English
Indonesia
Chinese (Simp)
Japanese
Korean
Spanish
Portuguese
French
German
ArabicArknights: The Holy Son's Leisurely Life — Chapter 44
Chapter 44: Let’s Fly Together!
Lucian shook his head, brushing away the lingering negative thoughts. “Then let’s start with the basics. Concentrate your consciousness on this training ground. Imagine the feeling of your mind expanding, encompassing every single inch of the space around you.”
“Yes, Mr. Lucian!”
Angelina squeezed her eyes shut. Her delicate face tightened with intense concentration as she channeled her Originium Arts.
As the ambient Originium energy responded to her will, the connecting staff in her hands flared with a warm, pulsing crimson light.
A moment later, Lucian felt a distinct, subtle buoyancy beneath his boots. It was as if the air had thickened into water, lifting his body with a gentle, floating sensation.
Altering the mass of surrounding objects was the most intuitive, surface-level manifestation of Angelina’s Arts. With this ability, she could effortlessly scale buildings while carrying heavy cargo, or easily slip away from pursuers—making it the perfect skill set for a battlefield messenger.
But from Lucian’s seasoned perspective, the Vulpo girl’s true potential was far more extraordinary.
When people thought of weight manipulation, they usually imagined making an object heavier or lighter. Angelina’s Arts clearly bypassed those simple limitations. After all, even if a solid iron shot put was reduced to the weight of a goose feather, gravity dictated that it still had to fall.
Yet, despite her raw, unpolished technique, Angelina could force objects to genuinely levitate. That defied mere weight alteration.
Analyzing the exact mechanics of Originium Arts was always a complex endeavor. Lucian couldn’t perfectly articulate the scientific principles driving her magic, but he recognized a goldmine of untapped potential when he saw one.
Once her invisible force field blanketed the entire training yard, Lucian walked over and effortlessly hoisted a massive, reinforced truck tire that now weighed practically nothing. “Focus your mind right here. Catch!”
With a casual flick of his arm, Lucian launched the heavy rubber tire into the sky at a completely unscientific velocity, sending it hurtling over ten meters into the air.
Angelina gripped her staff with white knuckles. “Ngh… hah!”
She locked her wide eyes onto the soaring tire.
The heavy rubber ring, which should have already reached its apex, suddenly defied gravity entirely. It jerked upward, ascending another dozen feet in a blatant violation of physics.
When it finally began to arc downward, Angelina bit her lip, her small face scrunching up in deep exertion. She let out a soft whimper, pouring her focus into forcing the tire to descend at a painfully slow, agonizing crawl.
Lucian didn’t give her a chance to rest. He grabbed three more tires and hurled them upward in rapid succession. “Keep up, Angelina! Don’t lose the rhythm!”
“Wah! Ah, ah, ah!”
Angelina let out a series of panicked, high-pitched yelps that sounded remarkably like a startled puppy.
The moment her concentration wavered, the first tire plummeted a terrifying distance.
“Spread your mind!” Lucian commanded, his voice cutting through her panic. “Stop tracking them with your eyes! Build a map of the entire scene inside your head. Focus on maintaining the circulation of your energy—do not let the circuit break!”
“Y-Yes, Teacher!”
Whenever they trained, Angelina naturally slipped into the role of a devoted student, absorbing his instructions without a second thought.
It never once crossed the girl’s mind to question why a tea shop owner could speak with such absolute authority on advanced Originium Arts, or how he could guide her with such flawless precision. Anyone else might have grown suspicious or rebellious, but Angelina harbored a blind, unwavering trust in him. If Lucian said it, it was the truth.
And his guidance yielded immediate results.
As the Originium energy surged through her slender frame, Angelina’s reddish-brown eyes took on a brilliant, vibrant glow.
The massive tires suspended in the air suddenly became lighter than dust motes, drifting and dancing erratically under the absolute command of her Arts.
If she pushed this boundary further, she might eventually be able to telekinetically puppeteer objects with pinpoint accuracy, or even achieve true flight. But that was a lesson for another day.
To Lucian, the most terrifying aspect of her power wasn’t the levitation—it was the sheer, monstrous range of her influence. Even as a novice, she could effortlessly blanket the entire training ground. Arts with such a massive area of effect were incredibly rare, let alone ones tied to something as fundamental as gravity manipulation.
‘Using a talent like this just to deliver packages is honestly a tragic waste,’ Lucian mused silently.
Whether applied to military combat or advanced scientific research, Angelina’s Arts could change the landscape of the world. If her true capabilities were ever exposed, every major faction and corporation on Terra would tear each other apart trying to recruit her. Whether that would be a blessing or a curse was entirely up for debate.
But Angelina only wanted to be a messenger. And to Lucian, that was perfectly fine.
Great power didn’t strictly mandate great responsibility. How she chose to spend her life and apply her gifts was a choice that belonged solely to her.
A soft, self-deprecating smile touched Lucian’s lips. ‘Is this what they call projecting?’
He knew, on some level, he was looking at his own past through her. He wanted her to reach her absolute peak, yet he also desperately wanted her to live a quiet, happy life doing exactly what she loved.
Was this the heavy, conflicting burden of a father’s heart?
Lucian’s thoughts drifted for a fraction of a second.
Suddenly, a sharp, delighted gasp echoed from the edge of the training ground.
“Whoa! Look at all the flying donuts!”
Lucian snapped his attention toward the entrance.
Xiao Ling, entirely too comfortable wandering into his space, stood at the edge of the yard. The young Cautus girl stared at the floating truck tires with absolute awe, clapping her hands together and cheering at the top of her lungs.
Startled by the sudden noise, Angelina flinched. Her concentration shattered, and her consciousness instinctively snapped toward the unexpected intruder.
The backlash was instantaneous. Following the sudden shift in her mental focus, every single heavy tire suspended in the air violently changed trajectory, hurtling directly toward Xiao Ling like guided missiles.
Angelina’s face drained of color. “Oh no! Watch out!”
In a desperate flash of pure instinct, she abandoned the tires entirely and slammed the full, concentrated force of her Arts directly onto Xiao Ling!
“Wah? Whoa!” Xiao Ling blinked in utter bewilderment, her long rabbit ears shooting straight up in surprise. “I’m so light! And so fast! Ahahaha~!”
Blessed with natural agility, Xiao Ling instinctively pushed off the concrete. She rocketed two stories into the air with a single, effortless bound.
Supercharged by Angelina’s anti-gravity field, the girl turned into a fearless acrobat. Instead of dodging the incoming tires, she laughed gleefully, using the falling rubber masses as mid-air stepping stones.
“This is amazing! So cool!” she cheered, bouncing from one falling tire to the next. “I can jump so high! Brother Lucian! Yahoo~!”
Using the final tire as a springboard, the rabbit girl launched herself over ten meters across the yard, diving directly at Lucian like a furry missile.
Left with zero alternatives, Lucian opened his arms, caught the incoming projectile of a girl, and spun her around a few times to bleed off the momentum.
He affectionately pinched her cheek. “Don’t just run in screaming like that. You nearly gave Angelina a heart attack. And how many times have I told you? Don’t go using the sky as a playground. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s totally fine~!” Xiao Ling beamed, entirely unrepentant. “I’m super good at this! Six or seven stories is a piece of cake!”
The energetic girl proudly puffed out her chest, then immediately buried her face into Lucian’s chest, nuzzling against him affectionately like a spoiled pet.
Lucian sighed, utterly defenseless against such weaponized cuteness. He could only pat her head in defeat.
But as he glanced past her shoulder toward Angelina, his blood ran cold.
“Angelina! Above you!”
Angelina blinked, her dazed eyes slowly tracking upward. “Eh…?”
Seeing that Xiao Ling was perfectly safe, the adrenaline had instantly drained from Angelina’s system. Her legs had given out, sending her collapsing to the concrete, her staff clattering uselessly beside her.
The moment she dropped her focus, her gravity field evaporated.
And one of the massive truck tires, previously suspended directly above her head, was now in a dead freefall.
Exhausted and paralyzed by the sudden drop in adrenaline, Angelina couldn’t even command her limbs to crawl out of the way.
…And in the very next second, the world fell away beneath her.
Angelina blinked in deep confusion. The concrete yard was rapidly shrinking beneath her boots. Down below, she could clearly see Xiao Ling enthusiastically waving up at her.
Lucian’s calm, steady voice vibrated right next to her ear. “That was my oversight. I’ll make sure to lock down the perimeter next time so we aren’t interrupted. I’m sorry for scaring you.”
Angelina instinctively shook her head, her cheek brushing against his shoulder. “No, no, no! It’s my fault for losing focus so easily! You didn’t do anything wrong, Lucian!…Wait, why are we in the sky?!”
Reality finally crashed down on her. Panicking, she threw her arms around Lucian’s neck, clinging to him for dear life.
Lucian held her securely against his chest. They were currently soaring hundreds of feet in the air, far beyond the vertical limit of her Arts, and they were still climbing.
As they broke past the hundred-meter mark, offering a stunning, unobstructed view of the city’s towering skyline, Lucian offered a slightly sheepish smile. “Didn’t I mention it before? I can fly too.”
He shifted slightly, allowing her to see the radiant, glowing Sankta wings manifesting behind his back.
“I can also manipulate gravity, or rather, gravitational pull. But unlike your wide-area Arts, my ability only applies to my own body.”
The wings of light flared brilliantly. Holding Angelina tight, Lucian executed a razor-sharp, right-angle turn mid-air—a maneuver so violently opposed to the laws of momentum that it would have made Newton weep in his grave.
Angelina let out a breathless shriek, a mix of sheer terror and absolute exhilaration.
This was one of Lucian’s many hidden talents.
Since angels possessed wings, it only stood to reason that they should be able to fly. So, Lucian had spent time analyzing his own physiology until he naturally unlocked the mechanic.
But unlike a bird that relied on aerodynamics and air resistance, Lucian’s flight was entirely different. His wings generated localized gravitational vectors, allowing him to pull off completely unscientific, physics-breaking aerial maneuvers without suffering any kinetic backlash.
Angelina kept a death grip on his neck. But as the initial shock faded and she adapted to the smooth, impossible flight, her large eyes began to sparkle with pure, unadulterated wonder.
“This is amazing… So amazing, so amazing, so amazing~!” she chanted, her voice breathless with awe. “Lucian, you’re incredible! I’ve never seen Originium Arts like this in my entire life!”
“Ah, well… it gets the job done,” Lucian replied, offering a deflective, perfunctory smile.
In truth, Lucian had absolutely no idea if what he was doing even qualified as Originium Arts.
He wasn’t Infected. There wasn’t a single microscopic trace of Originium in his entire bloodstream. He could casually trigger these reality-bending phenomena without a casting unit or a staff, completely shattering the established common sense of Terra.
Fortunately, Angelina was still a complete novice. She didn’t possess the theoretical knowledge to realize just how impossible his existence was, allowing Lucian to smoothly bluff his way through the explanation.
Not wanting to draw the attention of the city’s anti-air defenses or curious onlookers, Lucian initiated a rapid descent. He touched down gently, setting the starstruck Vulpo girl back onto solid ground.
Xiao Ling immediately sprinted over, her cheeks puffed out in a massive, exaggerated pout. “Brother Lucian is so mean! You didn’t even take me up! I want to fly with Big Sister Angelina too! The two of us together! A double flight—!”
“Where did you even learn that phrase?!” Lucian chopped the side of his hand lightly against the top of the rabbit girl’s head. “Don’t just say things like that!”
Xiao Ling expertly clutched her head, squeezing her eyes shut as she squeezed out fake tears. She immediately threw herself back onto Lucian, whining and acting utterly spoiled as the two of them bickered playfully for another minute.
Suddenly, the Cautus girl blinked, as if a switch had been flipped in her brain. “Oh! Right! I totally forgot! Brother Lucian, there’s a super~ pretty lady looking for you outside. She said she’s from some place called Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals, and she’s looking for Penguin Logistics!”
[Rhodes’s Note: “Double flight” (双飞 – shuāng fēi) is a Chinese internet slang term that literally means “flying together,” but is commonly used as an innuendo for a threesome. Lucian scolding her for saying it implies she innocently picked up the dirty slang without knowing what it means.]