Aaron remembered his duel against Isaac the other day. Isaac had launched him into the air, and he hadn’t been able to break his fall with magic.

“I’m a wind mage. How could I lose control of my body in mid-air?”

He wanted to prevent that from happening again.

The young wind mage was in a white training room underneath the manor. Aaron stood on a platform next to a long drop where a blue mattress awaited.

He stepped off.

*Wooosh*

Aaron applied everything he knew about wind magic and did what he judged right.

But, in the end, he started spinning around again.

He continued falling as his speed increased drastically.

There was no stopping it.

The mattress proved useless. Aaron’s horizontal velocity was too high, so he dropped farther away from it.

“Argh! Dammit! I failed.” Aaron lay on the ground with a broken hand.

“It’s fine! I’ll go at it again until I learn how to do it.”

…

Everyone in the manor trained rigorously.

While Aaron mostly did so by himself, Isaac Tremblay and Gabriella Rivampe fought at the arena.

Isaac had gotten very good at dual-wielding red and electricity magic. He could use one in each hand or alternate between them freely if he needed to provide more power.

Gabriella got even quicker on her feet and in the air as well. She could easily alternate from running to flying in order to dodge Isaac’s attack.

Knowing this, Isaac combined his two hands and unleashed an area-of-effect attack against Gabriella. His front got covered by a ray of electricity and red magic. The air crackled.

Suddenly, Grabiella became blurry.

“Hey, Isaac!” she swiftly arrived behind him, too fast for his eyes to catch up.

…

Ejiro Sani also trained. He fought against his master, Seth Rayn.

Ejiro wanted to keep his promise to his friends that had died in combat during the war not a week ago. He was the last of his master’s older students.

The 34-year-old expert-rank magician had promised to become a master-rank magician one day, so he needed to practise against the best.

They were in the manor’s backyard, the forest.

The master stood firmly in front of his student.

They both stared at each other for a while, waiting for an opening.

Seth plunged his staff to the ground, and its shadow grew unusually tall. Shadows surged all around Ejiro.

They grew closer and closer to him.

But, Ejiro wouldn’t let that happen.

Tall wings appeared behind his back. One of his eyes turned black, and the other glowed like a sun.

He flew above ground, above the trees, into the sky. The master’s shadows couldn’t reach him anymore, and the light he emitted assured this.

“Ha! You can’t get me up here!”

Seth Rayn was very secretive about his powers. Even his oldest surviving student barely knew anything.

The old magician appeared in mid-air, walked toward Ejiro without him realizing, and struck him with his staff.

“Ouch!”

…

September 1st, 2220.

"How's your training going?" asked Aaron.

Isaac responded. "Pretty well. I'd be ready to participate in a tournament."

Aaron looked at the posters in the hallway. "The Junior League begins next month."

"Yeah, but I want to fight against older people. What will I get from beating up a bunch of kids our age? Have you seen the ones at our orphanage? I could beat them anytime, and they’re called prodigies."

"I'm sure there are other young magicians as good as us out there-"

“Huh?” Aaron caught a glimpse of two people in the backyard near the pond.

Isaac looked through the window.

Ejiro and Gabriella were walking together.

“What’s Gab doing with Ejiro?”

Later that day, Ejiro visited Seth Rayn’s office room. Ejiro sat in front of him on a leather chair.

“I talked to Gabriella, and my suspicions were true.”

Seth Rayn raised his eyebrows. “What suspicions?”

“We know who her mother was. Arthea turned me into a vampire, after all. But I always wondered: what about her father?”

“So, what did you find?”

He carefully placed a picture of a tall, muscular man on the desk. “Her father is one of the Five Cursed, the rulers of the Obscure Guild!”

“Well, that’s interesting.”

Seth took a deep breath. “Prepare to leave. We have some investigation out in the south to do.”

Becoming a master-rank mage wasn’t just a matter of strength. He needed to do something big as well.

This opportunity, Ejiro couldn’t miss it.

He grinned. “Yes, master!”

Ejiro left the room with a broad smile without realizing someone had spied on them.

Isaac hid near the door, confused, frozen, and shocked.