I sat at my desk, covered in bruises from the ruthless trial I endured. The desk itself was now dusted to perfection, and I had propped my book against the wall with the front cover facing outward. It’s been ages since I opened it. I felt as though I outgrew it, and it had nothing more to offer. Still, I was fond of the memories I had with it.

I rested my elbow on the table with my chin laying on the palm of my hand. With my other hand, I traced the grooves of the desk while I thought about the advice I received from Liam.

The words, ‘Exploit magic to its fullest potential,’ rang in my head, but what exactly did that mean? Liam gave this advice, knowing I would put far too much thought into it. He sure had unique training methods.

My mind continued to race. I thought about everything I could possibly do with my current abilities and wondered if the uses I came up with were practical or not. I spent the rest of the day sitting in the single chair thinking about everything I’ve used magic for in the past, and how I could have done better. I thought about the situations I could have prevented if I had just been stronger, and the guard who was crushed against the stone building I could have saved if I had just been braver.

These thoughts did not help anything at all. They only made me regret my actions more than I already did. These thoughts did nothing but fill me with guilt. I sighed as I continued to run my index finger along the lines on the desk.

I sharp pain shot through my nerves, and I forced my hand away. A small cracking sound followed as a loose piece of wood broke off. I looked at the source of pain to see that a rather long splinter was impaled deep in my finger. A small amount of red blood began gathering at its base.

Ignoring the pain, I pulled the sharp object out. The tip was stained from my blood. I held the splinter with three fingers and continued to trace the grooves. Now the wood created a scratching sound, similar to a sound created by claws.

While I lost myself in thought, I scratched and tapped away at the dest. Such an innocent action led my focus to stray from the piece of wood I was holding. As I scratched and tapped, small sparks began to fly from the tip of the splinter. I saw this from the corner of my vision, but I was completely lost by that point, and I didn’t realize what was happening.

I thought and rethought all of my past mistakes, and began moving my hand faster, and tapping harder. The sparks I was creating grew larger as I did. With one last tap, a tap much harder than any of the previous ones, an explosive mixture of flames and lightning filled the room.

I was thrown back from my chair, and I landed nearly halfway across the room, and landed face down, sprawled across the floor. It felt as though my ears themselves had exploded. My ears rang as I hesitantly lifted my head from the ground. I saw every inch of the floor and walls had been scorched black from the fire, and small streams of electricity rapidly jumped from one wall to the next. Even with all of this damage, I was unharmed. Only my magic could have done this.

Still laying on the ground, I looked towards the desk I was sitting at just moments ago, but it was gone. The desk and spellbook had completely disintegrated. In an instant, my only possession to remind me of my grandmother was gone.

Wang heard the explosion and kicked down the locked door. He seemed to mouth the words, ‘what happened.’ but the ringing in my ears was far too loud to hear anything else.

I looked away from Wang and looked at the far upper corner of my destroyed room. In the corner, one last bolt of electricity bounced twice before dissipating. Immediately after, the ringing began to fade, and my hearing returned. I was soon well enough to hear Wang yelling at me, still asking what happened.

I couldn’t respond to any of his questions because I was still frozen from the shock. Wang saw my lack of response and ran to my side. He grabbed me just under my arms and lifted me off the ground.

After he threw one of my arms around my neck, he carried me out of the room. He seemed to struggle with walking me down the stairs, and I tried to help carry my own weight as best as I could, but I was still far too dazed and confused to be of any use.

Once we made it to the bottom of the stairs, Wang set me down at one of the seating booths, and he sat across from me. I could feel my body swaying uncontrollably as he asked what happened.

I answered without fully hearing his words. “I don’t know,” I said.

He leaned forward in his seat and asked, “Did someone do this to you?”

“N-No,” I stuttered, “I think this is my fault.”

The look on Wang’s face shifted from worry to a mix of disappointment and anger as he said, “So that’s how it is. Vincent, you were my favorite tenant, but you need to leave. You can’t just blow up my property.”

These were the words that brought me back to my senses. I heard everything Wang said clearly, but still, I couldn’t believe that they had been said at all.

“Er, yes,” I mumbled, “I understand. Thank you for everything.”

With both my hearing and balance returned, I stood from my chair and took my leave. It felt awful to leave the place I had called home all these months, but incinerating an entire room was enough to get anyone kicked out.

As I stepped outside the street was empty and gloomy once again. Of course, they would be asleep this late. My skill of telling time inside the wall still wasn’t great, but it had improved drastically since I first arrived, and even I knew it was the dead of night.

I was exhausted and I needed rest, but there was only one other person here that I had any kind of connection with, and that was Liam. I knew going there was my only option, but I knew Liam wouldn’t like any arrangement, and I was afraid I might get beaten again.

I arrived back at Liam’s door after I walked the path for that third time in a day. I knocked on the door and waited for an answer. A few minutes passed, so I knocked again. Liam had an unreasonable reluctance to answer the door, so this time I called out as well.

“Liam!” I yelled, “It’s me, answer the door!”

This time, Liam’s voice called back, “Who’s Me?”

“Who do you think?”

I head to the familiar commotion coming from upstairs. Loud footsteps and several objects banging against the floor always made me question what he could possibly be doing up there.

The footsteps scrambled around the room upstairs until I could hear Liam coming down the stairs. Just a moment later he came to the door and opened it wide.

“What in the world are doing here this late?” he asked with his eyes only half open.

I was embarrassed to say, “I need someplace to stay.”

“What?” Liam asked, clearly shocked by my statement, “What happened to your place?”

“I eh,” I said in a near whisper, “I blew it up.”

Liam’s eyes shot open as he yelled, “You did what?! You think that makes me want to take you in?”

I knew I was asking a lot, but this was my only option.

“Please,” I begged, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

He was obviously aggravated by my request. “You really are a handful, you know,” he said, “but I suppose it would be beneficial to keep you here since I’ll be training you for a while.”

I couldn’t even begin to describe the joy I felt. Sure, living in someone else’s home that was also a makeshift factory was less than ideal, but it beat sleeping outside any day.

“Thank you!” I yelled, doing a poor job at hiding these emotions.

Liam stepped aside and said, “Come in, I have a spare room in the back.”

He led me past the first room I was most familiar with and towards an odd door that was much slimmer than the rest.

“You can stay in here,” he said as he opened the door to the room, “If you blow anything up, I’m stopping your training and you’ll pay for any damages.”

Liam shoved my spine and knocked me into the tiny room without being able to get a good look. He slammed the door behind him without another word, and I could hear his footsteps hastily running back up the stairs.

With nothing else to do, I began inspecting my surroundings. The room itself was less of a bedroom and more of a closet. The walls were just slightly longer than my own body, leaving just enough room to lay on the dirty bed left on the floor with no supports, and to the right of the bed was a small stand that took half of the remaining space.

After seeing what little there was to offer, I did the only thing left to do. I carefully dropped to my knees and crawled into the bed. I certainly didn’t want to risk staying awake any longer.

The bed itself was by far the most uncomfortable object I had ever laid my head-on. For a moment I thought a bed of nails would have been a better option. Of course, I wanted to wake up at a reasonable hour, so I didn’t bother trying to get comfortable.

It seemed like hours passed and I was still lying flat on my back with no sign of drowsiness. I stared at the ceiling and watched as the occasional speck of fest floated to the ground.

At some point, my eyes closed and I was gone. I was fast asleep, I didn’t know exactly when it happened, and I wasn’t sure how long I was out. There wasn’t any strange dream that night, no voices, and no visions. For once, I felt like I was at peace.

I was expecting Liam to bang on the door to start my training, but that wasn’t the case at all. I woke up the next morning peacefully with a full night’s worth of rest.

Even with a full night's rest, I was still hesitant to leave the bed. I felt so refreshed that morning that I didn’t care how uncomfortable it was, I just wanted to stay.

I thought Liam most likely wouldn’t appreciate me leeching off him in his house, so I figured I’d get up and help in whatever way I could.

After I climbed back out of the bed, I opened the door to see Liam turning the corner. He looked as if he had just woken up as well.

“Morning,” he said as he rubbed his crusted eyes.

“Morning,” I responded just before releasing a loud yawn.

Liam walked over to the dining room to sit at the table with only two flimsy chairs. I followed after him and did the same.

“Will we be doing any training today?” I asked.

“No, training is important, but maintaining a healthy body takes priority,” he said, gesturing at my bruised limbs.

“I see,” I replied with relief.

I looked at Liam and wondered what was going through his head. I wondered why he was so eager to take me as a student, and why he was so willing to let me stay in his home at such short notice. I’ve known Liam for a while now, and this didn’t seem like him.

“Liam, may I ask a question?” I asked

Liam silently huffed as he said, “If I say no, you’ll just ask anyways.”

I took this answer as a yes, so I just asked the question, “Why did you offer to train me?”

My question caught him off guard, and I could see the very moment he woke from his half-sleep state. “Well, if I didn’t you’d most likely die, and I’m best qualified for the job.”

I trusted him when he said he was the most qualified, but even an idiot could tell he was hiding part of the truth.

“Is that all?” I asked with drawn-out words to show him I knew there was something more.

“Fine,” he sighed, “I suppose you would be the type to catch on to these things. I’ll tell you the truth if that’s what you really want. The truth is, I considered Barron a friend. I have no way to be sure why he would attack anyone, but my only guess is that he was overtaken by darkness. If this is true, and he is targeting you, then I believe it is my duty, as Barron’s former companion, to do whatever I can to help put an end to his life. Something that should have happened all those years ago.”

“And you think I’ll be able to face him?” I asked.

“Right now?” he said with a chuckle, “Not at all. That’s the reason I made you my student.”

The idea of facing against another mage was terrifying, especially one with enough power to single-handedly build a structure as massive as the wall, but I had no other choice. If I was being hunted then I needed to gain enough power to hold my own against Barron. It seemed many painful days of brutal training awaited ahead.