Chapter 1051 Even Geniuses Have Problems
Two days remained till the Giants' submission to the Dragon Empress.
Lith was still in the middle of the human graveyard, training.
He wasn't wearing a shirt and was practicing martial arts. His long hair was gone. What remained on his head was voluminous messy hair with a closely cropped underside.
As he moved, his hair swayed along while his bangs parted to the side, revealing his beautiful pair of calm amethyst eyes.
Something within him had changed ever since he saw the young child's body. His demeanor turned more serious and mature as a sense of responsibility hung on his shoulders.
Cutting hair for him meant starting anew, having a fresh start, a new journey.
There were fond memories with his long hair. His mother, sister, and wives used to braid it for fun while locking his upper body between her legs. It also made him appear like a proper cultivator.
But now, he was embracing the magic side of this world. Learning spells, perfecting them, casting them, and comprehending elemental laws was what this new journey would be filled with.
"Master, time's up."
Fei's soft voice rang in Lith's ears and he instantly dropped what he was doing.
He sent his spiritual power into his ring and took out the staff and grimoire.
Opening the grimoire, Lith began reciting a chant while imbuing the staff with spiritual power.
The staff amplified the spell's effect and made a magic circle twice the size of a football field.
"…Beuoh. Baou. Buah. Beu…"
The tongue twisting chant of [Up & Alive] was said again.
The magic circle glowed and spun around Lith, sucking the spiritual power from his staff this time instead of his body, and then flowed into the ground, causing it to rumble.
So far, nothing has gone wrong.
The rumbling intensified. It was strong enough to be classified as a 6 magnitude earthquake.
A few seconds passed.
The rumbling continued, making Lith frown.? Something was wrong, he thought. Before he could check the problem, however, the Death elemental energy around the graveyard fluctuated wildly.
BOOM—! BOOM—! BOOM—!
The skeletons inside their graves burst apart, causing soil, dirt, and bone splinters to fly everywhere.
Lith raised his arm to cover his eyes from the splinters.
His arm and rest of the body was hit with minute, sharp bone particles. Blood gushed out from a lot of places and it would be the first time in a while that he's gotten such damage and bled.
The rumbling stopped and the spell was a failure.
Lith sighed.
A wave of elemental energy sweeped past him at this moment, making all the bones attached to him move out.
The soil and dirt splattered everywhere flew back to where they came from. The damage to the tombstones, trees, bushes was getting reversed.
It was as if someone was rewinding time to reverse everything that had happened in the graveyard, and that was exactly what was happening in the first place.
Fei, sitting on a chair by the round table, casually sweeped her hand, and made everything return to normal.
Her figure may be small and she could be mistaken for a silly, soon-to-be adult maiden, but she was the best Time Path expert in this world as of this moment.
That is, of course, if Lilith was excluded from the list.
Doing something as small as reversing the damage was not a big deal for Fei. Lith knew it too and wasn't surprised, since he could do such a thing, albeit at a smaller level, too.
"What went wrong?" Lith pondered out loud.
He flipped the pages in the grimoire and recalled the chant he had spoken out loud.
Everything was correct. He did not make a mistake in pronunciations either.
Lith knitted his brows. He couldn't properly figure out the trouble no matter how hard he tried to.
"Your call for shifting the magic circle's spiritual power absorption from yourself to the staff was where you went wrong, Master."
Fei calmly said and pointed out. She was instructed to guide Lith on the right track in case he was unable to resolve things on his own.
Lith wasn't omniscient. In fact, even his omnipotent mother wasn't either.
He made errors like normal people and was stuck at times. The only difference between him and the average person was that his level of problems were on another level than them.
It could be understood via an analogy of two eighteen year olds studying in the same calculus class. One of them was the average student while the other was a genius.
The average student would have trouble understanding the basics of integration and differentiation while the genius student was already trying to solve university-level problems.
The genius student might not be able to get the answer correctly and would make a lot of errors, but his troubles are much different than the average student.
Lith was not a narcissistic person. He understood his shortcomings and took Fei's advice seriously. Even though Fei's status was lower than his since she was his maid, Lith paid such useless things no mind.
Since day one he hadn't cared about status, and in his family, neither his mother, sister nor his wives followed such a thing.
They treated everyone related to them with respect and integrity.
Lith looked at Fei and argued, "Hm, but, if I did not not, the magical circle would suck out every drop of spiritual power from me, killing me. With the staff as the center, it can only take a limited amount from it."
Fei nodded. "That is true, yes. You did not take a wrong step here, but you forgot to consider stabilization as a factor."
Lith tilted his head and pointed at the staff. "No? That staff is of Half Emperor Rank, even above mine. What else could be more stable than this?"
Fei shook her head. "Master, the staff is indeed capable of stabilizing it, but the level of the magic circle is too high for you to control. The spell exploded because your mind does not have the strength equivalent to Half Emperor to control the spell."
"Ah…"
Lith rubbed his temples. How could he have overlooked this?
"Tch. I did not feel anything wrong with my body when the spell exploded. It seems my mind did not grasp even a little bit of it to be affected."
"Yes, that's correct." Fei nodded. "The spell was too powerful for your mind to register it. Had it done so, your head would've exploded along with the spell."
Lith heaved out a tired sigh. It was more difficult to modify a spell than he had thought.
He had mastered the [Up & Alive] spell from the bottom ranks all the way to King Rank. However, to have the modification it wanted, the strength of the spell had to be raised a bit. To increase the strength, he in turn had to increase its rank. And to increase rank was not possible with his King Rank self, so he used the staff.
"I messed up indeed."
Lith pinched the middle of his brows and began pondering on what he should do next.
"Well, Master, theoretically looking at it, your spell doesn't seem wrong. It's just that you can't practically test it due to its level being higher than yours. Why don't you call someone here instead and have them test it?"
Fei suggested. Sylvia could use the Death element, he could call her and get things done. And as far as Fei knew, Sylvia was more intelligent than herself, so she could guide Lith even better.
Lith shook his head. "No, that won't do. Even if I succeed in doing so, I wouldn't be able to use the spell. And if I can't use the spell, then what's the point of it? I can't wait to use it till I reach Half Emperor Rank. It's way too far."
"Makes sense." Fei said in understanding.
"Plus," Lith looked at the staff. "I plan to make the modification be usable even to the lower ranks."
Fei gave Lith a small thumbs up. "Then, I wish you luck."
"Hm."
Lith hummed in response and went back to fiddling with the spell. Now that he knew the problem, he was another step closer to modifying it.
Half a day later.
Fei got a call. It was from Lilith.
Picking it up, she was told to bring Lith back to the castle. It was important.
Fei agreed and told Lith about it.
"Mom called? And there's something important?" Lith asked and wondered what the important thing could be.
Having no lead, he eventually gave up and decided to go. There was still some time until the Giants' quest was nearing completion. He could make a trip home in the meantime.
Lith picked his shirt lying on the round table and draped it over his shoulder. He used his palm to comb his bangs backwards, and doing so caused Fei to almost let out a drool.
His hot upper body covered in sweat, the musky rosy scent, and the wet bangs being combed back…
It was too much for a young maiden's heart to handle.
However, even though she was fascinated and amazed, the reaction did not appear on her face. Only a slight blush could be seen, which went unnoticed by Lith as he focused on making a jump to the castle.
Being absorbed in training and getting serious would cause even the perviest of perverts like Lith to turn into dense shonen protagonists who couldn't even understand the most glaring of hints from the ladies around them.
The only saving grace in Lith's part was that he hadn't recited even ten percent of the dense-no-jutsu scripture. He was still a pervert, but a motivated and focused one.
Fei walked up to Lith's side and held his arm. Lith imbued spiritual power into a teleportation token and made a jump back home.