‘Do you want to come with me?’
Those words echoed in Caine’s mind as he tried to process them. Countless questions arose within him, but the one there was one that stood out the most.
‘Why is he helping me?’
A myriad of thoughts and emotions swirled in his mind, each and every one making his face contort in a new expression, with confusion ever present in his eyes.
“Are you alright, Caine?” He asked, with concern sculpted on his face.
“Yes, sorry, I was… taken aback. I wasn’t expecting you to say that, Oliver.”
“Of course, yeah. I just don’t want you to be alone now. I’m worried about you, and I’d like you to stay with me for the time being,”
That answer, confused Caine even more, they had met for not even an entire day, and Oliver already seemed to be extremely mindful of Caine, not to mention quite protective.
When they walked through to Arzamac, whenever the villagers would murmur and glance at Caine, Oliver would raise his pressure so that they would freeze and stay silent, diverting their gazes, and now he wanted the two of them to remain together.
“Why?” Caine asked, his voice slightly trembling. “Why do you want to help me?”
“My brother’s son.” Oliver said, his voice conveying an indescribable pain. “He was angry at everything, his father, my brother was killed, and he wanted revenge.”
Oliver paused, looking up at the sky, his face extremely bright as he was basking in the suns’ sunlight, contradicting the dark expression he wore.
“I tried to stop him, but I was barely an adult myself, and my nephew was actually just a few years younger than me, and I had just lost my brother as well. I was lost in my own grief, and I didn’t try hard enough to stop him, and then… he was killed as well. And it was my fault. I was weak. He was weak as well. We all were.”
“I’m sorry, Oliver.” Caine told him not knowing what else he could say. Maybe they were more similar than he realised, both of them were broken through grief.
Oliver seemed to have lost the strength to look after his family, whereas Caine could not feel anything other than a seemingly endless emptiness that almost completely hid the rage he felt.
The man looked down on the child, whereas the boy looked up at the man and despite the difference in stature and strength, they both pitied the other with a sense of closeness growing between them.
“Oliver, I appreciate everything you have done, but I am not your nephew, I will have my revenge, so don’t expect me to give up on that.” Caine told him firmly, after building the courage to be stern with him.
“I know.” Oliver smiled softly at him, squatting down so that they were at eye level. “I can see it in your eyes, you will never stop until one of the two is dead. I wish you didn’t follow this path, but it’s like I told you. You need to make a decision. I will not control your fate.”
Those words lingered in Caine’s mind for an eternal moment, trying to imagine a life where he could move on from vengeance, but no matter what, he couldn’t. It was something he needed to do. Something he was fated to do.
“I will avenge them.” He told his saviour. “But I do not want to die. Oliver, you are strong, frighteningly so. If I come with you, can you make me strong?”
“I… could.” He replied, warily. “But it is going to be difficult… and painful. Unimaginably so. Are you sure you want that?”
“Yes.” Caine replied instantly, never surer of anything in his life.
“Perfect. Just let me think about how to do this. I never had a student.”
The two resumed walking, a comfortable silence between them. Caine wore an empty expression, but there was a faint glimpse of light in his eyes. His heart raced at the thought of being his student, of being the student of the strongest.
Suddenly, a rabbit jumped out in front of them, stopping in its tracks and looking at the two looming figures. The man, the boy, and the rabbit were completely frozen, staring at each other, waiting for one of them to move first.
Oliver took a step forward, and the rabbit dashed into the trees to their left before completely disappearing, hidden away in the tall grass. Caine stared at Oliver, confused as to what had just happened: it was only a rabbit, but the atmosphere was strange, and he was not sure if he was supposed to move.
“Well, Caine, I more or less figured out how to start your training.” His grin widened, turning creepy as he stared at the young boy, making him take a step back, and prompting Oliver to walk towards him until Caine was with his back stuck on a tree.
“What do you know about magic?” Oliver asked him. Caine was confused as to why he asked him, given that he had looked into his memories, and he should be already aware of what the boy knew. Nevertheless, he ignored that and thought about his answer.
“I don’t know much, but from what I was told, some people develop a mana core that they use to gather and store mana which they can use to cast spells or augment themselves. The spells can vary depending on their affinity, but the most common types of mana are water, earth, fire, and air.”
“That’s right.” Oliver replied. “But there’s a bit more than that. Mana itself does not have an element, there’s no such thing as water mana or air mana, it’s the spell that can change it into one of the elements. How many elements do you think there are?”
“I was told there are seven.” Caine answered.
“No, there are twelve as far as I know, but there could be more, it just may be that they haven’t been discovered.”
Caine looked at him with a puzzled expression. The concept of there being an endless number of elements was foreign to him, and not just him; this idea was not something that would be known in the entire world, but those words coming from Oliver made them seem reliable, as if it was common knowledge, and Caine couldn’t help but believe it.
“Now, I see you already have a mana core, that’s surprising considering you’re so young, so we can skip forming one.” Oliver told him.
“I… don’t have a mana core.” Caine told him, confused.
“You should have one, I mean you already used mana.” He explained, puzzled by the boy’s confusion.
After taking a deep breath, he thought about the last few hours, trying to recall any point where he might have used magic, but was unsuccessful. While he had managed to feel mana’s presence, he failed miserably in creating a spell when he was attacked by the winged wolves.
Still confused, he stared at Oliver, who was in turn smiling back at him with a curious look, like a man staring at a puppy.
“Caine. We met in The Forest. At night.” He told him, his tone amused. “It was extremely dark, there was barely any light, the moonlight was nowhere in sight. Aren’t you curious as to how you did that?”
Silence followed his words, and Caine stared at him with a blank expression.
The previous confusion he felt vanished instantly, and he thought about the last night, about how scared he was, how he ran and before he realised it, he was already so deep in that hellish place forgotten by the Gods. He closed his eyes and tried to feel the presence of mana in the air, sensing it, although barely.
“Oliver, when I was in The Forest, I felt mana, it was so strong and everywhere around me, did I form my mana core there?” Caine asked him.
“Probably, given everything that happened, you created one thanks to the mana density there and probably because of your mother.”
“My… mother?”
“Yes, I saw in your memories that she was a healer. Using that type of mana requires a good understanding of it, personally, I think healing magic is really difficult to use, anyone who can use it proficiently has to be a genius. You must have inherited some genius from her.”
Caine smiled at his words. For the first time in his life, he heard someone praise his mother for her magic, the people of Arzamac exploited her, but they never had any kind words for her, and for him to hear that his mother was a genius was bittersweet.
He was ecstatic that she was being praised but hated that she was not there to hear it.
Oliver held out his hand, a bright light covering it, and placed it on his chest, and just like the night before, he felt the mana around him, much more clearly this time.
Just as he thought hours before, the mana seemed to try to escape Oliver but was being forcibly pulled to him and being absorbed, constantly, in every part of his body.
Suddenly, the mana began circling in Caine’s tiny body weaving within his muscles, within his organs until it reached his chest, and there he felt a sphere where the mana stopped and disappeared.
His mana core.
A grin escaped him, and he was sure he felt happy deep down, although that emotion was masked by the endless emptiness.
“Oliver, you said you knew how to train me. What do I do?” Caine asked him, eagerly.
“For starters…” Caine leaned forward, excited at the idea of his training. “Go and catch a rabbit.”
Caine blinked at his words, his smile slowly fading, replaced by a blank expression.
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Oliver, on the other hand, held his hand out, materialising a black dagger out of thin air, and put it in Caine’s hand, who was still staring at him.
“Go on then, the rabbit is not going to catch itself.”
Caine let out the breath he was subconsciously holding, and after a deep sigh, he walked back to where they had first seen the rabbit, cursing to himself.
If there was one rabbit, there were bound to be more, and he was betting on that possibility, otherwise finding a rabbit would become as difficult as… finding a rabbit in a forest.
Caine chuckled to himself as he thought that, and inspected the ground, searching for any tracks a rabbit may have left behind.
After a thorough and, mostly useless, search of the ground, he finally managed to find some tracks, the long grass was caved in in a certain rhythmic pattern, as if something was hopping on the grass.
A smile crept up on the boy’s face as he followed the tracks with the black knife in hand, and his smile turned into a grin when he found tracks of multiple rabbits on the grass, joining the one he originally found.
Caine was careful as he walked, trying to make his steps as nimble and silent as possible, carefully inspecting the ground in front of him to ensure he would not step on anything that may create a noise that could startle the colony of rabbits, and then hid behind a tree as he saw a rabbit.
Its dirty white fur and red eyes stood out in the green grass as it looked at its colony, constantly scouting its surroundings for any danger. Caine leaned forward to get a better look at his prey, when it stared back at him.
Suddenly, more than fifteen rabbits scattered, each running in a different direction, and Caine jumped out of his hiding spot, and broke out in a run, chasing after the rabbit closest to him.
To his surprise, the rabbit was fast, much faster than he expected, and for a few seconds, Caine was actually lagging behind, struggling to keep up, but soon managed to catch up to it, and as he did, he threw himself to the ground, trying to stab it with his dagger.
Unfortunately, the rabbit escaped from his grasp, and the blade stabbed the ground, digging surprisingly deep into it; the rabbit stopped a few steps in front of Caine, who was now lying on the ground, his face and clothes getting dirty, and stared at the boy, almost mockingly as it tilted its head slightly.
The boy rushed to stand up and lunged at the rabbit, who broke out in another sprint. Caine chased after it, but rather than lunging onto it when he had the opportunity, he continued to chase after it, waiting for it to slow down.
As he ran, he focused on the air around him, feeling the slight presence of mana, and tried to absorb it, unsuccessfully. Instead, he felt the mana he had already gathered subconsciously in his mana core and tried to bring it forth.
A sudden surge of energy overflowed from Caine’s core, and he felt his body become much stronger, each step he took felt lighter and more powerful, and the moment he noticed the rabbit slowing down, he lunged to it once again, throwing himself onto the ground.
This time, the knife dug into the rabbit’s flesh, and as he pulled it out, blood spurted out of the wound, and the rabbit fell to the ground after taking a few, slow steps forward.
Caine screamed out as he rejoiced in his victory, and threw himself back on the ground, lying on his back and looking up, staring at the tree branches. He then brought himself to his feet, and grabbed the rabbit, by its neck, staring into its lifeless red eyes.
In his glory at having killed the tiny beast, Caine had not even realised that he had killed it, a life had ended, and he was the cause of it.
The sudden realisation of it left him confused: on the one hand, he was happy he managed to hunt the animal by himself, but on the other hand, he pitied its end; the beasts did nothing to him, the only reason he killed it was that he was stronger than it.
How was he any different than Saintsworth?
He shook his head, ignoring the creeping guilt and shoving it deep down in his mind, hiding it deep within.
He grabbed the rabbit by the scruff of its neck and turned around, wanting to go back to Oliver and showcase his kill, but when he looked around, he only saw trees. Trees everywhere, just like last night.
His eyes darted everywhere, scanning his surroundings and wanting to find a way back, but his entire body was frozen; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t. An insurmountable pressure overcame him as his chest tightened and his vision went blurry.
His knees buckled, and the boy fell as his vision quickly darkened, with his consciousness slipping from his grasp.
***
The woods were silent, countless animals lived peacefully as they all fought each day to survive, hunting, running away to avoid being hunted, but simply living as nature intended them to do.
In the middle of all this, a boy laid down on the soft ground, sleeping with a grim expression on his face. Every once in a while, a squirrel would climb on top of him, lying on top of his face and then scurrying away as the boy twitched.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, an endless green sea appearing in front of his eyes as he looked at the trees; he slowly got up, groaning as he did, trying to shake off the throbbing headache he was feeling.
Flames crackled behind him, and he saw Oliver sitting on a log he used as a seat in front of him stood a small campfire, unnaturally hot for how small it was, and the man was cooking a rabbit’s leg, with a serene smile on his face.
“Hi, Princess, nice of you to wake up.” Oliver laughed.
“What happened?” Oliver asked him, still fighting off the headache.
“Another panic attack, you passed out. Probably not my best idea to send you off in the woods, hunting alone.”
A comfortable silence lingered between them, as Caine became angry at himself at his weakness; no danger was present, on the contrary, for once Caine was the danger, he was the hunter, and he still couldn’t control himself.
His face grimaced and Oliver walked over to him, putting a rabbit’s leg in his hand. The boy stared at it for a moment with a somber expression on his face before biting onto it; his face contorted as he ate and fought the urge to spit out the food.
The rabbit they had eaten earlier, did not taste like that, or perhaps Caine was too focused on his parents to even think about the taste of the food he ate.
“Sorry, I know it tastes like rubber, I’m not the best cook.” Oliver confessed.
The meat was chewy, strangely so, it was overcooked and flavourless but Caine couldn’t help but laugh at it, making Oliver slightly redden; he was glad to know that there were things that even the mighty Oliver was not good at, and for a moment, he forgot about his panic attack, before the memory of it came crushing back into his mind like an avalanche.
He clenched his fist, and began chewing the rabbit’s meat much more aggressively, partly out of anger, and partly due to how hard it was to eat, before looking at Oliver, a growing sense of determination visible in his eyes.
“Oliver, what’s next for training?” He asked.
“Nothing for now, I will have you hunt for our meal while I go with you, but no cheating this time, so don’t use mana. Don’t try to gather mana for now.”
Caine stared at him, his eyes wide open and his mouth agape, trying to process what he just said.
“Don’t I need to learn how to use mana? I already have a core, shouldn’t I try to get better at using mana?”
“Valid questions.” Oliver applauded him. “But no. This will all make more sense when we officially start your training.”
“Can you explain a bit more?” Caine asked, still confused.
“Oh, yes, of course. We are going to reach some village, somewhere secluded and quiet, and when we’re there, I’m going to destroy your core.”
The woods grew silent, only a gentle breeze was between them, and the two stared at the other.
“You… want to destroy my core?” Caine, asked, instinctively taking a step back. “Why?”
“Ah, sorry, I still didn’t explain myself properly, sorry. I’ll destroy your core, shattering it into tiny fragments that I’ll guide to create paths that connect throughout your entire body, weaving between all your muscles.”
Caine listened attentively, utterly shocked at his words.
To destroy a mana core to make someone strong… was simply unheard of. But then again, someone as strong as Oliver was also something Caine never expected, which made his declaration carry a certain weight.
“Generally, to gather mana, you need to be completely still since you need to guide it into your core, but with this method, you will be able to absorb instantly and continuously. You won’t be able to store it in your core, but you can absorb it every second of every day.”
Crazy.
That was the one word that was stuck in Caine’s mind.
Oliver had just told him that he would destroy his core and create a new entire magic system for Caine; while Oliver was strong, stronger than what could be conceivable, this method was far too unrealistic.
But the way Oliver had spoken about it as if it was the most rational course of action which made it strangely easy to trust him, and Caine had already made that choice.
Despite everything that happened, Caine trusted Oliver completely. Maybe he shouldn’t, but he did, and if what Oliver told him about his illness was true, he was prepared to listen to everything his saviour told him, to learn everything he could from him.
“Is it even possible to absorb mana while moving?” Caine asked him.
“For humans, no. A mana core is formed during teenage years, at that point it has been ingrained in their mind that one needs to be completely still to absorb mana, but you’re young enough to unlearn that. To be so young, and to have a mana core, it is rare. And with the mana channels I will create, absorbing mana will be infinitely easier.”
For some reason, Caine thought that Oliver was… intrigued. His eyes seemed to carry a hint of excitement at teaching Caine, although they were still carrying a myriad of emotions Caine did not know.
Oliver finished eating his portion, and got up, stretching his legs, making Caine hurry to finish his own portion, although struggling to do so, considering how tough the meat was. Oliver held out his hand over the fire, and a stream of water came out of it, putting out the fire, although it had produced no smoke strangely enough.
The two walked out of the woods until they reached the path they were on originally, and they followed it, walking aimlessly, to a place both people had not been to.
Hours passed, with the two walking in comfortable silence, with Caine sometimes asking Oliver questions about his training, which he never really got a clear answer on, only vague answers about absorbing mana.
The sky turned a beautiful crimson colour as the first sun began to set, and luckily the two reached another village, Lian.
The village, or rather town, was bigger than Arzamac, all the buildings were made of stone rather than thatch and wood. As they roamed its street, everyone spared them a quick glance and then continued with their life, and Caine felt content with this: for once, people did not seem to hate him for merely existing.
They roamed aimlessly, and suddenly stopped at the same time, as both came to the realisation that they were walking in circles. Oliver stepped out, approaching a passerby, and then gestured at Caine to follow him, his gait now purposeful.
They reached a tall building, more than five stories tall, and then walked in; Oliver had opened the door, which was lighter than he expected, or perhaps he used more strength than he intended, causing one of the wooden doors to come off its hinges.
The inside was clean and simple, it was crowded, almost uncomfortably so, and everyone turned to look at the two new guests.
The people there seemed… rough. It was full of people wearing armour - both leather and metal - and they all carried a weapon, grabbing it at the ruckus made by Oliver.
They had entered a guild, and it was full of adventurers.
He turned to Caine, with an apologetic smile, and gently pushed him to stand behind him, putting his arm between the child and the adventurers, ready to protect him should the need arise.
“Sorry, I’ll get that fixed.” He laughed, although no one else seemed to find any humour in what just happened as they all stared at him with a threatening look.
“For the troubles, the next round is on me.”
The guild was silent and suddenly, laughter erupted from everyone, as they all raised their cups, cheering for Oliver, and the previously tense atmosphere had instantly vanished, with people slapping Oliver’s back as he walked by or ruffling Caine’s hair.
They stood before a brown-haired woman sitting behind a nearly broken-down wooden desk, who smiled at the two, although her eyes looked eerily serious, with a hint of annoyance hidden behind them as she glanced at the wooden door still on the floor.
“Hi, can I get one bedroom for the night, two beds?” Oliver asked, wearing a charming smile.
“That will be five silvers.” She replied, unimpressed.
Golden sparks appeared on his hand, and a pouch appeared, similar to the one Caine carried in his father’s bag. He reached inside the pouch, first placing his fingers in there, then his hand, and then his entire arm, all of it being swallowed in the small pouch, leaving the woman and the boy with a shocked expression.
“For the drinks as well, it should cover it.” He placed three gold coins on the desk.
The woman scooped up the coins, placing them in a safety box under the desk and handed Oliver one of the many keys hanging on the wall behind her.
“Up the stairs, first floor, third door on the left. Enjoy your stay.”
Caine looked at her curiously, her eyes had completely changed, the malice he saw behind them was gone, and there seemed to be a hint of greed behind them.
The two walked up the stairs, ignoring the creaking that each of their steps caused, and found their room, a rather simple room, with two small beds, a desk, and bathroom in it.
Caine went to the smaller of the beds and let himself fall on it; the bed was thin, stained, and smelled badly, completely different from how the building looked, but he found it extremely comfortable, sinking into it, and before he realised, he fell asleep.