Chapter 21: Lesser's Plan for a disciple

Fang with East sleeping on his shoulder, Mathias, and Luna all walked together slowly, none of them spoke. Fang was doing his all not to collapse, Mathias was just feeling awkward and wouldn't start a conversation added to the fact that he had just been kidnaped. Luna was in the same predicament as Fang, she was exhausted, in her fight with Lesser she had used all her trump cards and it left her drained.

Her last spell in particular, summoning the ancient Void Dragon’s blood was taxing. This spell was derived from another water element spell unique to the elves. But her variation of that spell required her to be at least in the Saint level, something she had yet to reach.

However forcing herself to use the void dragon blood summoning left her drained even when using an incomplete form. And on top of the physical fatigue was the mental strain the three had been under.

Fang in particular had realized how carefree he had been living up until now. His goal of becoming a thief wasn’t really for any reason other than because a book he thought of as important from his previous life when he had nothing. And while the idea still seemed fun it was no longer his only goal. His new prominent goal was to gain strength, enough to fight against all the unreasonable circumstances that might befall him and his family.

But doing so would be difficult if he stayed in his current environment, in his previous life he was able to reach the pinnacle of strength and unleash world destroying powers at a great cost but there was nothing he would be unable to kill as long as he was willing to pay that cost.

But here in the safest environment with strong people always guarding him he would never reach that same level or at least not fast enough to be satisfactory. Adding to the fact that he now realized that his mother would stop him from hurting himself by running raw mana through his body in order to strengthen himself. With all that in mind he knew what was needed to be done, he had to leave and grow.

But when he had that thought it hurt him slightly on the inside, regardless though his mind had been made up and he would tell his family. Luna was having much different thoughts in her mind the only thing she could think of was that from now on she would keep her children right next to her at all times.

If they were never further than arm's reach even if multiple Saint level experts of other monsters similar to Lesser showed up the least she could do was escape. While they were thinking various thoughts the three of them reached home, because Mathias was unwilling to be alone Luna took him in her arms while signaling Fang to follow that day the three of them slept together to reassure each other's safety.

As for the rest of the bandits and criminals who had been brought in to distract Luna, Lesser had taken care of them. The next day Luna was the first one of the three to wake up, seeing her two boys sleeping comfortably in her arms she almost squeezed in joy forgetting the various thing that had happened the prior day.

But after regaining her composure she remembered that Lesser would still be in her house so she carefully got up not wanting to wake anyone and left to go find him. As soon as she saw him she activated one of her simples spells, blood drain, despite it’s simplicity this was the spell she relied on most when facing opponents as it would force them to either waste large amounts of ki or mana to stop it. On top of that if they did not do so death would be eminent.

“Luna that’s not very proper. Though I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, I did get you in a good mood yesterday.”

Luna just scoffed at him while maintaining her spell towards him at maximum power. Ignoring him, other than silently trying to kill him, Luna began to prepare breakfast.

“Ah don’t be mad we just had a bit of fun and played around a bit, now your boy and whoever rescued him is safe and learned a good lesson.”

Luna turned around and glared at him before giving a sigh of resignation and releasing her spell.

“Lesser if you ever do that again I'll spread your name and face so far and wide that as soon as someone sees you they’ll give up any hope of fighting and let’s see how much fun you can have then.”

Lesser paled a bit from hearing those words but immediately regained his composure.

“Well then I'll make sure to leave that boy of your’s alone. By the way I found an interesting disciple, one I think I can pass my legacy to… The next Lesser War Fiend.”

This time it was Luna’s turn to lose her composure, she had known Lesser for over fifty years and from what she could remember he should have just been a normal human who worked hard for his strength. When they met he was already an old man, when she asked him how he could live so long while being human he had given two answers on two separate occasions.

One time he said that he stopped being human and became a fiend while the other time in a much more serious tone he said that he needed to pass down the title of Lesser War Fiend. If he found someone for that it meant one of two things, either he found a true monster who could take his position or he was close to the end of his life.

“So you’re finally going to die? You had a nice run as a senile old man.”

Despite her harsh words and her intent to kill Lesser herself she felt a bit of sadness. This was one of the major reasons that elves kept to themselves, over the passage of time they alone would be left behind. She would most likely even have to watch her sons grow old and die.

After all the average elves lived for more than a thousand years and those that were blessed with powerful mana from birth could live up to five thousand years, although those that did would generally choose to sleep for thousands of years in order to not have to deal with the loss of their loved ones or when they simply believed they had nothing better to do.

This was also the reason Luna believed that Lesser had lived for so long but he had stated that even if he had millions of years he could not sense the presence of mana.

“Hahaha no that’s not entirely it I saw a ten year old boy fight more than thirty men without fear he was even winning, sadly he was still too young and was running out of ki. He even had a pet dragon, albeit a lesser dragon.”

As soon as he said this Luna was glaring at him once more with a great amount of hostility equal to when they were fighting the day before, her blood drain spell had even activated once more and he was forced to circulate his ki in order to keep from dieing.

“I told you to keep away from my son.”

Lesser now had a better understanding of the situation, if it was the boy and lesser dragon he saw that day then they indeed had a chance of beating his semi trained men. And the message sent up would also make sense.

“Oh so he was your boy. Before you become hostile you should be thanking me, after all I saved him from those men that were nothing but human wave tactics. He would have tired eventually and you would have lost a son.”

Hearing this Luna calmed down once more as according to Lesser's story he had not done anything harm, in fact he had helped him out of a tough situation.

“Then stay for breakfast… As thanks I’ll make enough for you as well.”

Seeing the many sudden changes that Luna went through Lesser couldn’t help but laugh at how right Liz had been about how much Luna had changed.

“Ah but you won't be taking my boy with you. He stay with me until he’s reached break level and then I'll let him leave my sight.”

This startled Lesser greatly and seemed rather amusing as well, in his mind without a tough environment one could not grow especially as a ki refiner. So a sheltered boy would not be able to reach such a level, much less ever break out of his current level.

Even as talented as he was he would need to be grow right. For that he began to think of a plan to get the boy in his hands. He had lived a long time and had been both the victim and instigator of many schemes, as such he could easily play an elf who despite having a long life was not particularly worldly.

“Well that’s fine for now I wouldn’t take your boy by force, but what if it’s his choice?”

Disregarding what Lesser had said Luna continued making breakfast. Around the time she had finished Fang and Mathias arrived in the kitchen looking at the old man who sat at the table waiting for his portion.

“Fang Mathias meet Lesser a friend of sorts. He traveled around with Liz and I for a while. He’ll be staying for today then leaving.”

Both boys gave their greeting and the four ate in silence. Fang this whole time had been thinking of how to tell his mother that he needed to leave in order to become strong, but had not thought of a way to convince her so instead he decided to tell her what happened then state his desire to become strong.

“Mother Yesterday I was attacked then when I returned home…”

After explaining what happened and realizing the culprit was sitting next to him Fang stopped himself from fighting a futile battle and possibly provoking someone on par with his mother. He was not the same as he had been a yesterday, he could not die from provoking someone far stronger than himself. Seeing his reaction of anger then subduing his emotions both Lesser and Luna were surprised at his maturity. But then he continued to speak.

“Mother, I need strength, enough strength to fight off any, to scare off anyone who would even think of harming our family. For that I need to travel and fight on my own. Here I'm safe and can’t grow quickly enough.”

Lesser hearing this was delighted and almost threw all his plans out the window and proposed to take in the boy but years of experience told him to stay quiet and wait. Luna was not expecting this and stood still from shock but recovered quickly enough.

“Fang I know this was a hard experience but you don’t need to force yourself, I will watch over you and make sure you're strong enough when it’s time for you to be.”

Lesser knowing that this would be a good time to speak and gain some trust from both Luna and Fang began his plan.

“Boy you have some strength and it wouldn’t be strange for you to desire more but at most you’re, what eight?”

Hearing Lesser speak Fang shook his head.

“Ten.”

“Oh you're a bit small. But your mother has close to a point you're too young and to go out on your own would be dangerous, and I know that's what your want to grow. You’re even on the right track. But alone you’ll never learn any of the laws much less reach a suitable level. For now listen to your mother.”

Luna gave Lesser a strange look, he was thinking of taking Fang as his disciple not too long ago and she wouldn’t believe that he would give up just like that. Lesser in response gave Luna an apologetic look, trying to get some sincerity across. Due to that Luna believed that he was trying to make up for the trouble he had caused.

“Listen to Lesser, unfortunately he knows what he’s saying considering his strength as a ki refiner.”

Fang thought his idea was best but he still needed to convince his mother considering the fact that simply escaping would be more or less impossible.

“Having said that if you wish to gain some experience then joining an academy wouldn’t be bad, without a guide learning a law will be difficult and learning from the dwarves is unlikely due to the fact that most of what they learn is more or less a secret. I'm sure even your father is under some type of oath to keep what he knows a secret unless you join some type of dwarven group.”

Luna at this point wanted to speak out but knew he was right, in. The first place she planned to call in a friend to teach him how to discern a law after he reached that stage.

“And it just so happens that a mutual friend of ours has her own academy. Enter there in, oh let's say five years and you can grow semi independently while learning and your mother is sure to let you go.”

Nether Fang nor Luna could give any reason as to why Lesser's idea had been bad. It made the best compromise, Fang would have to stay with his mother for another five years and be safe while steadily growing in strength while he would also have the promise of being able to go out and grow on his own.

“Plus the academy is a competitive environment, it’s said that talents on par to your son enter every year from all around the continent. He could grow to be something special.”

With this Lesser had convinced them and his only thought was a that he had won. He had already promised to be a teacher for a while in exchange for some information from Liz and if he could enrol Fang he had his disciple right in his hands, the only thing left was to confirm everything.

“Well think about it and talk it out with your husband. I'm sure you’ll think of something good.”

Without another word Lesser headed out his destination was the High General Tal and his king, he had some convincing to do. Fang in the meantime took East to discuss if what Lesser had suggested was truly a good idea. Luna on the other hand didn’t know whether to be angry at Lesser of be thankful, in her eyes Fang could be oddly stubborn at times and this seemed to be one of those times.

If he truly wanted to leave she could stop him but could not bare the thought of seeing her son go against her and what Lesser had suggested had him stay at her side without a problem for another five years. But they were only five years! She needed him to be her little boy for at least another twenty to thirty years. Caught in a dilemma she couldn’t even stop Lesser from leaving before fully deciding whether she would thank him or attempt to kill him once more.

(Author's note: so this was suppose to be out yesterday but it didn't get there due to various reasons such as me being asleep the whole day to stave of hunger. Why was I hungry you ask? Well the answer is simple I was being to lazy to cook or get up to buy something so while I ate snacks a actual food wasn't had till late then I fell asleep again so my bad.)

:)