He paced anxiously in his study located near the top of the grand cathedral, staring at the mosaic of his nephew. Even though it was long past the time that he normally retired to his quarters, he was forced to stay up, worried about his son who had yet to return home, despite the late hour.

This was the fifth time this month and he had all but lost his patience. He was at his wit’s end. The other day, he had finally finished the process of balding that started a few years ago when he noticed the changes in his son’s behavior.

His son, Jantzen Jr., was a great source of pride for him. The child was blessed from a young age by Jocelyn, the Lovely One. He was granted authority to act as one of her priests and to learn holy magic. The day that his son had received that blessing had been one of the proudest moments of the duke’s life.

However, at some point, his son had begun to change. First, the boy was fat. There was no sugar-coating that fact and even if he tried to, his son would probably try to eat it. The problem wasn’t that his son enjoyed eating. Duke Jantzen himself carried a little more weight than the average peasant and he didn’t see a problem with that. It was only natural that he, as one of the rulers responsible for the prosperity of his domain, also enjoyed a reasonable portion of the profit gained by those under his protection.

No, he had no issue with the fact that his son enjoyed eating food. The problem was that his son was lazy. If one enjoyed food, then one must put forth an equal amount of effort to be deserving of that food.

Second, his son was arrogant, and perhaps even more concerning, his son was not intelligent. The duke had spared no effort to correct these issues, providing the best tutors and spending as much time as he could with his son.

Except for situations where either of them was traveling outside of the domain, he had a standard practice of refusing to sleep until he had welcomed his son home.

But the boy changed, and he had no idea why. The most recent incident was still fresh on his mind. As reported by the High Priestess herself, the boy had been ruthlessly beating a beastkin slave and was apprehended by a mysterious vigilante. His behavior was unacceptable as a noble and the fact that he was defeated by an individual outside of their sphere of control was a stain on their family name.

A knock on the door signaled the moment he had been anxiously waiting for. He quickly moved over to his seat.

“Come in,” he ordered.

He twirled his finger in his well-groomed mustache as one of the night guards opened the door and ushered the boy into the room. The duke nodded to the guard and the guard bowed before exiting the room, closing the door inaudibly behind him.

The duke observed his son for a long, drawn-out moment. The boy was flushed. His eyes were unfocused, and his body swayed as if he were drunk. Additionally, he was fidgeting, as he had been ever since his pride was injured. The duke smiled inwardly as he considered the possibility that this new fear and damaged pride might knock some sense into the boy. If that happened, he would spare no effort to find and reward his benefactor.

The duke motioned for the boy to approach.

“Take a seat.”

The boy swaggered over to a chair opposite the desk and plopped down into it, his ample mass oozing outwards to drown the noble frame.

“I have been waiting for you.”

Jantzen smirked at his father’s words, his eyes focusing on the old, bald man in front of him. He chuckled and the duke narrowed his eyes.

“I heard you got banned from the tavern. My informants told me about the ‘experiments’ you are doing, and I am exceptionally displeased.”

“Father, you worry too much!” Jantzen slurred. “Even if they banned us, there are other places I can go.”

The duke frowned ever so slightly. He allowed his face to slip a little bit because he knew Jantzen wouldn’t notice in his current state.

“My son, we must discuss the events of this last week. I have made no attempt to discover the identity of the individual who stopped you. Do you understand what this means?”

Jantzen’s eyes snapped into focus, his flushed face going pale as he was reminded of that hateful, terrifying moment. The duke resisted the urge to smile. That mysterious vigilante certainly had an enormous impact on his son. He needed to issue a test to see if there were any significant changes.

His son quickly recovered, light entering his eyes.

“I do,” he replied confidently. “It means that you entrust me with fixing the issue.”

The duke raised his eyebrows in surprise. He briefly wondered if his son wasn’t stupid after all.

“You understand why this is an issue then. Not only were your actions a disgrace to nobility and to the kingdom, but the fact that you were punished by a vigilante is a humiliation that you must clear up yourself.”

Jantzen scowled.

“I admit, I did not expect you to agree with me, Father. However, I don’t know how to go about it. The enemy this time is far stronger than any that I have faced before.”

The duke nodded approvingly at the sense of caution his son was evidently showing. He silently praised the unknown angel who knocked some sense into his son. It was true that fixing one’s public image after self-destructing was one of the most difficult battles a person could ever face.

The father smiled as he looked over his son with pride.

“I will offer you a single piece of assistance to resolve this matter. Ponder upon what you might need and ask. I will do any one thing that is within my power.”

This was a test. His son needed to prove his worthiness. Whatever his son asked for would be the final proof the duke needed that his son was changing.

Jantzen shot to his feet and stared at his father in a daze. He regained his balance and then saluted after the manner of the Rovar Kingdom, crossing his arms across his chest while bowing forty-five degrees. He almost fell over, but he somehow managed.

“Father, I will meet your expectations without fail!”

The duke’s grin widened even further.

“I am looking forward to it. You may leave. I wish you beautiful and happy dreams, my son.”

Jantzen straightened up and waddled from the room.

He hadn’t expected his uptight and old-fashioned old man to be the one to tell him to get revenge. The fact that he had done so only cemented in his mind how despicable the acts of that strange, freakishly strong woman had been. She deserved what was coming for her.

Jantzen’s eyes teared up as he felt his heart practically burst with joy. His father was finally supporting him for the first time in many years.

Finally, he had earned his father’s trust!

He would not fail in his mission.