Chapter 19
A wind shield surrounded Sylas. The small air cannon she summoned pushed the whirlwind into the surrounding gentle breeze. She scolded Sylas, saying, "Sylas! Don't use harmful spells on yourself without a shield."
"Harm?"
"Pain, hurt, that kind of words."
Sylas nodded. "'Intrusion'."
Xerath hesitated for a moment. She used an ancient root, different from other words. It was a word frequently used in necromancy, but not in Xerath's everyday vocabulary. However, she still nodded and said, "Yes, 'intrusion', but we usually say 'harm' instead of 'intrusion'."
Sylas nodded again and repeated, "Harm, now, gone?"
"Gone."
She smiled cutely and even showed a little dimple. "Can I play too?"
Xerath smiled back at her. "Please."
She happily waved her hands up and down, shouting with different pitches, sounding like a wild beast. On the other hand, Titus, who used to be a wild beast, quickly hid behind Xerath after feeling the disturbance. Xerath rubbed Titus' thick and round body with one hand, while keeping an eye out for any trouble that Sylas might cause with the other hand.
However, she soon discovered that Sylas quickly mastered how to play with the swirling gust. Sylas's calls weakened, and the potentially life-threatening air cannon became a ripple, sending the tornado towards her. Then, a counter wave appeared, cancelling out the previous one, leaving only the tornado behind. The second air cannon pushed the tornado back a little bit. She stood in the direction where the tornado had been pushed away and reached out of the barrier, playing with the tornado for a while.
But she quickly lost interest. Waves of invisible energy bounced the tornado up and down, making it wobble above her head. The residual waves struck the invisible barrier, illuminating the engraved words in various degrees of brightness.
However, Xerath could still see that Sylas's control over magic was very unstable. It was like asking a titan to do needlework. But Xerath had no experience teaching others, and Sylas was even more special - all children who learned magic in the world had a silver coin first, and then spent another silver coin to learn. None of them were born with a bag of gold coins like Sylas.
She soon created a mess. Maybe it was because she couldn't handle this little tornado well, which made her irritable. She impatiently clicked her tongue, but the air cannon quickly lost control. Violent waves forced the archmage to erect a wind shield, while the remaining waves were absorbed by the barrier. The barrier and the absorbing crystals suddenly became unusually bright, and then quickly dimmed, temporarily leaving both of them in a blind state.
The tornado, not knowing what it had absorbed, suddenly grew ten times its size. However, its mentality was still that of a baby, completely unaware of restraining itself. The sudden gust of wind swept up the books on the corner cabinet. These winged books felt the strong wind and desperately flapped their wings, trying to escape it, but it was futile. Next, the cushions on the sofa were also rolled up, and even Titus was blown up into the air. The tassels swayed in the wind as it struggled to hook onto the back of the sofa, whimpering at Xerath.
Xerath quickly drew a complex golden symbol in the air, with a crack sound, suddenly the growing tornado was engulfed by the crack of elements, and the whole exile returned to the Elemental Realm.
Titus fell on the sofa with all four legs in the air, then quickly twisted and bounced up, quickly hiding behind Xerath.
Xerath caught two falling cushions and placed them back on the sofa, and in the blink of an eye, saw Sylas standing awkwardly in front of her.
"Xerath, I'm sorry..."
Xerath touched her head, "It's okay, I can handle it. Are you hurt?"
It seems not, the gentle breeze was dispersed by the strong wind just now, and the orderly state of the elements will return to chaos after being impacted, which is quite normal. However, the tornado just now wasn't very strong, so Xerath judged that Sylas was still fine.
Sylas shook her head, seeming to lose interest and feeling discouraged.
Xerath didn't know how to make the child happy, so she couldn't help but call her water lord steward, "Hyectra, what was I doing when I was eight years old?"
"Unfortunately, my lady, I only met you when you were ten, so I'm afraid I won't know about the years before. But I guess you could read her a story?"
Xerath sighed and said, "I don't have any storybooks with me, I'm afraid they're all left at home."
The water lord, who looked like a ghost, said, "I can play with her in the water for a while, you can... take a rest."
"Taking care of children is a tough job, luckily I never planned to have any," she said, as she picked up a leisure book to pass the time. She admired Sylas's late mother who managed to raise such a troublesome child and teach her to behave. It must have been an exceptionally difficult task.
Perhaps it was because someone coveted Sylas that led to her tragic death.
Sylas's previous experiences seem to be unverifiable, hopefully she can keep calm recently. After all, if she doesn't scream in fear, she won't cause much trouble.
The gentleman with a deep blue color conjured a floating water droplet and handed it to Sylas. She felt the affinity of the element, and kindly said thank you. The droplet slowly moved towards her, unlike the wind, it adhered to her hand because of the surface tension of the water droplet.
Hyectra drew several intersecting water lines in the air. Xerath looked up and saw a 3x3 grid. Hyectra started filling it with Xs and Os. After demonstrating it once, Sylas seemed to have learned this simple game. The archmage breathed a sigh of relief and said to Hyectra, "That's great, you're really reliable."
Hyectra spread open her hand and said to her, "And the good thing is, even if she gets tired of this game, we still have Othello and the Elemental War."
These are famous board games popular on the continent. However, Xerath spent most of her time in the library and didn't need these brain-burning and highly contentious chess games to pass the time, so she wasn't very good at chess and couldn't even remember to play it.
The archmage didn't have much time to spare. In fact, even with the honor of being an archmage and the long lifespan that came with it, she still felt that there wasn't enough time. The mysteries of the universe were endless, and human life always had an end. Even dragons were not exempt from this.
This is also why many archmages chose to abandon their physical bodies and become Liches.
The mysteries of the universe excited these few but peculiar humans to the point of madness. The temptation of absolute wisdom left them powerless to resist. Just imagine, being able to save time by not needing to eat or sleep and continuously think without fatigue. What a wonderful experience that would be!
