“Hey who’s that?” Brett asked, nudging his fellow knight in the shoulder as he watched an armoured figure walk towards the group next to Varn.

“That’s the talented rookie that Varn found inside the academy. I hear he’s only 21 but can use magic to enhance himself like Varn.” (Gishard)

“Oh, that’s reassuring. But still, a rookie? On a highly volatile mission like this? We need more mages man.”(Bartrem)

“Well as long as I’m not stuck as his mother, taking care of him, I’m ok with whatever Varn chooses.” (Ysolda)

“Ahahaha, looks like Varn’s assembling his old team again, with a few additions.” (Lizbeth)

“Any of you know his name?” (Collette)

“Not too sure, but could be ‘Kiefer’. Heard Varn talk a lot about this boy recently during our drinks.” (Reginald)

“That sure is a nice armour. He’s missing his pauldrons though. Hey Collette, maybe you can lend him one of your old ones.” (Reiley)

Kiefer followed next to Varn to meet the task force. He was dressed in his full mithril armour, with his mask on. He scrutinized the group carefully. 5 males and 3 females, all tall and well built, clad in full plate mail armour. 3 greatswords, 2 large hammers, 1 claymore and 2 with heavy crossbows. It was a well-rounded team with Varn using a claymore himself. Kiefer was equipped with a steel shortsword he commissioned from the Balazaar family. However, he was assigned to the team as a magus.

“Alright Kiefer, meet the team. Reiley, Collete and Bartrem are the vanguard, they use greatswords. Brett, Gishard, Reginald and me, we are the flanking wings. We have a claymore and hammer each side. Ysolda and Lizbeth are rangers, responsible for protecting you. Team, meet our new addition. He’s Kiefer, our mage.” (Varn)

“AHAHAHAHA!!! Mage?!?! With a shortsword and an incomplete armour? Varn you really know how to pick’em don’t you!!” Gishard burst out in laughter, holding his gut and almost falling on the floor.

“Don’t mind that idiot. He’s just in the team as comic relief.” Varn whispered to Kiefer, grinning. “This is my old team, the best team if I might add.”

“Kid! Show me what you’ve got, I ain’t riskin’ my life to protect someone who’s never experienced being on the edge of death before.” Lizbeth yelled as she suddenly fired a bolt in Kiefer’s direction.

Kiefer tilted his head to the left without so much as a blink, staring daggers into Lizbeth as the arrow shot past his right ear and landed deep inside a wooden dummy. “She’s kind of rash and extreme don’t you think?” Kiefer asked Varn, still staring at Lizbeth. (not that you have any right to say. You torched 15 villages)

After Lizbeth’s surprise attack, everyone was nodding in approval. They had seen how calm and collected Kiefer was, and were amazed at his reflexes. Out of the group, maybe only Varn would have been able to dodge the bolt at such a short distance.

Lizbeth still not satisfied, clicked her tongue and retorted, “Show me some of your magic will ya? What attribute are ya?”

“Asviran wier Sia surroll”

Immediately a gust of wind started blowing and running through the entire training field, carrying the drifting snow along with it.

“Asviran hidra no cadrin prias surroll”

A circular wall of fire erupted, encircling everyone in the team, melting the snow on the ground.

“Asviran electron condeen, shak lightnAs”

Several lightning arrows appeared around Kiefer and shot straight at the ground in front of Lizbeth.

“Asviran Hidra condeen prias surroll”

Finally, a wall of water formed and extinguished the fire wall circling them. Kiefer then cut off his mana supply and ended the light show.

Everyone was stunned, except Varn who was smiling from ear to ear. Breaking the silence, Varn spoke out,” Kiefer here is proficient in fire, water, wind, lightning and light magic. Do you have any more questions Lizbeth?”

At that everyone applauded, and even Lizbeth was smiling. It was crucial after all that the team did not carry around a dead weight rookie mage on such a dangerous mission. Through the brief presentation, it was clear that Kiefer could hold his own very well, putting the minds of the team at ease.

“Prep your equipment, get some rest, we assemble before dawn tomorrow and set out at first light.” (Varn)

With that, the team dispersed and Kiefer headed towards the Balazaar family. The sword and waist guard had been crafted by Duran Balazaar and Kiefer was on his way to collect his pauldrons. His special request was to make it as light and thin as possible. Kiefer was only focussing on mobility and appearance as the 2 pieces of steel armour served no functionality for him.

The next morning, Kiefer packed up all his things, put on his seraplor mantle and rode his tarsus to the city gates. He had bid farewell to Rashan and his family, Marley and the inn keepers, as well as his academy friends the day before.

Varn and the team arrived one by one shortly after, each on their own tarsus. The city guards were all gathering around, gawking at the veteran group. Never before had they seen such a large gathering of veteran knights, each with their own tarsus before. Kiefer was the only one wearing a mask, so his identity was hidden from the guards he was all too familiar with. The group did not bring much gear. They had intended to hunt and forage for food in the forest, so they only brought some whetstones to maintain their swords, a few cooking utensils and some pieces of hard bread to last a few days.

It was the period darkest before dawn. The twin moons had set, but the sun had yet to rise. With snow drifting down onto their cloaks, and a chilling breeze caressing their faces, the group set off. 11 tarsuses with their riders rode off toward the east, into the rising sun and towards the Shearwood border forest.

The tarsuses were fast, and it didn’t take long before the team reached the outskirts of the forest, with the morning mist still lingering around. The grass had receded and the canopy was white. Even with the snowfall, it was warm inside the forest and snow barely made it to the ground. The group took a short rest, relieving their buttocks from the constant riding, while letting their tarsus graze on the green forest floor.

There was a small path in the forest, leading between the villages. Trees had been cleared by patrol groups and it was wide enough or 2 tarsus to walk side by side with sufficient space in between for a third one. According to the royal court strategists, the attacks were following a pattern, moving upwards north along the border. Their next target was 8 days ride away and the team needed to make haste.

Moving through the forest at trotting speeds, the group was 6 days in since the start of their mission. So far, they had encountered a pack of 8 Fientrals that looked like 40, 5 demon bears and 1 Seraplor. They had suffered minor injuries, but aside from that, the team was fine.

Kiefer watched in awe as the team of veterans showcased extraordinary teamwork, as if they can read each other’s minds. The was very little communication between them, and almost no orders from Varn, and yet each member moved without hindering others, as if they were limbs of a single organism.

Kiefer was the eyes and the ears of the team, pointing out dangers and targets. He barely had to use any offensive spells, much less draw his sword. The vanguards handled most of the work. It was only during the fight with the Seraplor that Kiefer felt useful, with his mana pulse, essentially nullifying the seraplor’s mimic ability.

As they were one day away from the target village, Kiefer was struck with a dilemma. His original plan had been to kill the team off by having Sher eat them, essentially have the entire team and himself go missing and presumed dead. However, he’s begun to see what a waste it would be and decided that they could be useful to him in the future, alive.

Every few days, Kiefer would secretly meet up with Sher to update her on their progress and his plans. With his mind made up, he informed Sher of his arrival at the border village in a day’s time and to carry out their revised plan that night.

That night, the team was awakened by a deafening roar heard through the forest. Being veterans, all 10 of them got up instantly and took on battle formations. They face the direction where they heard trees crunching and breaking. In a blink of an eye a huge black shadow came rushing past them, swallowing their newest member whole before disappearing into the night sky. Lizbeth and Ysolda managed to fire off a few shots, but were left shocked when their heavy bolts simply bounced off the shadow and lodged inside a tree.

The team of veterans couldn’t help but stare at the spot where Kiefer was killed without a single trace. The beast had eaten him and all his belongings, leaving only the shortsword that he had held drawn. They immediately packed their things and rode straight for the village, worried the beast might attack. Yet, the attack they were expecting never came.

[Northern shore of Shearwood]

Kiefer stepped out of Sher’s jaws, completely unharmed, but covered in saliva, as he brought his sack out as well. The air was even colder up north, and he could see some icebergs floating off in the horizon. Waves were lapping the shore and despite the snow, there was none collecting on the ground.

Kiefer chanted a spell that summoned a wall of water and he stepped into it, washing himself thoroughly. Following that, he released a thin mist of mana particles around himself and destroyed them, releasing a comforting heat blast around him. This dried his body in moments with several repeats.

All clean and refreshed, Kiefer turned to Shearwood, smiled and hugged her enormous head.

Changing back to her tiny form Sher spoke up, “Master, welcome back, you know, I met someone during my assignment. She’s my older sister Isana.” Sher pointed at the shore with her tail.

Turning his gaze at where Sher pointed, he saw a goddess rise up out of the water. Long flowing silver hair, pale skin, charming womanly body with great assets, and two striking green eyes. Kiefer saw the woman smile, and just as he was about to introduce himself, the woman charged out of the water straight for him, arm raised and fingers poised like a claw.

Reflexed, Kiefer put up his mana armour, side stepped and punched the charging woman in her head, shattering half of it into countless tiny ice fragments. Undeterred by Kiefer’s attack, the woman stopped and slowly regenerated her face from the falling snow. Next, as if watching a zombie attack, Kiefer saw at least 50 more beauties rise up out of the water along the stretch of the shoreline.

Kiefer deduced they were only puppets, unrelenting, undying regenerative puppets. Considering it was Sher’s sister, she would have an enough mana to summon puppets for eternity.

“Enough! Show yourself!” Kiefer bellowed as he instantly covered an area of 60m around himself with mana threads, constricting and crushing any puppets that came within his reach. As new puppets formed, Kiefer crushed them mercilessly, not even waiting to check if it’s the real body.

As if realising that her puppet show was over, the ice beauties all shattered, leaving only sparkling ice crystals floating in the air. A lone beauty floated down from the sky, surrounded by a blizzard circling her. Kiefer observed her descent, chuckling internally, “Huh! Looks like she was compensating for something with those puppets,” as he stared at her chest. It was significantly smaller than the double-Ds the ice puppets were packing, but it was nonetheless sufficient to give her womanly curves.

“Sorry about that, I was just testing you.” She calmly explained, as she waved her arm.

A wall of ice immediately rose up around Kiefer, but almost as soon as it appeared, it exploded into a cloud of steam. Kiefer had sent a heat wave by destroying his mana particles directly in the wall. As chunks and shards of ice bounced off Kiefer, He dove out of the cloud of steam, straight for Isana, and threw a punch, only to have his hand held and charge stopped by Isana single-handedly.

It was quite surreal, watching a speeding man suddenly come to a stop because an ice beauty held his punch in her outstretched hand. Isara was clearly trying to crush Kiefer’s hand but his mana armour was holding up.

Kiefer smiled, and immediately started replenishing his own mana using Isara’s, converting at an astonishing rate of 1:150 thanks to his mithril armour. Sensing her mana being drained, Isana instantly let go of his fist, and leapt back almost 10m.

Isana began kicking up a blizzard around her, concealing herself with low visibility of the torrent of snow and ice. When the snow subsided, what was left in its place was a huge dragon with snow white scales, emerald green eyes and a large wingspan, almost 100m from tip to tip.

As the dragon opened its mouth and roared, a blast of hundreds of ice shard came shooting out towards Kiefer, only to bounce off his dome shield. But before he could relax, a heavy white tail came crushing down on his dome, digging Kiefer and his dome into the wet sand and making a large circular depression in the sand that went down 10cm.

The dragon was as long as it was wide, with 2 rows of jagged spikes starting from behind the eyes running down the back to the tip of the tail. Even though the face and snout were smooth with no protrusions to outline a feminine feature, 2 rows of sharp teeth could be seen. The most noticeable feature being the 2 extra-long canines that protruded downwards from the upper jaw even when the mouth is close, like a sabretooth cat.

Kiefer released millions of mana threads first binding the dragon with his whips like he did with Shearwood, next wrapping her entire body with threads, wings folded and stuck to the back. In a rage, the dragon roared and spread her wings, snapping the countless threads and freeing herself.

“Is that the best you can do?” the dragon laughed, in an eerily sweet voice that did not fit the huge monster in front of his eyes.

Kiefer kept quiet and pressed on, multiplying the number of threads used to bind the large dragon, this time, without the wings. With arms and legs bound to the body, jaws shut and tail immobile, there was a flash of green light in the dragon’s eyes, as she started blowing out a mist of snow from her slit nostrils into the air above her.

Within seconds, a second dragon, identical to the one being bound by Kiefer appeared out of the mist and roared, as the first one shattered into ice dust. “I heard from my baby sister that you specialised in a unique control type magic, but you are never going to restrain me like this, much less hurt or defeat me!” Isana laughed again, belittling Kiefer.

Kiefer was impressed at the plethora of skills Isana had, but he too had skills unique to himself. He sent a wave of mana onto the ground around him, coating the ground below the flying dragon. With a thought, he compressed his mana particles into billions of sub-atomic singularities like the ones he’s seen on the screens inside the LHC, each one releasing countless gravitons. The ground grew dark as the flying dragon immediately plummeted to the ground, unable to even lift her head in the supergravity field.

Kiefer had avoided using this move because it consumed mana at a horrendous rate, but he knew the fight wouldn’t last much longer. With one hand raised out and palm facing the sky, Kiefer formed a single silver bullet. He then shot the bullet at Isana’s shoulder, but due to the supergravity, the bullet’s trajectory make a sharp downward curve, landing in the sand next to Isana’s head.

The shockwave blew out all the drifting snow within a 200m radius, improving visibility significantly. Next to her head was a deep crater with wisps of silver particles. She stared in horror as Kiefer began preparing the next shot, clearly having corrected its flight path. She was sure her scales would not be able to withstand the shot, and yet Kiefer did not know and was testing it out on her. She could barely breathe in the supergravity; much less dodge the next shot. Then, Isana saw a little blue snake dive from the sky in front of Kiefer.

“Master! Please stop, don’t hurt my sister! She was only trying to test your capabilities!” Sher pleaded her master, tears in her eyes. Seeing Sher, Kiefer snapped out of his battle mode and dissolved the spinning bullet, along with his gravity field.

She couldn’t hear what her baby sister was saying, but when she felt the gravity return to normal, she knew that Shearwood had saved her. Such a terrifying human, barely an adult and already possessing so much power. Isana finally understood why her baby sister chose to follow him, secretly jealous that Shearwood had found a better man before she did.

Kiefer took off his mask, took a breath of fresh air, and observed the snow that was blown away by the shockwave drifting back down again. He looked in the direction of the giant dragon, only to find a gorgeous beauty in a sky blue gown stepping out of a blizzard. The blizzard cleared immediately after, as the woman smiled and walked towards him.

With each step, she got closer, and Kiefer kept his guard up, carefully observing the woman for any suspicious movement. When she got within 2 metres of Kiefer however, she leapt at him, not giving him a chance to react. Isana grabbed Kiefer’s arm and hugged it, burying part of his upper arm in her reasonably sized chest.

Kiefer was surprised by the sudden attack and could not react. As she held his hands, he could feel and incredible warmth emanating in his hands and part of his upper arm through the mithril and steel armour.

“Hey~”, Isana whispered seductively, “Let me come along with you, won’t you? I have to protect my future husband and my baby sister after all.” Said Isana sweetly, as she kissed Kiefer’s cheeks. Her lips were warm, but her breath was icy.

“H-husband?” Kiefer stuttuered. He’s never had a romantic relationship before, and this was the first time anyone, or anything, has tried to seduce him. Kiefer had no idea how to handle it.

“Of course!” Isana exclaimed, still not letting go of his arm. “We dragons value strength and pride over anything else. And being a titan only makes things worse; I can’t find a male who’s stronger than me. Maybe Drigor, but he’s my brother and I’m not really at good terms with him. In fact, I haven’t even seen in in the last 10 millennia. Since I’ve been alive, you are the first ever to defeat me so cleanly.” Isana gave him a sweet smile.

Kiefer gave up. Yet another variable not within is calculations. He hated variables the most. Back on earth, he could predict everything, everyone’s actions and reaction. Even his research was predictable because he made sure he lived inside a controlled environment. And yet since coming to this world, it’s been one surprise after another. There was no visible pattern in almost anything. He tries to control his surroundings, his relations, but new variables just keep popping up out of now where.

Sighing, he started refilling his almost empty mana pool again. Over the past few weeks of training, he’s managed to increase his mana pool significantly again. The silver liquid had expanded to a size almost filling his chest, but was back to a small ball again, with a tiny crystalline sphere the size of a grain of sand, right in the middle.

“Is this your stuff?" Asked Isana, pointing at his sack of belongings, still not letting go of his arm.

“Yes. What of it?” (Kiefer)

“It’ll look unsightly for my dignified husband to be carrying all these around. Let me help you.” Isana replied coyly, as she finally let go of his arm. She picked up the sack and tossed it into the air in front of her. Kiefer watched as the sack disappeared into thin air, while Isana reached her hand in too. Half her arm disappeared and reappeared when she pulled it out, along with the other seraplor mantle, which she put on. “Ehe… now we look like a real couple” Isana chuckled.

“How-how did you do that? Where are my things?” Kiefer muttered, slack-jawed and shocked at the spectacle he had just seen.

“Oh? You don’t know about the dimensional pocket? I guess you won’t since you’re not an elder titan. Not even Shearwood knows this skill. Come my dear husband, I’ve got a lot to teach you. So, where are we headed first?” Isana explained, grabbing Kiefer's arm again.