Underneath the golden glow emitted by a glowing orb floating next to him, Emil sat on his bed quietly thumbing through a spellbook.

The expression on his small face was solemn as he carefully read through the theories the author had researched. There weren’t many spells inside of this book, but the theory behind it was rather profound and helped increase his understanding of magic.

When he had first started training under the Night Sage, Emil had discovered that he was blessed with omni-magic: the affinity with all of the magical attributes.

It had to be known that anyone could learn magic that was outside of their affinity. However, they would never be able to master it and it was ultimately a waste of time because they’d always be weaker than those who had the attribute. Omni-magic circumvented that.

His teacher had a grim face when this news was revealed. He informed Emil that people like him were nearly nonexistent and only one other had existed in the history of their planet, Elvira. Emil still didn’t exactly understand the magnitude of what this meant, he was just surprised to find out how rare his ability was.

But the Night Sage took it very seriously. In order to mask this and avoid possible trouble, he had allowed Emil to only choose two attributes to learn as his specialty. Dual attributes were considered to be rare as well, but they weren’t unheard of and no one would bat an eyelash over Emil having that capability.

Emil had also learned spells from the other elements, of course--the Night Sage had no intention of limiting his potential… but he was only allowed to show off a dual-attribute in public situations.

Out of all the elements, Emil felt a strange attraction towards temporal and spatial magic. He wasn’t able to explain his choice other than out of everything else, these two felt right.

Actually, the Night Sage hadn’t been very content with Emil’s choices because these affinities still stood out greatly. They were some of, if not the rarest types. But he was already restricting Emil, so he allowed it. After all, there was a list of people who already had those elements as a dual attribute, and Emil’s existence wouldn’t be an anomaly.

In the first place, the Night Sage had a dual affinity to dark and illusory magic, so he couldn’t personally teach Emil the concepts. Instead, he had gone out one day and returned with loads of books relating to temporal and spatial magic.

They were uncommon affinities so the knowledge regarding them was minimal, but with the Night Sage’s connections, he managed to gather some information.

For the past while, those were the books that Emil had been reading . They occupied the corner of his room and whenever he wasn’t doing a task set by the Night Sage, he was reading them.

He turned the page once more then paused when he sensed a disturbance in the anima flow. It was being redirected somewhere else--an indication that someone was casting magic. But, from what he could tell, it was not the Night Sage. The anima was being pulled somewhere farther away and Emil could sense that his mentor was nearby.

Curious, Emil stood and left his room. It was the middle of the night, so he couldn’t help but wonder what was happening. In the past two and a half years he had spent here, Emil had never encountered a situation like this. The Night Sage lived deep within the woods and far from any other humans. And because of his aura, nearly every single magical beast avoided their living space.

Emil stepped outside and glanced around before his eyes landed on someone.

The Night Sage sat on a tree branch, gazing out in the distance while smoking from his pipe. “Ah, Emil, you’re awake?”

He nodded his head. “I noticed that someone was casting magic.”

The man laughed a little. “Nothing will escape your senses. Good.” He blew out a puff of smoke. “It’s just some fools that don’t know what’s good for them.”

“What does that mean?” Emil thought of his father that was currently still asleep and couldn’t help but feel worried. The last time he had a vaguely foreboding feeling like this, he had lost his mother and his home.

As if he could sense the youth’s uneasiness, the Night Sage leapt down from the tree and landed next to Emil. “It’s nothing you can’t handle.”

Emil blinked. “Me?”

“Don’t you want to test your strength? There’s only a group of six people… first rank Argenti. You can handle that, right?”

The boy blinked. He was close to reaching Argenti, but he was still at the Aes stage. How was he supposed to take on those enemies? The most combat experience he had was from sparring with the Night Sage and killing random beasts that wandered too close. Dealing with humans was a different level completely. Especially since they were all technically stronger than him!

He thought again.

He was confident in his ability to take out one or two… but a group of six? There was no way he’d make it out of there without a scratch. And he didn’t like getting hurt.

“I’ll be watching,” the Night Sage said with a laugh before disappearing in a fog of black mist.

“Teacher!” Emil cried out, exasperated.

“How else are you going to learn?” the Night Sage’s voice blended in with the wind. “You can only grow so much by practicing theory. Don’t you want the strength to protect yourself? Earn it. You’re lucky, these people have come to act as your stepping stone.”

Emil’s mood grew serious when he heard those words. If he wanted to be someone, he had to do something. He heaved out a breath of air and closed his eyes, gripping his hands into tight fists.

He allowed himself to melt into the atmosphere, following along the coursing river of anima. They were continuously using it for some type of spell, so it wasn’t hard for Emil to lock onto them.

His eyes opened with a flash of cold light.

In a swift movement, he vanished from where he was standing and reappeared on a tree branch across the clearing. In the next second, he teleported again to a different spot.

If anyone were to see, they’d be very shocked. Teleportation was a feat that even those at the Argenti rank dreamed of, but he was able to do it already--and so proficiently, as well.

He didn’t even rest before traveling a mile within less than a minute.

Emil, of course, didn’t know how shocking his actions were and continued in the same direction. He felt nervous, but his mind was also calm at the same time, creating an odd sensation that spread throughout his body.

He didn’t consider himself to be a pacifist. And wasn’t that he was afraid of fighting or killing… he just didn’t prefer it.

It didn’t take long for him to locate the group of people. There was six of them grouped together, moving rapidly as they raced through the trees. There were five men and one woman, all of them dressed in black with a similar badge pinned to their left shoulder.

Emil had no idea what it stood for, but he wondered if they were mercenaries. He had heard about such people from the Night Sage.

Suddenly, the lady at the front of the pack stopped moving and raised her hand to gesture to the others. “Who’s there?” she demanded, her dark eyes scanning over the surroundings.

He wasn’t hiding his presence so Emil wasn’t surprised they had found him already.

“Um, excuse me,” Emil said, stepping out of the darkness. “May I ask who you all are?”

The attention of the group was drawn to him. Each of them wore a funny look on their face. It was just an adorable youth, so their viligance relaxed. But none of them thought about how he came from deeper inside the woods.

A burly man stepped forward. “Hey, kid, did you lose your parents or something?”

“No.” Emil shook his head and pointed. “I’m supposed to stop you guys. Please leave this area.”

Everyone became dumbfounded.

“Sorry, little boy, could you say that again?” the man that had first spoken asked. He was wondering if his hearing wasn’t working properly today. This brat was a guard?

“Please leave this area.” Emil bowed his head politely. “Or I will have to take action.”