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 time spent on chatting, he was waiting for her.
'Did something 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 come. Filled with disappointment, 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 message, 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 seemed 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 meetings with Ariel and how they previously met for the first time, Polynesia simply nodded her head in understanding, "Ah, so it's just a mermaid. Didn't expect you to meet one around here."
Her reaction seemed unusual to Henry, after all, Mermaid and Merfolks are starting to be considered as myth nowadays, so he asked, "Have you met a merfolk 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 merfolk. 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 came 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 home. On the other hand, he entered his room and instead of sleeping immediately, he practiced his magic.
With his talent, it's easy enough for him to juggle two or more things at once, and considering his achievements with the Flame 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 elements.
Then there's also the Human Torch from the Marvel franchise. A good defensive spell that could probably serve as some sort of armor.
'Actually, Flame 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 mental energy and probably how to not burn himself out from it. Although having the Magic Hymn on a certain element 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 elements. Something around being constantly and dangerously near the said elements, 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 time 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 someone 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 time in the world. Just one step at a time." With his mind set on learning the Flame Coat magic spell—a name he came up with. He cast several flame rings and manipulated them to hover dangerously close to his body, almost licking his skin.
Thanks to his slight resistance, even though the flames were up close, he barely felt any heat, so he increased the temperature.
He went on to do the same thing from time to time 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 flame 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 testament to the heat accumulating in a small space with barely any air vents to escape from.
Finally, Henry ceased the extremely bright flame rings when he noticed it starting to turn blue as well as the sleeve on his shirt lighting up in flames.
'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 establishments, so hopefully no one would see the rising smoke.
'Well, for all the talent I have. I should've expected something 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 someone would be doing that as of now.
———
The next day, Henry woke up with a satisfied smile on his face. Not only did he immediately notice the improvement of his fire resistance, but he also made considerable progress on his Flame 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 mental energy. How is it a progress, you may ask?
Well, that just means his Flame Rings got an upgrade and he can now cast the same blue Flame Rings whenever he wants without going through the long process of painstakingly starting small and increasing the temperature to reach it.
He'll name it Flame Ring: Blue. Yes, it sounds generic but he can't exactly make its name too extravagant like The Rising Blue Sun or The Great Blue Flames of Absolute Destruction or something like that. So he just made it simple.
Although the mental 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 flames despite being far from contact with the blue flames.
And as to why he considers this considerable progress? Just imagine it, from now on, he can apply the same blue flames to the rest of the Fire-based magic spells he'll be learning from now on.
As for the Flame 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 flames with a little lower temperature than usual.
For now, it's still useless as a defense since his plan is to have the flames hot enough to melt everything that comes his way before it makes contact with his body.
However, from the looks of it, it'll take time before that becomes 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 mess along with his bloodshot eyes.
'Damn. I look like a hammered shit!'
"I was practicing Magic." Henry sighed in defeat. He completely forgot to take care of his appearance last night.
"Seriously? Does that mean you came up with another Magic!? Can you show me? Please show me! Please please please!" Jip's face beamed up as he jumped around Henry in excitement.
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 former?'
"It's not exactly a spell for performance. But I'll show you someday, but not now. We have a show to perform." Henry made his way to the bathroom while answering.
———
—{Princess Anna}—
The moment I woke up from the loud knocking on my door, I swiped my hand over my messy face, wiping off the drool from my mouth.
Can't let anyone know that a regal princess like me sleeps like a mess.
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 informed me of the breakfast being made. A plate of eggs, bacon, and chocolate chips that I always beg the chefs to make for me 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? Something 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 same question from time to time in the past few years of being locked inside the castle.
"…." I can see Gerda avoiding eye contact with me, the way her body shifted and how she was silent for the first few seconds tells me that she's hiding it from me.
At least, that's what I thought at first but to my surprise, Gerda revealed it to me. Must've been because I got used to always being kept in the dark when it comes 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 me yesterday, I would still believe that my sister is ill.
"Can I meet 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 seemed adamant on keeping me in the dark, Kai would definitely refuse to let me see Henry.
Guess, I'll have to find a way to meet him.
———————————
[Quick question! Am I taking things way too slow or fast? Or maybe just fine, around the middle. I've noticed some decline in support and I think its because some 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 Mermaid arc (Not sure about this one since I haven't written chapter 29 yet as of writing this announcement.]
[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 mental health to ask where the next chapter is, lol.]