Serum

"I'm sorry."

"...No, I understand."

Cecilia sighed, wiping the frown off her face. 

Dirk had, with great effort, come to her and informed her that she wasn't welcome on the expedition. He explained using Pandora's words that this was their battle to fight since they were now what could only be described as envoys of the primordial dragons. 

Of course, Dirk beat around the bush a lot, not wishing to make his mother upset or sad. But Cecilia knew what was going on, and she easily saw through the situation. 

And while she really didn't want to leave Dirk's side, she knew she couldn't guard him forever. It wasn't feasible nor good for his growth. She knew Dirk had amazing talent, and she herself had gotten strong through a lifetime's worth of adventures, battles, and hardships. 

If Dirk were anyone else, even one of her other children, then Cecilia would be more callous. She'd say that they needed to leave the nest and discipline themselves with experience and adversity. She'd actively send them on their way to go and fight in dungeons, building their skill and power. And in fact, she had done that with her two daughters, Viola and Rita. It was why Dirk never saw much of them, even when he was still at the academy. Ethan was the only one who joined the military of his own volition, and since then, had been working there while Ryker taught him all kinds of skills and tactics. 

But Dirk was a special case, even more so now that he revealed his secret to her. He was already disciplined, more than even his past life, and he had a hardened mind far beyond any warrior. Cecilia's other children, despite being older, couldn't compare to his experiences. 

In short, Dirk was already a ruthless killing machine with everything he needed to grow. He just had to build up to his vast potential. 

And he couldn't do that if Cecilia were hovering over him. While she wasn't fond of Pandora, she trusted in Dirk's judgment. He could handle himself. 

So she agreed to take a step back. 

"Well, it won't be a completely bad decision either. I can focus on hunting Asura, though I'm sad I won't be able to do it with you."

"Not necessarily."

Dirk smiled a bit.

"Just because I'm traveling doesn't mean I can't keep my eye out. I'll find anything I can, and I'll kill every asura I come across. Maybe if they're there, I can clear out the Dwarven Haven of asuras."

"Mm, that's very true. My, such a good child. I'm proud of you, sweetie."

Cecilia couldn't help a wide smile, wrapping Dirk up in a big hug. Dirk just laughed. He was sure there was no other mother in the world who would praise their child for hunting people like pigs. 

"Hm, well, I don't have to leave immediately. You said Pandora gave you two more weeks? I'll help you with your spells and anima techniques until then. Your power has grown significantly in a short time, and your skills are lacking. Given two weeks, you should be able to heavily refine the magical tools at your disposal."

"Sure. I really could use your help too."

Dirk readily agreed. He had never been able to truly refine his spells and techniques. There had always been a distraction or something to do. So while two weeks wasn't a long time, if he spent every waking hour training, then he could benefit immensely. 

"Then it's settled. Come, we'll start right now. You had a training room, right? We'll use it. For the next two weeks, I'm going to squeeze out every bit of short term potential you have. You'll surpass anybody at your Tier, that much I'll guarantee! I dare say you'll be able to kill Tier 5's."

"I look forward to it."

Dirk had a wide smile as he nodded. After that, he and his mother made their way to the training room Dirk had occupied for a couple weeks prior. 

............

"That's your Void Walking?"

"Yes."

"...Ouch."

Cecilia's beautiful face cringed at Dirk's use of the dark movement spell. While she didn't blame him for his lack of skill, she truly had a hard time looking at such a butchery of spell usage. 

"Then again, you did silent cast exceptionally quick. In terms of sheer power and magical prowess, you actually have a strong foundation. You just don't know how to channel that brutish power properly. You're also using a disgraceful knockoff of the actual spell. I'll teach you the actual spell."

"Actually, I already know the actual spell."

"You do?"

"Mm. I've traced all the runes from the original magical text."

"Traced?"

Cecilia tilted her head, prompting an explanation. 

"One of Spyte's abilities. With my help, we can trace any runes we see and she can store them permanently in my mind. Before I was taken, I had traced many of the runes from the original Void Walking text, along with runes for Curse of Darkness and Theory of Stealth. I can go back and comprehend these runes anytime I want in my head."

"...That's... so not fair."

After being stunned, Cecilia could only mumble those words. How amazing was it to just look at runes and forever remember their structure? And then you could go back and comprehend them anytime you wanted! That took away almost all the value from magical texts!

It was an amazing ability that defied common sense. 

Cecilia sighed.

"Oh well. If you know the spell, then I'll start training you with it. You can easily match a Tier 5 in sheer power, so you can begin training the spell. Even Rita could begin learning the spell at Tier 4. Then again, she was almost Tier 5... but that doesn't matter."

She waved her hand. Then, she stood. 

"Watch me."

Saying that, Cecilia disappeared under Dirk's gaze. He could sense the dark mana around him fluctuate as her body shuttled through the void. Her movement was slow, and the mana fluctuations obvious, but that was so Dirk could learn. 

He watched as she flew about the room, going from one corner to another in seconds. Dirk just sat there, watching her movement through space. 

And Dirk was astonished. It was like he could see ripples in reality as she drifted by. At its core, Void Walking was a movement technique based in space. It warped the space around the body to move you across distances at insane speeds. The only thing that could match a dark mage in distance traversal was a light mage who utilized the unfathomable speed of light itself. No other element took things to the same extremes. 

But he was also confused. Void Walking, in order to move a person's body, had to connect to two points in space: the mage's current position and their destination. At higher levels, they could move through obstacles, even teleporting vast distances. 

What Dirk couldn't understand was the instantaneous movement from one point to another. What happened in between? How did the person just vanish? To fill in those gaps in knowledge, he began to theorize. 

And Dirk's theories didn't involve spells. As Dirk had fought for control over Source Mana, he was now used to using dark mana directly, not with spell formations. He manipulated the element when using his Stealth technique and Mana Pulses. Even his crude applications of void walking happened using silent casting, a form of elemental manipulation. 

Of course, since he wasn't proficient in the actual Void Walking spell, he would have to start with forming the runes. But he didn't imagine things using spells as the basis. He was always thinking in terms of direct manipulation. He felt the dark mana within him, communicating with the element directly and wondering how to control it like his mother. 

And he got plenty of chances to test things out. Cecilia was serious about training Dirk. She wanted to prepare him as much as possible, arming him with the best magical knowledge she could. As Void Walking was considered one of the most important spells to any dark mage, she intended to focus on it the most. After all, it was a lifesaving technique that could get Dirk out of sticky situations and put him into advantageous ones. 

So they trained incessantly. Gradually, Dirk began to refine his spell. Only, as he practiced more and more, Cecilia noticed him deviating heavily from the intended effects of the spell. 

"...Do it again."

Cecilia spoke as she sat in a chair. Dirk stood in front of her. His head was throbbing from the constant spellcasting, but he disregarded the pain and did as she said. 

He faced empty space, and the spell formed in his mind. Cecilia watched as Dirk's dark mana extended through space, making contact with a point about 5 meters away from him. Then, something odd happened. 

His body actually distorted, appearing simultaneously at his original position and at the destination. There were two of him. 

Of course, this distortion was only momentary. In the next instant, Dirk appeared fully on the other side. 

In an attempt to bridge the unknown gap of teleportation, Dirk had resorted to creating something of a spatial channel. Like that, he would distort his position in space, making his position his destination by overlapping them. So for a moment, he would appear in both places at once. 

Cecilia naturally saw what he was doing, but because it was such an odd application of spatial movement, she wasn't sure what to say. 

"...Despite you making the spatial channel, it doesn't create an obvious weakness. While any dark mage near the Tier 6 realm could disturb your movement, because you also aren't exactly moving through space, it wouldn't backfire on you."

"But there isn't any shock factor."

"Indeed."

Cecilia nodded at his conjecture. 

Void Walking was supposed to be instant. In one moment, you were at point A. The next moment, you were at point B. On the other hand, Dirk's Void Walking placed him in both places at once. While it could happen just as fast as normal teleportation, it also made his destination incredibly obvious. For a small window, he would be seen in both places. Anybody with good mana senses could pick up on this, removing the element of surprise from his movement. 

"...Well, it's a start. Let's keep working on it. And start showing me your other techniques. I can't help you when it comes to fire or lightning, but I'm also an earth mage. I can show you things like Earth Guard along with some ground shifting spells. Granted, I'm only a Tier 6 earth mage in terms of power, but my skills and experience are there."

"Mm. I'll take anything you can give me."

Dirk didn't hesitate to accept her help. He forgot, but she was indeed an earth mage. But because she was such an amazing body refiner and dark mage, her earth spells never saw much use, being overshadowed.

"Alright. Let's switch to controlling your Aura. We've got 6 more hours in the day. You'll have no trouble sleeping by the end of it."

..........

.......

Across two more weeks, Cecilia did what could only be described as standardizing Dirk's spells and techniques. 

Dirk had thrown together his techniques crudely so he could use them in his escape from Asura's mountain. The Theory of Stealh text didn't actually have any spell formations, only runic formations to comprehend. Thus, Dirk had to toss together his own techniques based on his shallow magical experience, creating his Stealth technique. 

Of course, for a person at Dirk's level, it was shocking enough to put together any Stealth technique at all. Cecilia had long been surprised by his inherent ability. Sure he fell behind Pandora, but his sheer ability was no lesser. 

This was especially true when he practiced with his Stigma, the pistol. Dirk had developed spells to use as elemental substitutes for bullets. Cecilia took a look at this too, giving him a great breadth of advice that sharpened the spells further. 

Metal bullets, fire bullets, even dark bullets imbued with curses. Dirk refined his unique spells and made them far more efficient and powerful than before. Now, they were a powerful weapon he could use at any time. 

Bullet spells, Stealth, Mana Pulse, Mana Vision, Earth Guard, Void Walking, plus a myriad of other auxiliary spells. 

These were all the magical tools at Dirk's disposal. Over two weeks, Cecilia refined every one of them, and Dirk was exceptionally malleable to her corrections. They were all brought to a new level under her guidance. 

But only half the time spent training was devoted to magic. When Dirk drained his mental energy, they would always switch to anima training. 

Dirk's physical body didn't need any training. He had long reached the peak of physical strength, agility, and dexterity with his body. Anima was miraculous in that he didn't lose progress even after a long time of no training. So for a long time now, Dirk only needed to focus on two things. 

His destruction cycles were easy. It was just a tedious process of hurting and healing. 

On the other hand, his new Aura ability wasn't so easily controlled. 

Dirk was currently a Knight class warrior, someone who could channel their anima out of their body and create Aura. The most a Knight could do is eject their anima from their body, creating an uncontrolled explosion of anima that did nothing but destroy material. It was crude, but still powerful. Normally, it took a powerful and skilled Rank 4 to actually create Aura. Only Rank 5's could even think of refining their Aura.

Dirk had already begun to refine his Aura. Before leaving for the Dark Kingdom, his mother had trained him on the basics of becoming a Rook class. Now, he was once again compounding off that progress, going even further. 

"Here."

Cecilia tossed a knife into the air. Dirk caught it without much thought. 

"Don't think of anima as much different from the elements. Anima can still be comprehended, and you can learn about the special attributes that it holds secret. This is how you can fill material with it and yet not destroy it. Many think anima is simpler than mana, but that couldn't be more false. Only meatheads think that, and there are too many meatheads who train anima. Control anima like you do mana, and concentrate it."

Dirk gazed at the knife as his mother explained. The knife was nothing more than a cutting knife for bread. 

Cecilia had been challenging Dirk with infusing his anima into weapons. The challenge was to not destroy them in the process. This went against what anima was as a naturally destructive material. 

But Cecilia also had Dirk question the nature of anima. It wasn't purely destructive, otherwise everyone would be dead since anima existed in the atmosphere alongside mana. Instead, anima could be both destructive yet protective. It was like how mana could reinforce things through enchanting and yet destroy through spells. 

The process of body refining was adapting the body to dense anima, taking advantage of the reinforcement anima could provide. Dirk learned to tap into this. 

"...You don't want to destroy the knife..."

Cecilia mumbled as Dirk channeled his anima. His dark gold Aura streamed into the handle. 

And her eyes lit up. 

Previously, Dirk could only use his Aura explosively, releasing it into the knife with violent force. Now, it was slow and steady. 

She watched as the handle was subject to a phenomenon similar to corrosion or decay. This was anima's destructive power. 

When the Aura reached the blade, the metal also began to see tiny specks of brown appear. It was rust. 

But Dirk kept going. He felt the anima and how it interacted with the material around them. Suddenly, he thought of something. 

"If the atmospheric anima doesn't harm anything... then should I just use it like that?"

Dirk's mumblings reached Cecilia's ears. She froze for a moment before concentrating on the knife. 

It was then that the dark gold Aura filled the knife. When it did, it suddenly froze. The blade stopped rusting, the handle stopped decaying.

'I don't want to resonate it...'

Anima resonation would destroy materials. Dirk didn't want that. 

So he brought the anima to a standstill, wrapping the blade in his Aura. A thin film of dark gold coated the silver bread cutter. 

"...Cut this."

Suddenly, Cecilia held out another knife. Dirk waved his hand. 

*Shing!*

*Clang!*

A blade of metal fell to the ground, separated from its handle. Cecilia's smile was wide, tossing the handle in her hand away. 

"You did it! Yes! Hahaha! I'm so proud of you!!"

Cecilia couldn't help herself as she clapped and scooped Dirk up in a hug. Despite Dirk being taller, she easily swung him around with her atrocious strength. 

The indicator of a Rook class, being able to imbue, reinforce, and enhance weapons with Aura without destroying them.

Dirk was a Rook class!

"Haha! Wait, don't stop now. Continue! Do it again!"

After instantly calming her excitement, Cecilia had Dirk repeat the process. The result was another cut blade. His Aura was so sharp it could slice through metal like butter. 

"N-now release it! Release Aura from your blade!"

"Hmm..."

Dirk frowned for a moment before swinging his knife. As he did so, the tip of the knife released a line of Aura which shot out. Upon colliding with the hard floor, it only left a slight cut before dissipating. 

Cecilia trembled in excitement, more thrilled about this success than Dirk himself. 

"Amazing! A Rook class! And you're only Rank 4... While it can still use a lot of work, especially the Aura you release from the blade, this is a monumental achievement! Now you need to work on reinforcing the Aura coating on your blade. If you can also retain the destructive properties of anima when releasing it, it'll become all the more powerful... Yes, we must work on this even more."

"Mom?"

"Huh?"

Cecilia raised her head, looking at Dirk's wry smile. 

"We have two days left."

"Oh..."