As Cades was led away from the ancient castle he began thinking about how this situation came to be.
He was about to learn magic from a... ancient, magical, talking, know-it-all raven and he was looking forward to it, wondering about what could possible be on the ravens mind and what he was going to learn.
And, finally, as they stood in the middle of a empty opening in the serene, green forest the raven, standing in front of him, started talking about what they were going to do.
"There are multiple problems with the way you have utilized mana during our battle, the most glaring of which was your strategic spell utilization.
When I cast the choking spell and you weren't able to breathe anymore you didn't think about the reason or even of your limitation during the fight if you were to have the need to cast a specific spell, like, as you were trying, the fire breath spell or others of the like.
I cast the spell intending to push you into that very same position. In this case you were forced to use the flame breathing spell because of the fact that it is the most effective method of casting powerful fire spells.
By utilizing the oxygen in ones lungs one can, after all, enhance the flames of a spell or just cast a increased amount of flames, which is also a big reason for the increased power of a monsters fire spells as they mostly use that very technique.
You must start thinking about all the ways you can utilize those facts and everything you can do and can't do with your current weaknesses or advantages.
For example, you were completely correct when firing a wall of flames to break all my illusions but after that you should have continued sending out more and more waves and high impact attacks from a far distance while staying safe."
Cades thought about the problem that Hekima had been talking about for a bit and realized that he was right. He only really fought in one singular way up to now, by using raw power, he had been using artifacts and preparing but there really was never that much of a true strategy behind it.
And while fighting the small crow he was barely in any real danger. The powers of the crow were mainly based on stone magic and that's basically useless as long as the opponent is too strong compared to oneself.
After he had truly realized it Cades finally began and asked the crow something.
"How am I supposed to practice that ?"
The crow once again laid its head to the side and began talking.
"You can't, you'll just have to fight a lot more opponents, such as for example the trolls that live just behind that mountain over there. It's going to be an easy battle but it can be used for strategic training as they can heal at an incredible pace, they are mostly at the ninth sequence though, not even an apex rank."
Cades had been fighting for too long, he wanted to learn more magical knowledge, he wanted to learn how to do things he didn't already know, he wanted to learn things like how to make a spatial and dimensional anchor or a lißros.
"How would I go about using dimensional and spatial magic ?"
The raven seemed disturbed by being interrupted but quickly shook it off and began explaining the basics of the basics.
"Well... I don't exactly specialize in that as there's a lot of runic sequencing involved and the basics mostly involve artifacts and artificing involves... well... having hands or the ability to emulate their function.
But overall the basics of dimensional travel are probably frequencies, each dimension vibrates with a different frequency, this frequency is most commonly used when one travels to other dimensions, but that's mostly just with transportation, artifacts like the bag of holding use the space between dimensions, a place where there is no frequency, the storage capacity inside of them normally depend on whoever artifices them.
You, for example, have a lot of mana, even for a high ranking lord.
Actually, you are overall very powerful for a lord.
But, anyways, spatial magic works by bending space itself or sending yourself, manifesting somewhere using the related change of location and your own will and knowledge from where you were located or where a previously artificed dimensional anchor is located.
At least that's what I heard. Information about these subjects is safeguarded by the empire, so I'm not even sure if everything I just told you is true.
Actually... I'm certain that most of it is false information spread out to deceive beings like me and probably even normal magicians of this world.
But let's get back to how you are going to utilize your magic better."
Cades was fairly confused by the dimensional magic concept but he still listened to the tiny wise beast.
"Another problem that you had was that you didn't use your 'aura' correctly. I don't exactly have the knowledge in that regard, but I heard that aura is mostly based on willpower.
Willpower can destroy, cut, freeze or... well a lot of different very powerful and dangerous stuff.
But first we're probably going to need to hunt down the other demons you vowed to hunt down.
Other than that there is only one real problem remaining, except for you knowledge and experience regarding spells themselves.
Your compatibility. You don't think about elemental advantages or disadvantages.
But lets go after the next demon before anything else.
The harpy king, a being of the higher lord rank that rules over a nest of over a thousand demi-lord rank harpies.
Those harpies will be the best way for the current you to grow stronger and at the same time they specialize in ice magic, the natural counter to flame magic, so this will be an enormous help to you."
The crow pointed towards its right side using one of its wings and told Cades one more thing.
"Lets go. While you are gone I'll try and find a way for you to learn this worlds language, 'kirri'."