Focus… focus...how to do this? No! not like that, more like this? No, that doesn’t work either.

“Argh! Dirt got on my mouth!”

Aah! This is so useless. How’s Lan doing?

Ran opened his eyes, to his left was the head of his sister popping out from the ground like a blue cabbage, like the world’s most boring vegetable, the soil seemed to shake every so often, some dust would fly off and get on his face, he couldn’t tell if this was Lan’s work but it sounded like it.

Already making progress, I can’t fall behind. I need to get out of here! First, let’s calm down, deep breaths. I can barely feel my hands.

Two days had already passed since the so-called earth training began, and progress was advancing at the usual pace, with Lan making breakthroughs and… Ran staying far behind his sister in terms of accomplishments.

To be honest, he was getting a bit desperate.

He had been the first one to chant the water-ball spell, but since then, he had fallen yet again under the shadow cast by his older sister’s natural genius.

How can I do this? How come she makes the surrounding rocks levitate? This is so not fair!

“What’s bothering you, Edwin?” Taft was sitting on a stone chair made with magic, just a few meters away. He talked to them or offer guidance every so often, probably when he felt he needed to.

“Nothing teacher Taft,"

“By the look in your face, I wouldn’t say it’s nothing” He leaned forward on the chair, just to inspect him closer as if trying to imply he had all of his attention “Don’t get discouraged by Sofia’s advancement, I’m sure I have said this before, but you two are learning at an abnormal rate, normally it would take almost two years to get to the place you both have arrived in just a few months, so be proud, not many can say they can successfully cast a spell at seven years old”

Wow, I’m awesome, aren’t I? we are.

“I’m awesome!” Taft said

Oh… I see…

“I mean it, but since you probably won’t believe me yet…” He rose from the seat and reached out for something behind, Ran couldn’t see what it was, but he seemed to be picking something up “I had an idea, so I think I’ll put it to test” as he said this, Taft Silver presented a very large, yellow and red centipede of no less than 40 centimeters long that twitched and rolled on the mage’s hand.

He set it on the ground, pointed it straight at Edwin.

Come on, not so little fellow! make me a solid and head straight towards the black-haired one

He attempted to communicate telepathically with the insect, didn’t seem to work. Nonetheless, he trusted his multi-legged friend.

As if the message had been transmitted, the centipede turned towards the mage, just slightly, naught but a second, and continued to slowly crawl. His objective seemed to be Ran’s defenseless face.

The ultimate plan, to instill a sense of urgency, he was able to draw mana correctly and cast a spell under stress. Maybe this will work, for now, I should play the villain

“Tremble in fear! in young Ed, I sent after you... my terrible pet! Mr. Crawly! if you can’t get yourself out that hole before he gets to you, your life is forfeit!”

Lan looked at him, sheer disappointment in her tiny blue windows.

If stares could kill… what does that mean? Is she trying to say that Ran has a crippling fear of bugs?... but he seems fine to me, oddly calm for someone that’s about to be crawled on by a huge centipede.

What followed was a few minutes of expectation in part of Taft. Part of him wanted to stop the experiment. But the winner of the contest was the one part that wanted to know what would happen.

As such, the centipede arrived at Edwin’s head. The kid only closed his eyes and grimaced as he felt the tiny legs on his skin.

“He’s already used to it…” Lan finally said, her neck sticking a lot more over the earth.

“That’s so?”

At least one of them got motivated.

“Yes, he helps with bug hunting,"

“Bug hunting?” he echoed her words.

The 9-year-old just moved her head slightly to confirm.

Well, at least he’s not afraid of bugs, that’s good. Maybe I should go for something more extreme? I could levitate a rock on top of his head and be all like “if you don’t get out, I’ll drop this over your head” if he doesn’t react, I could just move it over Sofia’s head, sibling love will kick in and the kid is out… So stupid, better not, too extreme, and I’m not good enough of an actor for either of them to buy it, if they don’t think they’re in danger it’s not going to work.

Maybe I could gather some furry critters with fangs or something.

“Look, a demon behind you!” He screamed while making his best-scared face.

But Edwin couldn’t turn around even if he wanted to. Instead, he asked.

“What’s a demon? I heard Van’s father talking about them a few times,”

“What? Well, I guess this is pretty far from everything else… makes sense you wouldn’t know about them, so to make it short, they are monsters living on the other extreme of the known land,”

“What? Are they scary?”

“Terribly so, and the worst part is that they love to travel all around it’s not likely you will meet one, but if you do, only despair and death awaits you, they look like humans but their skin comes in weird colors, they have big horns on their heads and their eyes are blood red, they also are extremely powerful, many times stronger than any human and have an excellent talent for magic”

“Wow!”

“I think you aren’t understanding. They aren’t something to be amazed by, young Ed. They are terrible creatures that won doubt before killing you and everyone you know. They are treacherous and violent, and the worst part…

“What is it?”

“You can’t kill them. They live for a long- time and even if you reap their heads out, they’ll just grow another in no time,”

“What! Are they really that strong? I never head of them I want to learn more!”

“I wouldn’t recommend it. You need to be careful. Never go near one of them. We call them demons for a, reason kid, but maybe we should focus back on our training”

What was I again? Yeah, I should stop traumatizing the poor kid. instead, I could try to be a real teacher and help him through whatever is troubling him.

Once the sun started to set, Taft decided it was time to leave. He quickly opened the hole and helped the kids out. He also thought it would be best to accompany them back to their home. As such, the three of them were walking back towards the village.

“Congratulations are in order, Sofia. You’ve made some good advancements today. How do you feel?”

“Tiresome,”

“What?”

“Tired, wanna sleep, feel like dying, too much work to make the dirt move just a little,”

Taft laughed.

“So, you are trying to make the earth give in by throwing all your mana at it?”

“Yeah,”

“Good! when you channel with water you have to place mana in a surface level and make it flow with it, the earth isn’t as malleable, no choice but to push it a little for it to do what you want, it’s going to take a while until you get used to it, but the earth is a much more powerful element for combat, your problems with channeling will fix themselves with time, the more you practice the better,”

“Surface?” Lan asked him, not caring about remembering his lessons

“Don’t tell me you forgot already!”

“Inner, surface and outer” Edwin spoke excitedly as if he had finally managed to find a way into the conversation and to flex his knowledge.

“They are the different mana channeling levels, right? Inner is when you take the mana and pour it into your bloodstream and muscles to reinforce them magically, surface is for spell casting when the mana is like on your skin or just above it, outer is for affecting other bodies, it’s like what Freesia uses to heal people, instead of sending energy to her body, she sends it to someone else’s,”

“Showoff” Lan replied

“Well, yes, that’s correct Edwin, I’m glad you pay attention”

The black-haired boy laughed proudly; Lan smirked wryly.

They spent most of the remaining time in silence as they made their way to the entrance, it was Xav’s turn on guard duty, he wore worn-out leather armor, he carried a spear on the left hand and a serious expression on his face, he hoped to instill a sense of respect but it was lost on people who actually knew him.

His shift was about to end and had been waiting half an hour for his replacement. Paul, as always, didn’t respect anyone’s time but his own.

The group bid their farewells and continued on. Taft thought about parting ways when they reached the crossroads, one path leading straight to town and the other to the Donn residence.

He waved the idea away once he took a second glance at the kids.

They look like they’re moving on pure inertia. These two will drop like flies as soon as they see a bed and sleep two days away. Better to just take them home.

A few minutes later, Taft was staring at the face of God, a goddess to be true, a muse of unearthly beauty of white silky white hair flowing with the light breeze, her eyes shone a beautiful ember color, her skin white, almost pale, but nonetheless fair, if you could ignore the battle marks that did nothing but to add on her cool visage.

hers was the aura of a war goddess and Taft’s heart had been defeated at first sight.

Joanne looked at the kids, noticed they were tired and covered in dirt but they didn’t show any signs of having been hurt, but she didn’t recognize the man behind them, and she disliked the look on his face, many had looked at her with those eyes before, not many remained.

“Goodnight teacher” Edwin was the first one to break the silence. He didn’t turn back and just disappeared inside the house. Lan followed closely.

“Thank you for looking after them” She spoke, Taft broke out of the stupor he was in and realized he was staring, he probably had been caught too, he wasn’t a stranger to women, he had lost his virginity long ago, but the presence of this woman had him enthralled, the magician was embarrassed.

“No problem, Ms.?” He replied hoping to at least get her name.

She said her name was Joanne.

Oh, wait, I can’t get excited for a married woman, but she isn’t an elf. Maybe she’s the second wife? She sure doesn’t look like her father, maybe takes more to the late wife.

In the end, he ended up excusing himself and returning to the bedroom Amos had offered him during his teaching stay.

Edwin went to bed early and after getting his thoughts on check and picking a book about demons that were on the bookshelf on his father’s study, after reading on his bed for a while.

He passed out.

And had terrible nightmares for days, Demons were terrible creatures indeed, he thought after coming to know about them.

I can do this. If Lan is using all her magic, I have to do the same! All this time I tried to replicate how I was casting on water, but I can’t do it that way. I have to be forceful.

After last time, Taft had given them four days to recover their strength.

And now, neck-deep in the dirt, Edwin began to put to the test the idea he had come up with last time, he channeled mana, but did something different this time, if he had been casting [water ball], he would have sent mana to the surface of his hands, the “middle” layer, and just let it flow, the water would do the rest for him, he didn’t need to think much about the reaction he wanted to achieve, much less of the energy cost of it, but this time he concentrated, closed his eyes and.

Sneezed violently as dirt invaded his nostrils.

“There you go! Nicely done Ed” Taft congratulated him. He wanted to reply but when he tried to open his mouth, he felt the cloud of dust on the throat which only made him gag.

Seeing this, Taft smiled and told him to wait. Once the dust had dissipated, he called for his student to open his eyes.

When he did so, Edwin didn’t notice it at first. After all, his situation hadn’t changed, he was still trapped inside the earth.

But noticed that he had a bit more room to move his arms and that the heart around his neck wasn’t as constricting as before.

I did it! I had to put everything I had but.

Edwin passed out again.