Demon's Virtue

After explaining James' training program to the Light Elf, he turned toward Krog, who already had a rough idea of what his training was going to be.

"Let me guess, you want me to do shit while wearing really heavy armor?" He asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "That's exactly what I want, yes. That armor was made with a special wood created by feeding a seed- You know, nevermind, you don't care."

Eiro noticed that Krog was only looking down at his armor and not really paying attention the moment that he started trying to explain how things worked.

"Alright. Similar to James' mask, using my mana, I can control the strength of the power of your armor. It can either make you even lighter than normal, or it can make you at least ten times heavier. Slowly but surely, we're going to increase the weight of that armor, and then I'll have you go through a strict training regime."

"And what use is that?" Krog asked bluntly, "Ain't I already strong enough?" The half-goliath lifted his arm and flexed, making his muscles bulge up. Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose annoyed as he shook his head.

"Considering that you're physically weaker than me right now, I would say 'no'. The point of this isn't to just give you more strength, but to develop your muscles toward any sort of movements that you're going to undertake for combat. I used to rip my own muscles apart and then heal them with healing magic to develop my physical strength, so this should be fine compared to that." Eiro pointed out, "Except if you want to undergo that sort of training as well. I wouldn't mind that either, of course."

Krog thought about that new offer for a moment before realizing how painful that must be. He slowly shook his head in response and looked back at Eiro with a wry smile, "Let's go with the heavy armor for now."

"Oh, I think you misunderstood something. The armor isn't just 'heavy'." The Demon pointed out, "It will make you heavier, sure, but it's also going to press against any movement you make. Here, let me show you the max weight." Eiro took a step toward Krog and placed his hand onto the armor's chestpiece, activating it in its maximum setting.

Krog's feet were immediately pushed into the ground, and it seemed like he had trouble standing. However, Eiro supported him a little bit so that he wouldn't fall down, "Now, move your hand forward please." Eiro suggested, and Krog did as told.

But instead of his hand moving forward, it was pushed backward. The armor noticed that Eiro was trying to move his hand forward, and then created something like a gravity field that would instead push his hand in the other direction. And since Krog didn't expect this and didn't push against this as strongly, the armor overwhelmed him.

"What the... actual..." Krog muttered, obviously in a lot of pain. So, Eiro turned the extra gravity off.

"I think that was about 10 or 11 times your weight. We'll just start with a gradual increase. Once you're able to do the movements that I tell you to as you normally would, I'll slightly increase the strength of the armor's gravity. You got that?" Eiro explained. Krog slowly nodded his head, "And how exactly do you expect me to train?" 

"Simple. Repeat the basic movements of your combat style. Swing your weapons around. That kind of stuff." Eiro explained bluntly, "Just regular training, for now. If you have any better suggestions, let me hear them. But for now, we'll just go with this, alright?"

"Aight... I think once I'm able to move normally in this fuckin' armor's max setting... I'm gonna be unstoppable."

"That's the plan, Krog." Eiro laughed, and then looked at Jess, "Now. You being a mage, your practice methods are going to be more mentally straining. First, every moment of the day where you're not sleeping, you're either going to read, or I will recite texts that we don't have anymore to you."

"Eh? You just want me to read more books about magic?" Jess asked, and Eiro shook his head, "No, of course not. I said it before, but the fact that you only read books about magic is the issue. I'm going to make you read books about everything. Every single book we have in the library. But since I think we should start with the more useful books, we're going to read bestiaries or anatomical books first."

"...Why would I need to know about anatomy?" Jess asked a bit confused. Eiro let out a slight sigh, and then proceeded to explain why.

"It's simple. Depending on where you hit your target, you do different amount of damage. I need you to know where you can do the most damage in any situation. James and Krog figured this out naturally since they are involved in combat in a very different way. You need to study up." Eiro explained, "At the end of the day, this is going to increase your wisdom. How much you know. And as your mental capacity increases, so will your mana capacity. It's quite simple."

"Huh... I never thought about it that way." Jess muttered quietly. She seemed to be interested in this 'training' though, so everything was fine. But then, she raised her head a bit confused, "Wait, you said 'First', right? What's next in my training?"

"I was just getting to that. Reading books will increase your wisdom, but your intelligence is a bit harder to raise. You're already incredibly intelligent, don't get me wrong, but the thing that the 'intelligence' stat changes is often the capability to quickly solve problems. So, while you take breaks from reading something, I'm going to give you some problems to solve. I'll make sure they're hard for you to solve, but not too hard to be frustrating. To raise your problem solving capabilities as much as I can." Eiro explained.

"Huh... Alright then..." The female mage muttered. It seemed like she would end up quite mentally exausted at the end of the day as well. She scratched her cheek as she mentally prepared herself to start, and Eiro smiled lightly.

"Also, I have a small item for you as well." The Demon said, giving Jess a small wooden orb. It had five different dots painted onto it in different parts, "Now place your hand on that. One fingertip onto each dot."

Jess nervously looked at the orb, but quickly did as told. And what happened is simply that her fingers were practically devoured by the orb, up to the first joint of each finger at least.

"This will help you increase your dexterity for more accurate and intricate magic circles. This is something you can do passively, though. Basically, the orb itself will slowly try to move your fingers into random directions, and all you need to do is press against that to keep your fingers in place. Easy, right?" Eiro pointed out, and Jess slowly nodded her head.

"I guess so... Will the difficulty of this increase constantly as well?" She asked curiously. She wasn���t feeling anything right now, but the fact that the wooden orb was stuck to her fingers was a weird feeling in itself already.

"It will, yeah, but in this case I'm not going to make you use that constantly. It's just going to be a bother during the rest of our practice together." Eiro pointed out, and then clapped his hands together, "Alright. Then I'd say let's get started for now. James, put on your mask again. I'll activate it as well as Krog's armor. For today, I'll just let you get used to moving around with those things on. As for Jess, we'll go through the library together later to figure out which books would be best for you to read right now, and what sort of problems I need to start with."

The three of them nodded their heads, dedicated to do just what Eiro told them to do. They all felt incredibly weak compared to the Demon, especially whenever he told them about whatever he was working on right now, and whatever plot he was working out in front of them.

Just the fact that he was friends with the Dragon that was sitting there behind them made them terrified of what kind of being Eiro truly was.

While they were standing there, Eiro activated Krog and James' special items, and as she requested, also the wooden orb that Jess was holding so that she could practice how to use it as well.

"For now, if you two want to get used to this stuff, I'd just say move around a bit more than you usually would on your days off. Go on walks around the gardens, visit town if you want to. Just stay active and don't try to cheat your way through this." Eiro suggested, as he and Jess made their way back into the manor to go through the library as he said they would.

Lognir was following them curiously, of course back in his humanoid form, and he soon asked Eiro something that was on his mind, "So, why exactly did you clear up that area for combat-practice if you didn't instruct them to fight each other?"

Eiro smirked as he turned his head toward the Dragon, "Easy. I didn't instruct them to, but they're already fighting each other. That's their way of staying active. Don't tell me you didn't realize that yet." 

"It's my first time meeting them, and they both seem to be rather unique people. Don't judge me."

Eiro laughed slightly, "Right, sure. Anyway, any reason why you came over?"

"Not particularly. Just felt like coming by to see how you live your life. This place has been quite insightful, you see?" 

"I'm sure, yeah." Eiro replied. He opened the door to the library, and Lognir looked around this room, his eyes focusing on the hidden door to the other part of the library, "This manor itself is quite curious in itself. I'm sure you are aware of the hidden sections?"

"Of course I am. I've uncovered all of them already. Don't act like I'm an idiot." Eiro pointed out, but Lognir just shrugged, "Even acting like it won't make it true. Trust me, I know a thing or two about truth."

Eiro rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Anyway. I'm glad you're here. You see, there's a small favor I would like to ask of you."

"Oh? This Demon, asking this Dragon of another favor? Haven't I helped you out enough?"

"Come on, stop acting like that.. I'm sure you're curious what I need your help for."