Caelan does not have time to think about the strangeness of this matter. He takes a deep breath and throws the fireball in his hand towards the shadow wolf pouncing on him without hesitation.
The small fireball draws a perfect arc, hitting the shadow wolf squarely in the abdomen, and the flames instantly blossom, burning a large portion of its dark fur on its abdomen.
The Shadow Wolf instantly falls back to the ground, letting out a pained roar as it takes a dozen steps back, a hint of fear flickering in its eyes; this strike is clearly beyond its expectations.
But immediately after, Caelan realizes that the Shadow Wolf does not immediately retreat. Those crimson eyes are still fixed on him as if weighing whether it is worth continuing this hunt.
Caelan's heart tightens violently, and he knows that the Shadow Wolf's departure will not be so easy. If he shows fatigue at this moment, he will surely be torn apart by this madman!
"Damn it!"
Caelan has just finished unleashing his magic, his magic is well spent, and his body has long been exhausted, but he forces himself to stand still and tries to appear as fearless as possible.
He has to gamble one more time and begins to mobilize the little magic power left in his body, attempting to gather the fire elemental once more, chanting the incantation silently, his tone resolute even though his voice already seems weak.
‘Fire Elemental, respond to me again!’He calls out in his heart, doing his best to channel the element of fire within his body.
This time, the process of condensing the fireball is exceptionally difficult. His body is exhausted, and Caelan's concentration begins to slip. Gradually, he cannot control the escape of the fire element, and the situation is very bad!
‘Shit!’
Caelan feels the cohesive fire element is very violent. Now he can barely control it. He increases the influx of magic power in an attempt to save the day, but it is like pouring rainwater into a dry desert, to no half effect!
The fire element keeps tumbling and escaping within his body, and Caelan's body shakes slightly as if it is going to cause a backlash!
However, just as the fire elemental is about to completely break through its bonds, a soft force merges into it, instantly pacifying its riot, and eventually, a ball of fire that is larger than before takes shape in Caelan's hands.
The small ball of fire, coalesced again, is more powerful!
The Shadow Wolf wanders from side to side, staring at the ball of fire forming again in Caelan's hands. A strong fear flashes in its red eyes, and in the end, reason overcomes its anger, and the Shadow Wolf chooses to retreat, backing up step by step until it disappears into the darkness of the forest.
Seeing the Shadow Wolf leave, Caelan breathes a sigh of relief in his heart. The fireball in his palm dissipates away, and he slips to the ground, his body leaning against the tree trunk, panting heavily, his body trembling from the overexertion of his magic power, his wounds opening up further, his entire body drenched in blood.
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‘Casting magic one after another... this body... can't take it...’
Before the words leave his mouth, Caelan feels the world spinning, and the world before him begins to blur as he falls into a coma.
Inside the forest, the smell of burning and blood still lingers in the air.
Not long after Caelan falls unconscious, footsteps sound not far away from the jungle, and two burly men in leather armor, armed with thick longbows and sharp short axes, are approaching the land where the battle has just been fought vigilantly.
"Robert, do you feel anything?" One of the men whispers. His name is Edgar, he has messy red hair with a few strands of silver threads between his beard, and his eyes shine with a keen light.
"Yes, the scent of the fire elemental... but it seems to have subsided," Robert responds, his voice deep and strong, a long scar etched on his face as he looks around, his eyes eventually landing on Caelan, who has fainted under a tree. "Look over there! There's a kid down."
The two quickly approach. Robert looks at the bloodied Caelan and steps forward to check his condition and wounds.
"It's a wound caused by a Magic Wolf. It looks like it met an attack."
Edgar pours a small amount of fresh water from the water pouch on his waist and pours it into the teenager's mouth. "This little guy is still alive, he's just lost consciousness."
"Edgar, could the fire elemental fluctuation just now have something to do with him?"
"Impossible. How could he mobilize elemental power at such a young age?"
Edgar immediately rejects Robert's idea. From the fire elemental fluctuation he just sensed, the releaser at least possesses strength close to the 2nd-rank. How could he be such a child?
Edgar frowns, wary of the surroundings. Finally, his eyes look towards the bruised Caelan, and he softly says, "Robert, he is injured so seriously, take him back to the town for treatment. We can't leave him here; the Magic Beasts will smell the blood."
Robert carries Caelan up on his shoulders and darts between the forests. This forest is indeed extremely vast, and even though the two experienced hunters do not stop on their feet, they both fly for nearly an hour before leaving the forest.
Getaria Town, an ordinary town in the Empire of Rien, is on the western part of ‘Dark Forest,’which is one of the several dangerous places in ‘Mundus Magnus.’
With the rising sun, the town of Getaria still has a hint of early morning coldness, but almost all of the town's residents have already come out to start working.
In the clearing on the east side of the town, the warm morning sunlight filters through the large trees next to the clearing, leaving behind dappled spots of light, and a group of teenagers are training feverishly.
"Very good, Caelan, hold on, hold on!" The red-haired man claps his hands encouragingly from the side.
Caelan is wearing pants, his naked upper body is covered in sweat, his whole body is lying prone on the ground like a taut string, his hands are pressed to the ground as dead as an old tree's roots, and his whole body does not move at all, only relying on the support of his hands and the toes of his feet!
It's an ancestral method of body fortification, cherished by the town and handed down through generations, wherein precise postures and motions forge remarkable physical tenacity and endurance.
"Tick!"
Sweat slides down from his forehead along the edge of his eyes. Caelan cannot help but feel a pang in his right eye and squints his right eye.
"Caelan is really something. At the age of just eight years old and having only been exercising for three months, his endurance is better than even our eleven or twelve-year-olds." Some of the kids who have given up next to them look at each other at Caelan, still talking.
Yes, it's been three months since Caelan arrived in this town...
Three months ago, Caelan was brought back to the town by Edgar and Robert for treatment, and after waking up was asked about what happened within the forest. Caelan describes how he was lost in the forest with the elders of his family and was accidentally attacked by a shadow wolf. In the nick of time, he encountered a black-robed mage, who cast a few fireballs to repel the wolf, and then he fainted on the ground.
Out of caution, Caelan hides the fact that he is able to cast magic, and Edgar and Robert do not suspect anything. After all, a child of eight years old can cast elemental magic, this kind of genius is extremely rare in the whole human race, how can he appear out of thin air?!
Speaking of which, Caelan has a rough guess in his mind as to why he is able to release fireball magic smoothly, and it must have something to do with that unique talent, ‘Elemental Affinity'. Especially the second time he released the magic to shock the Shadow Wolf, there was not much magic power left in his body, and when he clearly made a mistake when coalescing the fireball, and the fire elements were about to escape and riot in his body, he felt a strange power emerge from his body, pacifying the riotous fire elements, and even guiding them to pass through his entire body's veins smoothly and coalesce into a bigger fireball!
This magical effect, which Caelan has never heard of in his past life, is something every mage could only dream of! He is well aware of the value of this talent, and with his weak strength nowadays, he absolutely cannot expose it. As for the side effects, at least Caelan has not discovered them for the time being. This talent is related to that mysterious deity after all; if he wanted to harm himself, he would not have beat around the bush so much!