As always, Henry stood over the beach, waiting for Ariel and their usual night chat. However, he's been here for two hours and what should've been the ti spent on chatting, he was waiting for her.
'Did sothing happen on her side?' Henry frowned a little bit while fiddling with the shiny hairpin with an intricate design in his hand.
Henry then waited for another hour before finally realizing that perhaps Ariel is busy today and wouldn't be able to co. Filled with disappointnt, Henry turned around to head back.
'I should probably focus on my magic first while she's busy. I'll try tomorrow or maybe next week.'
Unbeknownst to Henry, just as he left. A gold fish with blue stripes appeared on the surface, looking a bit anxious and muttering to himself, "Just here to deliver a ssage, Flounder. You can do this. Ariel is getting scolded by her father…"
———
Arriving back at the clinic, Dr. Dolittle was once again nowhere to be seen. No doubt he's still hanging around his new baker lover.
"Why do you always go out at night, Henry dear?" Just as he was about to enter his room, Polynesia perched on the table beside him.
Henry froze on his tracks and contemplated for an answer.
Unfortunately, Polynesia seed to have caught the look on his face and said strictly, "Don't bother answering my question if you're just going to lie, Henry dear."
Realizing that he's caught, Henry sighed in defeat. Well, it doesn't hurt to tell Polynesia about Ariel. So when he told her about his night etings with Ariel and how they previously t for the first ti, Polynesia simply nodded her head in understanding, "Ah, so it's just a rmaid. Didn't expect you to et one around here."
Her reaction seed unusual to Henry, after all, rmaid and rfolks are starting to be considered as myth nowadays, so he asked, "Have you t a rfolk before, Polynesia?"
The parrot nodded her head and explained, "I've been on several voyages with John during his days of going on adventures with his wife. He and I have talked to fish and sea creatures that introduced us to rfolk. A creature that has the upper body of a human and a lower body that of a sea creature, either a fish tail, octopus tentacles, and so on."
Henry looked fascinated hearing about it. Now that Polynesia reminded him, he never actually heard the story of how John Dolittle began his journey and how he ca to be who he is now.
"You look interested in it but it's already late at night. Maybe I'll tell you about it another day, okay?" Polynesia chuckled seeing the curiosity in Henry's eyes.
He simply nodded his head and watched as Polynesia flew away and perched back in her tiny ho. On the other hand, he entered his room and instead of sleeping imdiately, he practiced his magic.
With his talent, it's easy enough for him to juggle two or more things at once, and considering his achievents with the Fla Rings magic spell, he doesn't necessarily have to fully focus on it.
Sitting on the ground to not accidentally burn his bed, Henry contemplated about the next spell he should learn.
'It has to be a fire-based spell for sure. A great counter to Elsa's ice powers in case things go awry between us.' Henry rubbed his chin, shuffling through various fictional characters with fire powers.
There's the fire benders from Avatar but those are way beyond his league, their bending is almost borderline Absolute Manipulation of their elents.
Then there's also the Human Torch from the Marvel franchise. A good defensive spell that could probably serve as so sort of armor.
'Actually, Fla On doesn't sound that bad. I just need to tweak it a little so it would serve more as an armor than a source of fire that Johnny uses.'
The only problem is the consumption of his ntal energy and probably how to not burn himself out from it. Although having the Magic Hymn on a certain elent makes one slightly resistant to it, that doesn't make one immune to it.
If that were the case then battles between wizards would downgrade from epic magic battle to fist fight since their magic spells wouldn't affect one another.
"I recall Master Elias describing how to improve my resistance against the four elents. Sothing around being constantly and dangerously near the said elents, not necessarily needing to be inflicted upon but just enough for my physical body to react to it, and then having my mind automatically command my magic to develop resistance against it."
By the ti he finished his mumbling, he deadpanned at the realization, "Isn't it basically just harming myself and letting my body naturally adapt?"
From the sound of it, Master Elias simply coated his words in a wise and mysterious manner to cover up the straightforward answer.
As soone who used to live in a modern world where humanity is advanced enough to understand the human body, he's aware of how the physical body adapts to constant harm against it. Kind of like that certain guy he read about who developed immunity against poisons by constantly injecting himself with snake poison in small doses.
"Alright, that's fine. I have all the ti in the world. Just one step at a ti." With his mind set on learning the Fla Coat magic spell—a na he ca up with. He cast several fla rings and manipulated them to hover dangerously close to his body, almost licking his skin.
Thanks to his slight resistance, even though the flas were up close, he barely felt any heat, so he increased the temperature.
He went on to do the sa thing from ti to ti whenever he started to get numb from the heat until the room started to get cloudy from the smoke being released. Not only that, when the fla rings suddenly gets blue tips, that's when he starts to sweat heavily.
Everywhere he looked in the room, the objects started to look a bit wavy, a testant to the heat accumulating in a small space with barely any air vents to escape from.
Finally, Henry ceased the extrely bright fla rings when he noticed it starting to turn blue as well as the sleeve on his shirt lighting up in flas.
'Yeah, no way I'm going to open that door.' Henry then got up and opened the single small window in the room. Thankfully, the clinic barely had any neighbors aside from abandoned houses and establishnts, so hopefully no one would see the rising smoke.
'Well, for all the talent I have. I should've expected sothing like this to happen. I might need to find a better place to build my resistance against fire.' Henry's face turned dark as he stared at the smoke coming off from the window.
Since it's in the middle of the night, the smoke would barely be seen by anyone unless one stares long enough with their complete focus. Though he doubts soone would be doing that as of now.
———
The next day, Henry woke up with a satisfied smile on his face. Not only did he imdiately notice the improvent of his fire resistance, but he also made considerable progress on his Fla Rings.
Yesterday, when they turned blue, Henry was quick to notice the familiar pattern in it along with the huge amount of consumption of his ntal energy. How is it a progress, you may ask?
Well, that just ans his Fla Rings got an upgrade and he can now cast the sa blue Fla Rings whenever he wants without going through the long process of painstakingly starting small and increasing the temperature to reach it.
He'll na it Fla Ring: Blue. Yes, it sounds generic but he can't exactly make its na too extravagant like The Rising Blue Sun or The Great Blue Flas of Absolute Destruction or sothing like that. So he just made it simple.
Although the ntal consumption is way higher than normal, it's a good offensive spell that could serve as a trump card.
As for the heat. There's no need to describe it. Just having the sleeve of his shirt lit up in flas despite being far from contact with the blue flas.
And as to why he considers this considerable progress? Just imagine it, from now on, he can apply the sa blue flas to the rest of the Fire-based magic spells he'll be learning from now on.
As for the Fla Coat spell. The progress is a little bit small. Since he needs to develop high resistance against fire, he can only coat his entire hand in flas with a little lower temperature than usual.
For now, it's still useless as a defense since his plan is to have the flas hot enough to lt everything that cos his way before it makes contact with his body.
However, from the looks of it, it'll take ti before that becos possible. For now, though, the spell could still be used for offense, coating his fists would add burn damage against his opponents.
Not much but every damage that can be inflicted counts in a battle.
Jip, who was about to greet him after seeing him get out of his room, stopped in his tracks as he stared at him with wide eyes, "Good morning, Hen—woah! What happened to you?"
Henry frowned at the reaction until realization dawned. Marching towards the nearest mirror, Henry finally saw his current appearance. Not only was his left sleeve burnt to a crisp but his hair was a ss along with his bloodshot eyes.
'Damn. I look like a hamred shit!'
"I was practicing Magic." Henry sighed in defeat. He completely forgot to take care of his appearance last night.
"Seriously? Does that an you ca up with another Magic!? Can you show ? Please show ! Please please please!" Jip's face bead up as he jumped around Henry in excitent.
Henry chuckled at him, 'I'm not sure if you're an Irish Wolfhound or a Golden Retriever with that kind of energy. Or maybe the latter but stuck on the body of the forr?'
"It's not exactly a spell for performance. But I'll show you soday, but not now. We have a show to perform." Henry made his way to the bathroom while answering.
———
—{Princess Anna}—
The mont I woke up from the loud knocking on my door, I swiped my hand over my ssy face, wiping off the drool from my mouth.
Can't let anyone know that a regal princess like sleeps like a ss.
After fixing my hair and grabbing my morning clothes, I went to the bathroom to clean myself up. Took a while to do those things before finally leaving the room.
Outside, I was greeted by Gerda who inford of the breakfast being made. A plate of eggs, bacon, and chocolate chips that I always beg the chefs to make for every day. I always have a sweet tooth and everyone in the castle should've known it by now.
While making my way to the kitchen while following Gerda, I couldn't help but recall her conversation with Kai last night.
"So uhm. Anything I should know about today? Sothing interesting?" I coated my question about their decision to invite Henry to the castle by making myself curious.
They won't see it as anything suspicious as I have asked the sa question from ti to ti in the past few years of being locked inside the castle.
"…." I can see Gerda avoiding eye contact with , the way her body shifted and how she was silent for the first few seconds tells that she's hiding it from .
At least, that's what I thought at first but to my surprise, Gerda revealed it to . Must've been because I got used to always being kept in the dark when it cos to secrets.
"We've been hearing about the uprising local magician in the capital. Kai and I intend to invite him over to take a look at Princess Elsa's 'illness'"
"Illness…" I murmured under my breath. If Henry hadn't revealed how her situation is related to magic to yesterday, I would still believe that my sister is ill.
"Can I et him?" I asked, fidgeting slightly.
Gerda was hesitant at first before eventually settling with, "I'll ask Kai later, dear."
Instantly, my face grimaced. Knowing Kai personally over the years since my birth, that guy is an upstanding butler serving my father, doing anything he orders without hesitation. And since my father seed adamant on keeping in the dark, Kai would definitely refuse to let see Henry.
Guess, I'll have to find a way to et him.
———————————
[Quick question! Am I taking things way too slow or fast? Or maybe just fine, around the middle. I've noticed so decline in support and I think its because so found it boring to read through the Dolittle mini-arc.]
[If that's the case. The next few chapters starting this one would start the pre-Frozen arc up until chapter 28, after that we'll get Little rmaid arc (Not sure about this one since I haven't written chapter 29 yet as of writing this announcent.]
[By the way, I already said it a few chapters back but I'll still say it again. My publishing schedule is Monday to Friday—just to remind everyone so no one would have to waste their energy, electricity, stamina, and ntal health to ask where the next chapter is, lol.]
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