Two figures darted through the forest; one of them wore a long pale-green cape while the other sported a black full-bodied clothing, with leather pads (acting as armour) strapped around the chest and shoulder area. It was already noon, and the blazing heat of the sun permeated throughout the whole woodland; together with the humid environment, the heat was almost unbearable; however, the figures pushed through without reluctance.

The two figures flitted through shrubberies and brambles, ferns and thorny thickets, as well as branches of trees. The guy wearing the cloak pulled his sword—sheathed behind his waist—and sliced the vines before them, afterwards sheathing the sword back.

“Krat” huffed the cloaked figure, holding the hilt of his sword as he ran. “This is not a rank-F mission, it’s a rank-A!”

“We can’t back down now pops,” pleaded the boy following him. “Mom’s already rescuing the kids.”

“I know,” replied the cloaked figure.

These two persons were none other than Mark and Arthur themselves, acting as a diversion so Fiora could save the missing children. Following behind them, were shadowy silhouettes of mages pursuing them in earnest.

While errors in the ranking of missions occurred infrequently, they weren’t impossible, after all information was something difficult to handle; one day you have the right ones, tomorrow you would discover that they’re merely superficial and insubstantial. Unfortunately for Arthur, he chose to accept the very rare mission with an actual rank higher than that of what was written on paper.

***

A day earlier, Mark and Fiora’s investigation (with Arthur helping every now and then) led them across the border to Cloud; information they’d gathered told of various kids, aside from Lily, getting kidnapped by shady individuals. Wherefore, the trio decided to track the crooks responsible.

Locating their hideout was probably one of the most difficult aspect of the mission, because the suspects were as slithery as eels, craftily covering their tracks by shutting people up with bribes and/or threats. The only reason why Mark and Fiora were able to discover the culprits’ whereabouts was because of an unexpected accident—two of the culprits kidnapped Arthur during their investigation, as the three of them got too close to their area of activity.

Arthur was then brought to a sky-port for flying ships, hovering in the air through constantly spinning rotor blades, working through circuits powered by aether (they used battery-crystals to activate the circuits). The culprits hid Arthur inside an abandoned building as they waited for their ride. It was then when both Fiora and Mark made their move and eventually cornered the two kidnappers.

Through Fiora’s illusions, they were able to extract information regarding the location of the suspects’ main hideout, which was apparently situated at a mountainous region, north of the Kingdom of Cloud. Their base of operation was an unexplored cave with pathways that gnarly weaved in confusing ways like a labyrinth. After getting the information, the trio quickly rode a ship to get to the nearest port-town in Cloud. Thereafter, they made their way to the hideout.

Once there, they promptly waded through the maze-like pathways of the cave until eventually arriving at its centre. They quickly hid behind a huge boulder at the side, camouflaging themselves using Fiora’s magic. At the centre of the cave was a large metallic cage, keeping ten children locked behind its cold bars; around it, were twenty men guarding it with the utmost dedication. Fiora glanced at the men with her mana gauging spell and discovered that the crooks involved were all high level mages with strengths of no less than that of a tier-A.

Bearing in mind the mages’ strength, they concocted their rescue plan: Arthur and Mark would divert some of the mages to another location, in order to chafe at their numbers, and have Fiora handle the rest. Hence, Mark and Arthur goofily revealed themselves to the captors, then ran away as though there were no tomorrow.

The captors sent five of their men to run after the intruders, thus leaving the other fifteen to guard the children. However, Fiora did not yet act, because she knew their numbers were still too much for her to ensure the children’s safety; so she waited, still disguised in an invisibility spell, for when another of their men would be sent out. A few hours later, five more were sent, for the other five were taking too long; thus, leaving only ten members inside the cave.

Fiora was more than enough to handle ten high-level mages, after all she belonged to a class of rare mages reaching the tier-SS mark. She thought of spells that would agitate the captors and remembered an effective one; thus, she summoned her staff to better enhance the spell’s effects. A blue light came forth and a wooden staff appeared before her with a blue gem attached to it, which worked to amplify magic.

“Wind, wind listen to my voice,” she chanted, gently raising the staff, “manifest yourself, gather yourself, and heed my bidding O ancient power that roams the land—”

Incantations were merely words to help the caster visualize the spell; thus, the longer the incantation was, the more complex and/or powerful the spell would become.

“Deprive, deprive,” she continued, “deprive my foes of your grace; of your gentle touch deprive them!”

She pointed her staff towards the remaining captors.

“Vacuum!”

Out of a sudden, the air pressure around the ten mages dropped by a significant degree; the sudden change of air pressure made it difficult for them to breathe, causing them to drop on all fours until they finally lost consciousness. Fiora quickly dashed to the ten children who were shaking nervously in fear.

“Don’t worry,” soothed her to the children. “I’m here to help.”

She waved them to come close to her.

“Come here,” she calmly said, smiling amiably. “I’m going to teleport us out of this place.”

The children hesitated and did not move, thereafter a young girl, of an age probably similar to Arthur, masterfully strode to her without fear. Her body was slender and petite; her hair blonde as the golden sun, and her skin fair and beautiful, while she had the most attractive face for her age.

“I’m in,” she smiled at Fiora, confidently.

Fiora was taken aback by the child’s unaffected demeanour, it was as though she didn’t fear anything at all.

“What’s your name?” Fiora asked.

“Lily,”

“Ah, it’s you!” remarked Fiora, holding the girl by the hand. “We’re sent by your owner to get you.”

“Is that so?”

Fiora noticed a sudden change in the girl’s expression; her hopeful grin suddenly turned into a sombre frown.

“Then let’s hurry,” Lily added, beaming a fake smile. “We can’t have master waiting for me.”

“Alright,” Fiora responded.

Seeing her behaviour, Fiora realized the weight of Lily’s burden: the burden of slavery. However, Fiora was mature enough to know that some things became worse, should one blindly follow one’s compassion; hence, for now, she could only save her from her kidnappers and not from the grips of slavery.

“Anyone else?”

One more children—no, two—no, three more—actually all of them, came forward and flocked around Fiora. Fiora hefted her staff and began a chant, then a blue hue gently swathed over them, slowly dematerializing the children and sending them molecule by molecule inside the local station of the royal-mages (Cloud’s law enforcement), situated at the nearest town from them. One by one the children disappeared until all of them got teleported except for Lily. When it was Lily’s turn however, Fiora’s magic, stopped.

“Magic interference!” Fiora exclaimed.

Every mage casted a spell by structuring mana into a temporary or projected object (the more advanced could structure ‘magic effects’ like teleportation or illusions), just as how a sculptor structures his sculpture. Magic Interference would occur when a mage’s magic was attacked by a spell of an opposing structure. Hence, someone should have casted ‘remolecularize’ over her ‘demolecularizing’ (teleportation) spell, causing mutual destruction, and thus cancelling her magic. However, for this to happen, the opposing spell should have been of equal or of greater power than hers.

That meant—

“They have a tier-SS mage!”

Fiora held Lily tightly close to her. The moment she did so, she felt her fragile body shake in fear. ‘What a strong girl,’ she thought, realizing that Lily’s courage earlier was merely a front in order so she could give an example to the other children. Fiora then saw in Lily, the character of a future leader.

“Don’t worry,” she assured her, with a bright and confident smile. “I will protect you.”

***

In the woods, Arthur and Mark kept running ‘till beads of sweat came out their skin. Minutes later, they got cornered. Ten mages surrounded them; armed with staves, wands, magic jewels and all things enchanted to increase magic potency.

“Give up,” threatened one of their pursuers, holding a staff. “You’re surrounded.”

Mark smiled.

“Do you remember what we practiced Arthur?” he asked, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword.

In this world, there were many things only the weak, the handicapped and the disabled could perform; things that those with ability would even gawked at in amazement: a girl without arms piloting a flying car with her legs, or a man without limbs playing soccer or swimming, a man deaf to the sound of the world playing the most beautiful music on his piano—these were things only the weak could uncover; hidden potential that those with abilities wouldn’t ever imagine of. In this world, it wouldn’t be strange for a level 3 to fend off against tier-A mages.

Aether slowly gathered in pale-yellowish hue around Mark and Arthur, enhancing every fibre of their muscles; thus, strengthening their body. Mark drew his short-sword sheathed behind his waist, and Arthur drew his pistol.

“When you fight a mage,” told Mark to Arthur, “Never let them cast magic.”

*Whoosh*

Mark unexpectedly jumped towards one of the mages, and immediately stroke his vagus nerve, thereby sending him to sleep. In a close range attack, the first one to move will always have the advantage, since the other party’s response would be delayed by a few seconds, due to the fact that they would have to process the information first. Mark turned to the next one; now however, they were already alert. The mage opened his mouth to cast magic but—

*Bang*

An aether bullet with a sticky consistency stuck itself on the mouth of the mage, rendering him unable to speak. The bullet came from Arthur’s pistol.

Through circuit pistols, a Gaian gunner could change the consistency of his bullet; in fact, a theory went on that a gunner could even go so far as to modify a bullet to affect structures of magic and techniques; however, as of yet, no one had found a method to do so. Thus, for now, Arthur would have to rely on a flimsy sticky bullet.

*Swish*

Mark pummelled the mage’s neck, agitating him then putting him to sleep. Afterwards, Mark returned to Arthur’s side. Their foes had already seen their tricks, surely they wouldn’t work again—or will they?

On the bright side, however, only eight were left for them to fight.

“Remember Arthur,” whispered Mark, hefting his sword up with a hand, “In a fight, it is not the most powerful who wins, it is the most resourceful.”

Arthur nodded in agreement. This fight would serve as Arthur’s first experience in a life-or-death battle—only in this case, his safety was ensured by Mark’s presence, who, strangely enough, was no ordinary mercenary.

The mages casted their magic together in order to confuse both Mark and Arthur. The next instant, fireballs hurled towards them, which the two adeptly evaded as they danced through the battlefield with swaying steps. Swaying steps didn’t rely on strength, it relied on cunning and on an individual’s visual acuity. When the mage had casted his fireball magic, he pointed his wand towards a direction; hence, both Mark and Arthur merely had to move one step ahead to avoid the attack. Swaying steps, thus relied on predicting one’s opponent’s attack.

In an instant, Mark sensed something dangerous, so he hefted Arthur’s frail body under his arm and jumped backwards, thereby avoiding a lightning bolt that had come from above.

“Be careful Arthur,” he instructed, putting Arthur down, “Beware when your bodily hair starts to stand on end, because most probably, it is caused by a static build up coming from an electric-type spell. Unlike fire-type and water-type it’s much more deadly.”

“Understood pops.”

Mark dashed to another mage who began casting his magic, but before he could do so, a sticky bullet hit his mouth. Usually, even when people knew their opponent had some pretty interesting tricks, if they somehow thought even for a second ‘they’re not deadly, they just put my team-mates to sleep’, instincts would relax and the body’s reactions would become sloppy. In this fight, Mark had already won the moment he waged this subtle psychological attack.

*Swish*

Another mage went down to the dirt.

Mark kept on whittling their numbers down with Arthur backing him up, until five of them were left. He looked behind him and checked on Arthur; then he noticed that Arthur was heaving deep breaths of exhaustion. With that in mind, he quickly dashed towards Arthur and grabbed him by the scruff of his clothes, thereafter jumping to a sturdy branch and placing him on it.

“Stay here,” Mark said, smiling “and let me take care of the rest.”

“Let me help you pops,” insisted Arthur, “you can’t win against them alone!”

“Well then,” Mark voiced, patting Arthur’s head and winking at the same time. “I guess I should get serious now, shouldn’t I?”

“Let me show you,” he declared, “the power of a level 3—”

Mark promptly jumped down with a thud and turned towards the mages.

Arthur’s eyes lit up in childish amazement as he thought how cool Mark’s figure was when his pale-green cloak, worn above his ordinary yellow T-shirt and black pants, swayed behind him by the whizz of the air.

‘He looks so awesome,’ childishly thought Arthur.

Mark sent Arthur a sidelong glance and smiled.

“Let me show you the power of a man desperate to save the weak.”

He then coolly and swiftly flicked his sword from side to side,

“The power of my kindness—” he brought the sword near his lips. “The power of my love: for Fiora, for my country, for my people, and for you.”

Mark whispered to his sword, “Help me, Wisp.”

And the sword glowed in bluish light which appeared to be—

—Mana, something no Gaian should possess.