After a night of rest, Brian woke up in his new room at the Black Bull base early in the morning.
"Hm~"
Brian stood up, stretched his body for a long moment, warmed up in place for a few minutes, then left the bed and went outside to breathe in the fresh air.
The sky outside was just starting to show the morning light, but this had been his daily habit since receiving his Grimoire six months ago.
Training his magic from early morning until late at night, practicing a different type of exercise each day, and only resting when eating or sleeping—this harsh lifestyle had become familiar to him.
"Phew…!"
Brian took a deep breath and let it out. He slowly walked away from the Black Bull base, and once he was at a sufficient distance, he began to activate the mana in his body.
He raised his hands in two different directions, and immediately after, the mana in his body surged out, forming horizontal pillars of earth that shot out from his palms toward the front.
Just like a mage possessing Water Magic who could shoot water from their palms, Brian could do the same with Earth Magic. But in his case, it was earth instead of water, so the scene was a bit strange.
What Brian was doing was flushing the mana source in his body; this action functioned almost like warming up the body before training. It was quite similar to flushing a pipe to push out all the impurities in the line before letting clean water flow through.
This was the step of warming up the mana source in the body to make the mana flow smoothly before proceeding with magic practice. Brian had been doing this for a long time, and it was truly relatively effective for him.
"Alright…"
After a while of flushing the mana in his body, Brian brushed his hands a few times. His Grimoire automatically floated right beside him and flipped to the page recording the spell he needed.
"Earth Creation Magic: Mini Golem!"
Brian used the Golem-creating spell that he had used last night to clean his room. But unlike last night, this time he created not just ten Golems, but over a hundred Golems at once.
The Golems, only half a meter tall, appeared everywhere around where Brian was standing; some stood on the ground, some flew in the air as soon as he created them.
"Go, see if there is anything worth noticing around the base."
Following Brian's order, the Golems immediately dispersed everywhere in the area near the Black Bull base, leaving only one Golem with him. The purpose of this action was to scout the terrain and surrounding environment, as well as to find suitable locations for magic practice.
Brian would be living at the Black Bull base from now on, so he should also prepare well so that his magic practice would not be interrupted.
With more than one hundred Golems, they could complete the task Brian assigned in a short amount of time.
"Hmm…?"
Just as Brian was waiting for his Golems to bring back information, a strange bird flew near him, causing him to pay attention.
The appearance of this bird was no different from the birds that had been released during the Magic Knight entrance exam, but this bird looked a bit different from the others.
"You finally decided to show yourself…?"
As soon as Brian saw this bird, he knew that this bird was Secre from the original story, the woman who had been turned into a bird after using forbidden magic five hundred years ago. This woman was closely related to the First Wizard King and the whole story that happened to the Elf tribe in the past.
Ever since receiving the second four-leaf clover Grimoire, Brian had always been followed by Secre, from the time he was still living in Hage village until he set out to participate in the Magic Knight entrance exam; Secre had always followed him silently.
Only until today did Secre reveal herself in front of Brian, which surprised Brian a little bit.
"Come here."
Brian reached his hand out toward Secre, waiting for her in this bird form to land on his hand. After a moment of thought, she also agreed to fly to him.
"That's more like it…"
Brian smiled as he looked at the bird perched on his hand; he intended to reach out to stroke the bird but was immediately pecked quite painfully. "Tsk, how feisty."
Although he was pecked once, Brian was still a bit stubborn about stroking Secre, and under the sharp beak that had pecked his hand, he finally gave up on this.
"Alright, you win."
Brian had to abandon the idea of stroking Secre because this bird was too aggressive; he had to let her fly away after a moment of perching on his hand. She would follow him afterward, so he didn't need to worry about forgetting her.
The appearance of Secre would be quite important in the future, but for now, Brian had no ideas for this bird. It was better for him to focus on other things.
After a while of waiting for his Golems to do their work, Brian also got information about the entire area around the Black Bull base, and he had also finished his warm-up for the day.
"Alright, now Noelle must have been practicing magic for a while already."
Brian, thanks to the Golems going around the Black Bull base, also knew that Noelle had started practicing nearby. Keeping the presence of the Golems around her and also calling all the available Golems to move toward her, he began to head to where she was practicing.
He had waited for this moment for a long time, so he acted very carefully, not wanting to let things go out of control.
On Noelle's side, she was panting heavily from using magic continuously. Around where she stood were many large and small puddles of water, and in front of her was a tree drawn on a target, but this tree was not affected at all; it was still dry even though she had tried using magic to hit it many times.
"Why…?"
Noelle lowered her face, kneeling in physical and mental exhaustion, "Why can't I control my mana as I wish…?"
Memories of unpleasant things she had to endure because of her poor ability to control mana flashed through Noelle's mind.
The mockery of outsiders, even her own family members, made her heart ache, but…
"You are all wrong…"
After all those hurtful words, Noelle still held onto her determination. She did not give up but continued to practice her magic until today.
"Once more!"
Noelle again raised her hand toward the tree drawn on the target; mana surged out from her body and turned into a water orb right in front of her.
As long as she made an unceasing effort to learn how to control magic, Noelle believed that one day she would be able to successfully do it.
Even if Noelle was now tired and weak because she couldn't master her own magic, she would still continue to practice endlessly. This was her unwavering determination.
But unfortunately, determination alone was not enough. Reality is extremely cruel because humans are not always rewarded for their efforts.
If there was no one standing up to help or care for Noelle, then this girl could harm herself before she could even use magic properly, let alone master it.
For this reason, so…
"What are you doing here, Noelle?"
Brian's voice suddenly sounded without any warning, and it startled Noelle quite a bit.
"B-Brian…?!"
Noelle's body stiffened, her eyes looking in terror at Brian, who was walking toward her, "W-Wait, don't come here…!"
Noelle's mind fell into chaos once again, but unlike the last time when she only recalled the mockery she had heard, this time the person about to see her pathetic state was Brian, the one who had kindly helped her when she had trouble getting along with the members of the Black Bulls.
If Brian saw her current appearance, what would he think?
What if he knew she was a pathetic person who couldn't control her own magic?
He, a genius at using magic, how would he react when seeing her, a royal who used magic worse than a commoner?
She was not ready to let him know the truth yet; she still dared not let anyone in the Black Bull know her bad secret.
"W-Wait! D-Don't come here!"
Noelle desperately shouted with a faint hope that Brian would stop as she said. But unfortunately, Brian had seen her state.
While her emotions became chaotic, the mana source inside Noelle's body suddenly erupted outward. The water orb in front of her suddenly swallowed her body, and its size began to grow uncontrollably.
Boom!!
A powerful stream of water shot out from the growing water orb, causing trees and surrounding earth and rocks to be destroyed.
The massive, uncontrolled mana source continuously caused the water orb that was swallowing Noelle to grow; its size was now larger than the Black Bull base.
That unusual appearance naturally made the members who were inside the Black Bull base feel that something was wrong outside, so they immediately ran out to check the situation, and also saw Noelle's unstable condition at this moment.
"Oh my god…"
"That's powerful magic!"
"If we don't do something, the situation will be bad; that power is beyond her control."
"Captain Yami, can you do something…?"
Among the Black Bull members witnessing the dangerous scene before them, Captain Yami was the most clear-headed of them all to be able to do something in this situation.
"If we try to break this magic by attacking, the girl will be in danger. To save her, there's only one way: to nullify her magic."
Yami took a puff of his cigarette and analyzed the situation for the others, "I can nullify her magic, but…"
While Yami carefully considered what he should best do in this situation, Brian stepped forward with his Grimoire floating near him.
"Leave it to me, Captain."
Brian said in a confident tone, the mana in his body also starting to surge, "I can keep Noelle safe while still being able to nullify her magic."
The others couldn't help Noelle much in this situation, so they could only trust that Brian would do what he just said.
"Then I'll leave the kid to you. Don't disappoint me."
Yami saw Brian's confident attitude and agreed to let him save Noelle. But if he felt something was wrong, Yami would certainly act immediately, not letting the situation get any worse.
"Just trust me."
Brian nodded to Yami, walked to the very front, and stood right beneath Noelle's massive, uncontrolled water orb.
Under the astonished eyes of the others, Brian's Grimoire flipped pages extremely fast, and at the same time, over a hundred Golems appeared from nowhere, suddenly flying to Noelle's massive water orb, their positions forming a sphere surrounding the water orb.
And just as all one hundred-plus Golems had surrounded Noelle's water orb, Brian used his Earth Magic.
"Earth Creation Magic: Earth Cocoon!"
At the same time, all the Golems raised their arms in front of their faces, and immediately after, a layer of earth was formed right between their hands, then gradually spread around, touching the earth layers of the adjacent Golems.
In no time, Noelle's entire massive water orb was completely wrapped by Brian's spell cast together with the Golems. When covered by Brian's outer layer of earth, the water orb no longer had the phenomenon of mana rioting, because all of its lack of control had been contained.
Earth Cocoon, a type of restraint spell that allowed Brian to create a cocoon made of earth and rock to imprison his opponent inside. This earth cocoon made the enemy trapped inside significantly weaker in using magic, almost unable to use mana under Brian's control.
Unless the opponent had strength not much inferior to Brian's, otherwise, the person hit by this spell would have to trade a lot of effort if they wanted to escape his control.
In addition to the restraining effect, Brian could use Earth Cocoon as a defensive layer covering himself and his teammates. The defensive effectiveness of this spell was also extremely impressive; it could withstand many magic attacks for a long time without much damage.
Due to being able to control the magic-restricting effect inside this spell, Brian could even use it for the purpose of stalling for time, aiming to wait for the right moment to integrate and launch a counterattack against the enemy.
The only weakness was perhaps that this spell could not effectively defend against piercing-type attacks or attacks focused on a single point.
"Well, well…"
Seeing the spell Brian had just cast with the support of his Golems, Yami exclaimed, "That's an impressive spell."
When Noelle's water orb was wrapped by Brian's Earth Cocoon, the mana source maintaining its existence was also immediately controlled by Brian. The massive amount of water that was imprisoning Noelle was gradually sucked out by Brian's earth and rocks and expelled through several small earth pipes that he had just created on the outer layer of earth and rocks.
After a while of carefully controlling his spell, Brian had successfully saved Noelle. He canceled the Earth Cocoon and jumped in place to catch Noelle's body, which was falling freely, in a princess carry position.
When saved, Noelle also opened her eyes to look at Brian, who was holding her. Her body was significantly weak, but she was still awake enough to recognize the situation.
Immediately, Noelle's face turned red when she realized Brian was holding her in his arms; she wanted to struggle to get him to put her down, but unfortunately, her body was too tired to do that, so she let him continue to hold her.
"Man, so the hard-to-speak-of secret you were hiding was this?"
When Brian landed while holding Noelle, Magna's voice sounded, causing Noelle to wake up; she immediately hid her face in Brian's arms in fear.
She had thought that Magna and the others, including Brian, would start mocking her for what just happened, and because they had realized she couldn't control her mana. But things didn't happen as she thought.
"I thought it was something big; it turns out it was just this trivial matter."
"It's lucky you weren't hurt."
"Yeah, truly lucky. And if you want someone to help you with controlling magic, you can ask me. I'm quite good at that."
The words of the Black Bull members made Noelle extremely surprised, and immediately after, a strange, warm feeling surged in her heart; it even made her shed tears from happiness and embarrassment.
"That's great, right?"
Brian looked down at Noelle, who was now unable to restrain the emotions surging in her heart, "You don't have to hide anything anymore. They won't mock you either."
Pausing for a moment, Brian continued, "They will help you and be by your side when you need them, so you can ask for their help when in trouble; they won't refuse. Of course, you can also ask me to help you."
Noelle's purple eyes looked up at Brian's warmly smiling face, unable to look away or say a word because she was now completely captivated by him. Especially those golden eyes, they seemed to read the emotions in her heart.
"I can help you if you want; I don't mind doing that. You don't have to keep up a front anymore; you can live more comfortably now, no one can hurt you anymore."
Noelle's mouth was dry, tears of happiness still on the corners of her eyes. She had many words she wanted to say to Brian, wanted to thank him, wanted to say that it was thanks to him that she was saved, but everything was condensed into a single word.
"Uhm…"
With the help of Brian and the other Black Bull members, Noelle was saved and rested safely in the base. After today, Noelle Silva could begin a brighter new chapter in her life.