Ch 5: Saxon

"Hey kid."

Xasha was breathlessly sprinting down the stairs and into the living room. A bright smile plastered onto his face upon seeing a 6'7ft tall man sitting on his couch, casually sipping tea. The first thing he noticed was his red hair that looked like a flaming river loosely tossed over his broad shoulder. Seeing the red hunting suit, Xasha knew why he was here.

 Beside him was a 5ft tall Katana that was as red as the man's hair. The sheath of the sword was the body of a Red Dragon Snake. The guard was the Dragon Snake's head with its mouth wide open and the hilt protruded out of its mouth like a leather tongue.

Just when he was about to excitedly jump into the man's embrace, he remembered he was still upset with him for sending him away from home to this place and took a seat opposite to him instead.

"What are you doing here, Dad," Xasha said calmly. 

"I received a bill for 45 million Libras the other day and I came here to tell you that you owe me 45 million Libras." Saxon had a calm smile on his face.

"Cheap bastard," Xasha cursed under his breath. He poured some tea from the teapot into an empty cup on the table and took a sip. It was ginseng from Verra's herb garden which helped him calm down, "Why are you really here?"

"I'm going off to the Black plains, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me."

"How long?"

"2 maybe 3 weeks, I'm hunting down a Black Rhino. Your mother needs it to make some armor for the prince's strike force."

"On one condition, help me catch a wild wind spirit."

"This will be a brief trip and wild wind spirits are hard to find and even harder to capture."

"Those are my conditions. I know that the only reason you invited me is that you want to use me as transportation. Without me, it will take you three weeks just to get to the black plains if you travel by carriage."

Saxon chuckled, "what are you saying? I came because I want to spend some quality time with my only son. I want to see how much progress you've made since you left home," Saxon had a nervous smile on his face. He looked down on his lap, refusing to look into his son's eyes. He knew there was no point lying with that kid's talent.

"I've only been here 2 months learning magic theory and basic combat. I haven't even learned any spells yet," Xasha sounded dissatisfied.

"You are too impatient my dear son, spell casting is not something you do just because you want to. If you are not ready, the backlash will kill you."

"But I am ready, you know I'm ready, I know I'm Ready. I know more about magic theory than you."

"That you do kid, you're a certified Genius. I have no doubts that you will far surpass me in the future."

"How can I surpass you? When you were my age you were already a gold rank mage and knew hundreds of spells, you had won wars and already in the elite core of the imperial army. I'm still here learning magic theory with a bunch of spoiled brats."

"Be patient, my son, I've lived a hard life filled with hatred and bloodshed. I did not have a childhood, and it's my job to ensure that you do. So, enjoy these peaceful times for they will be the fond memories you can look back on. War is always on the horizon my son, several provinces are at war right now. We never know when the war will land on our doorstep."Saxon turned serious, no longer smiling.

"I know, that's why I want to grow stronger faster so I can help you in the coming fight." Xasha also turned serious as he was looking into his father's red eyes.

"Haha, kid, look at you being serious all of a sudden. You can help me by staying safe and protect your mother so I will have nothing to worry about while I'm on the battlefield."

Xasha laughed, "like mom needs my protection, she's more dangerous than any enemy you will face out there," The mood lightened up.

"So how goes your experiments?" Saxon changed the topic.

"There's none to speak of, my labs aren't even finished yet. But there is something that I want to show you," Xasha got up and headed towards the greenhouses.

Entering the greenhouse Saxon was hit with a wave of pure concentrated magic energy, " wow, that's a lot of mana berries, but mana berry trees only bear around 12 fruits a year. How come this tree has 300 times that? What did you do to it?"

"This wasn't me; this is the work of my friend Verra, she has the Richest nature energy I've ever seen and has made significant innovations as an herbalist, she grows rare plants in her garden like its grass. She's an amazing Alchemist."

"I must meet this Verra then, she's definitely got something special."

Xasha waved his hands and 100 mana berries flew off the tree and towards his father. Who also waved his hand and they ended up in his storage pack, "thanks kid, these things might really help me break into the platinum realm. I've been stuck in the Diamond Realm for a few years. You should already know this but the magic energy in these things is strong, you shouldn't eat more than one per month or it will harm your-."

"Not me, have you already forgotten about my constitution? With my talents taking 60% of the energy I consume plus my magic energy sea being so big I can eat one or two of these a day no problem," Xasha said this while throwing a little purple mana berry into his mouth. He could feel the energy coursing through his veins.

"I've noticed that you've gotten stronger, level 7 copper on your way to level eight, not bad kid."

"At this rate, I'll make it to silver rank in a few months, then I can start my enchantment and alchemy studies."

"Kid, we need to get going, your mom is still waiting, and the faster we find that Black Rhinos the more time we will have to hunt down that wild wind spirit you want so much."

"You're right, I'm really excited about this, we haven't been hunting together in a while," they walked out of the house before Xasha waved his hands and a disk of air appeared under his and his father's feet. They rose into the air and headed east and full speed.

"You've gotten better at mana control and mana channeling, that's great, hahaha," Saxon praised.

It was flatlands for 1,000s of miles in every direction; the sky was overcast with black clouds, there was black lightning dancing among the clouds but strangely there was no thunder. A disturbing silence loomed over the entire plains.

The silence was then broken by the strong wind coming from a disk made of air. 2 people were standing on this disk moving at high speeds. A bullet-shaped wall of air was protecting the individuals from the wind.

"Haha, a few weeks out the house and you've already got you a girlfriend, you're a sharp one kid. Haha, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Saxon was in an excellent mood. Over the past 2 days, he and his son has been talking about all the things that happened since the last time they saw each other, while they traveled on the air disk to the black plains.

The trip had not been peaceful. There were lots of flying energy beasts that attacked them on the way. They were all burned to ashes with a wave of Saxon's hand.

In Lithuania, he was known as the Flame Emperor as his flames burned the hottest on the continent. This was as a result of his 2 talents, they were powerful and worked well with his elemental affinity.

The first one was called Sea Of Fire which expands any flame he produces to a sea of flames over 100 meters wide even if it's just a spark and the other called 10 Suns which increases the power of any flame he creates by a factor of 10. Making Saxon one of the most powerful mages on the continent with such explosive firepower. All he needed to do was create a spark and his enemy would have a sea of flames hot enough to melt Bear Steele to contend with. Just how many sparks could a Diamond Realm expert create?.

"She's not my girlfriend, I haven't even told her that I like her yet," Xasha felt comfortable telling his father anything.

"Why not kid, what are you waiting for? Can't you use that talent of yours to tell if she likes you as well? Is it because of what happened with princes-."

"Stop! don't even say her name. And no, that's not it, well. Yes, it is, I guess I'm afraid of rejection."

"You can't let fear make your decisions for you kid, if you want something go after it. If you fail, get back up, dust yourself off and keep going," Saxon was never good at giving advice.

"I know, it's just harder in practice than it is in theory -."

"We're here. Get ready," Saxon became serious. He started surveying the area and rested his hand on Red Fang, "Let's get closer to the ground."

"Why are you being so serious it's only Black Rhinos, a mature black rhino is at the peak of gold rank that shouldn't be a problem for you, right?"

"look at the ground, you see all that dry grass, if I use my flames here I might end up burning down hundreds of miles of land and killing millions of creatures here. That would be a bad idea. So, I'll have to rely on ole Red Fang here to get the job done," he said this while touching his 5ft tall red Katana.

"Stay alert we are now in Black Rhino territory, Black Rhinos might only be gold rank but they travel in crashes of hundreds and their skin is so hard that it's almost impossible to cut. Their only weak spot is their assholes haha, and taking on hundreds of gold rank energy beasts with nothing but my trusty sword is a challenge even for- speak of the devil," a few miles in front there was a large shadow covering a large swath of land, it was a crash of Black Rhinos.

The male rhinos were twice the size of the females, with some as tall at 9 meters and 12 meters long. The females had one long, sharp, black horn while the males had three, these horns were made of obsidian diamonds and are ideal for making powerful weapons used by elite forces.

Because Black Rhinos traveled in crashes of almost a thousand and were very aggressive, not even armies dared to hunt them. Some brave individuals would try to lure one or 2 young rhinos away from the crowd and attack, some even braver folks hunt the adults.

In seconds, the disk came to a stop in the air above the crash of Black Rhinos.

"Watch this," Xasha waved his hand and a disk similar to the one he was standing on appeared underneath the feet of a male Black Rhino, bringing him in front of them in the air. The rhino was facing away from them. Saxon didn't need a second to think, he unsheathed his Red Fang and shoved it right in the rhino's weak spot. He also applied fire to the blade, turning the rhino's insides to ash. Everything happened in a second. The rhino was dead before it could react.

"Hahaha, kid, this is great."