The bed was comfortable, the pillow was nothing like he had ever laid his head on, and the boy woke up feeling fully rested… or at least, he wished that was true.

After the first few minutes, the bed sunk onto the frame, digging in his back, and the pillow smelled. He could see spiderwebs in the corners, reminding him of the monster he almost faced in The Forest that used his mother’s voice.

“Caine, you have a good rest, I will sleep outside.” Oliver told him.

Caine stood up, groaning as he did, and massaging his lower back.

“Why, there’s a bed right there. It’s not exactly the highest of comforts, but it will do.”

Oliver laughed and sat on the bed opposite him, and then stood up just as quickly as he sat, looking at the bed, and sighing,

“I think we’ve been scammed; this is not a bed.” He said, annoyed. “I’m not really much of a sleeper, I think I’ll go walk around and explore, see if I can find something interesting.”

Oliver was an adult, and a strong one at that, so Caine was not worried about him, but he was worried about what would happen if someone tried to attack him; any aggressor would just cease to exist, and considering what he saw in The Forest, should Oliver ever need to swing a sword, the town would just disappear, there would be nothing left but destruction.

Nevertheless, while Caine was not worried about the remote possibility of this happening, he knew full well that a mere glance from Oliver would make anyone reconsider even approaching him, and so Oliver left, leaving Caine alone in the bedroom, and after nearly an hour, he managed to fall asleep.

Unfortunately for him, his sleep was riddled with nightmares; Sir Saintsworth appeared in his sleep, taunting him, chasing him, and when he finally reached him, ready to kill him, Caine woke up, finding himself drenched in sweat.

His breathing was heavy and restless, and it took him some time to actually calm down, finding solace in one sentence.

‘Pain can make me strong’.

What Oliver had told him stuck with Caine, whenever he felt like he was losing control of himself, surrendering himself to the emotional pain that was constantly brushing against him, this sentence calmed him down.

If he was suffering, he could become stronger, and maybe - one day- he could be a fraction as strong as Oliver, and then there would be nothing that could stop him, and there would be no one that could stand in his way.

He repeated those words, sitting upright, until he calmed himself down, and then jumped off the sorry excuse of a bed, content with himself.

He walked to the bathroom, and his jaw dropped. For the first time in his life, he saw what the rest of the world used to clean themselves. He did not need to find a river and wash himself there, fighting the cold, and having to spend time to find a secluded place.

Here he could enter the tub, stand comfortable and turn the lever, and as he tried it, the mana stone stuck in the wall glowed, and a comfortable jet of warm water fell from the ceiling, connected to the mana stone. It was exactly like his mother had told him.

He put his hand under the stream of water and decided to take a shower right then, after which he felt refreshed, his aching body felt rejuvenated, and a lot of the pressure he felt washed away with all the dirt.

As he left the bathroom, after dressing himself, he found Oliver standing in front of the window, staring out of it with a serene look on his face; without turning around, Oliver spoke to him.

“Enjoyed your shower?”

“Yes, first time I had one like this.” Caine replied, still feeling his body warm.

“Yeah I can imagine, I did not think there would be any here. I got you some clothes.”

Caine looked at his bed, and saw some simple clothes, and quickly took off the ones he was wearing, and put on the new ones. It was a simple, black tunic, the hem reaching his waist, and a pair of black trousers.

Oliver had also bought him some leather boots, that fit him perfectly, almost as if they were tailored especially for him; Caine walked beside Oliver, watching out of the window - or at least trying to, considering he was barely tall enough to reach the window - and let his mind go blank, trying not to worry or think about anything.

“You know, Caine, this place is not too bad. Lian is peaceful, but I don’t want to stay here. Is that okay for you?” Oliver asked him.

“Yes, I know this is temporary. You want to go somewhere near a mountain, right?”

“Yes.” Oliver replied, with a hint of longing in his voice.

“Why a mountain?” Caine asked him, after letting a few seconds linger between them.

“When I was young, where I used to live, my family would go hiking on

the mountains… It feels like home.”

The words weighed heavily in the room; for the first time, Caine saw his saviour almost be hurt. His tone, the look in his eyes, even the way he slouched his broad shoulders, a deep pain was clear in him, and Caine knew this.

“Can’t you go home?” Caine asked him, hesitantly.

Oliver turned around facing Caine and placed his hand on his shoulder.

“No… I can’t.” He said solemnly before his stoic face changed into a bright smile. “But that’s okay. I can find peace here, and if I were to go home, I wouldn’t see you as much.”

Oliver walked out of the room, and Caine followed closely behind, and after dropping off the keys at the entrance, the two of them left, both dressed completely in black.

Oliver now walked purposefully and soon they had left Lian behind, following towards something unknown to Caine; Oliver somehow knew exactly where to go, he had told Caine he found ‘the perfect mountain’ - whatever that meant - and it was around twelve days away from them.

Oliver was in charge of ensuring that they stayed on the right path and, sadly, of cooking, whereas Caine was in charge of hiding. Every day, he would go hunting, brandishing the knife Oliver had given him, and look for any prey.

Usually, he would look for rabbits and he had gotten pretty good at hunting them even without using mana; once he had even found a deer, although he did not kill it, he did manage to wound it, although it still had managed to get away.

Nevertheless, Caine was happy with that, despite how fast it was, Caine almost killed it, and he was content with how good he was getting at silently stalking his prey and attacking them before they even realised it.

Sadly, despite all his hard work at hunting, his meals had never improved; Oliver may have been ridiculously strong, but he was a lousy cook, and Caine was even an even worse cook as they painfully discovered on their second day of travel.

Despite being so powerful, even Oliver felt weak, with his stomach in constant pain for a few hours after eating the rabbit Caine cooked.

Four days later, they had reached another town, Rosail. They had managed to find an inn this time, much cleaner than their room in Lian, and there they had a feast, the food was both flavourful and tender, and the steak they had was perfect, so much so that it had brought Oliver to tears.

Caine laughed at the scene, but deep down he wondered what sort of life Oliver had lived; in their days of travel together, Oliver grew even more mysterious, he seemed completely ignorant of the world, he knew nothing of the seven kingdoms, he didn’t even know that they were in the Arman Kingdom.

Caine almost entertained the thought that Oliver himself may be a demonic beast, one simply taking the form of a human, but quickly dismissed the idea: demonic beasts lived for nothing but destruction, and if Oliver truly was one of them, the balance in the world would undoubtably shift, with the demons of The Forest having the upper hand against humanity.

Every single night, Caine would struggle to sleep, always riddled by nightmares, and every morning he would fight against a panic attack, with each of them growing more ferocious every single day, but by the eighth night, he had managed to deal with them pretty well.

‘Pain can make me strong.’

Those words became a mantra for him, reciting them with complete devotion, obsession almost. As long as he said those words, Caine was confident he could handle anything.

While the two of them spent nearly every single waking moment together, they did not speak much, most of the time just walking together in a comfortable silence, but when they did speak, Caine was almost always in awe of him.

Oliver had an impossible understanding of mana, the way he explained his plan to Caine always seemed the main topic of discussion for the two, with Caine always asking him to reexplain his idea to him.

To break his mana core into millions of fragments to redistribute across his body, weaving them across his every muscle, spreading the fragments across his skin, in his ears, eyes, nose… and to then use the mana in the atmosphere to strengthen the fragments to create tunnels, or mana channels as Oliver called them, to be in a state of continuously absorbing mana, it was nothing short of madness. And Caine always made sure to remind Oliver of that.

“There is a thin line between genius and madness,” Oliver would tell him, “And I have a foot on both sides.”

Despite common sense telling Caine not to believe him, he did and listened to every word he said as if they were the words of the Gods. Oliver had told him not to use mana, to not even try to feel its presence or to try to absorb it, and Caine did just that.

In their days of travel, not once had he used mana to strengthen himself, despite being tempted whenever he would unsuccessfully chase a deer, but Oliver had told him not to do it, and so he didn’t, never once questioning him.

Well… maybe questioning once or twice.

Eight days after they left Arzamac, they finally saw the snowy peak of a mountain in the distance, less than five days away. That night, the two were in an especially good mood, nearly having reached their destination.

After they had set camp in a cave they had found, Oliver had left Caine in there by the campfire. The cave was strangely dark, even with the fire it was barely illuminated as if the darkness was feeding on any source of light.

Despite the creepy setting, Caine was not scared even when Oliver had left him by himself after the both of the suns had set. In front of the cave’s entrance, etched in the ground, was Oliver’s great sword.

It stood tall, fighting off the darkness and creating a barrier of light all around the Caine, fighting off the darkness, keeping Caine warm, and somehow keeping him energised; the closer he’d get to the sword, the more energy he would feel overflowing in him.

After not even an hour, Oliver had come back, and sat beside Caine near the campfire.

“This true darkness is annoying, isn’t it?” He commented, before holding is hand out, and materialising two ceramic plates in front of them.

The familiar scent of the steak they had in Rosail filled the cave, and Caine ravaged it as soon as he realised what it was, as did Oliver. They silently ate, and as soon as Caine was done, another steak materialised, and Caine also rushed to devour the second one.

When they were done, they both dropped back, letting themselves drop onto the hard, rocky ground, with the energy from Oliver’s great sword healing them instantly, and before they realised it, they had fallen asleep… or at least, Caine did.

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The next day, they continued their journey towards the mountain, the two of them deciding to cut through a short stretch of woods; Oliver seemed reluctant to walk through there.

They ran across the short stretch, and at times Oliver would disappear from Caine’s sight, almost as if teleporting, and the ground itself would shake, and Oliver would reappear in front of him, with his sword disappearing in a cloud of silver sparks.

When they had left the stretch of woods, they walked for a few more hours until they came across a lake. Caine remained in awe, staring at his own reflection after he had a drink from it; he stared at the water, occasionally he would throw a rock in the lake and watch the ripples distort his reflection.

When he turned around, he saw Oliver cooking some fish over a campfire, and walked over to him.

“Aren’t I the one supposed to hunt? I could have caught some fish.” Caine asked him.

“I guess it was the first you saw a lake. You looked like you enjoyed looking at it, and to be honest, you were staring at it with a big smile, I thought I could hunt and cook this time… and don’t worry, it’s hard to ruin fish.” Oliver handed him a stick with fish on it.

Caine bit into it, and looked at Oliver with a disappointed look, just as Oliver did the same. The two of the sighed and carried on eating, the rubbery, bland, and flavourless fish. Oliver would throw Caine an apologetic look, but he had long come to terms with these unfortunate meals.

As they finished eating, they decided to take a rare day of rest. Oliver had spent the entire afternoon teaching Caine how to swim, and as it turned out, Caine was strangely talented in it.

After a few hours, Caine was nimble, spending more time in the water than out of it, finding comfort in the all-compassing water. When he finally came out of the lake, he approached Oliver, wiping the water off of him, and Oliver raised his hand towards Caine, covering him in a warm energy that quickly dried him off.

Caine put on his trousers, but Oliver stopped him before he could put on his tunic. He rolled up his sleeve, waving his hand on his forearm and revealing a black rune etched into it shaped as a half-moon.

He then waived his hand on it again, the rune vanished, and Oliver then grabbed Caine’s forearm, and waived his hand on it, and the half-moon then was etched into the boy’s arm.

Caine rubbed his forearm, examining the rune; he felt his arm growing hotter and hotter with each passing second, until the pain became almost unbearable, but despite that he managed to keep a straight face and continued to look at the rune, then turning to Oliver, now gritting his teeth.

“You know, when I first got the rune, I couldn’t move for hours. I am continuously healing you, but even then, the pain should be unbearable.” Oliver explained, his eyes full of concern and delighted surprise.

After minutes of mind-numbing pain, the rune turned jet black before disappearing from his arm, and along with it, the pain. He breathed a sigh of relief, and let himself drop to his knees, as his eyes welled up with tears and drool left his mouth.

As Oliver went to help him up, Caine held out his hand, stopping his guardian from helping him, and instead, after taking a few deep breaths with much difficulty, he managed to stand on his two feet, fighting against his trembling legs until they stopped shaking.

“Pain can make me strong.” He repeated to himself.

“Yes… it can.” Oliver spoke solemnly. “Caine, that rune is your first weapon.”

The boy turned from the man to his right arm, staring at it attentively, with an excited, almost obsessed look in his eyes at the thought of his own weapon. The past few days, he had gotten used to using Oliver’s dagger, finding himself more and more at ease with it, and now wanting nothing more than to have a weapon he could call his own.

“What weapon is it?” Caine asked.

“Try to imagine a dagger in your hand.” Oliver simply told him.

Caine did as he was told, imagining the dagger he had gotten so used to using in his hand, and then he felt something materialise in his hand and his eyes brightened at the sight of it; in his hand was a beautiful black dagger, with a series of intricate runes carved into the handle.

“Oliver, it’s the same colour as that… ‘true darkness’ we saw in the cave.”

“You are a quick one, aren’t you.” Oliver smiled at him.

“I just remember you mentioning it. What exactly is it?”

“No point in telling you, True Darkness has a mind hex, if I tell you what it is, you will forget about it. But when you figure it out, you’ll understand it perfectly.”

Oliver’s face turned grim at the thought of True Darkness, Caine had almost seen a hint of fear behind the immense strength behind his deep green eyes; just the thought of Oliver being afraid of something was enough for Caine himself to become extremely wary of this… thing.

“Caine,” Oliver spoke to him, his voice as serious as Caine had ever heard it, “if I’m not around, and you come across True Darkness… run.”

Caine gulped at his words, it was the first time Oliver had been so cold about something; ever since they met, Caine had felt a familiar warmth coming from his saviour, but now… Caine felt nothing but pure coldness.

Caine stared at the knife, inspecting its incredibly sharp blade, and swung it in the air a few times, getting used to its feeling; the dagger was heavier that the one he had been using, although only slightly, but that almost trivial difference made the blade entirely different.

The amount of strength Caine had to use, the angle at which he would need to stab his prey, and even where exactly he needed to hold the black handle of the dagger, it was different, and he realised he needed to learn how to use this blade properly.

“How do I put the dagger away?” Caine asked.

“Just imagine the blade disappearing. It is fairly simple to use, just imagine; your imagination can make the blade even sharper.”

Caine blinked, and the blade vanished from his hand as if it had never been there, leaving behind an almost invisible black spark; the runic half-moon reappeared on Caine’s arm just for a moment before disappearing deep into his arm.

“I call the blade, Shadow.” Oliver told him.

After that, the two spent the rest of the afternoon in silence, with Caine deciding to explore the surrounding area looking for something to hunt as the suns begun to set.

Ahead of them, beyond the lake, there was another stretch of woods and after getting Oliver’s permission, he ran forward, looking for any sign of life he could kill; being so close to such a large body of water, it was not long before he found something.

Running towards him was an animal Caine had never seen; a canine-like creature with six limbs was galloping towards him, its tail wagging and revealing a ball of hardened flesh at its end.

As Caine saw the strange animal charging him, he took a step back, and then another as a sense of dread slowly creeped up within him, making the emptiness which he had almost gotten used to seem immense.

He turned and ran as fast as he could, and despite not turning around, he could still feel its gaze stuck on his back; while running, Caine was scanning his surroundings, trying to find anything that could help him kill the beast, but just as he turned his head, a strong force pushed him onto the ground, and now stood on top of him.

Caine was mistaken, the creature was not dog-like at all, but rather more humanoid, its head nearly identical to that of an ape, although completely hairless; it had fangs instead of teeth, reminding him of those the winged wolves in The Forest had. The beast was drooling over Caine as it growled at him, bearing its fangs at the boy, staring at its prey.

Caine felt himself grow weak, but before he had even realised, he raised his hand, placing right below the beast’s neck, and just as the beast glanced down to look at the boy’s hand, a jet-black dagger appeared out of thin hair, its existence digging into the beast’s throat.

A stream of black blood flowed onto Caine like a river, but Caine was more focused on the gurgling sounds of the beast as it struggled to breathe; with the dagger still digging into its throat, Caine pushed it down, cutting apart its flesh as if it was nothing.

Organs started spilling out of the ape-like beast, and as they did, Caine pushed the beast off himself, and removed the knife from it, before stabbing it over and over again, until its flesh was riddles with slashes and puncture wounds.

The beast fell right on top of Caine, and he struggled again its weight, trying to push it off of himself unsuccessfully. He wiggled around, trying to slide sideways, but the beast was much heavier than he expected, and he was finding it harder to breathe now.

The thought of strengthening himself with mana crossed his mind, and after each failed attempt at freeing himself, it seemed more and more alluring, but ultimately he decided against it; Oliver had told him not to use mana for the time being since it would hinder his training, and the last thing Caine wanted to do was anything that could make him weaker when he would eventually face off against Sir Saintsworth.

With his dagger still in hand, he started hacking at the beast, trying to sever one of the beast’s limbs and any part of its body that would make it easier to move it, but despite his best effort, he didn’t have enough space to effectively use any strength to cut off its limbs.

He retreated the dagger back in his arm, thinking about what to do: at first he thought to just scream for help. He had had not walked too far before he found the beast, or rather it found him, and if he managed to scream, it was very likely that Oliver would show up to help him.

Caine shook his head and cursed his own weakness. If he just screamed for help whenever he was in danger, he would never become stronger, and Caine was in pain now, which meant that this was opportunity for him to become stronger than he was before he left.

He recalled Oliver’s words about the dagger, and summoned it again, now focusing every single thought in his mind on making the blade sharper and sharper.

He thought about Oliver’s greatsword and how easily he had beheaded the winged wolves, cutting through them like butter, and that was the image he was focusing on when summoning Shadow.

With it in his hand, Caine instantly felt a difference in the blade. It was much lighter than before, its handle had also changed, it now had a series of runes etched onto it, completing covering it which had slowly moved from the dagger to the boy’s hand.

However, the most surprising difference was its colour: before it was just entirely black, its colour was dull and seemed to absorb all the light surrounding it, but now its colour was nearly identical to the True Darkness he had seen in the cave.

Ignoring the sense of dread that grew within him as he thought about the True Darkness and the anger and contempt Oliver showed towards it, Caine went to hack the beast’s limb again; he pulled his arm as far back as he was able to, and then quickly moved it towards the first limb, the blade passing through it with impressive ease, and cutting through the next two in one single swing.

‘Incredible.’

That was the one word that now was ingrained in his mind. Just a few minutes before, he struggled to cut off one of the beast’s limbs, unable to cut through the strangely hard bone in its arm, but now he had severed three of its limbs from its body, cutting through multiple bones with one single swing.

One swing he couldn’t even put all his strength in.

He tried pushing off the ape-like create off his body again, but still failed; he couldn’t throw the dagger into his other arm, and when he released it back in his arm and tried summoning it back in his other hand, the dagger still appeared in his right hand, seemingly bound to the arm where the rune was etched.

Running out of idea, he simply stabbed the beast on its side, slashing all the way though, from its neck to as far back as he could, almost reaching the beginning of its tail. After that, he released the dagger, and dug his hand into the open wound, grabbing a handful of whatever was inside and yanking it out.

The feeling of its organs in his hand, alongside the smell of blood nearly made him throw up, but he continuously pulled out whatever organs he could out of the beast, until it finally became light enough for him to push it to the side.

Catching his breath, Caine stood up, each full breath feeling exquisite. He stared at the red hues in the sky, not having realised that the suns had started to set and deciding to make his way back to camp.

He grabbed the throat of the beast, pulling it up, and after minutes of struggle, he managed to pull it over both of his shoulders and made his way back to Oliver, with his dinner at hand.

Nearly ten minutes later, Caine saw the familiar campfire, and Oliver sitting beside it, showing his back to Caine. Oliver was talking in his own language again while staring at the sky as he did whenever he thought Caine wasn’t paying him attention.

Hearing the boy step onto a branch and breaking it, Oliver turned around to look at the boy, and his deep green eyes instantly widened.

Caine was completely covered in blood, his hair, his clothes, his face completely drenched in the blood of the beast he was carrying on his back; part of its intestine was hanging over Caine’s shoulder, but he was completely nonchalant about it, just letting the beast fall off his shoulder onto the ground, the impact staining the grass red.

“Dinner’s served… well, after we cook it.”

Caine collapsed onto the ground, letting himself fall, thinking that Oliver would help him. However, to his surprise, he fell over the beast and hit the ground with a loud thud. He sighed and looked at Oliver, his face contorted in countless emotions, but as he noticed Caine staring at him, he helped him up.

“Caine… that thing… did you kill it?” He asked hesitantly.

“Yes. It tried to kill me, but I killed it first. It should have bit my head off when it was on top of me, but I guess it is just a stupid beast.” Caine chuckled.

“Caine,” Oliver gulped, “that thing is a mana beast, a Hexotang. It’s different from a demonic beast, they tend to be harmless, especially this beast, but for it to attack you… something is wrong.”

Caine took a deep breath, trying to understand what was happening. He had done nothing to the beast at first, it had just charged at him, running straight to him and ignoring everything else in its path.

Mana beasts tended to be docile, rarely attacking humans, but they were the source of any adventurers’ desire: slaying a mana beast meant being able to absorb its mana shard and increasing the capacity of one’s mana core two, or even threefold.

While docile, they could also be dangerous, as dangerous as they were rare, since they would avoid any contact with humans.

“What does that mean?” Caine asked, not yet feeling scared, but annoyed more than anything. Of course, if there was one thing that could go wrong, he’d be facing it.

“Well, realistically, nothing. I’m just surprised it attacked you rather than hiding. And also, that it didn’t kill you as soon as it had you pinned.”

“Guess I got lucky.”

Oliver summoned another dagger, this one completely different from the one he gifted Caine, in fact, the complete opposite of it. On his arm, a rune appeared of a white sun, and the dagger itself was entirely white, brilliant in the sunlight, and difficult to look at. Just a quick glance at it, made Caine’s head throb uncontrollably.

Oliver stuck its arm into the beast, digging deep into it, and then he suddenly pulled out its heart; he then shaved off the meat off the heart until all that remained was a brilliant, diamond-shaped mana shard.

Caine remained in awe of that stone, staring at it attentively, lost in its brilliance, almost as if it was calling his name. The mana shard then vanished into Oliver’s endless pouch, and Caine snapped back to reality, confused at how easily he lost track of everything other than the shard.

“This will make it easier to break your mana core and build your channels, we’ll use it to overload your core and create the mana channels, and then I might as well build you a fake core.”

“Why would you do that?” Caine asked.

“Well, you never know if someone will try to peek into your core to check how strong you are, so we might as well build a decoy.”

“I see… well not really, I’m just excited about training. Speaking of which, after creating the mana channels, how will we train?”

“Simple. At the foot of the mountain, there’s a small village, Crant. Once there, I’ll teach you some spells, you’ll practice them, and then we’ll fight every single day.”

Suddenly the atmosphere changed. Oliver’s lips turned upwards, his eyes also grew brighter, a hint of madness hidden behind the usual calmness of his face, and his towering figure grew even larger.

Caine took a step back, and then a sudden pressure overcame him, making him stand frozen in place. He struggled to breathe, simply trying to inhale whatever air was around him was an impossible, painful task as his lungs felt as if they were set on fire.

His eyes darkened, and the last thing he saw was Oliver’s smile growing even larger as he said one sentence.

“One day, you’ll be able to use this Authority as well.”

Caine felt his consciousness slip away as everything darkened and an endless amount of curses ran through his mind.