The first week of training, went as expected he would have his sparring sessions with thomas, then practice verdant heart binding with his mom, practice sword arts with thomas again, and then back to his mother's grove to practice one of the nine spells and make contracts with beasts around the grove in preperations for the cubs, sometimes seraphyne was around sometimes she was not, and he was expected to practice the spells the way she taught him on his own.
In the first week he had managed to reach 34% mastery with lions sweep, and learned all of the 9 spells, and by the second week he had reached intermediet mastery in all 9 spells.
His progress was great, specialy concidering that he was working with advanced spells, while his peers usually only learn intermediate and beginner spells, but he was also kinda dissapointed, since druids and spell casters in general usually learned in spellbooks, a druid his age would probably be learning beginner spellbook in weeks.
Though he was sure he could learn beginner spellbooks in a day, they normaly consist of usless mostly quality of life little spells like conjuring water, or producing a bit of heat, or growing normal food crops and fruitsโthings he could naturally do without learning specific spells to make them easierโhe had hoped to start learning at least one intermediet spellbook.
His mother was, unfortunatly, not very keen on spellbook culture, she was much more concerned with quality and benefits than quantity.
However he, of course, trusted his mother's judgement more than his own, it is thanks to the theories, books, philosophies, formulas and her own teachings that he knows more about druidic arts and its composition than some scholars out there, and while his talent surely helped he was also positive that his mother's teachings played a major role in how fast he could learn spells.
Besides, all he could do right now was to follow her lead and wait until he could get books from the academy's grand library.
The first of the nine spells was ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, it made glowing emerald scale outlines made from natural energy on his body, a much needed defensive spell.
The next was ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ it conjured a bunch of tiny thorns that launch towards the enemy and make tiny natural energy explosions once they settled in the body, at first he could make dozens of them, but as his mastery increased he could make hundreds, and though they couldn't penetrate very deep, it was still a great offensive spell.
๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ was a spell he was sure would have a lot of use in his journey, it allowed him to communicate with beasts, the first stage was very primal communication by just projecting emotions, though with good enough mastery you could have full conversations, and it helped him with training in beast summoning.
๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ allowed him to temporarely take control of the undead, and the monsters' hollow bodies since they dont have souls he could make contracts with, it helped increase his understanding of unnatural monsters and what makes them unnatural.
๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐, was a much needed concealment spell.
๐ฏ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐, and ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ were both for healing but for two different situations, one made a flower that healed and poisoned anyone within a six meter radius depending on what thalien wanted, its biggest flaw is that while the plant was sturdy and protected by natural energy it could still be destroyed, and needed someone to protect it, healing wave on the other hand was used specificaly on the caster, it was made with a formula that made it very potent, but imposible to cast on others.
๐ฎ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ was an air elemental spell, that made a sockwave of wind, while he could make bursts of wind elemental energy without any spells, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ was an advanced spell that was wildly more potent and efficient than anything he could do, he managed to uproot five very strong and tall trees in his mother's grove with one burst.
And finally ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ , concentrating natural energy into an incredibely thin beam of light, that could burn through honestly anything thalien could find, even the training dummies that were specifalically made and enchanted for martial arts experts, it was a high tier advanced spell, that could burn through all of the enemy's defences.
โฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพ
While training in the nine spells, he also did a little spell exchange with luna, she taught him ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐, it grew poisonous vines that you can control like limbs, and he taught her shapeshifting, though her learning process was definetly special, she learned it pretty fast in a week or so, which was pretty good, but the way she eventually did it confused him, thalien tried to explain the basic theory, and then how to apply it, but it seems she was only listening to the first part, it was kinda like a maths student that understood the basic premise of a problem, but came up with their own overtly complicated way in solving it, it was geniuse and creative in its own right, but could also be inefficient, thought thats not his problem, she has her own journey and if it impeded her development he was sure she would fix it.
โฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพ
He also made advances in beast summoning, specialy after learning beast call, he went around the grove communicating, and looking for beasts he could contract with, his mother's grove was full of powerfull beasts, he saw A ranks to D ranks, his mom even hinted at some s ranks in a part of the grove she told him to never go into, and of course setra and gavin, who were both ss ranks, so he tried to make contracts with the most powerfull beasts he could realisticly make contracts with.
He found the blue eyed bear again, orim, he remembered his name, at least the name luna gave him.
The bear was very hesitant at first, but so long as you show respect and remain still for long enough that it realises you are not a threat it will eventually feel comfortable enough to approach, thalien would start practicing verdant heart binding near what he assumed was its "mushroom circles", or just the places it liked to hang out, for hours until it came close enough for him to communicate with it and even then it would mostly ignore him, until it didn't and started responding, and he actually managed to make a contract with it.
Only then did he see its mushrooms, which by communicating with the bear and researching its kind on his phone in the short period before he sleeps, he learned that its a special type of mushroom that only grew around its kind through their waste, and that these mushrooms are classified as minor natural treasures with alot of usess in medicine, and elixires, however these mushrooms are also important to the bear for its cubs growth so they use magic to make it invisible for unwelcomed beasts and humans.
โฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพ
Thalien also saw the ruby stag, though it was much less willing to comunicate with him, he only actually saw it from above a hill that looked to down the canoppy, and whenever he came even a 100 meter within its proximity it would very gracefully and quickly run away, he eventually found him self in a game that was a mixture of hide and seek, and tag, he would run around trying to use natural sensory to find it which was hard because it also had a concealment ability of some sort, and it was really fast.
It was actually helping him advance his mastery in the sensory spell.
Though he couldn't help but think it was just playing with him, because whenever it got bored, or didn't want him to find it, it would just disappear and no matter how much he tried he couldn't sense it
He would research its kind on his phone every day before he went to sleep, next morning he would search for it while training in cannopy veil, and natural sensory at the same time.
He learned that the ruby like material in their hooves and antlers, was actually a magic stone with immence amounts of pure mana thats very valiable, and that they had refined concealment, sensing, and movement abilities, and are capable of runing a thousand kilometer per hour for extended periods of time if they wanted to, and can also walk on air, and water.
The more he learned about them the more he wanted to either shapeshift into or make a contract with one.
And so he would dedicate 30 minutes before sleep everyday to research it, and when he has the opportunity, play with it to advance his cannopy veil, and natural sensory; and study its behavior.
And one day in the middle of the third week, thalien was running faster than he ever did, closer than he ever been to the ruby stag, instead of chasing something he was just sensing through a spell, he actually saw the stag, and even though thalien was running at his absolute limit, he was still far behind, and he knew the stag was just playing, he knew it could run much faster.
Thalien was sweating, panting, starting to fall back, but he couldn't let it go, he had too much pride, and invested too much time into the stags little game to lose right now.
He focused entirely on the stag, studying the way its moving, observing every shift on its muscles, studying its pace, and breathing patern, its interactions with mana and natural energy, and recalling all the information about its anatomy he researched during his precious sleep time.
He then concentrated all his efforts at shapeshifting into it, he tried once, and again, and again, and again.
His vision was getting blurry the stag was starting to disappear, he tried on last time, going all in.
And he did it, he was so numb from the over exertion he didn't even notice that he did it until he saw the gap between him and the stag closing, and it kept closing, until they were side by side.
The stag looked confused, but then excited it finally increased its speed, and thalien followed, they kept accelerating, and accelerating, thalien was thrilled by the speed he was running in, he was certain it must have been at least 900 k/h.
The stag also seemed to be having fun, so much so it jumped and started running on air, thalien tried to jump too, but he just landed back down, looking at him trying and failing multiple times the stage, jumped back down and then jumping back up again, as if showing him how to do it, and after watching it a couple of times, he did it, the pure mana stones that were his heaves naturally condenced air underneath him that made him able to walk on it like it was glass.
Thalien and the stag continued running for a while, on land, on air, and on water, until they were both too exauhsted.
Thalien looked back at the ruby stag, still in the same form himself, and slowly approached, using beast call to send signals, of kinship, and goodwill; and the stag seemed to understand, they put their heads against each other, their antlers touching and initiated a contract.
[ โ๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐๐ฅ๐ฆ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ ๐๐ค: ๐๐๐๐ค๐ฅ๐๐๐ ๐ค๐ฆ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐
๐ฃ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ค๐ฅ๐๐ฃ๐ช]
"Your name is rudolph"
Thalien waited for approval, and when he got it he said.
"Nice to meet you rudolph"
Thalien stayed a bit with rudolph before going back home with the teleportation talisman his mom gave him
โฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพโฆพ
Back at home and in his bed he couldn't help but think of his shortcomings.
He feared he may actually not finish the quest.
He wasn't afraid about verdant heart binding very much since he was showing progress.
What he thought was impossible at his current stage was the contract with the cubs.
At his current stage with advanced mastery, he could atmost make a contract, with a weaker B-rank.
In the first three weeks of training he had managed to make contracts with a bunch of E, and D ranks, with the exeption of rudolph and orim, who were both C ranks.
During his training, with the beasts and the cubs, he figured out one thing, which is the vast difference between the cubs and every other animal on the island.
How is he supposed to make a contract with a soul that makes him and every beast he made a contract with, feel like an inferior form of life.
And on the other hand was his father.
"How the fuck am I supposed to move him...ahhhhh"
Thalien almost cried.
While he made progress in his objectives, his spars with caelan and thomas showed he was nowhere near forcing either of them into an action they aren't planing to take.
His spars with thomas looked like staged fight with how much thomas was in controle of every move.
'Hehhh...well at least I finished most of my objectives and some, all I have to do right now is focuse on three things: the contract, verdant heart, and getting caelan to move'
Thalien closed the lights and went to sleep, with the same heaviness in his heart as a student whose test is nearing.