"I see..." Strata said, continuing to slither across the sand. "I don't think I'll be missing him much anyway."
There was a faint note of satisfaction in his voice.
The little guy really did enjoy looking down on Tranx whenever he got the chance.
I said nothing, simply letting his comment pass.
After a few moments, Strata finally raised his head slightly.
"Anyway, where are we going, Master?"
His tone carried a hint of confusion.
He had clearly noticed that we weren't heading back toward the cave. More importantly, he was probably wondering why we were traveling on the ground instead of flying.
Name: Strata
Species: Snake
Attribute: Fire
Age: 54
Mana: 75
Aura: 0
Prana: 0
I glanced at him.
Lately, I had been thinking about Strata's development.
He had spent most of his life relying on his natural strength and mastery of fire. When it came to aura, however, his understanding was practically nonexistent.
Perhaps it was time to change that.
And since we were already outside...
Why not make the most of it?
"Since we're already out, I thought we might as well travel a little before heading back to the cave."
I deliberately left out the more important part.
This wasn't simply a trip.
It was training disguised as one.
And there was no reason to tell Strata that.
Knowing him, the moment he realized I'd turned our little outing into a training exercise, he'd spend the entire journey grumbling about it.
He was already lazy enough without giving him a reason to complain.
Fortunately, I'd gotten a head start.
While enjoying the free ride on his back, I'd been quietly inscribing gravity runes onto his body, gradually increasing the weight they imposed.
Little by little.
So gradually that he hadn't noticed a thing.
For now, he probably assumed the journey had simply become more tiring than usual because of the burden of carrying me.
I suppressed a smile.
"Recently, I've heard some rumors about a lake to the south. Apparently, the mana there is unusually dense, allowing one to accumulate it much faster. Let's go take a look."
I said it casually, gazing up at the sky.
The rumor was most likely true. Regions with such peculiar properties weren't unheard of on the mainland.
Of course, most of them were occupied by beings far beyond my current level, so I'd never had the opportunity to experience one myself.
But perhaps today was my lucky day.
"Oh..."
Something had entered my range.
It was moving beneath the sand, heading straight toward us.
Perfect.
This would make for a good training exercise for Strata.
I slowly pushed myself upright before jumping down from his back.
"Something's coming our way. Deal with it."
I casually stepped away from Strata, leaving him to face whatever was approaching.
A moment later, he sensed it too.
"<Fireball>—what?"
The spell failed to manifest.
Strata stared at his hand in confusion, then tried again.
Nothing.
I smiled.
"Oh, I forgot to mention something."
I paused, just long enough to enjoy the look of confusion spreading across his face.
"I sealed your magic while we were traveling."
For several seconds, Strata simply stared at me.
His coils slowly tightened, and his tongue flicked out in irritation.
"Consider this your first training exercise."
His body stiffened.
I could practically hear the complaint forming in his head.
Judging by the way his coils continued to tighten, it was going to be a long one.
-------------------------
"Huff... huff..."
I looked at Strata, sprawled over the corpse of a massive scorpion roughly his size. His tongue flicked as he caught his breath.
It had been almost a month since we had left the settlement.
Name: Strata
Species: Snake
Attribute: Fire
Age: 54
Mana: 75
Aura: 3
Prana: 0
The journey had turned out to be far more eventful than I'd initially expected.
Not long after we left, I began putting Strata through a rather brutal routine.
Every monster we encountered became an opportunity for him to fight without relying on his magic.
At first, he hated it.
Naturally.
He had spent his entire life relying on his overwhelming physical strength and fire magic. Taking away half of what made combat easy for him had been enough to make him thoroughly miserable.
But after days of one fight after another, he slowly began to adapt.
A few days ago, after yet another particularly brutal battle, Strata finally awakened his aura.
It was weak, barely there.
But that was enough. The hardest part of aura was awakening it in the first place.
Once he had opened himself to aura, I unsealed his mana.
There was no point forcing him to fight without magic forever.
The goal had never been to make him weaker.
It was to make sure that, when his magic wasn't enough, he had something else to rely on.
"Fufu... Now, can you remove the spell engraved on me, Master?"
Oh.
He noticed.
"Or how about I modify it so you can activate and deactivate it whenever you need?"
I'd spent nearly a month carving that spell into him. Removing it now felt like a waste.
It could still serve as a useful training tool whenever he felt like practicing.
Not that I expected that to happen.
"....."
Strata stared at me for a few seconds before finally replying.
"Okay."
Ohhh.
That was easy.
I'd expected him to start whining again.
Anyway, we'd finally reached our destination.
"Go ahead and polymorph," I said.
Along with his aura training, I'd also been teaching him the polymorph spell throughout the journey.
As Strata began transforming, I turned my gaze toward the vast body of water ahead.
A lake in the middle of the desert.
Scattered around it were dozens of shabby settlements, their buildings looking almost out of place against the endless sea of sand.
Yet the sight that truly caught my attention wasn't the settlements.
It was the mana.
Even from here, I could clearly sense the enormous amount of it radiating from the lake.
It was far denser than I'd imagined.
This place...
It really was unusual.
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