Ascension: Strongest Fateless Mage

[A/N: This is gonna be a bit of a weird chapter. So, I hope that you, my dear readers, can be patient, ha ha (hollow laugh), and I would appreciate the feedback if you could give some. Thank you. ^_^]

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"Hmmm…" Zevien fell into thought for a few seconds before looking at Vernisia seriously. "We need to talk."

"What?" Vernisia raised her eyebrows, seeing Zevien's serious expression.

"We are not strong enough… emotionally," Zevien said as he looked straight into Vernisia's eyes.

"Why do you say that?" Vernisia asked, confused.

"We should be able to hurt each other," Zevien said with an astute expression. "Look, we know we love each other, therefore can't stab each other with a knife, right? But we should be able to do that if it's for training purposes."

Vernisia put her hand on Zevien's forehead. "You don't have a fever."

"I am serious!" Zevien said.

"No, you are mental right now," Vernisia rolled her eyes. "What are you saying? Stab each other, the hell?"

"Yeah, I don't know. I might sound weird, but I don't like that you don't want to attack me. I want to measure my physical constitution," Zevien said as he scratched the back of his head.

"Would you attack me if I said so?" Vernisia fired back as she narrowed her eyes.

"Before I answer that question, hear me out," Zevien said before he cleared his throat. "Ahem, so listen. I want to measure my physical constitution, I won't back off on that. Even if you don't attack me, I can find others, right? You still might see me get hurt, and don't say that you will just close your eyes since I am deliberately getting hurt, no!"

Vernisia just looked at Zevien without saying anything while Zevien continued. "When that thing cut off your arm, I was angry. I was hurt. I wanted to find and kill that thing as soon as possible.

"But… but it's fine between us," Zevien said as he grabbed Vernisia's both hands and looked at her lovingly. "I want you to attack me so I can measure how tough I get after transforming. After that, you can care for me as I recover from that injury. We should be able to do everything for each other because we love each other, right?

"As for the answer to your question…" Zevien stretched his hand towards Vernisia's cheeks and caressed them, "If you ask me to attack you for training purposes or something like that, I will attack you. I will not look away. And after that, I will care for you in the gentlest way possible and show you how much I love you. After all...

"We are not at the peak of our bond, but we will reach there gradually. I want to expose my vulnerable and weakest side to no one else but you. We will accept everything about each other and understand each other more," he said, holding her hands warmly.

"There is something greater than love. Do you know what it is?" Zevien continued as he leaned forward and gently kissed her.

"What?" Vernisia asked in a soft voice, a bit surprised.

"It's romance," Zevien smiled. "Romance means the way of love. You must have heard that normal couples or married couples, even if they had a love marriage, get problems and want to separate later. Why?

"Didn't they get together because they loved each other? Then why do some of them cheat or want to separate? Why do they fall into an affair? There are many reasons, but the main one, I believe, is a lack of romance in their life."

"We might get into a fight in the future, clash of opinions, and whatever, but that wouldn't mean that our love for each other disappeared, right? That's why…" Zevien wrapped his arms around Vernisia's neck and whispered, "we will live as if we are having an affair with each other every day. So accompany me outside and attack me.

"After that, we'll have some romance."

…

"Come on, I am ready," Zevien said as he stood there with his bare upper body, revealing his solid abs and muscles. The shapes of his arm muscles and abs were natural because of many years of training.

"What spell should I use to attack?" Vernisia asked.

"Hmmm, go with Wind Roaring Tiger. It has high penetration power in those wind blades and also good constant impact, which will be perfect to measure my body," Zevien said as he stretched his arms, causing his muscles to bulge solidly.

He could make his body lean and slim while still having the same physical capabilities, but he wanted to show it naturally how it was before he stepped foot into the path of magic.

After refining the body with mana, the physical body's quality gets higher, and that's how it gets tougher and stronger, so it doesn't change its shape and grow muscles as people get by doing normal physical exercises and training.

Girls had also trained their physical body and got physical shape and muscles, but after stepping foot into the path of magic and refining their body with mana for the first time, they would suppress the shape since they didn't want to look buffy with muscles. Of course, some women liked that, so they kept their muscles.

Vernisia had a slim figure and a good body shape, feminine as she wanted. However, her physical strength and Zevien's physical strength were close in strength without being enhanced by spells.

Vernisia took a breath before she pointed her right hand toward Zevien. She consumed 3000 mana and normal-cast the spell.

<2nd style of Primal Conjuring: Wind Roaring Tiger>!

A big wind orb flew towards Zevien and trapped him inside with potent wind pressure before countless wind blades manifested inside and started slashing him.

Zevien had a calm face as he looked straight at Vernisia. The wounds were superficial, and he was already immune to this level of pain.

In a few seconds, countless slashes appeared on Zevien's body, covering him in blood.

But those were just shallow wounds. Not a single wind blade had slashed him deeply, and even though there was a lot of blood, not a single vein in his body was cut off. The wind blades only shredded his skin superficially.

After five seconds, the wind orb lost its power and disappeared as Zevien fell back to the ground on his two legs. He grinned and quickly moved as he appeared in front of Vernisia.

"Dummy," Vernisia said as she flicked Zevien's forehead.

Zevien used <Healing Ray> on himself and healed his body to peak condition in a few seconds before laughing.

He grabbed Vernisia's waist before pulling her close to him, his face just an inch away from hers. "This time, attack me in overflow-cast."

Vernisia wrapped her arms around Zevien's neck and kissed him for several seconds before pushing him away. "Fine, get ready."