Chapter 71
Chapter 71: The Princess's Practice Lesson
A blue Magic Formation descended from the sky onto the mountainside, and as 2 beams of light appeared, 2 figures landed smoothly on the ground.
Auréliane turned in a circle, taking in the surrounding scenery.
It was a wide mountain path, flanked by lush, towering wild grass and wildflowers of every color.
The trees were robust and thriving, soaring up like clouds.
She gazed at the natural, graceful scenery along the mountain path, eyes wide with astonishment.
Since the day she was born, this was the first time Auréliane had ever left the Royal Capital.
And the first time she left, she appeared in a wilderness like this.
Everything was full of novelty—Auréliane's mood was indescribably joyful.
But before she even had time to feel happy, Viktor's voice sounded coolly beside her.
"This place is—the Mirute Plains."
In the game, this area was a monster-grinding zone outside the safe region.
The monsters that appeared in the Mirute Plains were not weak—they generally ranged between Level 20 and Level 30.
And Viktor's reason for bringing Auréliane here was...
"This is today's lesson."
"Learn how to fight."
The moment the words fell, his figure dissolved into a tongue of flame and vanished from Auréliane's sight like scattering ash.
Viktor's vague and directionless instruction left her completely at a loss.
And his sudden disappearance sent Auréliane into a flurry of panic.
Around her, the silence was terrifying.
"Te... Teacher?"
She opened her mouth in a flustered rush, calling out to Viktor, hoping for some response.
But the only reply that came was the rustling of wind sweeping through the grass.
With Viktor gone, Auréliane's panic multiplied several times over.
She couldn't sense any human presence nearby—not even the faintest trace of Viktor's aura remained.
It gave her the aching feeling of having been suddenly abandoned.
Soon, the first unnatural sound of the dangerous wilderness reached her ears.
A monster had detected the scent of an outsider. It crept slowly toward Auréliane, its body producing a creak-creak sound of grinding joints.
It was a tree sprite suffused with a black aura—humanoid in form, with 2 thick branches for arms and roots for feet.
The purple leaves across its body looked as though they had been corrupted by the black miasma.
The monster's hulking frame cast a shadow that seemed to swallow Auréliane whole.
Like a crashing system, her mind went completely blank in an instant.
Having zero real combat experience, merely encountering a monster like this was enough to make her forget how to use magic entirely.
"This is a Corrupted Tree Sprite. Strike the upper section of its branches with magic."
Suddenly, Viktor's guiding voice sounded in her ear.
Auréliane snapped back to her senses immediately—the monster in front of her was real.
She had nearly made a terrible mistake just now!
Monsters in the wild would not spare you simply because you stood there in a daze. They would only become more ferocious.
Auréliane's anxious heart steadied considerably. She rapidly searched her memory for every spell she had studied.
Soon, with her mind clear, she began preparing to cast magic.
She raised a hand—a Formation instantly took shape between her palms, several simple runes began to weave together, and a faint tongue of flame burst forward.
【1st-Tier Magic: Spark】
Fortunately, she hadn't forgotten the attribute-counter relationship.
After the flame struck the monster, small fires ignited across its body—but the creature shook itself, and those little flames gradually died out.
Looking back at the Corrupted Tree Sprite, it seemed like no real harm had been done.
Auréliane stared at the tree sprite, which had barely taken a scratch, and panic surged through her at once.
Fear spread across her face. It seemed like that corrupted aura would come crashing down on her at any second.
"No! Don't come near me!"
She squeezed her eyes shut in terror, stepping back again and again while frantically building fire magic in her hands.
Fireball after fireball landed on the corrupted tree sprite in an unbroken stream.
The effect wasn't particularly impressive, but quantity has a way of producing quality.
Under Auréliane's unrelenting barrage of magic—as though she had an endless supply—the tree sprite was soon ignited by dozens of flames that blazed together and consumed it utterly.
The fire died down, and the monster's sounds ceased abruptly.
Auréliane forced herself to open her eyes in apprehension. The monster before her had already been reduced to a pile of ash.
"It's... dead?"
Auréliane could barely believe it. She lowered her head and stared at her own palms.
From the continuous casting of magic, her hands had taken on a few degrees of scorching heat.
But... had this monster truly been killed by her own hands?
Auréliane couldn't believe it—yet everything in front of her was undeniably real.
This feeling made her feel...
Incredibly...
Exhilarating!
Completely different from everything those mages had ever taught her before!
"Not bad—at least you didn't fail on the first try."
At some unknown moment, Viktor had reappeared at Auréliane's side.
While giving Auréliane a brief word of praise, he crouched down and picked up the crystals and corrupted branches left behind by the dead monster.
He stored them in his Player-exclusive Inventory.
After finishing all of this, his gaze returned to Auréliane.
"Auréliane, walk to the end of this mountain path—that is your lesson and assignment for today."
"And if you want to give up, tell me. I'll end our lessons."
Auréliane nodded with a trace of hesitation.
Although defeating a monster for the first time had given her a measure of confidence—enough to make her understand that she, too, was capable of fighting—she still wanted a little more reassurance, and couldn't help asking Viktor:
"You'll stay by my side to protect me the whole time, won't you?"
Viktor said nothing. He simply dissolved into a tongue of flame and, with a whoosh, vanished again.
But this time, Auréliane already felt considerably more at ease.
She knew that her Teacher was always right there beside her.
And her Teacher was very strong.
Her first battle in the wild gave her a feeling of extraordinary freedom.
A sense of liberation, of freshness, flooded through her mind.
Soon, 3 more Corrupted Tree Sprites came staggering out of the forest.
This time, Auréliane was ready. A 2nd-tier spell she had prepared in advance was released in an instant.
【2nd-Tier Magic: Flame Bolt】
Fire orbs far more powerful than before slammed into all 3 Corrupted Tree Sprites at the same time.
Although her level was lower than these monsters, the raw power of a 2nd-tier spell still dealt considerable damage.
Flames erupted violently across their bodies, and their branches splintered and scattered in all directions.
One of them crashed to the ground, dead.
But the remaining 2 tree sprites proved more tenacious—even with both arms charred to cinders, they still lunged toward Auréliane with gaping maws.
Auréliane shaped a simpler spell in her hand, a black Formation beginning to form between her palms.
It was the hallucinatory magic Viktor had demonstrated to her.
【1st-Tier Magic: Grey Haze】
A curtain of smoke enveloped the 2 broken tree sprites. They froze in place for a second, then crashed straight into each other.
Under the violent force of impact, their remaining health was wiped clean, and their bodies crumbled slowly to dust, scattering on the wind.
Auréliane stepped forward.
Monsters didn't leave corpses when they died—they simply weathered away until they vanished completely.
This spared Auréliane the discomfort of having to look at bodies after killing a monster.
She picked up the dropped materials from the ground, and then heard several snarls from behind her. She spun around, her expression tightening.
This time, 5 monsters came at once—and among them was 1 creature entirely unlike the other 4 tree sprites.
It was a monster made of entangled flower clusters. Its body was massive—more than twice the size of those tree sprites—and from time to time it released intoxicating, hallucinogenic fragrances.
Beneath its body, a mass of thorned vines whipped and lashed.
Auréliane's heart pounded wildly at the sight. This time, she had no time to prepare a 2nd-tier spell.
She could only rely on simple 1st-tier fire magic to deal with 2 of the tree sprites in front of her, while the constant drifting pollen made her thoughts grow hazy and unclear.
Even her simple 1st-tier magic seemed to grow complicated.
With a whoosh, a vine shot out from the grass beside Auréliane's feet without warning and coiled around her ankle, dragging her toward the flower-cluster monster.
In the instant she was tripped and fell to the ground, Auréliane's mind snapped clear.
Danger!
But at that very moment—
Boom!
A terrifying blaze erupted with flames that refused to die, severing the vine wrapped around her from behind.
At the first moment she could move, Auréliane hurriedly turned back.
The remaining 3 monsters had already been completely swallowed by roaring fire.
Viktor stood bathed in flame—amid that blazing inferno, not a single ember had touched his body.
Inside the fire, he collected the green crystals left behind by the monsters.
Only after finishing this did Viktor step out, and the fierce, surging flames dispersed close behind him.
"You failed."
Under Viktor's cold, indifferent gaze, Auréliane—still shaken—gave a small flinch.
"If this were a real encounter, you'd already be dead."
In the wild, there was no room for a moment's relaxation.
A human who lost consciousness would only become a monster's meal.
Auréliane felt a pang of disappointment, but she truly hadn't had time to react.
She was about to say something in her defense, but then she heard Viktor say:
"But in my lessons—do not fear failure."
"Fail once, and start again from the beginning."
As he spoke, Viktor's body once again dissolved into flame and vanished.
Once more, 5 monsters reappeared in front of Auréliane.
As though it had all been arranged, they attacked just as they had before.
This time, Auréliane was prepared. She kept the tree sprites occupied while dodging the vines and the pollen.
Through relentless attrition, the tree sprites were burned to nothing.
Then a vine shot out from the grass in a sneak attack aimed at Auréliane.
This time, it hit nothing but air.
Auréliane stepped back, and with a flick of her wrist, a 1st-tier spell burst to life in her hand—she tossed it straight into the flower-cluster monster's open maw.
In an instant, the pollen became a volatile, flammable medium. The dust ignited in an explosion that blew the monster to pieces.
Auréliane let out a breath of relief, but this time, she didn't forget to stay alert to her surroundings.
Only once she was certain there wasn't a single sound nearby did she finally relax, plopping herself down on the ground.
The scorch marks all around her, along with the remains of the monsters, all silently testified to everything that had just occurred.
"I... I actually did it!"
A surge of indescribable achievement flooded her heart, and Auréliane was overcome with a sense of satisfaction unlike anything she had ever known.
This particularly fresh experience—it was the very first time.
She buzzed with excitement, brimming with exhilaration.
She rested for a while, and once she felt her Magic Power recover to a reasonable level, she stood back up and continued forward along the mountain path.
Her lesson was not yet over.