“You're the daughter of the Vampire King…?” Solstice couldn’t believe nobody had ever told him about this giant detail about her.

“There isn’t much to it, he wanted to marry me off and I got strong enough to run away. Can we please finish this food now?” Clearly Bela had no intentions of talking about her past here at least and everyone realized that, so it was dropped in an instant.

The rest of the dinner was very quiet minus the occasional glances Lily would give to Solstice before retreating back to her shyness, seeing this made Solstice understand why Hugo asked him to watch out for her. Finally, after the dinner Solstice and Bela retired to their respective rooms for the night, but around midnight Solstice heard a knock at his door and opened it to see Lily standing in his doorway.

“May I help you?”

“Can… I come in. I want to talk to you privately….” Solstice nodded and allowed her to sit on his bed while he waited for her to muster up what little courage she had to speak.

“Can you tell me what my brother said?” The guilt was evident on her face, and what hurt more was the fact that her brother never made an effort to speak to anyone until Solstice came around. Internally this infuriated her, but she could see how her brother felt a sort of kinship with him, both were rare geniuses, and each possessed strong wills which was clear from the night of the tragedy. But she couldn’t come to terms with her brother not speaking to her, they had been through everything together and just for him to just stop talking to her was eating her alive.

Solstice wasn’t sure what he should say and internally debated for a few minutes before spilling the beans.

Once he finished repeating what he said Lily immediately began to tear up, her brother had never spoken about his feelings before, and he finally let some of them slip out. For a few minutes Lily recounted stories of their past growing up, times when Hugo would save her from other girls and boys bullying her, telling people things she was too shy to admit she didn’t like, even defending her from their father. He would take as much weight off her shoulders as he could and all she felt was guilt. She had never been able to help him with anything, she was always the damsel in distress who needed saving while her brother took the brunt of everything for her. As time went on, she began to cry more and more and eventually she completely broke down in tears.

Solstice wasn’t used to dealing with this and decided to just pat her back as she released all her emotions, she had pent up since the tragedy. She eventually fell asleep in his lap and not knowing how to handle anything, Solstice proceeded to not move a muscle for the rest of the night.

When the sun began to rise Bela made her way to his room and stumbled upon a frozen stiff Solstice slowly falling asleep and jerking every once and awhile while Lily was out cold with tears all over her face and Solstice’s pants. She could only smile at this before coming up with an evil plan.

“Oh, my Solstice! Who would’ve thought you and Lily would sleep together!” As soon as Solstice heard this, he went pale, and two killing intents spread throughout the house enveloping him, clearly from Luther and Hugo.

After some talking out, eventually Solstice got away free before being mutilated by two overprotective males, and Lily had hidden away in her room to avoid making eye contact with Solstice, her crying in his lap was very clear in her memory and was incredibly embarrassing. Solstice made an emphasis on leaving as quickly as possible so by noon they had arrived back home only to see his mother waiting inside for him.

He immediately ran up to hug her before asking what had been weighing on his mind.

“Is he here? Did you manage to save him?” Solstice felt it was weird that nobody had seemed urgent in finding Telarion which angered him inside, but he knew that they knew better.

“Yes, I did, minus a few new scars and him looking a little older, he came out fine.” Ariel smiled warmly, she knew that Solstice loved his father immensely and how he had felt when nobody seemed distressed over his appearance, so it was nice to see his mood visibly brighten.

“So, I heard Leviathan stopped by? And almost erased my son? Care to explain?” Bela visibly shivered when she heard this and tried to sugarcoat what she could to avoid Leviathan getting dropped into god knows what kind of mess with Ariel’s powers.

“My I never thought you would defend him; I thought you hated how prideful the man was.” Ariel knew what kind of person Bela hated and Leviathan fell into that category perfectly.

“I’m merely accepting the fact that he could be the best teacher around right now for your son, he’s arguably the strongest in Aevis, even if you include the dimensions inside Aevis. I hate everything about him, but I accept he’s the best of the best.” Bela just crossed her arms thinking about how infuriating she found Leviathan.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“You have a point, let’s just hope his mindset doesn’t run off on him.” Ariel ruffled Solstice’s hair and took them both inside to see the state of Telarion.

“He’s been asleep for a year or so. He should come out of it in a few years, maybe after you return home before the exam.” Ariel stared lovingly at Telarion, seeing him fight his way back to her made her hurt deep inside but remembering how she destroyed almost everyone responsible brought a smile to her face.

“Oh yeah, I managed to call in a favor and get this crystal for you, it’s got a nice guide and progression for your corruption magic, I got it from the best of the best.” Solstice had begun to understand how scary his mother could be after hearing her speak so vaguely about important things, but he decided to not question it and take it with a smile on his face.

“Leviathan should be on his way here, so I’d go ahead and say your goodbyes and pack. I have no idea how long he’s going to keep you with him, but if you're not back by the time the exam rolls around, I’ll come and beat the both of you.” Ariel casually smiled and kissed her son on the forehead, as if hearing his name called a giant crash was heard outside and a yell followed shortly after.

“Let’s get going kid! We have about three years to make you worth anything!” Leviathan roared from outside, he had already found out about his son and knew he was safe, so he was attempting to avoid Ariel at all costs. After a few minutes Solstice walked outside and greeted Leviathan, before he could scoop up Solstice and run though Ariel appeared.

“Wouldn’t it be fast if I just opened a portal? Just tell me where the training is going to be, so I can find you.” Ariel said with a devilish smile on her face, with that Leviathan gave up and told her where to go.

“I’m taking him to my home by the core of Aevis.”

Hearing this Ariel frowned, the core of Aevis was somewhere deep within the planet and was guarded by many S-Ranked demonic beasts and dragons who followed only Leviathan’s orders.

“Why does he need to go there? He can’t do anything to S-Ranks yet.”

Getting from E-Rank to A-Rank was a cakewalk compared to getting from A-Rank to S-Rank, certain conditions had to be met and wasn’t widely shared to the public.

“The higher mana density will be good to improve his reserves and make his control better because of the abundance in the air. I think I can bring him to the cusp of S-Rank or maybe even S-Rank, it depends on him.” Leviathan was fully confident he could bring the kid to S-Rank, but it was a matter of his mentality if he could break the barrier to ascend.

“If anything, helping I will teleport you into the abyss, I’m serious.” Ariel threatened Leviathan, even he has a tougher time in the core but with the abundance of dragons down there it makes it way more manageable.

After going over other details, Ariel opened the portal to the fortress surrounding the core and waved goodbye to her son.

As soon as Solstice stepped through the portal, he was almost knocked out completely. The amount of mana here was hundreds of times denser than the surface, and on top of that the auras coming off of every demonic beast and dragon was enough to make someone soil themselves.

“Huh you actually stayed awake I’m surprised, let’s go inside and we’ll get you started.” Leviathan had hoped by just throwing him in here, the kid would be humbled by how weak his will was but clearly, he had been through similar things.

After arriving in the castle two very tall guards with wings and tails approached them, each had all white armor with a black trim.

“Welcome back sir.” Each said in unison, these men were the left- and right-hand men of Leviathan, and also his best soldiers.

“Meet Leo and Lionel, Leo had red hair while Lionel has Black hair, good luck trying to identify any other way. Both men had the aura of top tier S-Rankers but showed absolute obedience to Leviathan.

“Both these kids are my grandsons just like you, except from Telarions mother's side. I raised them myself when my daughter disappeared along with her husband, not too shabby of a job am I right?” Leviathan patted himself on the back, raising two kids was daunting for him because he feared that they would run away just like Telarion but luckily, they endured and stay by his side. His wife had always regretted not doing more for Telarion so she didn’t help him raise Leo and Lionel.

“To start off you're training I'm going to stick you with these two, Leo has an affinity for Lightning while Lionel has one for Dark, until you reach a level I’m satisfied with I won’t train you. So, train well!” With that Solstice was instantly pawned off to these two men he had no idea would treat him.

“Welcome cousin don't worry we won’t treat you any differently than any trainee we have here. But we will hold you to a higher standard, so be prepared to bleed a lot and break a lot.” Throughout the sentence both twins were talking at the same time which startled Solstice.

“We share a mind due to a complication at birth, so get used to this, the main difference is our personality. I’m more approachable while Lionel is very rough.” All Lionel did was smile at this remark about himself, he knew it was true, but he wouldn’t change himself.

“We’re going to fine tune your control over mana in general before delving into specific elements, I’m assuming you have crystals for basically all your elements, correct?” Leo and Lionel had been briefed by Leviathan about how many affinities Solstice had which stunned them at the time but now they were able to keep their emotions in check.

“I only have one for Corruption, Gravity and Space. The rest I was taught by specific people.”

“Well, that’s fine, we’ve seen enough to understand most of them. Let’s get started.” Instantly Lionel tossed Solstice outside the confines of the fortress into the barren underground they were in, within moments of landing he was surrounded by a pack of demonic wolves, each had A-Rank strength which was too much for him to begin with.

“Survive, we need a baseline for you.” Is all the twins said before sitting down on the ramparts of the black stone fortress.

Thus began the first segment of his training under the tutelage of two psychopaths.