A crowd, full of the townsfolk of Tidwell, watched as a dust trail emerged at the outskirts of their town, and the animal that created that trail swiftly approaching.

There were a variety of different expressions among the crowd, some were of excitement, others indifference, but the most common one was of worry and fear.

The creature that created the trail was a white horse with a golden mane and a large golden horn, it was a unicorn.

The unicorn looked majestic as its strong legs carried its huge body for miles, but to the townsfolk it looked like a pack of wolves coming for their children.

But the unicorn wasn't what worried the people, it was the rider, and what owning a unicorn meant in the Luminescence kingdom.

As the unicorn came closer, the rider also came into view.

But no matter how close the rider came you wouldn't be able to see their features unless they were right in front of you.

That was because of the white cloak they were wearing. This particular cloak was special, mostly because of the emblem on its back.

The emblem was of a golden sun containing the top view of a black anglerfish at its center.

While they expected the rider to be wearing that cloak, that didn't help with the unease they felt.

The rider slowed down as they got closer, until he completely stopped at the entrance. The rider pulled down his hood revealing a face many recognized.

The rider's face was completely handsome and he seemed to be in his mid twenties. His eyes were a light golden color and his messy hair was pitch black, he gave the townsfolk a weary smile, that cast away all their unease.

The rider didn't fail to notice their reactions, their reactions caused him to shake his head,

Why do they have to act like this every time they see one of us?

"Sir Aaron, what brings you to this countryside town?" Asked a man who emerged from the crowd, he was the mayor.

"I'd rather talk about this inside." Aaron replied. The mayor understood and brought Aaron into his office. "Would you like some tea?" the mayor offered, which Aaron accepted.

They drank the tea in silence, the mayor watched Aaron, wanting to know why he was here, Aaron didn't acknowledge his stare.

Arron didn't speak until he finished his tea. "You have heard of the rumors of the demon that appeared in Verance two years ago, correct?"

The mayor nodded his head as a shiver went down the mayor's spine, like most people, the mayor was terrified of demons.

"And you should be aware of the disaster at Monar." Aaron could see the mayor's expression gradually get worse the more he spoke.

"I came here today to tell you to keep an eye out and if necessary get ready to evacuate." The mayor was still shocked by Aaron's vague but frightening words, so Aaron decided it would be best to leave and let him process the news.

"I'll be going now." Once he left the office, he let out a sharp whistle calling over his unicorn. The unicorn responded to his call and sped right beside him.

It slowed down and Aaron mounted it. He was about to ride away when he suddenly looked down at his neck, where a silver compass hung.

The silver compass suddenly started spinning and the compass hand started glowing. Aaron's tired eyes widened for a moment, and his lips curled into a smile, "Found you."

...

Regan was the leader of his own little crew of mercenaries. They were at the border of Tidwell, riding to the city of Klavor.

Regan was at the front, leading his crew and in the middle of the group was a jail wagon, Inside was a cloaked figure curled into a ball, Regan's mission was to transport this person to their employer's main house as a slave.

The figure in the wagon was silently glaring at the group. If they were aware of his stare, they didn't show it.

The boy who ran away from Verence was precisely the one in the wagon and inside the wagon was a small cage. Inside this cage was the crow but on its neck was a silver collar.

How did things end up this way? What would've happened if I didn't kill him?

The boy turned his attention outside the cage and away from his captors, he thought back to the time before he was caught.

As his thoughts drifted, so did his conscious, and before he knew it, his eyelids had become heavy.

But before he fully passed out, he heard a rider who was ahead of the group shout out "Boss, someone is coming and their magic power is too high for me to estimate their stage."

When the boy left Verence, he gained a new understanding of the world around him. He now knew his decision to not fly into town was a great one and that he should never take off his cloak around other people.

When he left Verence he also thought he found out what he was, he heard them call him a demi-human and a demon after using his magic, but he later found out that wasn't accurate.

As the days flew by, scraps of his memories came back to the boy, although he didn't find out his name, he did find out the name of his own species.

Kereta Genus was the name of his species, and sadly he still couldn't remember where the rest of them were located.

Soon enough a week passed since his escape from Verence and he found his way into the town called Alktarsha.

It took time for him to adapt to the human language, it was very different from the language he knew.

The boy made a living by working at the mines. These mines didn't mine any simple material, they mined something called magic crystals.

These crystals were crystallized magic that came from the planet and helped improve a person's magic power. Most crystals are attributeless, but some have magic elements. The magic crystal with the matching magic element would improve one's magic the most.

Magic crystals were sorted into grades: lower, advance, middle, high, superior, and the legendary crystal grade known as the supreme grade.

In the mines you would mostly find lower grade crystals which were mainly used as the common currency in Alktarsha.

In the mines your pay was decided by how many magic crystals you found, but you would only keep 25% of the crystal you mine.

As the boy learned more of the human language, he found the names he used for animals to be inaccurate, for example the crow he had around, he called a cronix but found out the species actual name.

So now instead of trying to remember his actual name, the boy uncreatively adopted the name Cronix for himself.

Cronix's dream didn't start at any random event, but the day that resulted in his life being the way it was now.

It was seven months after he broke into the third star Caster stage, and was almost into the fourth star.

It was also when, after a year of hard work, he made enough crystals in the mine to finally start buying luxury items and not only essentials.

It was the day Cronix went to the shopping district.

He left the crow at their house, he never brought the crow with him anywhere, as it turns out tamed magic beasts were quite valuable, and after a certain incident he stumbled into, he didn't trust people enough to take the bird anywhere the public eye was in.

At the shopping district Cronix casually browsed through everything. He stopped at a stall selling an assortment of items, he slowly went through them, looking for anything interesting.

He stopped when he came across a small pouch. Cronix looked at the pouch, it tempted him.

Almost everyone had these pouches with them, these pouches were actually called magic bags.

The one in front of him looked like a common magic bag, which contained the space of a box with the width, length, and height of one foot.

The stall owner came over to Cronix, and asked,"You interested?"

Cronix looked up at him, "How much?"

The stall owner smiled, "60 crystals."

Cronix stared at the man dumbstruck, while he did have some crystals to spend, the total amount only added up to 76 crystals.

He played with his pendant as he thought about the offer.

Should I really spend that much crystals for a bag? Like I know we need one, but is it worth it?

The thirteen year old treasured his magic crystals, he worked non-stop for them, but this bag could be very useful for him in the future.

But the price still caused him to hesitate. The stall owner, seeing him slipping from the sale, panicked. He didn't know the next time he would get a chance to sell this pouch.

The price of the average magic bag was 50 crystals, and he only raised the price because he was desperate. He needed the money, so with a bit of hesitation he tossed in a thin book as well.

"What's this?" Cronix asked.

"Read it." The stall owner requested.

Cronix grabbed the book, its title read: Introduction to Formations, Volume one, by Matthew Ezerta. Cronix read some of the pages, and it actually piqued his interest.

The name itself immediately caught Cronix's attention, Formations are basically complex patterns that could function like spells, but didn't use magic, but another energy that Cronix couldn't place.

Although they could use magic to help create and activate them, it wasn't essential for the formation.

Unfortunately, from what Cronix read so far, the book was extremely vague about what power formations used exactly, all it had about the mysterious power was the name and where it came from.

The power was called mental energy and that it came from the mental expanse, which is located in the mind, and it's the opposite of the magic domain, which is located in the heart.

But it didn't say anything about the most important part, how to use mental energy.

Thankfully that wasn't too much of a problem, since magic could still be used to create formations even though it would be way weaker.

If I could master these formations and sell them, wouldn't that be easier than working in the mines? Plus with the bag wouldn't this be worth it?

He gritted his teeth, he was already one of the few people without a magic bag, and plus with the bonus of the book, he couldn't refuse.

He reached into his cloak pocket and handed over 70 transparent jewels the size of a thumbnail, these were lower grade magic crystals.

The shopkeeper watched Cronix walk away with a sly smile, "Children are so easy to fool."

Cronix quickly made his way to his small, little home, where the crow was picking on some meat. He didn't bother it, and went straight to his room.

His room was small and empty with the only things occupying any space were the blankets on the floor, a desk, which took up most of the space, a lantern and a chair for the desk.

The first thing Cronix did was pack all his valuables into the bag, which included his clothes, a sewing kit, fabrics, a book about the human alphabet, pencils, paint, paintbrushes, and paper.

Cronix threw his cloak into the corner of the room, and stretched his wings out, his room barely had enough space for this.

After he was done stretching Cronix sat down on the chair, some parts of the chair were cut out so his wings could be more comfortable.

He lit up the lantern and since he had nothing better to do, he went straight into learning about formations.