By the way, that Manohar is probably running for his life now. He has put the Kingdom in great danger." The Hydra said after recognizing both the True Griffon Blade spell and the When All Are One Spirit Array.
"Why is that?" Solus asked.
***
The City of Valeron, Capitol of the Griffon Kingdom.
Right after the lost spell of the First King had defeated Dawn and the collective power of the Horsemen, Sylpha had personally chained the god of healing before bringing him back to the Royal castle.
Manohar's display of strength had been far from shameful, but fighting the whole time solely with Light Mastery and leaving his sword in its sheath had demonstrated how lacking he was in too many disciplines.
While the chains kept Manohar from running away, Sylpha had summoned to Valeron Orion Ernas to train him and Sitri, Manohar's mother, to achieve complete dominion over the god of healing's mind.
"You have much to do to compensate the Kingdom for its losses." The Queen said while Orion forced Manohar to learn swordsmanship from its most basic and boring sets of movements.
"What losses? The undead army got destroyed and Belius is safe, everybody wins!" The god of healing said while practicing bare-chested due to an amount of sweating that no cleansing spell could get rid of quickly enough to not drench him.
Manohar had a slender and flimsy build that would make most shut-ins look like professional athletes. Now that Marth was too busy to force him to train and thanks to his wanton absence from the Forge, Manohar had just enough strength to withstand the use of his personal spells.
"You moron!" Sylpha had to stop herself from strangling him with her own hands. If Manohar could achieve so much with so little, there was no telling how powerful he would get once properly trained.
"That was the last True Griffon stored in the Spell Hoarding Cube and to make matters worse, you completely wasted the When All Are One array! Baba Yaga never messes up with our Kingdom's affairs. She posed no threat to you.
"Didn't you receive the memo?" She asked.
"Yes, I did. I received all of them." Manohar took what looked like a big toilet paper roll out of his dimensional item.
"The royal documents are perfect to clean my ass after a big dump. Soft, small, and utterly useless."
"Sitri?" Sylpha said while staring at him in hatred.
"Yes, my Queen?" Manohar's mother looked up from the sweater she was knitting, but her hands never stopped.
Sitri Manohar was a woman in her late fifties, barely 1.52 meters (5') tall, with black hair streaked silver all over and brown eyes. She was even leaner than Manohar, giving her a frail look.
She wasn't a mage nor a fighter, yet her resume was filled with amazing achievements. All related to her son, of course.
Her second greatest success was to have given birth to the god of healing but the first was being the only person capable of making him behave. More or less.
"Don't let him get a single moment of respite until he has cleared the tasks on this list." Sylpha handed Sitri a piece of paper written with so many words that it looked black from a distance.
"It shall be done, my Queen. With all due respect, though, you are underestimating my son. He should definitely work more on his midriff." Sitri clicked her tongue in disapproval while comparing Manohar's wimpy body to Orion's build.
Despite his age, between a strict routine schedule and Lith's rejuvenation, Orion had a physique that few Awakened could flaunt.
"Mom, he's way taller and bigger than me! You can't use him as a benchmark." The god of healing said.
"Lord Orion is also older, yet he probably didn't waste his youth playing with flasks and dead animals." She replied.
"I don't play, I make experiments!"
"Krishna Varaja Manohar, don't use that tone with me!"
"Yes, Mo'om. I mean, ma'am. Mom." The Mad Professor had conducted countless experiments and made the impossible possible many times, yet he still had to find a way to beat that small woman.
"Sylpha, why are you doing this to me? The pact was that you called, I answered, and you wouldn't involve my mother. Why are you breaking your word?"
"First, I'm Queen Sylpha for you. Second, that's not a pact, it's the bare minimum to overlook your blatant disregard for the Kingdom's rules. Third, I'm not breaking my word, I'm just making sure that you pay back your debt for wasting so many powerful spells." The Queen replied.
"What the heck are you talking about? Everyone knows that the Spell Hoarding Cube can replicate a stored spell as long as it has enough power." Manohar said.
"Just like everyone knows that Valeron never actually died, that the Sword of Saefel grants the Royals omnipotence, and that I am a Griffon in disguise!" Sylpha roared.
"Are you? That would explain a lot!" The Mad Professor couldn't believe to have failed to understand the truth for so long.
"No, you idiot! Those are rumors. Rumors that we spread to confuse our enemies and reassure our allies. You wasted the last remnants of Valeron's era without even killing Dawn and now someone needs to refuel the Cube!
"We can't count on When All Are One anymore because of you. The Beasts informed us that Thrud is back, we still have to deal with the undead, and the person behind the Balkor cards is still at large.
"Since you deprived the Kingdom of one of its strongest weapons, it's only fair that you'll train until you give us something of equal value!"
Manohar opened his mouth to reply but no word came out. After comparing his personal spells with Valeron's, he had to admit that the First King had probably been a bit stronger than him.
"I'll take full responsibility for my actions." His words gave the Queen a stroke while Orion dropped his sword and Sitri raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "You gave me something to think about.
"I'll be back in a minute, I just need to go out and buy some milk-"
According to the rumors, Lord Ernas beat the god of healing until he became a decent man. Then, the concussion healed and Manohar returned to normal.
***
Village of Lutia, outside Lith's house.
In the evening, after Faluel's lessons, Phloria would teach the basics of swordsmanship to the children.
The fields were already covered by snow and the frozen ground was slippery, but nothing that an array couldn't fix. Lith prepared one big enough for everyone, himself and Protector included.
The children just learned about the importance of footwork and of using the wrist before practicing the basic movements whereas the grown-ups underwent much stricter lessons.
Protector had never received formal training, still relying on raw speed and power rather than technique. He needed to make up for that as well if he wanted to join the mercenary guild and to fight on par with older beasts more skilled than he was.
As for Lith, he did it to strengthen the basics that Phloria had taught him in the first place. Despite all of his efforts and strict training routine, Lith's time was stretched thin due to him practicing too many branches of magic.
