Azi's last destination before heading home was at the village barracks. There, he went to look for Touma to discuss some pointers on magic and runes. Touma was considered an advanced thaumaturge who originally lived in the capital of the Empire known as Yamato.The reason for his relocation was due to how he got fed up with the toxic and bitter rivalry between the competing factions in Yamato and requested to be reassigned to Great General Ozen's army. Each Great General had their own personal armies and Ozen's mostly consisted of spearmen and very few thaumaturges, so when Touma came knocking Ozen agreed heartly.Since his reassignment, for the past couple years, Touma has been teaching apprentices to become thaumaturges in Ozen's army. This gave him enough experience to become a somewhat decent teacher but he was still more of a researcher. Using the talisman Touma previously gave him, Azi poured his magical energy into the piece of paper and suddenly an arrow appeared on the paper

Setting the drunk and asleep Azi in bed, Shizu moved over to the closet next to Azi's bed. She then took out a set of her own sleeping clothes as it had become normal for her these past few weeks to treat Azi's room as her own. She felt that it was a bother for her to walk to her room every morning to get a change of clothes, so she moved some of her clothing over to Azi's closet. This way she was able to change clothes as soon as she woke up. She had also been training Azi to learn court etiquette by having him dress her in a formal manner. This was part of the intended apprenticeship training she had in mind and she expected Azi to rise in rank in the future, which meant he needed to know court etiquette as it was necessary for meeting the Emperor, a King, Great Generals, or associating with other nobles and knights. While Shizu would usually have Azi change her clothes she would sometimes change in the bathroom so that she could enjoy a bath. She knew that Azi was likely in a dee

Awaking in an empty bed, Shizu's eyes blinked awake. A bit of panic filled her mind since she did not feel the familiar sensation on her arms or the familiar scent she was becoming accustomed to.Hearing the sound of metal clanging and banging muffled by the door of her room, Shizu remembered that Azi was still working.She thought that it was unnecessary for him to ban her for 7 days from sleeping in the same bed as him, but she remembered what Kajima said yesterday."Azi is currently challenging himself, it is best you comply for now. If it gets dangerous for him, you and I will step in but for now leave him be. He has made his choice, it's time to see who he will become from his choices."With his words ringing out in her morning mind, Shizu wondered if her actions were the cause of why Azi was pushing himself. She was quite harsh on him in the past month of training and knew that this was because Ozen had told her to accelerate his training so that he would be able to produce resu

Decem 8th of 4831 AS During Kajima's day off, he awoke at the first crack of dawn. He noticed that the sounds from the workshop seemed to have gone silent. This confused him which made him reflexively jump out of bed in a panic. He rushed to see if Azi was ok as today would mark the 5th day Azi was still in the workshop. To him, he thought that Azi must have fainted during the middle of the night and could be endangered. While Kajima did check up on him from time to time during the past few days, he could not help himself to worry about the boy like a doting father. Since the loss of his wife and children, Kajima's house had a silence that was only recently broken by the new company he had in Azi and Shizu. So when the silence returned, he feared that the worst had come to pass. But his worries were wiped away as a soft humming noise could be heard as he approached the entrance of the workshop. His steps slowed as he grew nearer to the workshop door until he was fully stopped in

Decem 9th of 4831 AS After the battle, Azi was forced to face a long and harsh scolding from Shizu and Kajima. They then attempted to get Azi in bed as the both of them were still worried sick about his health. But Azi did not go off to bed just yet, before acquiescing to their demand he first presented Shizu with her new weapon. Shizu's original metal umbrella was mainly red and slightly black in color with a light brown wooden handle. Now, her new weapon was now mainly black and with red streaks in its metallic parts with a black lacquered wooden handle. The metal of the katana and umbrella sheets were a black color with numerous streaks of crimson red magic channels. This was the result of the quality of the blood steel’s initial appearance and prominence of the red streaks were amplified by Azi's magical infusion which stored magic energy into the channels. This made them glow a bright crimson red when fully charged. The handle was also infused to allow small amounts of magic t