Faust yawned at seven in the morning, staring at Hartwin and Lady Birhi Ramishtek with dead eyes. They looked so done with him. People no longer told him to go to bed on time; they knew the words just crashed on his deaf ears and were completely ignored.
Ever since the Overlord battle, his swordsmanship instructor, Lady Birhi, and Spirit User Instructor Hartwin combined their lessons to teach him fighting while assimilating his new abilities.
The new ability was the black flame that had magically appeared when he woke up after the fight.
"How fast can you make it?" Lady Brihi asked.
Faust concentrated for a moment, then a sharp, dark knife came into existence from thin air right before the two adults’ eyes and fell comfortably into his hand.
"Quite fast, but it can be faster. You said you create it from invisible dark flame? With more practice, it can become like muscle memory. Is this the biggest you can make it?" She said.
"I can turn it into smoke and fill it all around me. I need to condense it to make it more durable. This is the best result I can get with what I have to work with."
"Hm," She took it from his palm, checking the feel and weight. "Let’s try it then."
Faust sparred with the lady knight for a few minutes; his hand-to-hand combat and knife-fighting skills were not admirable yet. Still, he could manage for a few minutes. As long as Birhi went easy on him, which she never did.
Lady Birhi was one of the finest knights among the Dawnfire household knights. She squired under Sir Jonos Bold himself for seven years before he knighted her at seventeen. It had been three years since then, but she was still here.
Normally, a squire would go their own way, go back to their house if they were noble, or swear fealty to the lord. But Birhi was more like a noble prisoner than a proper ward since she was ten. Her father, Lord Ramishtek, was not a man one could call trustworthy.
Sharing a cost with the Empire was not without its issues. Border skirmishes were normal between the Empire’s western lords and Cindros, but neither side of lords really went too far. Only once in the past decade did one of the Empire’s great houses try to extend its borders.
Henric pushed them back, but it wasn’t without bloodshed. Several captured nobles were executed, but some were pardoned. A small part of past Cindros belonged to the Empire now, and a slightly bigger chunk of the Empire now belonged to Cindros.
The region was not taken from its previous rulers because of the exchange treaty. Lord Ramishtek was one of these lords at the border.
A minute and a half later, Faust was thrown on the hard ground with a violent kick to his face. He tried to block it, of course. But at four and a half feet tall and barely 40 kg... he was treated like a punching bag.
Especially when Faust was not allowed to use his abilities.
He could not channel or infuse essence either, which meant he was just a random normal kid going against a cheating Infuser.
"How long can you keep this up?" Lady Birhi pulled him up as she asked.
His dark blade survived every clash against her sword without breaking or even chipping a little. Normally, Faust could not use his ability through a weapon like Infusers, but with this knife he could. Birhi’s infused sword lost its golden hue the moment it made contact with his blade, and the same with her own body if the blade touched it.
"This makes no sense." A glowing green parrot spoke, perched on Hartwin’s shoulder.
The guy, who was the host of the Marauding Vivacious Parrot spirit, nodded with a troubled expression on his bearded face.
The giant of a man had piercing grey eyes, a dozen odd tattoos on his body, and long brown hair braided neatly. His light, ankle-length, front-opening weird gown and loose, flowing, sweatpants-like trousers betrayed his northern origins.
Warriors from the Graveless Bloodlands rarely came this far south. They were even rarer than some of the spirit beasts. Though some did occasionally wander far from home. Mainly exiles.
"You shush!" Faust glared at the annoying parrot. "As if a talking parrot makes great sense."
"Most spirits talk, brat! You didn’t even know that? Hah! Brats these days have no respect for their elders."
"Should we experiment stabbing the respectable elder with this knife and see what happens? I vote yes." Faust raised his hand, a gleeful expression on his face.
"That would indeed be interesting. Your knife absorbs essence continuously; does it have a limit? Useful to know." Birhi agreed.
The parrot glared at them furiously and suddenly took off in the air as if he could not trust them any longer. It never came near Faust to begin with; now, with the addition of his knife, it was even more scared.
Spirits were beings of pure essence, and he was the bane of all essence. Needless to say, despite being their kin, they did not like him at all.
"You said you could change the shape to anything you desire." Hartwin inquired.
Faust nodded.
"And the ability works with all constructs? Even that smoke you mentioned?"
Faust did not like sharing his precious secrets. But many people in this world could take one look at him and see he was hiding something. The Duke had many resources. Hiding things only made him look more suspicious and hindered his progress in mastering his own abilities.
In this matter, he had decided to take a leap of faith and come clean.
"It does. But it’s weak. A strong gust of wind can push it afar."
"Only if they know, boy," Hartwin shook his head. "It’s an invaluable weapon against spirit beasts. Before you had to get close to the target, but now you can just leave the cloud of this thing behind, stand at the edge, and trap a monster within. If you use your full range at the same time, you can effectively increase the field of absence by several meters using this trick."