Mimic Awakening

In the basement of a villa on one of the cruising floating islands, there is a circular podium at one of the corners. The podium measures ten feet in diameter and with an elevation of eight inches. It is seemingly made of a smooth gray stone with a magical circle of a certain spell engraved into it with shiny and silvery mithrill wires.

In the dim basement, the mithrill on the podium starts to radiate lights that shoot upwards following the magic circle. A few seconds later, Azrael and Claire instantly appear on the podium.

That podium is actually a waypoint or teleportation point for a spatial magic spell called "Fast Travel," a supreme-tier spell that allows the user to teleport into a specifically marked location. However, this spell has a casting time of two spellturns, or ten seconds to activate, but it is cut to half by Claire’s awakened ability.

Claire could just use Long Teleportation, which has a shorter casting time, to transport both of them, but its other end is actually based on the planet’s coordinates rather than the place.

Since the target location is a moving island, they would be teleported over the ocean, Fast Travel is a much better option in this case. In addition, it is the safer option, as Long Teleportation sometimes messes up with the altitude of the other end if cast incorrectly.

"So what does she mean by "by the sea"?" Azrael asks as soon as they arrive on the island. "Is that a place near the coast?"

Before she can give her answer, she first steps off the podium, and Azrael follows suit. He continues following him until they stop at the living room, where Alina greets them with a bow. Once Claire takes a seat on the couch, she proceeds to answer his question.

"Actually, I was born in a coastal city in the kingdom, where I met that person. Like I said earlier, we grew up together. When we were children, we used to play in our secret spot by the shores. When we grew up and our lives got busier, we decided to meet up once a week at that very place."

"So ’by the sea’ is your weekly rendezvous, huh? I guess we came back home because it’s not time yet?"

"That’s right. We usually meet at the end of the week. That’s three days from now."

"We have no choice but to wait," Azrael says as he leans his back on the couch before he asks her other questions. "By the way, what is her current name? And what kind of person is she?"

"Currently, she lives by the name of Carlene Helena van Sinclair. She is currently the lady of her territory, a viscounty. When I met her three hundred years ago, I didn’t know that she was a reincarnator yet, so I always admired how knowledgeable and wise she was even though we looked at the same age.

"You said that she was already a hundred years old, mentally, after all."

"She also acted too mature for someone her age. She was like an older sister to me. That’s why I have great respect for her as I followed her behind. She was also my teacher for magic, and she taught me spells that I had never heard or read about when I told her I had an awakened ability."

Awakening one’s unique ability is a rare occurrence in this world. For that reason, nations tend to recruit, by force or not, anyone who possesses an awakened ability, as awakeners can be useful in increasing the nation’s military prowess.

Some awakeners do not like to be used, so many awakeners have chosen to hide their abilities just to avoid being forced into the military, preventing them from being separated from their families.

Aware of the risk, Claire had put her trust in her and revealed her awakened ability to her. Fortunately, that person kept Claire’s secret within her, and she even mentored Claire with the knowledge she had from her previous lives.

"Just like I mentioned earlier, monsters killed her, which triggered my ability to awaken for the second time. Then suddenly, she showed up before me in a different body decades later."

From then on, the two of them occasionally met up in their hometown, as Claire had become an elite magic knight at that time, once a month. As time went by, their monthly rendezvous turned yearly, then every several years, until they rarely went out every few decades due to personal reasons.

"The last time we met was just over a decade ago." Taking a sip of her tea, Claire’s tone has a hint of melancholy before it suddenly turns to awkwardness. "But as time went by, I noticed that she had changed at some point."

"What do you mean by that?" Curious, Azrael asks.

"I don’t like talking about it right now. Perhaps you will see it once you meet her."

"Well, I don’t know what I would expect, but I am looking forward to it."

"Here is another cup of tea, master."

"Thank you, Alina."

Damn, I really missed drinking coffee right now.

As he is taking a sip, Azrael cannot help himself but reminisce about one of the favorite things he missed in his previous life.

◆◇◆◇◆◇

Clink. Clink. Clink.

On the sixth floor of the dungeon under the surface of the floating island, the floor’s maze is briefly illuminated with the sparks of the clashing blades of Azrael and Dareon. Their glowing eyes, side effects of their strength multipliers, move beyond hypersonic speed throughout the maze.

Zoom.

As Dareon is running ahead, Azrael accelerates his speed up to approximately Mach nine and easily closen the gap between them. But before Azrael can attempt to swing his sword diagonally, Dareon suddenly turns around and raises his left arm horizontally.

Due to how fast he is, Azrael is not able to slow down his momentum, and his upper chest and neck are caught by Dareon’s arm before the undead knight slams him down to the solid floor with a lariat.

"Hmph!"

"Guh!!"

"That ends the first day of your training," Dareon declares as soon as he gets up while turning off his Overdrive, which is set to eightfold. "Even though you are a lot faster than last time, you haven’t fully utilized the potential of this Combat Form spell."

Azrael, who is still lying on the floor, deactivates Combat Form, which turns off the pale white light around his body, before he takes Dareon’s hand to get him to his feet.

"The tables have turned when magic is taken out of the picture," Azrael claims. "Even though I am faster now, I still cannot beat you when it comes to pure combat."

"Your magic really puts a distance between us. But even if you are faster than before, probably due to the griffin’s innate raw speed, you are still lacking in close combat tactics."

Today, Dareon has formally started training Azrael. On the first day, Azrael has to fight Dareon for him to get a grasp of his combat proficiency. As expected, Dareon assesses that Azrael is completely amateur in martial arts in general.

Since Azrael’s sword broke in their fight last time, he was able to pick a sentient weapon from the armory of the castle. In his hands, Azrael is currently wielding a saber with a blade made out of the same black metal of Dareon’s greatsword.

As a sentient weapon, the saber possesses its own magical signature, and when Azrael checked it with the appraisal glass, he found out that it has around three hundred thousand magia points inside its green magic core, which is lower than Zyren’s and Dareon’s personal weapons, but it is a lot better than his previous mithrill longsword.

In his mind, Azrael is planning to craft one using the purple magic core of an archdragon. But Dareon told him that forging a sentient weapon was already considered an ancient art even in their era. Given how much metallurgy has changed through time, Azrael might face difficulty finding a craftsman of this forgotten art.

"How long does it take for me to start training for techniques? Until I defeat you with just pure physical combat?"

"That’s one of the requirements. The other one is to fully master your Combat Form. Even if you have already doubled your speed, your strength, defenses, and reaction time have not."

"I guess I have to train hard from now on," Azrael declares as he clenches his fist; his tone is serious. "I don’t know how long it would take, but I promise to myself that I will definitely achieve it."

"Keep that mindset, Azrael." Dareon cheers him up. "You need a strong mind in later training after all."

"While I am at it, maybe I can ask Zyren to teach me his mana multiplier technique?"

"Well, since you are a magic caster, albeit mostly casting wild magic more than primeval or modern magic, Zyren might agree to teach you. But he might also consider it dangerous."

"Because he’s afraid that I might reach the levels of gods, yes? I kind of understand him given the things the gods had done to your nation."

"But you have fought the evil god and gone against him, so Zyren might have taught you the technique so that you can beat him."

"I hope so."

"Alright. Let’s proceed with improving your fist next."

"Well, some problems can be solved by duking it out after all."

Afterwards, Azrael and Dareon race their way out of the dungeon.