Samofthepen
patreon
Of Arms and Arcane: Chapter 209
🕑 Added 2025-03-21 15:28:56 +0000 UTCBack home, life went back to normal… well, as normal as having a dragon fly Dad and I in the middle of some god-forsaken forest to train and experiment with new techniques could be normal.
On that front, it has been a couple of weeks since coming back from the capital, and both Dad and I have seen progress in our endeavors. After a lot of good food, rest, and light training, Dad has gotten back into shape and gotten around to tempering his mana pathways again. Just recently, Professor Sageira thought it was time to attempt his first mana infusion to strengthen himself as magic beasts do.
After taking some time to ready himself, Dad managed to follow Professor Sageira’s instructions and got his mana circulation fast enough to infuse mana into his muscles. But the moment mana was fully infused into his flesh, Dad started experiencing pain throughout his body.
But despite the pain, Professor Sageira told him to continue until she said otherwise. And in the span of less than a minute, she tested Dad’s strength by asking him to lift some tree trunks and punch one in half with his bare hands. Before the minute was up, she told Dad to undo the mana infusion.
The moment Dad released the mana infusion, he collapsed to the ground in pain. I recognized that pain. It was the pain of the accelerated mana trying to tear its way out of his mana pathways, and Professor Sageira stopped him just before it happened.
Seeing that Dad could no longer move, Professor Sageira raised a tub of hardened earth and used her instinctive magic to fill it with water. She told me to pick Dad up and put him inside the tub while she dug around in her pocket.
When Dad was inside the tub of water, she pulled out a small vial of some green liquid and dumped the whole vial inside the tub.
“What is that stuff?” I asked.
“Just a little something I came up with to accelerate the recovering and tempering of mana pathways.” she answered.
“What? Why didn't I get to use it?” I asked petulantly while pouting.
She just gave me the side eye and huffed, “Stop acting like a child. By the time I finished developing this potion, you were well beyond any need for it. For your father, on the other hand, now that his mana pathways are stressed just before the point of rupturing, it is the perfect time to test this potion. Besides, the data I got to make this potion was mainly collected from you undergoing mana pathway tempering.”
It took a few seconds for her words to sink in before I hung up on one part. “What do you mean ‘test’? Have you not tried it on any lab rats?” I asked with some urgency in my voice, ready to pull Dad out of the tub at a moment’s notice.
She just rolled her eyes and replied, “Of course, I tested it on a new batch of rats, but the speed of adaptation is just too different. The lab rats adapt to higher mana flow a lot faster than humans do. Only some of the rats died, but I ironed out the issues. Your father should be fine.”
I moved to scoop Dad out of the tub, I did not feel comfortable having my father as the guinea pig, but her tail whipped my hand like I was a naughty schoolboy. “No touching. Trust me, I am monitoring him, and his condition is stable and improving. If there are any complications, I will step in.”
I just rubbed my hand and scowled at her, “Fine.” I said reluctantly as I kept training near the tub while keeping an eye on Dad.
By the end of the training session, Dad was still asleep, and Professor Sageira updated me on his condition. “Physically, he is in better condition than he was when he was a few hours ago, all he needs is good food and good rest before we stress his mana pathways again. If we keep this up, the constant stressing of recovery of his mana pathways will make his tempering go a lot faster than it happened for you.”
***
For the next week following his first mana infusion, Dad was not having a good time in the slightest. Night after night, he would start his training by cycling his mana as fast as he could to warm up, then train while using mana infusion for as long as he could before getting stopped and collapsing, and then thrown into the potion bath to heal up and sleep for the rest of the night, even on the flight back.
At this point, it had been a few weeks since we began training, and everyone could see that Mom was getting grumpy because her husband was not around during those nights and would sleep until noon. Even after he woke up, he remained lethargic from the night’s training until later in the afternoon. This left him only a short period to fulfill his duties as a husband and the lord of the land.
It did not help things when my prediction came true, and a messenger came with a letter from the king. As with his new title as a Defender of the Realm, the king ‘offered’ Dad the lands between our small territory all the way to Fort Eldric.
Normally, it would have been a huge deal for a Baron to be offered so much land, but seeing that it was land neighboring an aggressive kingdom. No noble in their right mind would want land such as this. Unfortunately, this was an offer Dad could not refuse because it came from the king.
Along with the letter came something that confirmed my second prediction. Dad was also given a Royal Charter of Arms. This document officially recognized the noble’s right to maintain a private military force.
The messenger let Dad know that he had one year to raise enough men to man Fort Eldric. But with these new responsibilities came some perks. For the next five years, Dad’s lands would be exempt from tax, and he would be given some funds to raise an army.
After the messenger left, Dad slumped in his chair and buried his face in his hands. “We are victims of our own success… there is so much work to be done.” Dad grumbled.
Mum, ever the supportive one, hugged Dad and stroked his head. “Don’t you worry, dear. I am sure we can figure something out.”
“Yeah,” I said supportively, “Besides, the king gave us seed money to start this army. How much did we get, by the way?” I asked
Dad handed me the letter, and I scanned through it until I got to the part about the money. “Fifty thousand gold! That's a lot! How many soldiers can we raise with this?”
Dad shook his head. “Not as many as you think. After doing some quick math, if we train soldiers from the ground up, this includes arms, armor, training, food, and housing, this fifty thousand gold can raise a thousand troops and maintain them for six months. We need at least five hundred men to man Fort Eldric and the other half to maintain order throughout the swaths of new land given to us. We may not be paying taxes, but we will need to find a way to make enough money to maintain the army… money we do not have. And with the Dominion just next to us, we are going to need more than a thousand soldiers in the long run.”
Comments
Kanyau
Ooh! Economic powerhouse arc?
