While saying this Richard slammed the face of his foot into the guard’s chest, “Crack!” loud, unpleasant cracking sounds echoed amongst the crowd causing a few people to pale as they imagined the scenario of the guard’s internals.

The guard’s body was lifted off the ground by the force and soared into the air, flying so fast it caused the air to separate and screech. The body was flying uncontrollably like a ragdoll as it flew over into another street in the market.

“Bang!” A loud crashing sound was heard in the place where the body had crashed, but the body was not visible and whether the guard was alive or dead was unknown.

“Hmph.” Richard snorted coldly and turned towards, Edward and Adrian. As their gazes met, the two felt as if they were staring into an endless abyss of grey.

As the two were stuck in their own thoughts, Richard walked towards Ryan and grabbed his hand and threw him over his shoulder and grabbed the arm of the youth on the floor.

He did not even look at the two youths again, given that they were not worth any of his attention and he vanished from the centre of the crowd.

“Whah?!” A man roared, he was dumfounded and could not comprehend what had just happened.

A man had walked into the crowd and easily put a guard of one of the two powerful clans in the city in a state of near death with one kick and disappeared in less than a few seconds.

“We have to report this to our Clan heads.” Adrian spoke these words with a serious tone.

Edward turned to him and nodded his expression grave. He put his hand on his chin and thought out loud: “A foreign Sage has come to our land and caused a stir, what are their origins?”

------------------

“Swoosh!”

While Edward was pondering, Richard was already out of the city, he was so fast that his body seemed like a brown haze; with every step that he took he would cross hundreds of metres in an instant.

Still on Richards shoulder, Ryan could see the view of the city grow smaller and smaller until it was nothing more than blot in the distance, all of this happening over a small instance.

So fast! Ryan could not help but gasp in his heart, he had never expected anyone to be this fast, and he didn’t even believe that it was humanly possible until now.

After a few minutes, Richard suddenly stopped.

He threw the youth from the Ferian clan on the grass, and then grabbed Ryan and proceeded to do the same.

“Ouch,” Ryan grumbled as he fell on his backside.

“Hmm...” Richard stroked the stubbles on his chin not fazed by the scenario that had just taken place and pondered out loud: “Who would’ve thought that they would have tried to kill you, if they were only going to beat you up I would have stood aside and let it happen as a lesson for you.” Richard sighed helplessly.

“....”

Ignoring him he continued: “Ryan your plan was far too naive and flawed; I can tell you’re much smarter than this.”

Ryan knew that Richard wanted an explanation: “Since you put me in such a difficult situation I couldn’t think of a plan spontaneously so I took a risk. I put myself in a difficult situation; from what I was told, I figured that the two of them were quite rash in their personalities so I decided to put myself in a position where they act against me so that you would come and save me.”

Richard gazed at Ryan; silence filled the air and then he laughed abruptly: “Haha, quite clever!”

While Richard was laughing he walked towards the youth on the floor and reached out a hand towards him: “What’s your name?”

The youth who was in his own thoughts was pulled back, “ah... it’s Leonardo Ferian; you can also call me Leo.”

“Ok Leo.”

Leonardo Ferian slowly stood up being supported by Ryan; he was a rather tall youth, slightly taller than even Richard. His hair was blonde, eyes were blue and his facial structure was sharp. Even though he was bleeding you could see that he was extremely handsome except his sharp features made him feel mature and manly.

“Seeing that you have that second name and the colour of your hair and eyes you should be from the Ferian Ancient Clan.” Out of the blue Richard randomly spoke, his voice though directed at Leo he was not really bothered to look at him.

“Yes I am, Sir.” Leo facing Richard was quite respectful towards him mainly because of two reasons, first he had been saved and second he was a Sage. However, Leo was an arrogant person deep inside and would not even give a low level Sage any respect since he was a member of the Ferian Ancient Clan. He believed that Richard was a low level Sage that specialised in speed.

Richard looked at Leo, easily able to discern the arrogance deep inside him but wasn’t too bothered.

“Who is the Ferian Ancient Clan?” Ryan asked Richard.

Hearing this Leo who was seated at the side looked at Ryan with an unnatural expression, was this boy raised in the wilderness his whole life? Having these thoughts was natural for Leo, as the Ferian Ancient Clan was known to every citizen on the continent.

“The Ferian Ancient Clan, one of the Five Ancient clans descended from the Five Ancient Ancestors from the time of the Dark War of Ancients.”

“They’re from that time?!!” Ryan exclaimed.

Although Ryan had lived all his life as a beggar, even he knew the history of this continent. There was a period of time when the Continent was in a great war that spanned across the entire continent. It was not a battle against outsiders but an internal war.

It was a battle between the Great Dawnseal Empire on one side against every other power on the continent including the Five Ancient ancestors.

The Dawnseal Empire was the most powerful, yet also considered most sinister empire on the face of this continent and even throughout all history. They were several hundred years ahead of the other empires in technology and had countless Sages under their command, ruling the continent for countless millennia’s.

However, one day they fell without any warning, taking this chance the powers on the continent took this chance to assault the Royal Dawnseal clan. Even though the Dawnseal clan were weakened by a great deal with many Sages dead, they held out for 10 days before they were destroyed by the combined force of their enemies and their Royal clan were completely exterminated.

“If you’re from one of the five ancients clans, why did they not fear you?” Ryan asked Leo.

Leo was at a loss, he didn’t really want to give the real reason as it was far too humiliating to him and the clan’s image.

“He’s a cripple,” said Richard.

The one that was spoken to, Leo, his eyes bulged as if it was about to fall out: “What, why are you spurting nonsense?!” Leo shouted feeling humiliated.

Even though Leo felt like this Richard could not careless and carried on speaking at his own pace, his tone oblivious to the expression on Leo’s face: “If you’re from the Ferian Ancient Clan, there’s no reason that you’d be all the way in this small kingdom and furthermore in this city where the resources are practically nonexistent.”

“Most of the members of your younger generation at your age have at least entered the Sage transformation realm, yet you seem to have not.”

“Furthermore the energy around your body is in complete chaos so you must have been at the Sage Transformation realm at one point; from there it’s pretty easy to deduce that you’re a cripple. I mean why else would you have left the clan or to be more precise you got kicked out.”

Leo was stunned, he tried saying something in protest, but the words would not leave him, in the end he could only sigh weakly.