Cassius' response was swift, his voice tinged with a mixture of amusement and candor as he leaned in closer to Lavaad,

"My dear boy, you see, I am a man of ambition, and ambition requires the right tools. In this case, you are my tool, or perhaps, my ticket to fame and fortune."

Lavaad, despite his young age, knew that openly admitting to using someone was an uncommon occurrence. Staring at the wide grin on Cassius’ face, Lavaad opened his mouth.

“You want to use me, but what am I getting out of it? Not to mention what use could you possibly have for me?”

Cassius nodded in response to Lavaad's question, then disconnected and seemingly went into thought.

His facial expression twitched as he seemingly started speaking to himself, and Lavaad could hear light mumbles escaping Cassius’ mouth every now and then.

Then suddenly, as Lavaad was about to speak again, Cassius’ voice rang out.

“You are an enigma in this boring world, your very existence invites fame, with or without me you would have risen to great heights, if you don't die that is.

However, I know what you truly want, and it is revenge on your family, no? However, it is not as simple as you think.

The Kalpuk family has relatively weak individual strength, with no outstanding individuals except for your eldest brother, who is a rising star within the Reguus army, but even then he isn’t an anomaly of any kind.”

Cassius stopped, allowing the words to settle in Lavaad’s brain while he took a breath and continued.

“Your family's true strength lies in the refined politics of your father.

While it’s hard to explain in this short period of time we have, he has basically made allies with all the surrounding nobles, and in any other country it would mean very little.

However, his web of influence within a feudal society such as Reguus allows him to know who is doing what and where, in the coastal region of Reguus the Kalpuk family may have better relations than even the Royal Family themselves.”

Cassius paused for a few seconds before he smirked, seemingly excited about what was to come.

"Now, my proposition for you is this:

I will teach you the basics of Source for two years, as well as instruct you in the basic politics of Reguus so you are a step ahead when going to the academy.

I will also assist you when you are ready to take revenge.

In return, you will need to excel in your studies at the academy, boast expert ability, and maintain high grades, attributing your success to my teachings any moment you get.”

Cassius sighed, seemingly pleased with himself and the tangent he had just gone off on.

Lavaad thought for a second before speaking.

“I don’t have much better available to me, so I will agree. You can teach me how to use the Source and my pigment, and in return, I’ll spread your name.”

Cassius listened to Lavaad, but he answered with a frown before saying,

“Well, not exactly. I can’t teach you about your pigment for three reasons.

Reason one, it is extremely rare, and I have little to no information on it apart from rumors.

Reason two, you shouldn’t use your Pigment at all, unless it is a must. While typically that would put you at a disadvantage, my earlier theatrics for Lord Alaric, while exaggerated, were true.

And the final reason: Your source core isn't progressed enough for you to start using your pigment, the pigment within you is currently in a dormant state,

Your natural talent with Source Manipulation is beyond any I have seen, and if you act as a pure Source wielder, you would still gain recognition far and wide.

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Not to mention building a foundation on source manipulation before turning to pigments is incredibly resourceful and will act as a multiplier for your strength later on.”

Cassius paused, letting the words float in the air before continuing.

“I hope that still works for you?”

Lavaad nodded and replied,

“When do we start?”

Before Cassius could reply, Lord Alaric opened the door and peeked into the room.

“Is everything okay? It’s been a while,” Lord Alaric whispered, his eyes darting around the room for whatever reason.

“Yes, Lord Alaric, we just finished up, and might I say congratulations! While he has no pigment, his talent with Source is unmatched from what I have seen before.

He might even be the most talented child I have come across!”

Cassius began with the exaggerated praise of Lavaad again, paused for dramatic effect, and continued.

“Might I offer to become his personal teacher for the next two years leading up to his time at the academy? I’m sure I could contribute greatly to his future if you would allow me to, free of charge.”

Lord Alaric looked elated at this suggestion and ran over fervently, shaking Cassius’ hand, clearly excited about the prospect of having a talented heir.

Lavaad sighed and shook his head before walking back to his room, telling the helpers he passed by to get him when dinner was ready.

Returning to his room, Lavaad sat on his bed, processing the information he had just received.

His parents had cast him aside out of fear due to his pigment, however, he knew very little about pigments, or the Source in general.

What he did know was that everyone was born with a Source core, regardless of status or birthplace or anything else.

A portion of these people had a chance of being born with a pigment, the chance of it growing if your parents also had pigments.

Genetics played a major role in your pigment.

Two parents with a fire pigment had an incredibly high chance of birthing a child with the same pigment. However, apart from this, Lavaad knew very little.

In regards to the pigment itself, as far as he knew, it was just a slight discoloration of the Source Core.

He didn’t know how this enabled elemental casting, but he was sure he could just ask Cassius.

With these thoughts in mind, Lavaad tried feeling for a Source core within himself, and as his focus approached his chest, he felt a warm energy being emitted.

Following the warm energy along, he saw it coursed through his very being, empowering his body.

He focused on the core itself and felt a slight impurity, or difference within. He assumed this was his pigment.

As his focus was absorbed by the pigment, he felt an otherworldly pull on his soul, as if the pigment had an incomprehensible size, despite its small appearance.

He felt himself fall deeper and deeper into the pigment, before he was awoken by a knock at the door. Before he could get up and answer, the door was opened by Cassius.

“Hello there, my little ticket to fame. I am officially your teacher, so you may call me Mr. Vaugn from now on.

I assume you were left with some unanswered questions from our conversation earlier, and seeing as how dinner is a while away, I am here to answer!”

Cassius spoke as if he was the most benevolent in all the lands, sitting down beside Lavaad without any invitation.

Lavaad, about to reprimand his rudeness, thought to himself, beginning to come up with questions to ask Cassius in his head.

After a few seconds had passed, Lavaad began to speak, his quiet, high-pitched voice echoing throughout the grand room, too big to fit such a small child.

“While I am curious about how

to improve my core and pigment, you are my teacher and I assume I will be taught about that anyway.

However, I am curious about the origin of pigments. How exactly does a slightly different color within someone's core allow them access to a whole element?

Also, with that in mind, what separates one pigmented core from another? Is there any gap in strength? Are some colors stronger?”

Cassius smiled at the questions, before answering.

“First of all, a pigmented core is entirely equal to a normal core until one reaches a specific rank of core, that being the “Proficient” rank. Though this is achieved relatively early on, until then pigments mean almost nothing because they can't even be used.

While I don’t want to go on a tangent, I will say there are some disadvantages to having pigments. The source you use that isn’t elemental will always be slightly tainted, meaning compared to people without pigments, your use of natural source techniques will be slightly lacking and impure.

Early on this difference is barely noticeable, however at the peak of strength, pigmented and non-pigmented source users end up being relatively equal, despite what you might assume at first.”

Cassius stopped, took a breath, then continued.

“With regards to where pigments come from, it’s not super secretive information, but it isn’t easy to find.

The general consensus is that these pigments act almost as portals to elemental planes of existence.

People send source into the pigments and in return are given elemental source that they can mold freely.

I won’t go into the details of casting with the source for now, as you won’t have to worry about it for a while.

The main thing separating one pigmented source user from another is the size of their pigment.

The more they use the pigment, the more it grows in size, allowing them more access to the elemental source of the plane their pigment connects to.

While this may not seem major, that's just the basics of the strength difference.

The advantages will change from person to person, and the peak of a pigment is many times stronger than a pigment just below the peak due to various bottlenecks being broken.

Also, source elements ignore elemental advantages quite a lot, but not entirely. The elements aren’t naturally formed and are made up of source itself, therefore there is little elemental application to them.

While this may beg the question, what's the difference between elements? The elements still keep general properties and shapes. Water is still a liquid, earth is still incredibly solid, and so on.

Regarding actual tangible rank differences between pigments and source cores, that would require me to go even further in depth, and I will teach you about that soon enough anyway.”

Cassius heaved out a deep breath, before turning to Lavaad who was deep in thought about what has been said to him.

Despite receiving the answers he sought after, it had just barely scratched the surface and only caused him more questions.

Seeing Lavaad in deep thought, Cassius got up and left the room.