A Chinese restaurant.

That's what this mysterious person told Abisai to meet at. They were supposed to meet at this Chinese restaurant called 'Nian Qin Cai Fan'. As Abisai recalled, it was located on a mountainside, and the views were breath-taking at dawn.

But Abisai does not have time for that. He has to be there by at least three o'clock. He took his scimitar, in case he encountered some people who were told to hunt him down, and wore a black cape to cover up his face. After settling everything, he held on to his scimitar and whooshed off.

Abisai was used to travelling at the speed of the wind, as he used it to escape the scenes after he had assassinated those corrupt officials. He had honed this skill over a span of approximately two decades. Sometimes, he might stop by to read signs to the restaurant, and Abisai will vanish as soon as he verifies his location, and who knows what the nearby people would see—maybe a guy who glitched in a split second?

After a few minutes of speed travel, Abisai was at the restaurant's 'WELCOME!' mat.

It was designed like a Chinese building, with yellow blazing roof tiles; the door looked like it was hundreds of years old; and Abisai can see the red lights glowing inside the building. It looked like a good tourist attraction, but Abisai was no tourist; he was a public enemy number one.

"Ah! You're here, Abisai-San!" Oh, great, Abisai thought. He turned to the sound of the voice and saw a man. He wore a black kimono with huge red flowers on it. The person smiled at Abisai; that smile... when he smiles like that, people would mistake him for being a nice guy, but Abisai knew what this person did during his free time, and it is too disturbing even for the toughest of his comrades. But even though Abisai doesn't like this guy, he is still his ally.

He sighed, "Good day to you, Akumu; it looks like the person had invited you too." Akumu giggled and smiled. "Well, you will definitely need backup if the people who are after you are here." Abisai took a deep breath and facepalmed himself. "I told you, even though they're members of the Twelve Protectors, I can still take them on. And what will happen if they prefer to fight in broad daylight?" Akumu giggled again. "My, oh, my Abisai-San! You really know me that much, do you?" "You're a vampire; you'll burn to particles if you reveal your true form right now." The vampire nodded and patted Abisai's shoulders as he spoke. "That's the right answer! You really are a vampire expert!" Abisai stood there silently and started to speak again. "He must be waiting; let's meet him."

Once they opened the front door, the scent of mouth-watering delicacies filled the entire room, and perhaps the entire building. A woman, who is definitely a waitress, ran up to the seemingly innocent duo and spoke. "Huan Ying! Huan Ying!" Abisai doesn't understand what she just said; he can speak in many languages, but Chinese isn't one of those languages. However, he can tell that the waitress was welcoming them.

"You, Zi Wei?" The waitress asked in Chinese again. Abisai does not have a clue about what she was saying, but Akumu cleared his throat. "Liang Wei." He replied in perfect Chinese. Well, I guess the vampire can be a good translator to some other foreign languages. "Hao de." The waitress said, "Wait." Abisai stopped her, the waitress turned back, and she spoke. "What is it?" And now he knows that the people here do speak English, and speaking Chinese is a part of their job.

"We are invited by someone." He took out a piece of paper—the same paper that the person had given him a few days ago. "Our seating is at Table 33." "Alright, follow me." The waitress had brought them upstairs and to a table with curtains closing it. "Over here." The waitress said, "Xie Le." Akumu said and bowed. And the man was there when they entered.

He was feasting on a dish of meat, which was possibly pork; a hood was covering his head, and his face was barely visible. "Ah," A voice in the hood spoke. "Both of you have arrived; please take a seat." Abisai and Akumu sat down at the opposite table. "I had already ordered your meals." The man spoke. "And I sincerely apologise if they are not your type." "It's alright." Abisai replied. The man continued to pull out pieces of meat from the pork and throw it into the hood, which was an odd way of eating.

"So, about this deal." The man said, "Yes. This deal." Abisai replied. "We would want you to steal something for us." "Steal? Steal what, exactly?" The man asked. "It's being heavily guarded by one of the Twelve Guardians." Akumu answered. "How heavily guarded?" "We're not sure about how powerful the defences are. But the lady needs someone who is swift enough to avoid the traps in there. And strong enough to defeat any guards We think that you're the right species for this."

The man laughed an uneasy and childish laugh. "Oh me?" Two pale, small hands popped out from the hood, and then a head with a sharp pointy noise and ears and eyes like the ones on frogs. "A goblin? For this job?" "Are you able to do it? How much do you want? The lady can give you The goblin chuckled and bashed his hands onto the table, as if someone had just told him a hilarious joke. "Money? I'm not into that kind of stuff! I want to know, how fun is it?" For fun? This goblin steals for his own thrill.

Akumu smiled, "Oh, it will be fun! Just think about it: the excitement of dodging poison darts, the intense moments of walking on the right tiles, the fun of doing parkour over slumps!" The goblin turned to Akumu with a curious smile on his face. "Go on." He urged the vampire. "Who knows, there could be some strong people there for you to fight! And think about it; you could become so dangerous that you could get the attention of the Twelve Guardians!" The goblin shrieked with delight; he snapped his fingers, and screaming can be heard from downstairs.

That can't be good.

Abisai and Akumu rushed down the stairs, but they made sure that they weren't in view. And their eyes widened at what had just happened. They saw a man who was on fire. He screamed in pain. The people around him rushed to help him; they grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed it on the man. The fire was put out, but the man was burned alive, and the only thing to prove his existence were the ashes left on the seat. "What are you doing?!" Abisai hissed at the goblin. "That was an innocent man!" "Oh no," The goblin replied, "I often do this when I'm excited." The creature snapped his fingers, and they heard more wailing. More people had been set on fire.

As the goblin snapped his fingers, more customers, cooks, waiters, and waitresses had been set ablaze. And in a few moments, all the people (excluding the goblin, Akumu, and Abisai themselves) in the restaurant had been reduced to human ashes. "It's a deal!" The goblin said, "What is this precious thing that I must take?" Abisai turned to the goblin. He was not cool with the goblin for incinerating a bunch of innocent civilians, but the item that they need is really important for the lady. He sighed. "Alright, it's settled then; the lady would want you to steal The Orb of Wishes."

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The goblin cheered as he jumped up and down like a monkey. "Alright! The Dark Witch will be impressed by my skills when I come back with 'The Orb of Wishes'! One last thing, where is this orb located?" "It's in the palace of Paxsalam." Akumu answered. "I'm not sure where exactly it is in the palace. But I'm sure that you'll figure it out."

"I see... I guess this deal is actually worth it. I'll best be going and finding information about the orb. I promise, I'll come back with the orb within a week; count on it. Sayonara for now!" The goblin snapped his fingers and lit himself on fire, and as the fire vanished, the goblin disappeared along with it. "So much for an Asian cuisine." Akumu sighed. "I bet even the chefs were fired as well."

. . . . . .

At first, Claude didn't believe me when I told him that I had gained trust from Chris the Indian Quarterback, but he was speechless when he saw the dragon with his own eyes.

"How? How did you find him? Indian quarterbacks are very shy creatures! And I don't remember seeing one in this sanctuary!" Claude was fascinated with the dragon. "Well, there was something impaling through its thigh, and me and a group of conservationists helped him by pulling the object out!" I replied. Claude just stood there, staring at Chris eye-to-eye. He was silent for about a few minutes, and I don't know what he was going to say. Maybe he was going to yell at me for risking my life? Or he might congratulate me for helping a magnificent beast?

"I see," My older brother turned to me and nodded. "That is a very noble thing you just did. I knew it was in your nature to help those in trouble. You named him; what is it again? Chris?" "Yup." I replied. The dragon tilted his head curiously at us. Claude stepped closer to Chris and gently pated his snout. "Alright, Chris can stay." Claude said, "Hey! He's not a pet or something! He's a friend!" "P-pet?" Chris asked, clearly annoyed by that word. "Um, yeah. It's an animal that we humans keep for" I tapped my feet, trying to think of a word that wouldn't get on Chris's nerves. "Company. Yeah, company."

My training was getting tougher. Since Claude had decided that I do more practice in battle than running around in the forest and concentrating and ignoring anything in my surroundings, even though they might be more threatening to me,.

I had only learned three positions for now, and they weren't so good; my best one is probably the first position. I still have to do those snowball fights with Claude, and things barely changed these years. I did manage to dodge some hits, but some snowballs will still splat me in the face. And it still hurts from the blows due to how cold those snowballs are.

But I did get a little hang of it. Claude mentioned that we must concentrate and to always aim at your opponent before I fire. I took that advice, but my brother fires snowballs and aims way better than me.

I do hang out with Chris every afternoon, and I will often teach him how to speak with more vocabulary since Chris only knows those words that an eight-year-old would say. So, I taught him more interesting words, which fascinated the dragon since he had never heard those words before.

Chris, in return, did make me understand a few things. Chris told me that there's a strategy to evade Claude's snowballs. "In home... there were giants... Boldors." I listened closely to Chris's story. "The Boldors... they stay near my favourite plants. Every time I got near those plants, they threw rocks, big rocks, at me." Chris whimpered as he finished that part. I sympathised with the dragon; from my experience, getting hit by circular things (especially snowballs) always stinks.

"They always tricked me. They once tricked me into flying to the spot to throw rocks by pretending to aim at the other spot... Your training is with me, brother. You can use that trick." I understood what he meant. He wants me to use that tactic. This is a perfect move.

Claude and I met at the temple, we bowed, and we moved to our places. "Ready?" Claude asked, and I nodded in response. I took a deep breath and charged towards the center. Like Claude said, this would have the same rules as dodgeball. Now, we are rushing to the centre to decide who will get to fire their snowballs first. Sadly, Claude was the one who reached the centre first.

I cringed at my loss and clenched my fists. We went back to our positions, holding onto our staff. We bowed to each other, and Claude raised his staff at me. "Each of us gets twenty shots each; are you ready?" "I have a plan up my sleeve, bro." I replied, "This time, I won't be going down so easily!" Claude chuckled. "Not bad! You're getting more confident this time! Good luck!" He began to fire.

I just realised that I am getting better at evading the snowballs. It must have been thanks to those laps in the forest that I did for the past four years; those trainings actually weren't in vain! I used another tactic that Chris had told me (in his eight-year-old child vocabulary): read the opponent's posture before they fire objects at you. I did exactly that; I eyed the way that he held his staff, his standing position, and where his staff was pointing. After doing all that in a matter of seconds, I knew where to go in order to evade the snowballs.

I kept evading them, but Claude just kept firing. I did manage to dodge them, but barely. My heart pounded against my ribs, and it skipped a few beats when I was almost hit. This was getting really intense. Claude said that we'd get twenty shots each, but it feels like he shot over fifty. And then Claude stopped. He bowed to me, signalling that it was my turn. I took another deep breath and began to fire my snowballs.

Claude is amazing at evading snowballs; once I fire, he will be on the other side of my direction. He's really fast, but it's my plan put into motion. I'll just pretend to fire in one direction, which would hopefully trick Claude into diving in the opposite direction. I would then fire my snowballs in his direction. But what if Claude saw through my plan? And he knew what I was doing, and my plan would fail before I knew it.

No negative thoughts; I ordered myself; whatever happens, I have to try. I fired from the opposite direction, and Claude turned in the other direction to avoid it. Yes! It worked! I launched in the direction that Claude was heading. I caught him off guard, but he still managed to evade it. But I did something; the snowball had knocked his staff off, hit the ground, and spun, making clanging sounds, and then it came to a halt, silencing the temple.

Does that count as a win? I wondered. Claude stared at his staff and turned to me. He grinned and chuckled. "I'm currently using my weakest strength here, and you, technically, have beaten me in four years!" He patted my head. I always liked it when he did that. I smiled, satisfied by my performance today.

We headed back to our castle, and that will be it for my training today. "So, Chris showed you how?" Claude asked, and I nodded as an answer. "Yeah, they are really intelligent creatures. And Boldors are a species of giants. And they do throw rocks at their intruders; Chris must have a hard time dealing with those giants." We made it back to our palace, settled everything down first, took a bath (not in the same shower chamber, I promise), and assembled in the dining hall for dinner.

"That was really something you did back there." Claude said, and I slurped up my bowl of mushroom stew and replied. "So... do I get a gift?"

My brother smiled and said, "You really showed me your potential back there, and you had improved a lot. So, yeah, you'll get a gift." I cheered, "What is it?"

Claude took a bite of his vegetarian pasta and spoke, and those words struck me like a snowball to the face. "I, Claude Clifford the First, will allow you, Edward Clifford the First, to participate in The Magician Games."