Lord of Charm

He got the answer to his first question already; they would go very far. He decided to get the answer to his second question; would they do the normally impossible?

"Do you see the large boulder over there? Jump on top of it in one go."

She was a True Magician so her physical abilities were above that of an athlete without magic. He picked a boulder that was nearly 10 meters tall, so it was impossible for her to complete this challenge. Given her untrained chubby body, Gale estimated she could jump to a maximum height of 3-4 meters only.

The woman nodded as soon as she heard his instruction and started running to the boulder to have a good swing for the jump. She jumped with all her might yet could only hit the boulder. Surprisingly, she reached the peak of her jump at 6 meters!

Gale ran to her when she landed on her feet and saw her legs trembling; she could barely remain standing. Her muscles were too strained.

"It seems my charm would make weaker people go beyond their limits, but not do the impossible."

It was time to check if it works on men too.

"I'd like to meet with your husband."

The woman was stunned. She didn't think this was what the young man was into. She cheered up considerably; if her husband would be included in the fun, he might not mind it!

"Of course, I live not far from here and he is at home."

The woman replied with a dreamy voice and headed back home with Gale in tow. A few minutes later they stood in front of a simple squared house. It was spacious enough to accommodate a couple along with a few children, but it was a simple design and was furnished modestly.

"Hubby, I'm home with a guest. He has a suggestion for us, I hope you won't be quick to refuse."

The woman opened the door and called her husband to come. Gale had no idea what suggestion she was talking about, so he just decided to ignore it and find out later. Gale waited for her husband to arrive, expecting to meet a bald, chubby man. But when he saw the husband of the chubby woman he was stunned.

A man in his thirties entered the room. He was tall, tanned, and muscular. His face looked handsome when one didn't compare it to Gale's.

"This is as imbalanced as nothing should be."

Gale muttered under his breath.

"Who are you and what's your suggestion?"

The man asked Gale. He was also a True Magician and was easy to affect with charm. Gale didn't really feel comfortable with charming men, so he decided to just check it and get it over with. His eyes shone with green as he thought about how this man wanted to please him and serve him. He couldn't bring himself to think of bolder things.

"I need money. Can you lend me everything you have?"

He decided to check something extreme; he already found out he didn't need to butter up weaker magicians and could charm them directly.

"But we would have nothing left for ourselves."

The man said with difficulty. He looked like he felt really bad about raising his worries when Gale asked for help.

"It's ok, just give me everything you can spare then."

"I can do that."

"Do you want me to pay it back?"

"No, no! please accept it as a gift! I just hope you can visit us again."

It was ridiculous. The man gave away all of their savings while the woman encouraged him and looked at him with pride as if he did the right thing. Gale was quite impressed by the possibilities and potential of charm.

"It's ok, thank you. I was just testing you. Because you were so sincere with me, I will give you a small prize."

Gale stopped the man from going to collect all his money and gave him a sack of gold coins as reimbursement for messing with him and his wife. Gale felt he had nothing to do outside anymore and went back home.

------------------

Lena was waiting in a house she rented in the city. A few minutes later the door opened and a man entered. It was the same man who always supplied her with information.

"Lady Lena, The Fire Witch has answered your question."

He bowed and told her the news. Lena sent a question to her master about mental skills. She asked her if she knew of skills that could affect the mind and persuade others to do something they wouldn't want to do under normal circumstances. Her real goal was to find ways to resist Gale's powers and ways for Gale to counter those defenses.

"Show me."

She instructed the man and sat down as she received the book her master sent her.

"Developing the Mind" was the book's title. As she skimmed through the book it included many ways of improving one's mental defenses. Apparently, mental attacks users weren't unheard of. Although rare, there were quite a few of them.

The book even included charmers, but it said they were a weaker type of mental experts, as they could charm only someone from a lower stage. It was considered quite useless because normally you could just kill a lower-stage enemy without making them fall in love with you first.

"So it's recommended to develop those abilities only when you're in the Mage Phase, as it takes a good mana control to practice those methods."

The book also mentioned that mages usually started practicing such methods only when they hit a wall and didn't know how to advance. It was a good way to strengthen yourself when you have nothing better to do; after all, it would be harder to defeat you with mental attacks if you had high mental defense, but it was even harder to defeat you with mental attacks if you were in a higher stage.

Lena decided to start practicing one way to improve mental defense by asking the mana to pressure one's mind mildly constantly. It was a good passive way to improve your mental defenses, but you'd have to cancel it if you expected to have to use intense magic either in training or fighting soon as it took a toll on the one practicing. Since Lena was mainly practicing her control of mana, it could even be counted as exactly that when she tried to activate another magic at the same time.

Gale entered the mansion and found Lena waiting for him.

"What happened? Aren't we going only yesterday?"

"I have news regarding your powers. There are ways to resist mental influence like charming, and apparently, mature mages who don't see large strides in their magic anymore practice those ways often to strengthen their mental defense."

"So there are other users of such powers. I wonder why those people are so rare, we haven't heard of anyone who uses it until now."

"It's because their powers aren't very useful against people of the same level, and almost useless against higher levels. Another reason is that learning such attacks require high talent in this field. Mostly only scheming people have this talent. It doesn't have anything to do with element affinity since it can be used with every type of mana."

"So you're saying older mages would be more difficult to charm than you."

"Exactly. It's an important piece of information you should remember for the near future. Now sleep well, you have much work to do tomorrow."

Lena smiled innocently and left the mansion.