Chapter 24

Luu and Sina were sitting at a table in the restaurant that Sina wanted to go to, she had seen it and she entered the market and the aroma from the food was enough to make a person drool, it smelled really good.

They sat a two person table and readily picked up the menus which were placed on the table, Sina was looking at all the food with a smile on her face, fantasizing about what it would be like to order everything off the menu.

Luu picked up her own menu and watched Sina who was grinning, her expression was one with stars in her eyes, ‘this girl loves tasty things eh’ Luu thought as she giggled whilst observing, Sina’s behaviour was extremely cute and Luu couldn’t help but giggle slightly.

The two, as usual, didn’t pay attention to anything or anyone surrounding them, they were in the city, it was bound to be full of people they didn’t know, they had no reason to pay attention to anyone else.

As they were chatting and contemplating what to order they heard the clinging of armour, Luu, raising her head from the menu suddenly noticed they were surrounded by 8 warriors, they had the Royal family of Rosen’s crest on their armour, Luu instantly recognised them as guards.

“Hmm?” Sina looked around too, she was a bit shocked that guards were surrounding her and Luu’s table but they hadn’t done anything wrong, naturally she wasn’t very worried.

“Yes?” Luu spoke, wondering what they wanted.

A man who looked to be the leading guard, who was a tall, well built man in his twenties spoke with a commanding voice.

“The both of you ladies are to come with us, our lord, his highness the second prince has taken interest you.” he said.

“Interest in us? tell him we’re not interested, now if you’ll excuse me, we came here to eat and that’s naturally what we’ll do” Luu said, she wasn’t dumb and she knew what it meant for someone to take ‘interest’, she had fought off many suitors in her elven city when she was taking care of the twins and Zepp.

Suddenly the guards pressed closer and put their hands on their weapons as a show of force.

“I’ll ask you once more to come with us or we will have to ‘persuade’ you” the leading guard said, a feral grin on his face when he emphasised the word ‘persuade’, it was clear that these guards weren’t going to let Luu and Sina eat peacefully.

“We refuse.” this voice wasn’t Luu’s but was Sina’s she was listening the whole time and she wasn’t young anymore, she was now friends with Yamu, and Yamu had told her about all kinds of things, naturally she knew what this ‘interest’ entailed.

“Men, take them by force, as per the prince’s request.” the guard said as he drawn his sword, all the surrounding warriors unsheathed their weapons and pointed them at Luu and Sina.

“Don’t harm them, remember the prince wants them in pristine conditions hahaha” the guard loved laughing at the despair of others.

The guard closest to Luu and Sina went to restrain them with their hands, ‘there was no way weak women could stand up to us’ , the guards thought.

“Sina! Duo formation!” Luu shouted, the individual strength of Yamu, Omil, Sena, Sina and Luu wasn’t that high, however, the Master hadn’t trained them to fight on their own, they were a team, the teamwork of the five together was exceptional, they had different formations for different situations, this was the planning of Omil, the Master had discovered his talent in planning and strategies, he came up with the formations and the Master had also approved of them, he said they were brilliant, by utilising their strengths and working together they could defeat higher leveled opponents, this duo formation was one of these formations.

Instantly Sina and Luu shot up from the table with fast movement, they jumped back to back to cover each other and started their magic.

“Wind barrier!”

“Water barrier!”

They shouted, Sina’s affinity was wind and Luu’s was water, they were making a joint barrier around themselves.

““Barrier fusion!”” they shouted in unison, suddenly a swirling mass of wind and water mixed together gushed out of the two, it circled around them, encasing both their bodies entirely, it was rotating due to the wind and the water was spinning around the wind encasement.

“They’re mages, watch out!” the lead guard yelled.

One of the guards grabbed a table and snapped off the leg, throwing it at the barrier, it simply bounced off.

“Men, break the barrier!” he yelled and they all went for a joint attack against the barrier, seeing this Luu and Sina smiled.

“Wind Pulse!”

“Water rotation!”

““Barrier escape!””

Suddenly the orb of wind and water and the people in it flew out of the shop at a high speed, the guards were left dumbfounded.

“Damnit! chase after them! we mustn't disappoint our prince!” the lead guard yelled, he was left in the dust by Sina and Luu, what they did was utilise and form a complex spell working together, Sina, being a wind mage, fired off a pulse of air to the outside of the barrier, this made them shoot in the direction they wanted, then, Luu rotated the water barrier at a faster pace, this made them go even faster and they could change direction and control it more easily.

This was an escape strategy that they came up with in the Duo formation if Luu and Sina had to fight together, everyone had different strategies for whoever they paired up with, this was Omil’s planning, they always moved in twos, it was much safer and they could guarantee escape.

Sina and Luu were in an alleyway about 100 meters from the restaurant they were just in, they had escape using their combination of magic.

“Phew.. that was lucky, they were all at least A rank!” Sina said, wiping her forehead, that was a close call.

“Hahh.. yeah, the art of surprise.. we need to get back to the base before they find us, I suspect they have a large area of surveillance, considering it’s the second prince.” Luu responded, also out of breath, that magic and the duo formation takes considerable mana to maintain and then the dual spell they called ‘barrier escape’ takes even more mana to use.

Running through the twists and turns of the city whilst keeping undercover they managed to make it back to the base.

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“Those royal bastards did what?!” Yamu yelled out in anger, Luu and Sina were both her friends, she couldn’t control her anger over some spoilt brat of a prince.

“Shh calm down Yamu, we need to be rational about this” Omil, who was currently practicing his light magic said.

Yamu was the strongest in the group, the rest were equal in their own strengths, Yamu’s fire magic considering she was a dragon was higher than others, however even in dragon standards hers was particularly strong.

Sena who had just came into the room and heard the conversation ran up to Luu and Sina and hugged them.

“Thank god you’re okay though” she said as she hugged them, they only managed to get away because of their barrier escape, without it they would be captured by the royal prince right about now, this was a terrifying thought.

“Hey, Sena, don’t be so worried, we made it out thanks to our training” Sina said with a smile, everyone else nodded, their training was finally starting to show some uses, it actually saved Luu and Sina from a situation like this.

“Yes, at least we know the strategies we came up with work, the formations also played it’s part” Omil said, finally standing up, he had grown a lot in the past months and he seemed much more mature.

“Hmm yes, they worked very well, the guards, who were probably some of the most elite that the royal family of Rosen possess were left surprised by our actions, they infact worked brilliantly, however, we still have room for improvement, the formation time and magic combination spells need to be advanced more for practical fighting” Luu said, rubbing her temple, she was recalling the whole fight, the reason for her fast growth was because she had an excellent memory, anything she had seen she could recall in her head like a recording.

“You’re right, I think we should go practice them in the training room that this base has, It looks like the Master has never used it” Yamu said, she was grinning whilst looking at Omil, she especially enjoyed beating up Omil when they spared.

“Ah, let’s do a group spar, practicing formations we can do 2 v 2, one person can judge from the side, then we rotate, sound good?” Omil replied frantically, he didn’t like sparing again Yamu alone, she seemed to be especially vicious when in a fight, her gangsta like personality would come out full force, it was no mercy.

“I agree, let’s do that.” Luu said from the side, giggling at Omil’s reaction, it seemed to be a team secret that Omil was used as Yamu’s training target.

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The second prince Jonathan and his two friends were still sat at the table where they could see everything that happened, Jonathan was not happy he smashed the table with his fist.

“Fuck! How was I supposed to know they were mages, that makes me want them even more though!” he said, clenching his fist, he couldn’t get the image of the two women out of his mind, after all, they were the most beautiful women he had ever laid eyes upon.

“Hmph, just tell the guards to search the city, say you’re trying to find a criminal” Reh replied, he was hoping the prince would at least let him have his way with the girls once.

“Mmm, with our combined forces and manpower we should find them, even if they could transform into ants” Barry spoke, wiping his mouth with a servant's clothing.

“I know but what if my father finds out, last time I wiped out a small noble clan that wouldn’t give me their daughter, Father stripped me of my authority for a month!”

Jonathan’s father, the King, actually didn’t care about anything he did, but to look good and put on a good face in front of his citizens and officials he had to punish him if he acted out of line, the nobles and royal family in Rosen were completely selfish and corrupt.

The 8 warriors from before came up the stairs, they had given up looking, all of them came and knelt down to the side of jonathan, the lead guard spoke with an apologetic tone,

“I’m sorry, Prince, they took us by surprise, that was a strange technique, forgive us.” he said, his head touching the floor.

Jonathan snorted in disgust and stamped on his head, the warrior actually couldn’t be hurt by the Princes weak stamp but it was still destroying his pride.

“You useless piece of shit!” Jonathan said, angrily stamping his foot on the lead guards head, if his father wasn’t the king then he wouldn’t dare do this to an A rank warrior who could kill him with a snap of the fingers.

“I want all the guards to search for the two women, get someone to draw a sketch of them and show it to every available man under my command, Reh, Barry, get your men to join in too, and everyone, keep it quiet, the reason we’re looking for them, if anyone asks, is because they tried to kill me, GO!” Jonathan said to the Pual , the leader of the elite guards, the prince had control of 2000 soldiers and guards as per his status, Reh and Barry’s families were important nobles within Rosen so they naturally had guards and soldiers under them too.

The search began, Jonathan sat back in his chair, clenching his fist, he lightly whispered to himself, “I’ll find you no matter where you hide, and once I do you’ll become mine!”.

Of course Jonathan didn’t know that they had a underground base protect by a magic formation barrier which the Master created with his own magic.

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The day after the incident in the Human capital of Rosen, a young man with blood red veins and a cloak that matched his veins with a blood red colour was floating in the air of a pure white room, in front of him was a slightly older man who had golden hair and eyes, he wore a tight fitting white outfit instead of his usual white robe.

“That’s enough meditation, now, activate your blood magic.” Malus said to Zepp who now opened his eyes and drifted to the floor.

Zepp closed his eyes and felt all the mana in his veins, in his mind he imagined the mana in his arms being pushed out like someone pouring water out a bottle, suddenly his arms went warm and it carried on until the heat got stronger on his palms, the feeling flowed throughout and suddenly a small sphere that was a deep and dark red appeared, it rotated slightly like water in a glass ball being moved.

Zepp’s eyes also went a deep red, the same colour as the spheres in his palms, a feeling of being connected to the magic flowed through his brain, it was part of him, like an extra limb.

“Try throwing it” Malus’s voice rang out, Zepp closed his eyes and imagined the spheres being thrown towards Malus.

“They won’t move” Zepp said, his voice carrying a tinge of impatience.

“Picture them coming towards me, concentrate harder” Malus replied.

All of a sudden the blood red spheres 2x2cm in diameter flew towards Malus, they weren’t moving that fast to Zepp and Malus but ordinary people wouldn’t be able to react in time.

They whizzed through the air, Zepp still had his eyes closed.

“Control them with your mind, direct them!” Malus shouted, he twirled his finger and two eagles made of blue mana came hurtling towards Zepp, he could sense them, he tried directing the blood spheres towards the eagles, however, moving them in mid flight proved to be a difficult task, he started moving his hands to the movement he wanted them to go and this seemed to help, the blood spheres shot towards the blue eagles and hit them head on, as soon as the spheres touched the blue eagles made of pure mana the spheres didn’t stop at all and went through them like a hot knife in butter, but the strange thing was it seemed to absorb them on the way through, nothing was left once they came out from the other side, all of this happened in the matter of a split second.

“Good~!” Malus said, laughing slightly, he had made some of his mana go into the shape of eagles, this was an easy task for Malus but shaping pure mana was thought to be impossible, Malus limited the mana levels so the eagles were at least A rank.

They repeated this process for hours and hours until Zepp was out of mana, afterwards Malus told him to go back to meditating.

“We’ll carry on this process until you are using those blood spheres as comfortable as you breath, Heheh~” Malus giggled.

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Thank you for reading :)