Chapter 33. Keyword

“Ken! Time to get up and go grab some breakfast!” Seraphina said happily as the girls gathered outside of Ken’s room on a typical Monday morning.

Even though Serapina’s common room was in another wing, with her name registered in the two rooms Alice and Clare are paying for, she had been staying with Ken’s group for the majority of the semester so far despite the initial complaints.

About three months had passed since the start of the semester and the school year went along smoothly and quietly without any major incident and the group mostly focused on getting stronger and studying for the written classes so they could continue their easy life at the academy.

“Happy birthday Indra!” Ken said with a yawn while greeting all of the girls.

“Thank you Ken for remembering my birthday.” Indra replied softly.

Born on April 22, Indra became the third of the group to turn 17 but unlike when Emma and Alice turned 17 earlier this year where Ken showed much affection, his relationship with Indra really hasn't grown much beyond just good friends.

For Emma’s birthday, Ken remembered her request and got her a cheap aquamarine gemstone like he did for the other girls and since Alice already had everything one can ask for, she asked the other girls to leave the two alone for a hour but ended up settling for 30 minutes as the two snuggled and kissed.

While Indra was determined to try and get closer with Ken and even resolved all of the misunderstanding about her being a commoner by letting everyone know that her father is actually the god of her kingdom. Her timid personality made it hard for her to talk over the rest of the girls and while Seraphina had only been around Ken for three months, the dragoon girl had gotten much closer with Ken compared to herself.

As the group walked towards the dining hall for breakfast, Ken talked about wanting the girls to skip the night classes so they could go to town and celebrate Indra’s birthday with a feast and cake with Clare getting annoyed at the thoughts of skipping class.

After arriving at the dining hall, Ken and the girls were greeted by many commoners from the now second year students and since words traveled fast. It didn’t take long after the semester started for most of the first year students to cling onto Clare as their lifeline and her number of servants about doubled while the new students were able to spend their days much happier compared to what most of the older commoner students had to go through.

After breakfast, Clare, Indra and Seraphina headed to their respective morning classes while Ken along with Alice, Genesis headed for the library to study and Lovetta headed for the training facility and Emma off to work her shift.

The group gathered back up for a small lunch and Ken was able to convince Clare to even skip her afternoon class as the whole group headed for the training facility.

With Ken now at least on par with the majority of the second year students, he was finally starting to get into the more advanced materials and actually started combat training and not just trying to catch up with the basics and solely working on his enhancements.

From the magic side, he learned that there are actually five basic elements not four and every single type of spell is derived from those five basic elements. However, because most people could not understand the concept of space magic, it wasn’t until advanced level before any space related magic like teleport or healing was even discussed or studied and that is why teleport artifacts and high level healers can demand such high pay for their services.

When it came to actual combat, unlike target practice where Ken just needed to concentrate on the element he wanted to use and focus the energy from his palm or anywhere else like Seraphina shooting out fireballs from her mouth. As long as one can understand the basic element they are trying to produce, they can conjure the element and depending on their level of expertise, create an effect like shooting out a small fireball to light up some firewood for a camp fire or a fireblast that can melt a person in seconds.

With fire, water, air and earth, it’s rather easy to understand the concept as each of the elements is easy for one to see or feel. However, to grasp and understand space is a whole different concept and even for Ken, who is much smarter than the average person, he simply couldn’t grasp space magic with his current level of understanding and it frustrated him greatly.

For combat, Ken recently learned that one trains by associating a keyword like how he activates his school bracelet and as one performs a spell or enchantment like a fire blast or ice spear while thinking about the keyword, eventually, after enough practice, the spell will activate at the thought of the keyword.

“Why don’t people shout out their spells? Isn’t it so much better to scream something like super mega death fireblast! while using a fire spell to intimate your opponent instead of just thinking of it for activation?” Ken wondered as he started training and was still trying to figure out what keywords he wanted to use for each of the different spells he might be using in combat.

“Ken, don’t be stupid. if you shout out your spell, you are just letting your opponent know exactly how they could defend against it.” Clare answered casually while practicing her own spells.

“You are the one that told me to become the best means to dominate absolutely. Does it matter if someone knows what’s coming if they can’t stop it?”

“I guess that’s true. I do know some people are able to perform stronger spells depending on their emotions and screaming out your attack does seem like it might work for some situations.” Clare replied while wondering if she should have a few new verbal spells for special occasions.

For physical enhancement, since there are only three types of enhancement, it’s much easier compared to elemental magic with the amount of possible combinations. You can either use one of the three, combination of two or enhance all three at the same time for seven different combinations.

While Ken didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just always enhance all three at the same time at first, Lovetta was able to explain that while in the ideal situation it’s obviously best that one should enhance everything together for maximum performance, but like using elemental magic drains one’s stamina, the same is true for physical enhancement and in certain situations when one needs to conserve energy or simply lacked stamina, knowing what to enhance and what to sacrifice and have the awareness and ability to do so in the middle of a fight is the difference between a high level fighter and a average student who only learned about the concepts but have no actual fighting experience.

“Clare, how many keywords do you use when you fight? Lovetta you just use seveb right?” Ken wondered as he tried to think up cool keywords that sounded epic to himself.

“I have about 20 that I use on a regular basis and some more that I have been training and might incorporate once I have a better command or use on special occasions.”

“Yep, I have the seven commands for the different physical combinations and that’s what I use for my fighting style.

Since my elemental magic is at such a basic level and pretty much useless in combat, I think I will just be like my dad and train up my base physical abilities as much as I can and build up my stamina and get as much enhancement as possible and maybe pick up a weapon as my primary fighting style or stick to a martial art style.” Lovetta added.

“I use seven! The seven for physical enhancement and one for my firebreath!” Seraphina added happily without Ken needing to ask her.

As Ken got more and more advanced with his training, he began to understand what Clare meant by the importance of the written classes and why he needed to keep up his studies instead of just practical training if he wanted to master everything.

In order to turn water magic into ice, one had to understand the properties of water and while turning water into ice is simple enough by just lowering the temperature of water and it’s easy to imagine and conjure such thoughts, high level magic like lighting combines the understanding of water and air. And unlike the basic elements where simply observing is enough for one to be able to recreate the spell, until one can understand the concept, one simply can’t recreate a high level spell even if you could see and know what a lighting bolt is.

After a good afternoon of training, Ken led the way with the girls following closely behind as the group headed happily into town for a nice meal.

“I will head for the bakery to buy the cake. Anyone want to tag along?” Ken offered as the group got near the intersection that split the restaurant they decided to eat at and the bakery.

“I will go! We don’t have any of the fancy food you all have here at my clan so I have never even seen this cake thing before.” Seraphina volunteered happily.

“I will go too so I can pick out the cake I want myself.” Indra added quietly.

Before the other girls could say anything, Ken led the two down the fork and told the rest to start getting the food ordered and wait for them at the restaurant.

While the trio walked down the paved stone road with the sun setting and the sky turning dark, Seraphina chatted happily with Ken about what keywords she is using for her enhancements while Indra trailed behind silently.

“Seraphina. Do you love Ken?” Indra asked quietly.

Turning back to the petite merman girl, the giant dragoon girl who’s almost a whole foot and half taller smiled and replied instantly.

“Yep! When I go back home for break, I am asking my dad to let me marry him! I know he wouldn't be happy that I am going to marry outside of our clan but I have already decided.” Seraphina answered happily.

“You have only known him for a few months, how can you be so certain that you want to be with him? And don’t you care that he’s got so many other girls wanting his affection?”

“I just trust my instincts and they have never been wrong! From day one talking to him was fun and we got along super well and nothing has changed so nothing else matters. I just like being with him.” Seraphina answered happily.

“I wish I could be as confident as you are.”

“Do you like Ken too? I always thought you were the only one who didn't have feelings for him.” Seraphina asked, curious at Indra’s sudden interest in her feelings for Ken.

“If you have feelings for me, you need to show me with your actions or I won’t know or have the time to find out because I have other things I have to focus on and too many girls already occupying my attention.” Ken answered while listening to the girls talk.

Suddenly feelings hands under his armpits and his body leaving the ground, Ken was startled as Seraphina lifted him easily into the air while twirling him around before crashing his body with a tight hug.

“If you crash my organs and I end up dying, you just lost your future husband.” Ken complained while trying and failing to remember the keyword he just set for his strength enhancement and had to focus hard so he could enhance under distress the slow way.

Realizing just how much the keyword would have helped with his ability to quickly enhance if needed, Ken made a mental note to come up with good and easy to remember keywords and work on his actual abilities and not just get better raw stats.

Unable to match Seraphina’s display of affection, Indra could only stay in the shadows as the trio bought many different desserts from the bakery as well as a large cake and joined the rest at the restaurant to celebrate Indra’s birthday while the merman girl silently wished that she would eventually gather the confidence to confess her feelings for Ken.