NOVEL NEXT Chapter 10
Chapter 10. The Flowing Sands of Time (2)
The fairy named Finn.
My connection with her began right around the time when I had just awakened from my first sleep period.
I recalled the absurdity of that day.
Lois, having successfully completed his first sleep period, woke up on his 100th birthday.
Genelocer handed him a gift box to celebrate Lois’s first birthday.
Lois, still bewildered at having woken up safely, had placed Genelocer’s gift to one side.
As he had completely forgotten about the existence of the gift,
Finn emerged from that very gift box.
-Crash-
“Ah! It’s so stuffy!”
Finn, the fairy, burst out of the box, screaming.
“Eek!”
Lois, who happened to be near the box, was startled and involuntarily swung his tail in a reflex action.
“Squawk!”
Finn, struck by Lois’s tail, was sent flying into the wall before tumbling to the floor.
“Geez! You scared me, huh?!”
Having calmed his startled heart, Lois approached the seemingly unconscious and unidentified bizarre life form.
“What’s this? A giant fly?”
Lois picked up Finn’s wings and eyed the creature dangling from his fingertips.
“A fairy?”
Her appearance was unmistakably that of a fairy.
The question was, why had this fairy sprung out of his gift box?
As Lois pondered this, the fairy he assumed unconscious suddenly opened her eyes.
“Eek, let me go, please!”
“Hmm…”
As the fairy flapped her arms, legs, and wings, Lois released the wings he was holding.
With her freedom regained, she straightened out her tousled golden hair and bowed to Lois.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sacred baby dragon.”
“……”
“My name is Finn. I am of the royal Starlight Fairy clan and here to be the provider of amusement for the holy and great baby dragon!”
“Amusement?”
Lois cocked his head at the mention of amusement.
“Hehe. Just a moment!”
Sensing Lois’s interest, Finn fluttered back to the box she had come from and, with some effort, dragged something out.
What Finn placed before Lois was a small bag.
“What’s this?”
Curiosity piqued, Lois opened the bag.
Instantly, his expression turned cold.
Meanwhile, Finn, looking very proud, climbed into the open bag and announced,
“This is the specially prepared ‘Starlight Fairy Dress-Up Playset 23-Piece Set’ for you, the holy and magnificent, precious baby dragon!”
Finn shouted confidently, displaying a variety of small garments.
Indeed, the bag contained 23 different types of clothing.
“Without gender-specific clothing due to the nature of the fairy clan, there are outfits for both males and females, as well as costumes for various role-plays including monsters, demons, and celestial beings! It’s a limited edition special set designed for a variety of dress-up options!”
“……”
Finn explained with veins throbbing in her neck, but Lois’s expression only grew colder.
“And the greatest feature of this set is me! A fairy of royal lineage with a figure that can perfectly wear any of these outfits!”
After listening quietly to Finn’s pitch, Lois asked in a flat voice,
“So… in simple terms, this is a doll playset? Is that what you meant by amusement? Dress-up doll play?”
“Indeed, you are holy, great, precious, and wise to understand straight away, baby dragon lord!”
“…Am I imagining it, or is there an odd adjective being added every time?”
“Yes, yes! It’s just your imagination!”
With that exchange, Lois kicked away the ‘Starlight Fairy Dress-Up Playset 23-Piece Set’.
* * *
‘That was all 10 years ago.’
Back then, Lois reprimanded Genelocer for giving him such a weird birthday gift.
But it turned out to be the number one gift desired by hatchlings.
‘The tastes of dragons…’
In a fantasy world, whether one plays with fairies or engages in war games, what does it matter…?
Yet, it felt awkward to Lois to play with a living being as if it were a doll.
When he tried to send Finn back,
“Ah, I can’t go back! I was chosen to come here! I’ll do better, I’ll do anything! Please don’t cast me aside!”
It seemed that Finn hadn’t been captured but had voluntarily entered into the dollhouse.
In fact, there had been such competition to enter that without the privilege of royal status, she might not have been selected.
‘Voluntarily becoming a doll…’
It was a concept that Lois found hard to grasp.
However, hearing that becoming a friend to a young dragon was a great honor and a sure path to fame for a fairy, Lois decided to let it be.
The first fairy to unite the fairy clans had been a toy to the first Dragon King.
Thus, confronted by Finn’s pleading, Lois accepted her as his subordinate.
From that day on, Finn followed Lois around, dutifully attending to him.
‘Well… she’s proved quite capable.’
Initially, Finn’s constant presence was bothersome to Lois, but her assistance with trivial matters was not unwelcome.
Fairies live an average of 3,000 years.
At 800 years old, Finn knew a lot more than Lois and was quite skilled in spatial magic.
Now that she was actively helping him as his personal secretary, Lois couldn’t deny her usefulness.
“Hmm…”
Having finished reminiscing, Lois handed the towel back to Finn and inquired,
“After a light warm-up, I guess it’s time to study. Bring out the material, Finn.”
“Yes! Yesterday you were studying the examination of the four unnatural attributes but fell asleep. Are you planning to finish that?”
“No, there’s no need to look at that anymore. It’s inferior to the ‘Advanced Theory on the Separation and Manifestation of Mana’ I read before. Please proceed with the ‘Advanced Theory on Mana’ course.”
“Yes!”
Finn briskly responded, tossed the towel aside, and reached into thin air.
Her hand disappeared into the void, and shortly after, she brought out a desk, chair, and a thick book.
Lois, evidently accustomed to this marvel, nonchalantly took a seat and opened the book.
‘Spatial voids are definitely convenient. I should master this first.’
Finn, born with spatial attributes, especially skilled at creating voids, held all sorts of miscellaneous items for Lois.
Essentially, Finn was a personal mobile storage unit for Lois.
Under the bright sun, Lois quickly read through the thick book.
After focusing on the book for a significant time, Lois’s head snapped up.
Rumble-.
The previously clear sky.
Suddenly, dark clouds gathered overhead.
Sighing deeply, Lois remarked,
“Ah… It’s been quiet for a few days. Is it starting again?”
Grumble-.
The amassed clouds emitted a loud noise.
White lightning flashed intermittently among the dark clouds.
And then,
-Crack-
A massive bolt of lightning struck down towards Lois’s head.
-Crash-
The strike, which seemed about to scorch him black, approached Lois rapidly.
However, Lois showed no reaction whatsoever.
As the lightning bolt was about to hit him vertically,
-Zap-
The electricity skimming over Lois’s skin flowed into a bracelet on his left wrist.
The blue gem embedded in the bracelet sparkled momentarily before calming down.
Just when it seemed to be over,
-Flash-
Another bolt of lightning struck Lois.
The result was the same as before.
The surrounding electric charge was absorbed by the bracelet without fail.
In this situation, Lois smirked,
“I’ve been struck by lightning hundreds of times by now. This is nothing.”
The gem in Lois’s bracelet was an elemental stone, specifically one imbued with the attribute of thunder.
Lightning is the purest form of thunder attribute.
Whereas the energy in the elemental stone in Lois’s bracelet was unstable.
Tired of being frequently harassed by lightning strikes when outside, Lois used an elemental stone.
He exploited a kind of osmotic effect where a pure and strong power flows towards a weaker one.
With a bit of technical prowess added, the lightning was quickly absorbed by the bracelet, stacking up the energy of thunder within the elemental stone.
‘It was just something I made because I didn’t want to waste the lightning… It’s not bad.’
The lightning was so frequent that the elemental stone, initially a low-grade stone, transformed into a mid-grade one every week.
“If a little makes a mound, let’s keep collecting.”
With a faint smile, Lois removed the elemental stone from the bracelet.
The light sky-blue stone had turned deep blue.
It was evidence that the elemental stone was filled with the thunder attribute.
If it absorbed too much energy, the stone could no longer withstand the pressure and would burst.
Therefore, it was necessary to periodically replace the elemental stone.
As Lois removed the stone from the bracelet,
-Crash-
The lightning, thought to have ceased, struck down once more.
This time, two bolts came down at once.
“Master Lois!”
Finn cried out in alarm, but the lightning had already struck Lois.
Boom!
However, contrary to Finn’s concern, Lois was unharmed.
The lightning that fell on Lois did not even graze a hair before it was deflected sideways as if blocked by something.
Observing this, Finn exclaimed,
“Ah! A spatial distortion field!”
She recognized the technique used by Lois and her eyes sparkled with amazement.
Spatial distortion.
One of the methods to utilize spatial attributes.
It is considered both a fundamental and an ultimate technique of spatial magic.
The applications of spatial distortion are the starting point for both spatial magic and martial techniques.
The reason Finn was so astonished by Lois’s use of the spatial distortion field was due to the speed at which he had deployed it.
‘That’s almost a 1st tier deployment speed!’
Lois had responded to the lightning by instantly creating a spatial distortion field.
His speed was phenomenal.
The ability to manipulate attributes, regardless of type, is divided into seven tiers.
Starting from the 5th tier, where one begins to manipulate elemental power, to the 3rd tier, known as the limit for mortals.
Above this, a few geniuses reach the 2nd tier, and an extremely small number of them reach the 1st tier.
Top tier is for those who appear once in several centuries.
And the last, the zero tier.
To find a human who has reached the realm of the semi-divine zero tier, one would need to scour not the present but the flow of history.
Even throughout long history, less than ten humans have ever reached the zero tier.
However, dragons, blessed with mana from birth, could reach the zero tier more readily than other races.
‘It’s been barely over ten years since he started handling attributes…’
Finn had watched Lois from the sidelines since he began his training in magic.
The time it took for Lois to advance to his current level from the very basics was just over ten years.
Even for a dragon blessed with mana, it was a phenomenal rate of progress.
The notable point was that Lois’s attributes were unnatural, and his actual level was only just at the 3rd tier.
Yet his proficiency was comparable to that of a 1st tier.
This fact lifted Finn’s spirits.
‘As expected, my master is a dragon destined for greatness! With him, I might write a saga in fairy history that will be remembered for ages!’
Finn’s eyes shone brightly as she gazed at Lois, as if stardust had settled within them.
The achievements of a fairy clan were linked to the reputation of those they served.
As the saying goes, “The promising tree is known by its early buds.”
The extraordinary potential of the master she had pledged to serve for a lifetime was enough to make the small fairy’s heart flutter with excitement.