Romulus : The Rise Of The Demon

Chapter 13 : The Lull

Axel gives a long sigh, eyeing me sceptically at the same time, and says, "I remember clearly telling you not to overdo it". I give an awkward chuckle which ends up turning into fits of coughs. He gives me water and starts rubbing my back.

It's been nearly 15 days since we arrived at Krysl. Even though my first three days​ of training were mainly for tapping into my ability of using my essence at any given point of time, my daily warm-up exercises still included them. When Axel told me that the real training is about to start, I didn't know it was going to be this hard. It felt like the exercise I was doing the past three days were nothing compared to these. First he increased the number of times I did my physical exercise from 15 to 25, and every three days he added five more, telling that I must get used to straining my muscles. Also, at the end of the day, he made me bathe in ice – cold water to relieve my strained muscles.

No doubt, Axel is a great teacher. He might not teach me how to use my affinity in combat and stuff, but he taught me a lot of different things. He believes that if we want to truly master our element, we must learn to do it on our own. Repeated trial and error leads to perfection. I ended up learning close-combat fighting, which, he said will help in the long run. He taught me how to use a knife, how to throw them accurately and he gave me three of them. These throwing knifes are special. Every person in this world has an aura unique to them. These knives have such a spell on them that they return instantly to the person whose aura they recognise. The only problem is to catch them without hurting oneself. Not only that, he taught me something what I basically understand as body type. It's related to close-combat and deals with how to fight a person who has a small body, a medium body and a large body.

In the remaining time, I use my affinity to create my own spells and attack. Out of 15 spells in PPA, I decide to learn only 8 of them, as it proves to be more useful. I am basically a long to mid-range mage with close combat training if things go dire, and Axel is a middle to close range mage. And, at times, at night we discuss about different types of magic, their weakness and basically how to counter them. After that, I get three hours​ to do anything I wish and in the end, I go to bed.

Currently I am in my bed, plagued with cold and fever. How did I end up having a cold? It is not because of those ice-cold baths. I wish it was that. You see, Axel told me that if my core is strong, I can improve my training significantly. He said that dipping myself in cold water of the lake, coming out and exercising can strengthen my core. He asked me to do this, but with a clear warning of not dipping myself in the lake for more than five minutes. But me, being the adrenaline-infused idiot that I am, didn't pay attention and at the end of the day, I ended up with cold and fever.

Axel touches my forehead and thoughtfully says, "102.7°F. Hmm. This fever might take two or three days to go down".

"Can't you use your phoenix flame to cure this?", I ask hopefully.

"No, I can't. Fever is the only thing it can't cure and even if it could, I won't do it. You reap what you sow", he says, smiling slyly.

"Meanie!", I say grumbling.

"And also, your body will get more resistant, if I allow it's natural defence to work on this fever. So basically, I am doing this for your own good".

"I wish I could hear Freya's lame llama jokes. How do you know so much about human body?"

"Did you forget that Melody is not only a mage but also a certified doctor? I basically got all this information from her".

He places a wet cloth on my forehead and says, "I can see that maybe, you will be ok after a night, but I will have you rest for two days".

"What about my training?", I ask.