A few more hours later, Liam was completely exhausted. So he temporarily stopped training and opened his eyes, letting out a big sigh. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to break those chains, he was simply not able to make them budge.
Perhaps the elf had some clues about this for him?
He looked up to find the elf, only to see that the guy had gone missing. Instead, a small fox was lazily rocking back and forth in that rocking chair with a heap of berries near her.
"Masta!" Luna immediately pounced on Liam with her mouth full of fruit, spraying the juice everywhere on his face.
"Where did that elf go?" He picked up the little traitor by her neck and asked her rather sternly. However…
Kyuuu! The little fox giggled as if it was playtime and gave him the biggest smile. "Grandpa went to put out some fires."
"Fires?"
Mmm. Mmm. The fox bobbed her head up and down.
"Alright. I guess I will continue training then." Liam had the canister full of water from the strange pond, which helped in relieving fatigue, so he drank a sip from it.
He then once again went back to swinging his sword, trying to see if he could execute it better this time. Totally ignored by him, the little fox ran around him, jumping here and there, making cute poses.
In the end, Liam still did not pay attention to her, so she dragged herself back to the chair and pitifully continued munching on the berries one after the other with a very sad face.
Liam's face twitched. Naturally, he observed the antics from the corner of his eyes. He was focusing on the task at hand, so he ignored the fox.
And now, the little fox was pouting.
"Sigh. Alright. Come here." Liam smiled bitterly and started petting the furry creature. "Good job. Good job. You did very well." He assumed that the little fox wanted some kudos for her deft handling of mana, so he gave it to her.
And of course, almost immediately, the pouts and the sadness disappeared, replaced by a big smug grin. "Thank kyu, masta! I'm going to steal as much as I can from grandpa!"
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Liam was confused for a second, and then it dawned on him. He fell back on his butt and started laughing. "So that's what you were doing. Keep it up, you little scammer!"
Luna giggled again. "Masta, I am close to a breakthrough. I can feel it. Then I will be able to fight all our enemies!"
"Good girl. Good girl. Take your time and do it properly. Don't push yourself." Liam smiled lovingly as he rubbed the little furball's head.
He then went back to his training after giving another helpless glance at the fox, who was watching him in amusement, munching on her berries.
"Good luck, masta!" She even gave him a thumbs up, mimicking his actions when he did the same to others. From the looks of it, all she needed to do for her breakthrough was eat?
The more Liam learned about celestial beasts, the more shocked he became. What was a powerful beast like her doing in this tutorial game in the first place?
And he found her in the starting zone. For some reason, he had a feeling that she did not belong here.
Liam shook his head and decided to think about this later. For now, he had to focus and cross this first stage. "Moving while also inhaling mana," he mumbled, continuing to swing his sword.
Compared to before, he could execute it a lot better now. Slowly, he tried breathing in the mana while also pushing it out when casting smaller spells.
It again took a couple of hours, but eventually, he was able to execute the smaller spells while multitasking.
What difference was this going to make? Liam pondered when he noticed his mana bar. It was hardly dropping.
Already because of his high-quality mana core, he had a lot of mana supply, and now even that was not getting consumed when he was using smaller spells.
"Oh?" Liam understood why the elf was teaching him this. He continued training, seeing more and more improvement, the more he got accustomed to the feeling.
In fact, there was also an extra punch when he attacked. Manipulating mana-in and mana-out at the same time was affecting both processes.
But the bigger question still remained… What were those chains? Was this the corruption that Grandmaster Acalan had talked about?
While Liam thought about this, the elf finally returned back to the time space using the teleportation portal. He seemed extra smug and pleased with himself, displaying a big smile on his face but when his eyes fell on Liam, he instantly scowled.
"Why are you slacking?"
Liam wanted to roll his eyes, but he remained calm. "Your highness, please check my progress." He confidently demonstrated what he had practiced for the past several hours.
It was a fire slash that cost only half the mana it would typically cost. Not just that, he repeated it multiple times, each time maintaining the steady in-flow and out-flow of mana.
Liam had selected this attack because it is one of the most powerful weapons in his arsenal. With this, the elf should definitely be impressed.
On the side, even Luna clapped for him excitedly.
He repeated the attack about a dozen times and finally stopped. He bowed and looked at the elf, "Your highness?"
"Weak! Pathetic!" The elf, not so surprisingly, spat out. Liam had half-expected this, so he did not care, but the old guy was not done talking yet.
"Why are you showing me these childish attacks? Do you not have anything more powerful? You only learned this so far? Even a child could coordinate their mana when executing these simple warm-ups! Hmph!"
"I apologize, your highness, for letting you down. I will practice now more diligently." Liam managed to answer with a straight face.
"Hmph. You will only end up wasting my time with another childish attack. I will teach you something now. Try to execute that with the mana coordination." The old guy scoffed.
Huh? Liam was once again shocked. Every time this elf berated him, unexpectedly, he also taught him something good? He took a few steps back in advance and observed the big guy curiously.
The elf waved his hand the next second, commanding a huge swirl of mana around him. He was like a vortex attracting all the mana in the air around them, and not just that, this swirling mass also seemed to have an earth element attribute?
