Chapter 70: A Grand Ambition
In the grand scheme of the time loops, five months wasn’t a lot of time.
Consequently, despite all the time dilation wards and methods of stretching time out that Orodan and Eldiron utilized, it’d passed rather quickly. The continent of the elves was rich in knowledge, his journey here had been the right move given how much he’d learned.
It was a period of peace and learning. It had been a long time since Orodan had been through so peaceful a long loop.
He owed multiple people a great debt for all that they’d taught him, and he found himself adding them to the list of those he owed favors to and intended to repay. First, and chief among them, was Alovardo Balmento. That crazed lunatic had finally returned to Arkwall two weeks ago, but during their final lesson together he’d utterly flabbergasted the Eldritch eccentric with what he’d shown himself capable of. With the display of that, he now felt confident in achieving the first step of his grand vision.
The magical disciplines he’d focused upon had greatly improved. With spatiomancy and chronomancy returning to a third of his System-aided levels of power. And his martial abilities had steadily climbed upwards, with Orodan now completely used to the lack of System when it came to them. If anything, he preferred the System not interfere with physical combat, which was the bread and butter of who he was as a fighter. He was a natural warrior, and the lack of guidance and restriction in fact made him better at fighting.
His students had also gotten noticeably better during the five months of training, even if most of them whined far too much about how brutal he was being. It proved the idea that the elves’ racial qualities had nothing to do with their talents, rather, it was their mindset and risk-averse nature; a culture of it, which led to their supposedly lower talent. Those who shied away from the pain, from the risks, they didn’t advance quite as fast, despite whatever talents they were touted to have.
Gelarion, the presumed heir to the line of Steward-Kings, was the prime example of this. The lad had multiple tricks in combat, bow, swords, magic and powerful familiars, yet quailed when faced with true adversity. Othorion Evertree on the other hand, flourished under the pressure and advanced by leaps and bounds. Orodan would say the Evertree was capable of beating even a monstrous peak-Master now, and with that new skill… might even force a Grandmaster to truly try.
Unlike the other elves, Othorion had a single-minded, burning desire to improve. Over the five months, he’d identified that it was plainly due to the competition for ascension to the throne. The Evertree didn’t hate Gelarion, but the two didn’t really talk and the fierce competition was rather apparent. Still, his student’s constant side-eyes and glances filled with jealousy towards Gelarion were a bit annoying, so Orodan had made sure to beat the notion of humility and focus into Othorion, and the elf seemed far better off for it.
And finally, the wisdom tree of Ildisiar and the teachings it had been imparting to him. Particularly, those regarding Dimensionalism. He was very close to understanding something critical about it, but just needed one final insight, which was the purpose of the current trip he was on.