Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

The witches all sighed in pleasure as the comforting feeling of a mana rich environment settled over them, but what caught everyone's attention was the fact that the newest of the witches auras were visibly changing. They could feel the change in their power level as they stood there, as if the mana was forcing itself through their bodies and into their nascent aura, which had only begun to stabilize after Wolfe had finished working on them.

If they were older, he would have flooded them with mana at the start for more rapid gains and personal amusement, but to avoid the side effects, he couldn't with this group, and the Mana Gathering Array was doing the job for him.

"Would you like to wager where they end up when their aura settles? I promise that I won't mess with the array to influence the result." Wolfe suggested.

"Isn't that something like insider betting? You should already know the answer, since you've done this before." One of the soldiers reminded him.

Priya chuckled at Wolfe and shook her head. "You're not going to find too many suckers in this group. You should know that the Sylvan Coven soldiers are quick-witted."

Wolfe smirked at her in return. "That is very true. Have you told them the story of how you pretended to be my nomadic sister so that we could break out of a front-line camp occupied by the Grand Dutchies Army last winter?"

The other soldiers looked at Priya with eager eyes, ready to hear all the juicy details.

"Wait, you escaped from the attacks AFTER the camp had fallen? Everyone has just assumed that you two hid somewhere and managed to break past the lines to continue scouting the next day after they left."

Priya sighed and shook her head. 

"No, we were still in the camp. The two of us were holding up the barrier to keep the artillery at bay while the others fled. Once the front-line barrier fell, we concentrated on the barrier dome over the camp itself. 

That brought more of their tank and artillery fire our way and let the others flee in relative safety, but we couldn't leave, or the barrier would fall. So, when the end was imminent, Wolfe ordered me into the bunker under the central spire, where I dressed in rags like I had been tortured, and he tied me to a chair.

Then, he went back outside and hid in the rubble of a building. 

When the Army came in, he pretended to be a captured human whose cell was destroyed by the artillery, and requested for them to help him find me so that he could take me away.

They fell for it, and with my aura hidden, they assumed I was a human, and they just let us walk away into the Frozen Wastes."

The soldiers roared with laughter, while the youngsters looked awestruck, both by the story, and by the fact that their newly activated aura let them actually feel how powerful Priya was in comparison to everyone else around her.

"She's... she's..." One of the girls stammered.

"A Rank Three Witch? Yes, she is. It's incredible, isn't it?" Wolfe asked her.

She nodded rapidly, and stared at Priya with starstruck eyes.

"You know, if you come back to Forest Grove with me, there are plenty of others there with as much power as her, and we've got some excellent teachers." Wolfe suggested.

One of the Council Members cleared her throat. 

"Would you mind not trying to poach my granddaughter for your city right in front of me?" She asked.

"Sorry, I didn't know that she was family. What's the protocol for that? Do I ask her mom first?" Wolfe asked.

The witches all began to laugh, some so hard that they had tears sliding down their faces.

"I think she means it's rude to try to poach Coven members for your own city in the first place. The fact you're doing it in front of a family member who is on the Council only makes it more egregious." Priya finally managed to get out through gritted teeth to stop her own laughter.

"Yes, Madam Priya is right. We are allies, so it isn't appropriate to attempt to poach our members as your own. But we won't object if you want to collect them from somewhere in the Morgana Swamp. Those ones aren't even allied with the Coven anymore." The Coven Leader suggested in a slow voice.

The old woman took a seat on a nearby bench, the excitement of the day had drained what energy she had, and the excess mana concentration was making her a bit dizzy. She was no longer a young woman, and wasn't used to doing a lot of physical activity.

Wolfe took advantage of the distraction to cleanse the bloodline curse from her, though the damage done was long since made permanent, and to give her an influx of mana to massage her elderly mana veins. It should make her feel a bit better, like an internal massage, and the old woman looked like she could use it.

She sighed in relief at the influx of mana, and Wolfe turned his attention to the potentials of the youngsters, now that they were awakened. None of them had stopped their rapid growth from the Mana Gathering Array yet, which was a good sign, and they were all getting close to the power standards for second year students.

It wouldn't be long until they could be counted among the elites of the city, but he really should start finding a place to put the new arrays for the city soon. Having a few of them growing was good, but having all of them advance and get the curses cleansed from their body was better.

He was just going to have to wait a few minutes because the Council was still far too preoccupied with the recent events to make any sort of coherent decisions at the moment. They had all brought family members among the youth, so it was a reasonable cause for celebration, Wolfe supposed.

Plus, he was only rushing to finish so that he could fly home for dinner.