"I finally found it!" I exclaimed with almost palpable excitement as I tightly clutched a weird-looking root full of thorny protrusions that I had just extracted from the rocky outcrop in front of me.

I had spent almost half a day trying to locate this little bugger until I finally found it with the help of my magic sense a few moments ago.

I climbed down from the outcrop back to the even ground as the sun relentlessly shone down upon me. I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I looked around, trying to find the best way back to the city.

It had now been several months since the unfortunate encounter with the group of hunters in the city's forest. The summer arrived, and I sweated profoundly under the sun's relentless onslaught.

In light of recent events, I decided to abandon my slow and steady approach to magic learning, and I'm ready to embrace more risks if they allow me to progress much faster.

I also figured out that my best chance would be to befriend Theo. He comes from a family of low-ranking nobles, so he can teach me more about magic than anyone else in the city that I know of.

And since he is only the second son of a Baronet, a non-hereditary title, his status is not that much higher than mine. That means I can interact with him without any obstacles.

This is why, in order to get closer to him, I decided to gather every alchemical ingredient I could find in the countryside around the city so that I had a valid reason to meet with him on a regular basis and could ask him questions about magic without him getting suspicious.

However, I very quickly realized that almost none of them could be found in the city's forest. That is why I started to venture further and further out of the city in search of these ingredients.

I was now in what was called Jagged Rocks by the locals. It was a barren landscape full of treacherous cliffs and deep ravines south of the city. The whole area was unsuitable for agriculture, so the few pieces of flat terrain were mostly used as pastures for livestock.

Having finished today's hunt, I was now happily strolling back to the city. I, of course, dutifully scanned the surrounding area with my magic sense every few hundred meters to avoid any animals or monsters along the way.

As this was a reality and not some sort of game, killing things didn't give me any obvious benefits, such as experience points, so there was no reason for me to go out of my way to hunt them. Of course, the corpses had some value, but sadly, I had no way of transporting them back to the city.

Besides, this tiny root, which was now safely tucked away inside my satchel, was several times more valuable than any monster's corpse I could hunt in these parts.

I arrived back in the city safely in the middle of the afternoon, and as there were still several hours of daylight left, I quickly composed a message to Theo, requesting another meeting. I couldn't help but smile as I handed my letter to the errand boy, imagining what kind of precious knowledge I would be able to pry from him this time.

During our recent encounters, I learned so many new things about Alchemy and, more importantly, about Magic that I didn't know before. Theo was at first taken aback by my sudden interest in such topics but then came to regard it with amusement as a child's curiosity and answered all my questions without reservation.

I learned, among other things, that every human has some amount of essence in their bodies, but only those with a talent could control it. It is said that only one in ten people have the talent, but most of them never find out about it.

That is because only those with the strongest talent would manifest their powers on their own. And such talent is very rare—around one in ten thousand people has it. That means the only way for everyone else to find out if they have the talent or not is to get tested by a master mage.

And as only nobles test all their descendants since it is apparently very expensive to do so, most commoners never discover they have the talent to be mages in the first place. But that itself doesn't explain the Nobles' total monopoly on magic; it has something to do with bloodlines.

Sadly, Theo didn't have the time to explain it to me previously. So being full of eager anticipation about today's meeting, I hurried through the streets as the evening began to descend on Ereneth. For some strange reason, we always met at the same inn in the Southern District, which has now become our regular spot.

'Theo must be really fond of that place...' I chuckled to myself as I walked through one of the back alleys I often used as a shortcut. But then I became alert as I sensed some movement in front of me.

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And sure enough, as I turned a corner, I came face-to-face with a group of men. No, they are not adults. I corrected myself when I got a better look at them—they were just a group of boys a few years older than me.

'What do they want with me?' I wondered with a puzzled face as I was forced to stop in front of them. Soon, a chubby-looking boy in the middle comes forth with a smug grin plastered across his face.

"Well, well, if it isn't the lowly apprentice Darian," he sneered, his voice dripping with disdain.

'Huh? He knows who I am. Wait... is this some sort of ambush?' I immediately activated my magic sense at full power, scanning the whole alley for any signs of more hidden ambushers, but luckily there were none.

There was only Chubby and his entourage of lackeys that stood behind him, their eyes overflowing with malice. Hmm, now that I've had a chance to have a proper look at him, he seems somewhat familiar...

'Oh, right, I know who he is!' I widened my eyes in sudden realization. He was the son of one of the most prominent merchants in the Southern Quarter. We even met briefly at Konrad's wedding, although I never bothered to remember his name.

But that made this whole situation even more confusing than it already was. However, I don't have the time to ponder such things right now, or else I will be late for my meeting. So I looked at him evenly and simply asked, "What do you want from me?"

"Haha! You're quite brave. I thought you would be already shitting your pants by now..." He smirked at me before continuing,

"We came here to teach you a lesson. A poor peasant like you has no business meeting with Miss Myra. I was hoping the letter with my concerns about her well-being I wrote to her father would be enough, but you're still persisting..."

"So it was you all along?" I said as my eyes turned cold. Now that I think about it some more, it really didn't make much sense for Myra's father to act like this out of the blue, as he allowed our relationship all those years, but if someone from high society pressured him... I chuckled, as it now all makes perfect sense to me.

"What are you laughing at?" One of the boys exclaimed angrily.

"Oh, nothing..." I smirked at them. 'I just couldn't have imagined that my resolve not to kill mindlessly would be put to a test so soon...'

"Well, seeing that you act like this in front of your betters... we have no choice but to beat your arrogance out of you so that you know your place," Chubby said before he signaled for the other boys to come at me. They smiled viciously at me as they raised their wooden sticks, trying to surround me.

I simply stood there in the middle of the alley, unmoving, as I wasn't at all concerned about their feeble attempts to intimidate me. If I wanted, I could kill them all within a blink of an eye. The more important question was, Should I?

Although I couldn't stand his arrogant behavior, Chubby wasn't some random beast hunter. His father was rich and powerful... If I killed his son, he wouldn't spare any resources in finding his killer, bringing me even more trouble...

'Maybe I could just give them a good scare...' I thought amusingly, as the first boy was already throwing himself at me. I ducked and threw a punch at him. I, of course, wouldn't fight with my fists like some common rabble; they were there just to mask what happened next...

I created a shock wave in front of my fist directed at his arm right before the supposed impact. What followed was a satisfying crunch as his arm twisted at an unnatural angle before the boy crumbled to the ground. 'Hmm, maybe I overdid it a little, but he got what he deserved...'

I quickly dispatched the other four in the same manner, without giving them a chance to grasp what was happening. Seeing that all his lackeys were now lying unconscious on the ground, Chubby's high and mighty demeanor quickly dissipated, being replaced by intense fear.

He widened his eyes, struggling to realize what just happened, but then he hurriedly turned around and tried to run away. I chuckled at such cowardice, but what would you expect from a pampered merchant's son?

He only managed to make it a few meters across the alley before the ground in front of him turned soft, making him trip. As he lay sprawled on the ground, trying to figure out what had just happened, I slowly walked up to him while brandishing my old, trusty hunting knife.

"S...Stay back! I...I will tell my father about this!" He stammered

I just smiled at him as I crouched down next to him. He was so paralyzed by fear that he couldn't even move.

"Do you know what we did to such fat pigs back in the village?" I said this as I positioned the cold blade right under his chin. "We hung them up by the legs and sliced them open..."

Suddenly, the air was permeated by the sharp smell of urine as his bladder gave up. "Pl...Please don't kill me... I'll do whatever you want!"

I snickered at the sight of this brat, who was acting so arrogant just a short while ago, pleading for his life like that. I looked at him for a moment, reveling in my revenge, before I released a sigh as I relented.

"You're lucky... I will let you go today, but if you dare to cross my path ever again, I will butcher you like the pig you are... Is that clear?"

He hurriedly nodded before trying to stand up, but at that moment, the air around him grew heavy, immobilizing him. "What's the hurry? You think I will let you go just like that?" I then moved the knife closer to his face.

"I will give you something to remember me by so that you won't forget your words," I said, grinning mischievously. I then made a deep cut across his face, making sure that it would leave behind a nasty-looking scar. 'Good luck trying to woo Myra looking like that.'

He stopped screaming somewhere in the middle of it as he fainted from the combination of fear and pain. I manipulated the air around us in advance, creating a thin layer of vacuum so that no sound would escape.

Happy with my handiwork, I then simply stood up and quickly exited the alley. 'I hope I'm not too late for my meeting...'