Drust entered his room in the middle of the night. He was as drunk as ever, his cheeks were red, and he was struggling to stand. The buttons of his shirt were about to burst because of his fat belly. He headed for the window and wanted to ventilate his large room before laying down on his double bed. He opened the window and wanted to sleep immediately, but he wasn’t aware of the shadow behind him. Before he could get into bed, two arms reached him from behind with the agility of a snake.

One of them closed his mouth tightly, and the other put a clean cut on his throat before Drust could even understand what was going on. The cut wasn’t deep, it was superficial, and blood slowly started to pour from his throat. He struggled to free himself but failed. The grip of the hands wasn’t that strong, and the hands looked small, so why couldn’t he shake him off? Because of the paralyzing poison, all sensations in his body slowly faded away, and the meaningless struggle stopped. Then he heard a voice.

“Viscount Drust, with your poor management, your connections with the slave traders, tax fraud, and harassing women constantly, you’ve pissed some people, to the extent of wanting to kill you.”

Drust’s eyes widened, not because of what he heard, not because he recognized the voice. He was surprised because it was a child’s voice. Then the hands let him go and dropped him on his bed. With the last drop of his strength, he turned his head to see who it was. But all he could see was the pair of ice-cold blue eyes that were piercing his soul. His eyes trembled in fear, but it was only for a second. The twitching of his body stopped. He was dead with his eyes wide open.

Ian turned back to the association to report. Assassin Association, also known as the ‘Silvershiv,’ had a simple headquarter. The building with dorms, the chairman’s room, and the training grounds outside the building. They were recruiting promising children born in assassin clans and turning them into stone-cold killing machines.

Ian was one of them, and so was his father. Today he completed his first contract. That was their working style. The chairman was getting contracts from people and giving them to the appropriate person for the job. The most important thing for them was money, so they had only one rule. Do your job correctly, or there will be a consequence.

“Great job Ian.”

Ian simply bowed to the middle-aged man, who praised him. He was the chairman.

“I got another contract that suits you well. You think you can do it.”

“Yes.”

Ian answered with a confident tone. The chairman nodded and gave him the details. This time, the target was a woman, and the contractor was willing to pay a considerable sum for it. So there was no room for error. Since he was just an 8-year-old kid, he was getting the easy targets, like all of the other 8-year-olds. The next day Ian departed for his next mission. It was a small but lively town, so it wasn’t hard for him to spot his target.

Then he began to watch from the shadows to understand her habits and which places she visits. Her routine was the same every day. After waking up, she was cleaning her house and playing with her baby. She was taking care of her garden in the noon, watering the flowers, and planting new vegetables. She was cooking and playing with her baby again in the evening before sleeping. That was going on for a few days now. Ian felt something was wrong. Even though watching from afar, he felt her warmth. She was caring, smiling, and friendly to people around her. So why did anyone want her dead? Ian wanted to know, but he couldn’t turn back before completing the contract. So he took out the information paper. When you wanted to make a confidential contract, you needed to pay extra, but luckily this time, the man didn’t have that much money, so Ian learned his name and decided to pay a visit.

He wasn’t far away from there. After a few hours of walking, Ian reached there and waited for the darkness to fall. Like he did on his first mission, he sneaked to the man’s room and waited for him. The man was staying in an inn, and it didn’t take long for him to come. As soon as the man entered his room and closed the door, he felt a stingy pain in his back.

“Don’t move, don’t try to scream, and don’t talk unless I asked something.”

Ian said with a stern tone. His blade was pushing against from behind, where the man’s heart was located. The man was terrified, shivering, and didn’t dare to open his mouth.

“I am the assassin who sent by your request. Why did you want to kill that woman?”

“S-she, she broke up with me and took our child with her.”

The man was stuttering.

‘Is that it? Just because of that?’

Ian wasn’t convinced.

“Why did she break up with you?”

The man didn’t answer at first, so Ian put a little more pressure on the blade.

“If I push a little harder, you’ll be exposed to the poison. You wouldn’t want that do you?”

The man shook his head in fear.

“So, I’ll ask again, and if I don’t hear an answer in 2 seconds this time, I’ll push harder. Why did she leave you?”

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The man panicked, lost the strength in his legs, and fell onto his knees.

“I-I cheated on her. It was just a one-time thing, but she took my child away!”

As soon as Ian heard that, he felt an incredible rage.

‘You cheated on her and then wanted to kill her. What kind of logic is that?!’

It was the first time for Ian to be this furious. Usually, he was a calm kid, but something was wrong here.

‘And Silvershiv accepted this contract?’

He thought about the people who were murdered for nothing but mere personal grudges. He always thought the Silvershiv was a place to defend justice and go after bad people, like the viscount. But reality hit him hard, and his rage grew.

He was about to leave but realized that he would simply be replaced if he couldn’t finish the job. He couldn’t let that sweet woman die because of some stupid reasons. Then he realized that he had to get rid of the contractor.

‘If there is no contractor, then there won’t be a contract too.’

Amid all this anger, he lost his senses for a moment and stabbed the man behind his back. But that didn’t feel enough to suppress his anger. So he pulled the blade and stabbed him again and again until the man fell onto the ground and bath in his own blood.

When he calmed down a bit, he quickly decided to turn back to headquarters. He prepared a story. He was going to say that he killed the woman, but when they requested the last half of the money from the man, he wasn’t going to contact them, and Ian would be volunteered to hunt him down and kill him. But there was one thing he didn’t know. He was just a kid, and Silvershiv was always working meticulously. They may be sending 8-year-old kids to kill people, but they had a shadow attached to them to observe and make sure kids were unharmed. So before Ian reached the headquarter, they already knew about everything that happened.

When he finally arrived there in the middle of the night, he saw a figure waiting outside of the entrance. It was his father, and he was looking angry. Ian stood in front of him, but his father spoke before he could say anything.

“You disappointed me.”

“But-”

“Save it. I know everything already. You broke the only rule, and as if that wasn’t enough, you killed the contractor.”

He sighed and shook his head while turning back.

“I had big expectations from you, but I guess I was wrong. I, Harold Stein, declare that I disown you. The required paperwork is already done. From now on, abandon your last name. You are no longer a member of the Stein family.”

Then he disappeared instantly, leaving Ian alone. He was in shock. Even though all of this, he didn’t cry. He had no regrets about what he had done, and he wasn’t sad. Instead, he was angry. Then he promised to himself while turning back to leave.

‘You disown me, like you ever been a father. Don’t make me laugh. Fine! Then I will declare too. I declare that I will erase the Silvershiv from existence, whatever it takes.’

He slowly walked away from the headquarter and disappeared into the forest.

                         * * *

A rock flew through the air and hit Elius from his shoulder.

“Ouch.”

Then another one hit in the chest. Since Elius covered himself with Julius’ energy, which he learned from the book that its name was chakra, mere rocks didn’t impact him. It was like a fly bite.

“Come on. You are not focusing!”

Wilbert shouted while continuing to throw rocks.

“I am trying! But this is ridiculous.”

He then took out his blindfold and looked at his father.

“No, it is not. I’m trying to teach you how to be ready against an unexpected attack.”

“And how is dodging rocks while blindfolded will help me?”

“I told you already. We will strengthen your perception. It should be even easier for you since you can control the mana around.”

Elius sighed and put the blindfold again.

“Fine, let’s try again.”

This time he decided to focus entirely. He tried to feel the wind, how fast it was blowing, which way its blowing. He tried to feel the vibrations in the air and the cause of the vibrations. Then, he felt a change in the air for a split second, and a rock hit him. He tried to grasp that feeling again, but he also included the mana around him this time. He tried to expand the range of his mana. It slowly grew until a vague figure entered it. That was Wilbert. Elius tried to see and feel his movements. It was very, very little right now, but it definitely was working.

Days passed while training, and finally, on his 15th day, he managed to catch all of the rocks before hitting him. Now he could dodge, catch and deflect them with his staff. When their training ended, he still felt energetic, so he decided to do more independently. At his usual spot, he was reading the ‘Bojutsu’ book. For some reason, Elius never looked through the entire book. But that was about the change.

A sudden strong gust flipped the book’s pages, almost till the end. There were no more bojutsu techniques but some bandage drawings, just like the one he has on his arms. He raised his hand and compared it with the drawings, and they were exactly the same. Most of the pages were frayed, but they were obviously blueprints. One of the notes caught his attention.

* Sometimes fighting with a bare hand can be difficult. Chakra can protect your body to some extent but not against a strong opponent with a weapon. They will still cut you in half, so I decided to fix it. These bandages, I implemented some magic on them, and now they can protect your hands against powerful attacks that chakra can’t. But of course, they have a limit too. –

Elius smiled and stood up.

‘I’ve never thought about fighting barehanded, but of course, I can do with chakra now. Why didn’t I think of that?’

His smile grew bigger.

‘This is going to be so much fun to punch the shit out of some stuff.’

He was about to create a whole new fighting style. Thus another two years passed by under intense training.