The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

                                      While Aleni was working outside, Zaos still continued with Milliendra training to increase her stamina. Perhaps if she follows that path, she will never obtain the magic powers necessary to summon the demon god. There was also the fact that keeping her mind busy would make her recall fewer times that Aleni wasn't nearby.

"Daddy, I am tired… playing the same thing all the time isn't fun," Milliendra said.

"Of course it is fun," Zaos said and then jumped with all his might after using Wind and Earth magic to enhance his legs to reach ten meters of height."If you play like this a lot, you jump so high like me."

            Zaos felt slightly bad for telling such a lie. Still, it was for the best. Besides, nothing says that Milliendra won't be able to use the same type of magic one day.

"Can you jump like that while carrying me?" Milliendra asked.

"Just once, okay?" Zaos said. "You need to work hard and it will be much more fun if you can do that by yourself."

            Milliendra nodded, and then Zaos gave her a piggyback ride before jumping high in the sky. While he couldn't stay in the air for long. It was quite something to see Milliendra enjoying herself seeing the top of the trees around.

            Eventually, Milliendra got exhausted and hungry, so after having lunch, she had her afternoon nap. Zaos decided to use that free time to resume his research. According to what Milliendra said that she felt while she was meditating, her powers increased steadily while her mana was full. So, Zaos wondered… if he created a magic tool that consumed her mana, wouldn't that also slow down the growth of her powers? Even if that wasn't possible, perhaps if Zaos could teach her how to transfer her mana to empty magic stones, it could also help. The only problem was the fact that when her mana is low, she can drain more mana than usual, even from magic stones.

"I need to create a magic tool that can take her mana at a steady pace but without forcing her power to drain mana to get stronger…" Zaos said while he was flipping his magic book. "Why isn't there a single thing related to that in this damn book?"

            It didn't seem like a good idea to think about other projects when Zaos didn't even complete the first magic tool that would help her. Still, his skills were still developing, so it couldn't be helped. Besides, it was better to have many ideas than focus on a single one that might fail.

              Thanks to all that training and to the fact that Aleni wasn't there to spar with Zaos, he had a lot of free time. He used that free time to develop his first magic gloves. That tool could increase the strength of the user by quite a bit. When Zaos punched a tree with it, it left a mark on the trunk. However, by operating at its full power, it could only work for a few hours…

"As expected, the size of the magic stone affects its duration…"Zaos rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

            Since Zaos could recharge the magic stone, that wasn't really a problem. Besides, it wasn't like he needed that brute strength for all fights. Until now, he only had to fight for so long in wars, after all. In any case, the prototype was a success. But Zaos needed to find a way to make it store more mana. Once he makes it big enough, Milliendra will be able to use it to control her powers, but before that, he needs to find the right inscriptions to make the glove drain mana…

"Trying to find the inscriptions will take too much time since I don't have any clue…" Zaos thought. "I guess I really need to teach Milliendra how to infuse her mana in magic stones."

          At that point in time, Zaos had already forgotten the idea of creating a gauntlet that would help him move his left arm. It was just a minor benefit for himself, after all. 

          Once Zaos developed the prototype, he didn't have much free time to do anything else because Milliendra got restless. Naturally, she missed Aleni, and even playing with Zaos wasn't having much effect. Unfortunately, Zaos couldn't do anything to make her forget that. Physical training, meditation… Milliendra didn't feel like doing any of that.

"It has been two weeks, but the rings should last a month…" Zaos thought.

            While that happened only once, Milliendra felt that Aleni was in danger. Since then, she hasn't felt like that anymore. Thanks to that, Zaos was less worried than he should be, but… he was beginning to think that they needed more allies for situations like that. Letting one another do dangerous jobs on their own wasn't a good idea… the problem was: they didn't know anyone else that was trustworthy and could protect Milliendra from the spirits of the past and assassins.

          Now that Zaos thought about the assassins, he wondered why they never got attacked again… did the king understand that it was a waste of time after he lost five of them. Aleni never said their price, but they are supposed to be stupidly expensive to hire and even more so to buy it… in any case, that didn't matter since Zaos was starting to feel dejected as well. Seeing Milliendra acting like that for several days broke his heart… fortunately, Zaos felt Aleni's presence when they were having breakfast the next day.

"Mommy!" Milliendra jumped from her chair and then ran to hug Aleni.

"I am back, Millie," Aleni returned the hug. "Have you been a good girl?"

          Milliendra nodded while smiling from ear to ear. Aleni smiled as well, another smile that she only shows rarely, but then she turned to face Zaos and moved her lips without saying a single word. However, Zaos caught the message.

"We need to talk,"