Days, weeks and months passed in the city of Wyvern.
After his Saint rank Magician status became public, Mordred became officially acknowledged by the crown as the King's true son for his accomplishment, also gaining the succession rights.
This news seemed to have caused a storm on the political scene of the Kingdragon Kingdom, as Julius had told him.
The 16th Prince's name, status as a 'Magic Power Miko' and the youngest Saint ranked Magician in history had also spread through the entire realm.
Following that point, Mordred was approached countless times by messengers from various Noble families and by other royal children, and was invited to many parties.
However, Mordred declined all of those.
To gain some respite, he then officially announced that until the age of 10 he will be fully focused on his studies and will refuse all invitations.
This gave him a period of relative peace as most nobles likely waited with anticipation for his 10th birthday party when they would have a chance to win him over. He was still approached from time to time, but he brushed off all meetings with the excuse of being busy.
The once exception was when the 1st Prince visited him personally. After making up his mind, Mordred told him that he had no interest in politics and hinted that among all royal children it is not impossible for him to support the 1st Prince.
In reality, he had no plans to pass the throne to someone else in the future, unless that someone was his wife. He had only not directly declined the 1st Prince because they had a close history and the 1st Prince's faction was the strongest.
Putting aside politics, Mordred's training continued.
…
Eventually, a full year flew by and Mordred turned 6.
He continued practicing his swordsmanship under Water Emperor Hector, continued his Magic Circle studies under Court Magician Sofia and continued improving his Magic and training his body on his own.
It seemed that during the time when his Mana Pool continued quickly growing, until he's 10 years old, he'd experience the greatest rate of growth!
And until now, he had exercised his Mana Pool for 6 years straight. That's why at 6 years old he already had strength and speed around Saint rank level.
But even without any Mana Reinforcement, Mordred's physical strength also surpassed an adult. It was clearly the result of a level of Battle Aura affecting him subconsciously – the result of his strength training!
But his improvements were not just to his Magic Power and raw stats.
During this one year of attending Sir Hector's swordsmanship lessons every day, through rigorous training, Mordred built a solid foundation with the sword in all three main styles. He could officially call himself an Elementary-ranked swordsman.
Contrary to how it might seem, Elementary rank with the sword didn't mean a newbie. Reaching this level meant that someone had a firm grasp on the fundamentals and was a trained swordsman only inferior to fully trained knights.
Young trainees would stay for a few years at this rank until their technique and strength can match a typical knight.
And although Mordred's effective strength was around Saint rank level, swordsmanship ranks are all about the raw skill in a given sword style first, not about strength. That's why, officially, he was 'just Elementary rank' swordsman.
Magic Circle studies under Sofia were focused on teaching him the numerous foundational runes and lines, and how the system of Magic Circles works at the fundamental level, to give him a comprehensive understanding of it and how high level Magic Circles work.
Even so, through these several years, ever since he was 2.5 years old, Mordred had already drawn up all the mainstream spells from Elementary up to Advanced rank and had a level of experience in modifying them.
Currently, he studied Magic Circles of Saint-ranked attack Magic while self-experimenting and completing various assignments from Sofia.
Magic Circles were all about the drawing skills, firstly, so he could easily take that step into Saint rank. Additionally, as long as one could cast a Saint ranked spell, understanding and using the corresponding Magic Circle scroll was far easier.
For his other studies, after his 5th birthday Mordred found himself a tutor to begin learning the Demon God Language, being mostly done with the Fighting God and Beast God which he learned during the time his body was still developing motor control.
He had already reached a level that allowed for smooth communication, but he continued practicing his Demon God until he reached a satisfying level of fluency. He felt that the Demon God language might be one of the more important secondary languages he should polish.
After this one year, his Magic Power and his Mana Pool had also once again grown, alongside his body, and raised his strength in all fields.
To further improve his practical attack Magic and his combat skills, Mordred would frequently go out of the city with Julius and practice his silently casted Magic.
In the outside world, Mordred would most often come to forests filled with monsters, and one of those days was no different.
While heading straight into a monster infested area, Mordred soon encountered a giant two-meter long centipede with the thickness of a python which was making its way through the forest.
'Giant Centipede…'
Strength of monsters in this world is ranked from F to S.
A F-rank monster signified a danger level of an ordinary wild beast like a single gray wolf.
An E-rank monster surpassed common beasts and could reach up to the level of a peak predator from Earth like a tiger, shark or a lion. If the monsters tend to form groups, like goblins or Assault Dogs, they would also be seen as E-rank monsters because of the danger level associated with running into them, even if their individual strength is lower.
Going further, a D-rank monster was stronger and more dangerous than a fully grown 200 kg tiger or a silverback gorilla.
The Giant Centipede was a D-rank Monster. It rarely formed groups, so it was exactly that – a monster more dangerous than a tiger, which would slaughter a common group of mortal warriors if they ran into it.
Upon noticing the Giant Centipede, Mordred's expression didn't change because it was only a single D-rank monster and one which he had already killed a few times.
He brought his hands together and cast a spell with a focused face; he was there to practice, so even if the monster was weak, he still had to give it his all when casting his spell.
Mordred gathered dense Mana in his body using Mana Burst and drew it into the two palms of his hands, creating and rapidly charging a crimson sphere of electricity.
Lightning Explosion: Hadoken.
Even if you cut a centipede into two parts, it will still wriggle. So that's the spell he decided to practice.
As a variation of Lightning Explosion, this spell used both hands. It wasn't more powerful, but it was charged twice as quickly than when cast with just one hand.
The Giant Centipede detected Mordred and seemed to have noticed him gathering Energy Magic Power. It began to charge at him, quickly moving its numerous legs, approaching in a zig-zag manner..
Before the centipede could reach him, Mordred's attack was already ready. He didn't need much Mana for it and used both his hands, so his lightning ball was fully charged and reached maximum power in less than a single second.
Boom!
With a loud discharge of crimson lightning, the lightning ball shot out from both his hands.
Appearing like a lightning beam to the naked eye as it traveled, the lightning ball crossed the distance of several meters from the centipede in what seemed like an instant and struck it.
Boom!
With another bang, the lightning ball exploded on impact, completely blowing the Giant Centipede's body to bits!
At the same time, a shield of red light appeared in front of Mordred, protecting him and Julius who hid behind him from being splattered by the monster's exploding remains.
Although Mordred learned to create Intermediate and Advanced rank barriers using Magic Circles, for chanted spells he only knew Elementary-ranked Magic Shield, which could only block low level Magic even when strengthened and could not stop physical attacks.
But he could still use Mana Burst and his Magic Power to protect himself.
It wasn't a powerful technique, but through it and his other studies, he developed a method of creating a rough defensive wall of Magic Power that could block a level of magical and physical attacks.
From the moment Mordred began casting his spell, Julius had moved behind him, expecting what's to come. Although he had seen a similar scene many times, he was still awed. For such a powerful spell to be ready in less than a second was something mind-boggling!
Mordred casually gathering Magic Power to create a shield was also something incredible. It was no longer Spell Casting, but it was as if Magic itself was for the 16th Prince to command at will!
As the two continued traversing the forest, they were eventually assaulted by a pack of more than ten vicious-looking canines.
'Scythe Hounds…' Mordred mused.
Scythe Hounds are canine monsters larger than wolves with fangs protruding from their mouth like scythes. It was the most common E-rank monster of the Kingdragon Realm, similar to how Assault Dogs were for the Asura Kingdom.
Scythe Hounds were only E-rank monsters, nearly as deadly as tigers, but as a pack of ten they were a D-rank level threat.
However, Mordred noticed that among them there were a few that were larger and had even longer fangs - they were the Sickle Hounds, lion-sized monsters that were ranked D-rank by themselves.
Overall, the threat level of this pack of monsters was at least C-rank.
Mordred smilled. 'Lucky!'
Monsters with C-rank strength were normally difficult to find so close to Wyvern.
Upon noticing Mordred and Julius, the hounds split into two packs and began to surround them.
"Julius…" Mordred looked back at Julius expectantly.
Julius sighed. The usual tactic of Scythe Hounds is to lure out some party members away from the main group to break up their teamwork and defeat both groups separately. This meant that a portion of the hounds would always keep attacking him and refuse to target Mordred.
Julius reached with his hand to his waist and took out one of the wands he wore; it was one of the Magic Tools that Mordred made and gave him to use.
Pointing it at the ground, he channeled his Magic Power into it.
In the next moment, an earth tower rose up from the ground below Julius's feet, raising him high into the air. A normal Earth Pillar was in the shape of a spike, being used for attack, but Mordred had modified it to make it a look-out tower.
With Julius being unreachable and out of the way, all the hounds would turn to attack Mordred, which he knew is what the 16th Prince wanted most to train himself.
Back on the ground, all twelve hounds surrounded Mordred from all sides and began to growl.
Meanwhile, Mordred had already stretched out his left hand and began to charge his spell.
In this situation, all he needed to do was fill his body with Magic Power and then explode it using Lightning Overload once they pounced at him, killing all of them in one go.
He could also use massive area-of-effect Magic to kill a large portion of them off with a single move.
But doing that would end things too quickly. He wouldn't have practiced anything.
The spell that Mordred cast was instead Railgun.
Stone Cannon…
First, a gray stone bullet formed in front of his palm and quickly took the shape of a 10-centimeter long cone with a sharp tip.
Following that, Mordred combined the use of Mana Burst with Stone Cannon to rapidly charge his spell and make it gain potential kinetic energy.
He didn't add a spin to it.
A spin in a bullet improves accuracy by stabilizing it to better resist wind pressure over a tumbling bullet, indirectly improving speed and penetration. But in this world magical attacks already resisted gravity and wind pressure - no matter how fast they went, they wouldn't cause a sonic boom.
Instead, an over-spin could potentially destabilize the bullet. Using one required a spin of a certain level to not disturb the aerodynamics.
However, since the Stone Cannon bullet ignored air resistance completely, over-spin made no difference whatsoever.
A spin could not directly improve penetrating power during the brief moment of impact in any significant way, so it was just a waste of mental energy, effort and time to add a spin to his Railgun projectile. He could instead charge it faster.
Meanwhile, carving drill-like incisions on the bullet was an even more stupid idea, which he had seen happen in the anime adaptation.
That's why Mordred didn't mindlessly copy Rudeus. He passed on the spin and made his bullet as smooth as possible.
The hounds continued to hesitate for a while longer as they growled around him. It was because of the powerful Magic Power surging around Mordred.
But their weariness was exactly what allowed Mordred to freely prepare his spell. Also in less than a single second, his spell reached maximum power as red electric currents began to wildly crackle around the stone bolt.
When casting Railgun, he first had to use Earth Magic to create a tough railgun projectile. Only after that could he use Mana Burst to charge the spell. And this time around he only used one hand.
Even so, his cast time with Railgun was not much slower than when casting Lightning Explosion: Hadoken because a lot of Magic Power required was used just to boost the spell's velocity – using Mana Burst, it could be done very rapidly.
After fully charging his spell, Mordred released it.
Bang!
With an explosion of crimson lightning, the railgun projectile shot out straight at one of the strongest monsters.
The bullet one of the Sickle Hounds squarely in the head.
The monster's entire head was pierced through in an instance, the bullet cleanly came out of the other end and buried itself deep into the earth.
Without any hesitation, Mordred pulled out a short sword from his lower back and shot out from the spot he was at while using Mana Burst.
Suddenly accelerating, he appeared in front of some of the hounds in an instant. Simultaneously, he slashed out with his sword.
Using the Longsword of Light stance for practice, he cleaved through the skull and everything.
After that, he immediately moved onto the next monster, took a careful aim and thrust out, piercing right into the hound's eye and through its skull.
Following that, Mordred pulled out his sword and paused.
It was as if time froze for a moment.
After a moment's lag, the hounds became enraged and charged at Mordred all together while barking.
Being surrounded from most sides, Mordred held back his strength as he took this chance to practice.
The numerous hounds continued pouncing at him alone and in groups of twos and threes, but he agilely moved around the battlefield, sometimes doing somersaults in the air, and dodged or blocked all of those attacks or kicked away his attackers as if he had a complete grasp of the entire battlefield.
The hounds outnumbered him, but were unable to touch him.
At one point, Mordred did something crazy. He closed his eyes.
Another hound pounced at him from behind, but Mordred moved out of the way as if he saw it coming.
The monsters continued attacking him in a frenzy, but there was no difference from before - he was untouchable.
Julius watched from above and let out a sigh of admiration.
It was an amazing scene of a little short boy fighting off a large pack of vicious beasts that surrounded him and pounced on him together with his eyes closed, but he remained undefeated.
But Mordred couldn't do this purely thanks to his instinct but an ability he developed.
Shortly after beginning his swordsmanship training, he discovered and began to train in a skill that he called Mana Sense. He could originally already use Magic Power to sense the environment around him and he adapted it for use in combat.
The result of it was that he could detect incoming dangers and register the situation around him without having to rely on his eyes, like a Jedi.
It was certainly an advantage because in this world swordsmen for the most part still had to rely on their vision to fight. It's only Saint rank Water God Style users and above that focus on sharpening their instincts and practice techniques to use their Battle Aura in a similar manner.
In particular, Mana Sense made him excel at Water God Style and at fighting multiple opponents.
Making use of his agility, Mordred could now do things like high jumps and flips to reach his opponent and dance around him while still blocking all the blows flying at him from al langles.
It was an extremely flashy way of fighting! And it was even more effective when he utilized Mana Burst to suddenly adjust his movements mid-air.
From the outside, when fighting Hector, Mordred felt that he likely looked like Yoda facing off against Count Dooku.
And he could use Telekinesis too!
However, his speciality was lightning, so in the Force he might be closer to a Sith than a Jedi.
Currently, after practicing in fending off the group of 9 hounds for a while, Mordred saw that the dogs were tired and their speed and enthusiasm in attacking him greatly dropped.
He decided to end this.
Overlooking the monsters, a blood-red aura manifested around him like dense fog, with electricity crackling about.
Simultaneously, the hounds all around him began to float up as gravity was reversed for everything but Mordred.
The dogs flipped their feet about in the air and barked, looking utterly confused.
After the hounds reached the height of around 2 meters, Mordred stomped down with his foot as he magnified the gravity around him instead.
The hounds were sent crashing down.
On impact, their legs immediately broke and they became pinned to the ground with painful scowls.
"Uwaaaa!!!"
Cracking sounds of breaking bones and painful howls were heard as the dogs' rib cages instantly collapsed under the weight of their own bodies, the bones piercing their internal organs, unable to resist the force and the pressure. The various organs were crushed into mush.
He'd continuously use Mana Burst as he stood his ground and resisted the effect of his Magic Power.
Unfortunately, he had not yet developed enough control to exclude himself from the effect of his Gravity Magic, but he could resist it by covering himself in dense protective Magic Power using Mana Burst, further boosting his passive Magic Resistance to fully nullify the effect his Magic had on himself.
A side effect was that every time he activated this ability, a blood-red aura would gush out and surround him, making it appear as if it was a part of his spell.
He called this move: Gravity Magic: Presence of the Demon God.
It was just a fancy name for a Gravity Magic field that increases gravitational force in an area around him, inspired by 'Presence of the Demon King' from one Shounen Anime.
However, there are many Demon Kings in this world and most are nothing special, so Mordred felt that this name was inappropriate.
Instead, he called it the Presence of the Demon God. 'Demon God' in that world also meant 'Magic God'; this term had these two meanings.
Presence of the Demon God made all those who lacked strength to resist bow down and prostrate themselves before the God of Magic!
To make the effect even better, Mordred would also first reverse gravity and raise his opponents into the air, before making them crash down, imitating the Kalman III from the novel.
It might have been a bit of a cringy name, but in the future this spell's name might become a menace, being his signature trump card.
While using it against swordsmen, he could make himself vulnerable to ranged sword strikes as his attention is split on maintaining the spell, but against monsters – it was very effective.
Currently, the Scythe Hounds' livers, kidneys, intestines, stomach and heart were all crushed because of his Gravity Magic. In particular, because their hearts were pierced by their ribs, the hounds all died, seemingly because of Mordred's mere presence.
***
***
***
Name: Mordred Kingdragon
Titles/nicknames: 16th Prince of Kingdragon, Magic prodigy, Miko
Age: 6
Strength: E* | Peak Advanced rank strength (2,000 kg)
Endurance: C- | Early king rank resilience
Agility: C- (D-) | Early King rank reflexes, early Saint rank running speed (150 km/h)
Mana: B | Emperor rank
…
Fire, Water, Wind and Earth Magic: Saint
Healing Magic: Advanced
Detoxification Magic: Intermediate-Advanced
Divine and Barrier Magic: Elementary (chantless), Intermediate (Magic Circles)
Summoning Magic (beasts): Elementary
Enchantment Magic (creating Magic Tools): Elementary-Intermediate
Water, Sword and North God Style: Elementary rank
[Instinct B-]
[Mana Burst C-]
[Magic Resistance C]
[Riding E-]