Chapter 121: Exactly like her…
Axel’s face, which had traces of excitement in it, now deflated like a punctured balloon. It was like he was lifted to heaven only to be dropped back into hell. Lucien couldn’t keep his poker face seeing that, he burst out laughing with no holding back.
Axel gave him an unamused look, but the guy kept laughing nonstop. But Axel was reminded of Lumina by that, sigh, both siblings were indeed familiar, at least in some ways.
After a minute, when he was done, Lucien looked at Axel, who was looking at him with a frosty expression. He sighed and recollected himself. He stated with a chuckle,
“Come on, Axel, don’t be such a killjoy now. I swear you’re too much like Sophia sometimes.”
Axel’s eyelids moved slightly in surprise at that comment, for a moment even Lucien himself seem to be surprised at that revelation, but they both disregarded that thought moments after, Axel remarked internally, ‘I’m nothing like that bitch.’
Lucien also similarly on his mind, ‘Yeah, never mind, he’s nothing like that when considered as a whole, but just sometimes, I guess.’
After that, Lucien went straight into the specifics and the job he was supposed to do, he started with the amateurish mistakes Axel was making. Axel used that opportunity to fire out all the questions he had, and Lucien listened to it all, explaining everything to him in an understanding manner.
Then proceeded to show it practically by forging a sword himself, he talked while forging, showing him the process he should follow, which Axel listened to attentively and absorbed all the details into his memory.
Then Lucien would sometimes tell him to do the forging to see how much he actually learned. Axel had to admit, the guy really knew a lot, while Gareth would be an example of a master forger with countless years of experience. Then Lucien would be the example of exquisite, rich, and highly proficient techniques.
He also uses some uncommon and exotic methods in forging, which almost makes the forging look like something new; not only that, those things seem more difficult to perform as well.
It would require a lot of effort on Axel’s part to even barely grasp those difficult and high-level forging techniques. Of course, Lucien didn’t show him everything; likely, most of the top tricks he had, he did not show it to Axel. But he didn’t need it either.
On top of that, Lucien actually showed him more of what he was capable of than what Axel himself expected, considering he wasn’t getting any real substance from Axel himself. So, he at least appreciated how sincerely he helped him on that note, at least.
Just these were more than enough for Axel, he didn’t need to become a master forger, well he might one day by amassing a lot of experience but for now it wasn’t necessary, the only necessary thing for him was to have something that could cover up for his apparent lack of talent within the field of forgery.
Thus, his daily activity continued as he did his own forging, learned advanced forging from Lucien little by little, and attended the mandatory classes with severe boredom since they were not so helpful for him now. He was too busy to spend any relaxing time with his friends like Lumina, Heinz, and Vyra was also now moderately close with him; he bought a lot of potions from her.
Most of the day passes for him doing these, and at night, he fights the phantoms for the pseudo runes optimization. But that part of the process was progressing extremely slowly, but that was quite all right on its own, since it wasn’t his main focus as of now. For another whole month, he focused on forging and only forging while improving with the help of Lucien, he met a few times with Gareth, and he apologized vehemently to the master forger for not paying him back, but Gareth barely even remembered that Axel owed him money.
Gareth simply waved his hand and shooed him away, thinking nothing of it apparently.
In the next month, the 2nd part of his training with Lucien started, being able to fight without eyesight or any of the other senses.
“Sigh, I must say, I have rarely seen anyone so bad and untalented in forging,” stated Lucien in exasperation.
Axel did not comment on that, he was by now used to hearing that kind of jabs by the 4th prince all the time, thankfully since he learned all that he could from Lucien, at least the part he showed him that is, he probably won’t need to hear his constant complain and jabs any longer, the guy even complained to him that, if Axel was intentionally performing bad on the forging or something, sigh.
Axel believed his lack of talent might have something to do with the world Will balancing things out.
Since he was extremely talented in Runecasting, to balance things out, he had really bad talent in forging, understandable in a way.
“But ohh boy, am I glad that, forging part of the process is over,” added Lucien with a trace of relief.
After a pause, he added with some hesitation,
“I hope you don’t show your same ungodly talent this time as well.”
Axel looked at him with dead eyes and responded flatly,
“How long are you going to waste time talking, nonsense?”
Lucien clicked his tongue in annoyance for not getting the reaction he expected, he surmised internally.
‘Never mind, this moron is exactly like Sophia.’
They were now in a private training room of the academy, something that could not be done with any outside interruptions, fully in a private place. It also demanded an inhumane level of focus.
Lucien spoke in a serious tone, “First, sit in a lotus position, then calm your mind, body, and soul. Empty them absolutely as much as possible.”
Axel did just that without question or any hesitation. Lucien’s instructions followed after that,
“Focus, solely and solely on my voice alone, nothing else in existence exists aside from this, breathe in and breathe out, like a calm flow of water that has no ripple, nothing else in it, just the purest form of water that has become a flow of river. Not a single bubble of air in it.”
50 Golden Tickets = 1 Extra Chapter
200 Power Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1 Magic Castle = 4 Extra Chapter