It was a cold and dark night, just like any other during the winter.

The servants had already retired to their chambers and the mansion was without a sound.

Arthur’s room was large, but wasn't empty as it was adorned with jewels and gold from left to right; a few paintings were strung against the walls and his shelves were filled to the brim with books and scrolls similarly to his study.

Arthur lay in his bed which was many times larger than himself; as he sleeps the glass balcony door slowly slid open without making a creak. And from that door came a tall man covered from head to toe in black clothing.

His footsteps made no sound as his shoes had been enchanted with a silencing spell. The masked man slowly made his way over to where Arthur lay. And without a moment's rest, the masked man instantaneously pulled out a knife and swung it down with an immense force and pierced the sleeping boy's chest.

The masked man waited for a few seconds confirming his kill as the blood that shined crimson flooded out of the boy and slowly made its way to the edge of the bed trickling to the floor. The masked man walked to the balcony and leapt into the pitch-black sky littered with shining stars and a blindingly bright full moon.

The blood continued to flow from his body; as the puddle of blood continued to grow bigger and bigger covering everything in a deep red. That is until slowly his body began to shine a deep blue hue; his body began to dissolve into sparks of what seemed like sand with a unique deep blue and glowed with a bright blue hue. Almost immediately did these sparks disappear and the body along with the blood disintegrated as if nothing was there to begin with.

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Just as I was thinking it had been a while since the last time someone sent an assassin after me.

I suspect it to be under the orders of my older half brother, I’ve gotten used to it now but the first time it happened I could have really died if it wasn't for him.

It baffles me, why he sees me, a 5-year-old as a threat to his succession of the Vermilion household. I’ve found the most efficient method of dealing with the assassins is setting up a complex illusion array that traps anyone who enters my room letting me control what they see. Though I say ‘anyone’ it only works on people with subpar magic abilities, but luckily assassins train their assassination techniques more than magic.

Why don't I just kill them to scare them off? No, I’m 5 remember? The only reason this array works as well as it does is because of my mental capacity and arrays or spells like this work similarly to coding a program; with my past life memories getting the hang of it was easy. But my mana is still lacking, ones mana doesn't fully manifest until they reach ten to twelve years of age. I’m only able to use a minuscule amount that all living beings naturally have at birth. If I tried to fight these assassins head-on I’d just die a pointless death so it's better to just trick them and let them leave on their own.

I walk to the balcony and look into the vast darkness of the cold night as the moon shines down on me lining my hair with a white glow, I ponder for a bit lost in my thoughts. “Well, I’m going to sleep.” I immediately slam my balcony door and yank back the soft silk curtains; I flop down on my soft bed which felt like I was lying on a warm bouncy cloud, let out a deep yawn and doze into a deep sleep.

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Magic could be used in a multitude of ways, it wasn’t restricted to one particular way. In regards to that, over the years mages have created unique ways of using magic but there are 3 main techniques used by the people of the empire. First is the easiest, augmentation; this is where the user uses their internal magic to strengthen their body past natural limits.

The advantage to augmentation is that there is no casting time, as it's just moving mana through your body with augmentation techniques it doesn't require magic equations like arrays or spells. A disadvantage is that the augmenter can only use their internal mana which means they have a limit to how long they can continue to augment their body. They are also usually restricted to more basic types of magic.

The second method which is just as common as augmentation is spellcraft.

Spellcraft is where the user uses outside mana to build spells or arrays with the magic characters associated with mana, sometimes called mana glyphs or the magic language in other countries. Now that's not to say no mana is required to use spellcraft; a minuscule amount of mana is required to activate the spell that makes use of the ambient mana.

A disadvantage of spellcraft is that it requires casting time because of how complex spells can become and each time a mage produces a spell they need to remember and form the equations for the spell. Because spellcraft is the process of using mana to affect the real world by for example creating a fireball, it only requires a small amount of internal mana. This also means that spellcraft doesn't have a limit in regards to how many spells can be cast unless the mage has an unnaturally small mana pool, but casting spells does cause a mental strain so each mage has their own mental limit before they collapse from fatigue.

Mages who use spellcraft are physically weak compared to augmenters because they focus on the study of magic and finding new spells so they aren't usually useful on the front lines of battle; spellcraft is usually used for artillery during wars and monster exterminations.

The least common of the three techniques is sorcery.

Sorcery is kind of a hybrid technique as it uses internal mana to create spells that affect the natural world and the user's body. Sorcerers can use both augmentation and spellcraft but because it requires a large mana pool and mental fortitude it is rarely chosen. This is also why they use the title sorcerers instead of mages because they are a rarity but extremely powerful.

Because sorcerers are able to affect nature with their internal mana extremely powerful sorcerers can absorb mana from nature to restore their mana. This means an exceptional sorcerer can recover their mana quicker than most augmenters. I say most because each person has a unique mana recovery rate, some can recover 10% of their mana in twelve hours while others can recover 10% in just one.

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A man covered from head to toe in black clothing was kneeling at the feet of a boy that looked to be not any older than 15. The boy had hair down to his shoulders with a dark crimson hue along with eyes of a light grey tone.

“I’ve completed my assignment, my lord.” The man said to the boy in a deep and subservient tone. The boy looked at the man as a smug smirk appeared across his face, he thought it was too easy but he had trust in his subordinates so he hoped he had succeeded.

“We’ll see!” He replied with an authoritative tone and while wiping his face off his smirk; “The last time I sent someone to kill him they came back saying the same thing, only to see him walking about as lively as ever the next morning.”

“I assure you, my lord, I watched the life leave his body myself to make sure I killed him.” Said the man in an anxious but confident voice. “Good, but sadly I don't need you anymore.” Not even a second later the boy snapped his fingers and a magic array under the man glowed a bright red and flames burst forth devouring the man's body, his cries could be heard reverberating on the chamber walls until there was nothing left but ash.

“Servants! Clean up this mess!” He shouted at the top of his lungs as he watch two servants enter the room with fear-stricken across their faces. The boy watched in delight as the servants used their brooms to brush the dull, urban grey ash from the room.

To Be Continued.