71: Finally Some Strong Ones!

Finally Some Strong Ones!

Jumping around the forest, Greyson did not end up finding anything of interest. By nightfall, he decided to just head back to the main camp and eat before sleeping. Although he tried walking as slow as possible, he still made it back in good time. The soldiers just began handing out dinner and, upon seeing Greyson show up, the younger soldiers' eyes lit up with sneers. As always, the middle-aged soldier handed him expired, moldy food while Greyson just inwardly rolled his eyes. Couldn't they come up with anything else? Not that he wanted to be bullied, but this was just getting stupid. Taking and trashing the food with no issues, he walked away while taking out a different fruit from earlier. 0

Night arrived peacefully and Greyson walked over to the tent assigned to him. By routine, he lifted up the blanket and saw the large number of bugs placed underneath. Sighing, he shook his head before walking out.

"Looks like it's sleeping in the trees again, Lu. Not that it matters. I guess they didn't know that the elf bloodline actually makes me more comfortable in outdoor spaces. Master's manor is extremely open with not many walls enclosing the space with trees growing throughout the inside of the house, as well."

"Like I said, even their bullying is ignorant. They don't even know how to properly bother you, so why even try?" Lucius just rolled his eyes as he found a comfy spot on a thick branch. Slightly chuckling at his friend's words, Greyson also got comfortable leaning on a branch. His eyes flashing brown, Greyson willed extra branches to grow around him creating a cozy nest-like bed in the trees. This way the wind would be blocked while also preventing him from rolling off the branch. After sleeping in the trees so often, he developed his own know-how.

Who knew when he drifted off to sleep, however, in what felt like an instant, he was rudely awakened by a paw in the face.

"Old Lu, what's wrong with you? Since when do you wake up before noon?" Groggy, Greyson complained before swatting the cat off his body and trying to go back to sleep.

"Idiot! Am I the type to wake you up for no reason?! Now get up, there is danger!" Frustrated by the ungrateful gesture, Lucius hissed back at him. The word "danger" woke Greyson up in an instant.

"Danger? Where?" Quickly sitting up and rubbing his eyes, he allowed his vision to dart around. However, while his eyes did not detect any motion, his ears could hear and his body could feel heavy stomping that was approaching the camp. How has he slept through something so loud? Glancing towards Lucius, Greyson was quickly enlightened.

"It's some type of long-range wind hypnosis spell. If it's not the thing approaching that cast it, then there is an accomplice. We should quickly go scout out what is approaching!" Listening to Lucius' words, Greyson felt a cold sweat drip from his back. He would have to be more alert later even when sleeping.

"Wait, then why weren't you affected?"

"Stupid! Really even after that narcissistic elf bragging about his teaching skills, you still don't know something so basic!" Exasperated, Lucius cursed Sweetbow for not being thorough enough. "Magic beasts have different thresholds for sight, smell, and sound. They have to be magic beast specific or even race specific spells in order to be useful. In reverse, things that work on beasts may have no effect on humans. Remember that powder that would have attracted beasts that one noble brat gave you? You couldn't smell anything but I could tell what it did. It's similar to that concept." He continued explaining.

"Oh, right, now that you mention it, I do remember that. It was... who was it again? Well, anyways, I get what you mean." Slightly embarrassed to have just completely forgotten the kid's name, Greyson decided to just gloss over it. He got the point anyways. Poor, Arwen never realized how insignificant his existence was in Greyson's young, growing mind. "Shouldn't we wake up the rest of them first, though?"

"Those weaklings? It's best to just see if you can solve it on your own. If not, then maybe strength in numbers will work." Lucius disdained the rest of the caravan which was why he would always urge Greyson to leave. Sighing slightly, Greyson knew that Lucius was right. Activating his Air Steps spell, he burst out into motion towards the stomping noise. Although whatever approaching was heavy, it was also extremely slow with each step taking half a minute. Sneaking around, he slowly came upon the source of the noise. Mana gathering around his eyes, his sight became clearer even from far away. Looking closely, he sharply inhaled from what he saw. A humongous tortoise-like creature was approaching with a group of bandits on top of its back. It seemed the bandit base was mobile and built on top of the turtle. The shell was covered in rocky terrain, but Greyson could spot the human-made dens dug out. Well, he at least knew it was the bandits that cast the hypnosis spell. From his memory, he could already recognize this magic beast as a Terra Armored Beast. They were earth-element beasts who were terrible offensive fighters, but innately talented at defense. Bodies comparable to the hard earth, these magic beasts could even endure strikes from magicians a full level higher than them. This one in front of him was only an intermediate level beast, but it could defend against Greyson's attacks. From the fact that the bandits could live peacefully on top of the beast meant that their leader had to at least be an advanced level magician or it would be impossible for him to subdue this Terra Armored Beast.

Eyes lighting up with interest, Greyson wanted to quickly attack the bandits. This moment was exactly the challenge he stayed with the caravan for. Finally some strong bandits have come to attack them!

"Lu, should I wake up the rest of the caravan and attack with them?"

"No! You can beat this bandit group yourself in my opinion. Zephyr needs some time to spread his wings, too right? I also wanted try using some magic. I haven't had the chance to step in and fight in so long already." Lucius quickly rejected his idea. After thinking about it, Lucius was already a magister level beast so Greyson stopped worrying. The silver dragon tattoo lit up on his face and faded away as a half-grown appeared in its place. Too excited, Zephyr could not help but let out a loud roar as he flew up. Watching his partner in such a state, Greyson felt a stab of guilt for keeping Zephyr locked inside his body for so long.

"Hey, look, they're coming now!" Lucius quickly brought back Greyson's attention with a yell. His eyes quickly looking over, he could tell that Zephyr's roar grabbed the bandits' attention. Jumping up onto Zephyr's back, Greyson shot up into the sky. Once he was high up enough, he pulled out his magic bow and nocked an arrow. Green and brown eyes lit up the dark sky as he released multiple arrows in a row. The wind element sped up the arrow speed and the earth element sharpened the metal arrowhead to pierce through even armor. Sweetbow taught him a lot of tricks when it came to the bow and arrow. Each arrow found its target piercing through the approaching bandits taking them down one by one. Zephyr would also release his own magic taking down the waves of incoming men. All of the weaklings were quickly getting beat down until three men stepped out. The leading man swung out his hand and managed to block Zephyr and Greyson's attacks. Interest piqued, Greyson stopped his barrage of arrows to take a good look at who had come out this time. Scanning them carefully, the men's levels all shocked him. One advanced level stage four magician and one advanced level stage five magician made of the two men who stood behind the leader. Even Greyson could not quite tell what level the leader was at so he looked over at Lucius for an answer.

"What you're thinking is correct. That man is a magister level stage one magician!" Even Lucius was surprised. Although he knew that there could be bandit groups with such a powerful leader, it was truly unexpected to find one in an outer country. "I will fight him. You take care of the other two." Leaping off Greyson's shoulder, Lucius landed on the ground and announced this as he quickly bounded towards the leader. Greyson also had Zephyr lower to the ground so he could face off the other two. In order for his fight to stay uninterrupted, Greyson had Zephyr handle the multitudes of weak bandits still left over.

"Young elf, you are surprisingly powerful for your age. What is your reason for attacking our base?" The leader's deep voice spoke out still sounding relatively calm.

"I am part of the caravan that was put under the hypnosis spell. Thankfully, I was able to break out of it. Therefore, in order to protect them, I came out to fight your group off."

"Ah, if I were to tell you that they weren't our targets, would you believe me?" Keeping a straight-face, the bandit leader gave nothing away.

"You are saying that you would have just passed by a wealthy and defenseless caravan without stealing anything? I could maybe believe that you would not kill everyone, but not steal? That's a different matter. Those materials are important for a later trade, so I cannot allow for that to happen." Not taking the bait, Greyson could believe the caravan was not the main target but they were still a happy accident. The bandit leader's eyes finally flashed with annoyance hearing the half-elf boy's answer.

"So, will you get out of our way and peacefully hand over the materials, or must we do this the hard way?" No longer able to fake civility, the greed and violence leaked out into his voice.

"Neither. We're going to fight and kill you." Greyson nonchalantly replied. The three bandit leaders froze for a moment wondering if they had heard correctly before the advanced level stage four magician started cracking up.

"You, the mixed-blood, wimpy-looking little thing, and this little kitten of yours are going to kill us? HAHAHAHA! That's the best joke I've heard in ages." Holding his stomach in laughter, the man insulted both boy and cat. Narrowing his eyes in anger, Greyson quickly pulled out Genesis. In just the blink of an eye, he was in front of the laughing man slashing down a fire-covered sword. Laughs turned to screams as the man caught on fire and a long cut appeared across his torso. Both the other bandits widened their eyes in shock before quickly retreating away from the fight. They wanted to help, but it was already too late for their friend who was already turned to ashes. The vomit-inducing stench of burnt flesh permeated out. Greyson's pupils shook slightly, but he no longer felt the same nausea for killing a person. Instead, he ignored the body and quickly looked towards the other advanced level magician. Meeting Greyson's gaze, the magician quickly got a hold of himself and started preparing for battle. The bandit leader looked furious to see one of his right-hand men cut down right in front of him, so he began approaching Greyson to kill him only to be intercepted by that same small kitten.

"Stupid beast, begone!" Activating an earth element spell, sharp spike quickly popped up from the ground underneath the cat. However, the expected cries of pain did not follow. Finally pulling his attention away from the boy, the bandit leader looked around for the cat that he believed was already stabbed through. But his assumption was incorrect as he could not see the cat anywhere. Feeling a cool breeze fly by his neck, the leader's heart dropped as he quickly summoned an Earth Wall behind him for defense. Wind slices blasted the wall apart and still cut open the leader's back. Spitting blood, the leader finally realized he severely underestimated the strength of the young cat. Summoning an armor to form around his body, the leader also summoned his weapon, an ax. However, he would not realize that he would never be fast enough to fight with Lucius. A flash of silver teleported right in front of his eyes, before sharp shining teeth bit into his throat. The spatial element. His eyes flashed with final understanding towards his death, but it was already too late.

The fight happening on the other side had yet to finish. Greyson refrained from using his combined element spells as he could not always rely on them since they drained his mana too quickly. Just switching between his different elements in a variety of ways had already brought his opponent to the brink of mental collapse. It turned out the man was a normal water element magician and he tried his best to defend, but he could never anticipate which element and which spell would come for him next. Already in a sorry state when Lucius and the leader finished their fight, the man completely lost his will to fight after seeing the leader taken down. Greyson approached with a simple wind slice, however, instead of avoiding or blocking, the man purposefully allowed Greyson to succeed in stabbing him straight through.

Disappointed the fight ended already, Greyson just quickly pulled out his sword. Maybe he should have tried fighting with the magister level magician? Summoning Zephyr back, the silver dragon gave a little whine before disappearing in a beam of light back into Greyson's body. A shining silver dragon tattoo once again appeared on his face.

"I know. I'll let you come out more often later, I promise." Connected through their souls, Greyson could tell what that whine meant. Turning towards Lucius, he couldn't help but remark, "who knew you were so vicious?"

"What do you mean? I am a powerful magic beast, you know? Not some domesticated house animal." The cat just rolled his eyes and continued licking away the blood from his fur. "I just got a little excited, too. It's just been too long since I last fought an opponent. A shame, though, that he was a slow earth element magician. They are the weakest against quick attacks like mine."

"Your spatial element's ability to teleport is really worthy of envy." Thinking back to the fight, Greyson felt jealous of such a convenient ability during a battle.

"Well, this is just my genius, you'll have to get used to being jealous." Puffing out his chest, Lucius did not give up the chance to rub it in.

"Whatever, let's just go back and get some sleep. There're only a couple hours left until sunrise. I'm exhausted." Waving his hand weakly, Greyson just ignored Lucius' words as he started heading back to his earlier tree bed.

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