Chapter 317: Mercer’s Training
Everyone remained in the deck until Trade City and the rest of the continent disappeared on the distance.
Even fishing boats didn’t go that far, so they were entering an unknown territory for all them.
Everyone held expectations about the travel, but they didn’t plan to remain in the deck forever since at that moment there was only water by all sides and it seemed that it would remain like that for some time.
Yale was lost in his thoughts, so he remained there even when the others left; the only others who remained were Wyba who was on Yale’s head and Mercer who was still looking to the ocean with an excited face.
After some minutes, Mercer stopped looking towards the ocean and looked towards his master.
“Master, this is awesome!”
Yale turned his head towards Mercer and smiled.
“Oh, so do you like traveling through the sea?”
Mercer nodded his head quickly.
“I like it a lot! This is my first time in a ship, but I read a lot about them this last year, so I can’t believe that I am currently experiencing it myself.”
Yale was quite surprised that Mercer had read books that year, but it wasn’t like if Mercer had much more options.
Mercer quickly reached the peak of the Mortal Rank, and even his swordsmanship couldn’t improve more until reaching the Apprentice Rank, so he ended up spending time reading books and expanding his knowledge because, given his previous status in the clan, he had never been able to access to a huge number of books.
Aizu tried to teach him some magic at that time, but Mercer wasn’t too interested in long-distance battles with magic and didn’t seem to have too much talent on it either, so even though he learned the basics, he didn’t work too much on them.
As for healing, Aizu tried to teach him, but Mercer had no talent in healing magic, so she stopped trying to teach him since healing magic was difficult to learn without enough talent.
Yale started to speak with Mercer and found that Mercer had read some of his favorite books. That made that Yale increased his evaluation of Mercer since it was hard to meet someone with the same literary tastes.
“You truly deserve to be my disciple; you have a great taste in books.”
Yale was very pleased with Mercer, but the same applied to Mercer, he was glad about having a master that wasn’t only extremely powerful, but also had a great taste to choose books to read.
“Master, do you think that one day I will be able to have my own ship and experience being a captain?”
It wasn’t only that they read the same books, even both had the same thoughts about being the captain of a ship when they had read a specific saga of books.
“Of course, you are still too young, but you are my disciple, so I am sure that one day no one will be able to stop you if you wanted to adventure in the seas with your own ship in the future.”
Yale knew that Mercer would probably forget about that soon because it wasn’t a serious dream, but he spoke sincerely because as long as one was strong enough, something like traveling across the sea wasn’t that difficult.
After thinking a bit, Yale continued speaking.
“How about if I teach you Water Magic? In a place filled with water like the ocean, it is a must.”
Water was the normal element in which Yale excelled the most since the day he obtained the Frost Wolf Bloodline for the first time, so he thought that it would be good teaching it to Mercer who hadn’t trained magic too much.
“Water Magic? I like to learn everything that master wants to teach me, but I learned a bit of magic from big sister Aizu before, and that battle-style didn’t seem to suit me…”
Mercer really felt that casting spells didn’t suit his personality. He trained both paths, so he had the capability to learn magic, but casting long spells to create a huge attack was something he felt too boring.
“Well, if Aizu taught you, I suppose that you have a very shallow idea of casting magic. Although she trains both paths, she had been always more a pure mage than a warrior. The magic I will teach you isn’t focused on that kind of long and tedious spells.”
Yale also didn’t like spells that needed a lot of time to be cast, and he knew that wasting time in those spells wasn’t too useful because controlling the laws it was possible to achieve similar effects without wasting so much time casting it.
Of course, not everyone could train as fast as Yale had trained, so for most of them, those long spells were the only way to use devastating spells in their lives.
“A different kind of magic?”
Mercer couldn’t imagine a magic that wasn’t classical about reciting a spell that would cast a powerful attack.
Before speaking more, Yale created a Frost Claw on his right hand.
“This is called Combined Skill; it combines magic and Inner Qi obtaining the strong points of both of them. Once you learn Water Magic, you will be able to also learn Combined Skills related to the water element like this one.”
Although Frost Claw was a skill obtained from a bloodline, it wasn’t impossible for Yale to teach it to others with his current experience using it.
“However, you need to start by controlling well normal water spells. You only need to dominate the basics; there is no need to learn any long spell.”
After saying those words, Yale modified the Frost Claw turning it into an Ice Sword.
“You can see that the Water Element in very versatile once you learn to change its state from solid to liquid.”
Mercer didn’t like magic spells before, but after seeing Yale using combined skills based on the water element, he immediately wanted to learn.
Yale had used his Divine Life Eyes to check Mercer’s abilities, and he found that Mercer had a perfect grade talent in the water element. He also had some talent in other elements but at most reached the low grade in them, so Yale didn’t plan to make Mercer focus on them because that would be a waste of time.
Of course, Mercer also had a perfect grade talent in swordsmanship due to his bloodline, but Mercer couldn’t improve more for the time being without advancing. Moreover, even if Yale were to show a bit of Sword Essence to him, the enlightenment had high chances of making him advance forcefully, which would be against Mercer’s desires of growing more before advancing.
Mercer was only eleven, and although his body looked like twelve because he had eaten some natural resources in the year that Yale had been in slumber, Yale could understand that Mercer didn’t want to remain with that childish appearance after growing up like happened to Lar.
“Master, I want to learn that, this is too awesome!”
Yale smiled after seeing that Mercer was eager to learn. Yale had neglected Mercer too much in the past because the circumstances weren’t suitable for sitting down and teach a disciple, but at that moment he planned to teach him well.
“Very well. Let’s start with the Water Ball, it is a very basic spell, but it will act as a foundation for later.”
When Mercer heard the name Water Ball something else came to his mind.
“Is that similar to the Fire Ball? Big sister Aizu taught me that one, but it is extremely difficult, I barely managed to create a small Fire Ball after much effort.”
Since Aizu excelled in the fire element, she tried to teach Mercer spells of that element, but Mercer’s talent in the fire element was at the lowest grade, so Mercer felt it extremely difficult to learn.
“The principles behind are similar. However, you will find the Water Ball much easier to train. You have an incredible talent in the water element, but your talent in the fire element is almost inexistent.”
Mercer didn’t know about his talents because no one tested them before, but he didn’t doubt that Yale could see through him with only a look.
“So, that was the reason.”
Mercer muttered that before he started to listen to Yale’s teachings.
After fifteen minutes, Mercer had managed to create a small Water Ball.
“Incredible, the size is the double of the Fire Ball I made that time, but I needed more than a month to reach that level.”
Although part of Mercer’s improvement on speed was that both spells were similar, that quick speed was mostly because of his talent.
“I already told you that you have a great talent in the water element. Let’s continue, that size might impress you, but it is still too small.”
Mercer nodded and continued training his Water Ball. Before he felt that training magic was far too boring, but after being able to see the improvements in Water Ball quickly, he started to like it.
Yale was very pleased with Mercer’s diligence once he started to train and the speed of his training was also very good. Of course, being in the ocean made training the water element easier than on a place without almost any water, but Mercer’s improvement was mainly for his talent and hard work rather than just the environmental enhancement.