Croft wanted to drop on the floor and laugh until his stomach started to hurt. But his magus pride did let him. His apprentice, the cold and calculating Adrius Caseo, was married.

This was one of the funniest things he has ever heard in his 152 years of living.

His apprentice was watching him laugh like a maniac and didn’t say a word until he calmed down: “ So you tell me, that you killed the girl’s family and then married her to get the lordship over the city legally, then you put a baby in her and just leave like nothing concern you?” Asked Croft barely holding himself from laughing again.

Adrius let out a sigh: “First of all master, how did you know about my plans, and second. Yeah I did that, she is a mortal and it is my right as a magus apprentice to do whatever I want with her. But don’t worry, in 7 months after she has the baby she will die in childbirth or a fever I haven’t decided yet.”

Croft was filled with pride, his apprentice was a genius. Maybe a little too impulsive and cruel, but hey… he had the power to back his words and threats: “Good job, you took over a city without even starting a battle with your own hands but you manipulated people to do your dirty work for you. Not a lot of magus apprentices’ can do such things. Now for your question about how I know about your plans, it is a little tricky. It's trcícky because it is against academy law for me to tell you and I took an oath in front of the Sacred Eye to keep the secret. And if I tell you the Eye will kill me because I broke my oath. But let me tell you something, only I know about your things. Not even the headmaster knows, you can say it is a master-apprentice thing.”

At that Adrius sighed a sigh of relief, Croft knew the feeling, when his late master told him that he knew of his plan of killing his family and he was not going to interfere Croft was shocked, because he only thought about the plans when he was by himself and didn’t tell anybody.

But when he became a professor in the academy he knew how the thing worked. The tattoo that every student has, has a spell in it that gives the professor access to the part of the brain that is responsible for planning.

And only the professor that the apprentice is bonded with can see such things. Others can’t, he still remembered his disgust when he heard of the thing the first time. He thought it was cowardly behavior to do such things. But when the spell saved his first apprentice's life by sending him signals that his apprentice was in danger and him following it. Then his apprentice would have been killed if he didn’t interfere.

And from that day he liked the tattoo spell thingy, and he started using it more often to just check to see if his apprentice was thinking about doing something dumb so he could stop it before it happens.

And now he thanked the universe that he started to use the feature or his apprentie could kill himself with his insane thought.

“Adrius I need to speak to you about your empire plan, and your thoughts about mortals”

Adrius’ shoulders tensed and he could see Adrius’ mind telling him to flee the room. But he didn’t and asked with the coolest voice he could muster to not show his nervousness. He may be proud, but he was still afraid of a magus: “ What is wrong with my plan professor? And what do you mean by my thoughts about mortals?”

Croft leaned back on his sofa to make himself comfortable: “ You see, you want to build an empire and become an emperor. I understand your reason, after all who doesn’t want power. But you need to know something, this move will be a slight against the magus and specifically the Raven academy. You see in our region, the raven region as it is called by everyone in the south region of the magus world. The Raven academy is the overlord, they have the strongest power and have a rank 2 official magus. And under the Raven academy there are cities that belong to the Raven academy. You see, our region is not a monarchy based region, but there are cities and they war against each other, but are not allowed to declare themselves kingdoms or empires. That's because around 700 years ago, an empire was born in the Raven region. The empire grew fast, the emperor was a peak rank 1 official magus. Eventually they united the whole region except the Raven academy under their banner. Then the emperor did something that people still call him the fool because of it, he declared war on the Raven academy. At that time the Raven academy had a rank 2 magus as their headmaster, but the headmaster hasn’t shown her face in almost 50 years. The stories say she was cultivating for 50 years some say she was just living her life and teaching her children magic. Anyway, the fool of an emperor was one of the people at that time that believed that the headmistress was dead and the Raven academy was just trying to hide the fact that their rank 2 magus is dead. So he declared war, he assembled his army. His army was very diverse, there were mortals, knights, great knights and even some grand knights. There were also magus apprentices from rank 1 till 3. They all wanted glory and loot from the academy.

That was his normal army, but remember he took over the whole region so some academies had fallen to him. Thus he had at his side 9 rank 1 official magus.

He was confident at winning, because he was at the peak of rank 1 and only a rank 2 or a peak 1 magus can kill him, and he thought that the Raven academy did have any rank 2. And he was confident of defeating every peak rank 1.

So they marched toward the academy. But was met halfway by a lonely figure, it was the headmistress. They say the emperor’s face was as pale as the snow when the headmistress used her signature spell Red Rain. They say that the blood of the army that he assembled was drained out of their bodies and then formed a cloud then it started raining the blood. But it was not any type of blood, no. It was acidic, no one escaped that day. The magus were all killed and the emperor was taken alive back to the academy, the headmistress then invited other headmasters and mistresses from other regions to celebrate. And in that celebration she gave her son the honor of flaying the emperor. They then put a crown in his head, a crown made out of his child’s bones and his wife’s eyes for jewels.

It was a bloody thing, but it made sure that nobody dared to establish even a kingdom in the raven region.

Also about your thoughts of mortals. You know that we are in the south region of the magus world, in our region mortals are less than humans for us and we at some point stop talking with them. But it is not like this in other regions, there are some regions that do not share our views, so be careful in the future if you go to other regions.”

Adrius looked like his brain was going to explode from all the info he just had. He finally regained his composure and asked: “ Wait, so there are no kingdoms in the Raven region?”

Croft nodded.

“Then how are there kingdoms around the Trant family? Aren’t they in our region?”

Croft sighed: “ You really didn’t listen to your geography lesson did you? The Trant family lands are in the White Lotus region, not the Raven. And it is okay to make kingdoms in that region. Also remember the incident with the Pegasus academy?”

Adrius nodded.

“Well, the Pegasus is not in our region. But they have their own region just like us, it is called the Pegasus region. And it’s borders are very close to the Lykos family lands, thus why they attacked you.”

Croft could sense Adrius changing his plans. So he decided to interfere: “Adrius listen, stop planning for a second and start working on yourself. You need to find a cultivation technique if you don’t want to join the academy. And don’t worry I’m 152 years old and still have 148 years to live, so I will help you if I can. Now go and wash yourself you smell awful”

When he was all alone Croft started to think about his time when he was young. ‘Damn, I wish I was young again.’ He may seem young to everybody, but his mind is 152 years old.