Astra began to train in the woods every day. From the moment he saw the mage that attacked the villagers, a desire to get stronger was planted in his heart. While Roussel was cutting wood all day, Astra was training the whole time. His gradual increase in strength motivated him to train more every day.

Ever since the first rebellion, the villagers’ taxes were increased a little bit each month. Their beatings also got a little bit rougher and although there were no broken bones, black and blue bruises would appear. The villagers were frustrated, if their injuries increased, how were they to pay more taxes?

Every time Astra made a ball of wind, he would get a little tired. He realized that physical fitness correlated with the usage of mana. Every day, Astra would run in the woods, climb trees, hunt for food, and experiment with mana.

Within a couple of years, Astra was a head taller than the kids his age in the village. He was well built and a bit tan due to all the time he spent outside. His black hair complimented his stern onyx eyes.

He was incredibly fast and agile due to the unpredictable terrain of the woods. He had learned how to survive in the forest and even gained battle experience from exchanging a few blows with bears and wolves.

If his parents had known what he had done in the forest, they would’ve been scared out of their wits. Imagine a twelve old kid fighting beasts by himself out in the wild, everyone would think that he was a beast himself.

Through his experimentation, Astra’s hypothesis of creating fireballs and waterballs were proven to be correct. But without anything to learn from, Astra could only use mana in very basic ways. Astra would exhaust himself at the end of the day by using up all his mana.

Unknown to Astra, this exhaustion of mana allowed his mana pool to grow slightly bigger every day. Compared to kids his age, his mana pool was nearly two times as big.

Every day, Astra would go a little bit deeper within the forest. He wanted to explore the whole place and discover new things.

One day, as Astra went deeper into the forest, he found that the forest was actually the entrance to a mountainous region full of hills and caves. There was a loud roar off in the distance which piqued Astra’s curiosity.

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Astra ran towards the direction of the roar and saw that there was a large monster that was four meters tall with green skin. Its large hands held a small tree which was being swung around ferociously.

Astra immediately hid behind a bush and saw that the ogre was fighting someone.

“Ugh, you damn ogre. You’re lucky you caught me injured or else I would’ve pummeled you already.” A man in his thirties was wearing a white robe stained with blood while holding a three foot long staff.

“ROOOOARRR!” The ogre yelled into the air as it charged towards the man.

The man held his staff to the left of him and created a ball of wind. The ball of wind blasted the ground and the man used the recoil to dodge the charge.

The ogre crashed into a mountain but was uninjured.

“Shit, out of mana.” The man heaved and gasped for air.

Astra wasn’t sure if this he could take on this ogre. It was unlike anything he had ever fought before.

The ogre recovered from its charge and looked towards the man again. The ogre immediately began charging at the man once again.

The man did not want his life to end this way. He had just finished an intense battle. Normally, a monster of this caliber would only take ten percent of his strength to defeat but right now, he didn’t even have one percent left.

Astra thought to himself, if he couldn’t even protect someone who was right in front of him, how would he be able to protect his family?

Suddenly, the man heard a shout.

“Who are you? Where are you from?”

The man looked around and immediately replied, “My name is Fausto from Ascelyn Academy!”

Ascelyn Academy? Wasn’t this his chance?

Astra leapt out of the bushes and blasted a fireball at the ogre’s eyes.

“ARGHHH!” The ogre covered its eyes and swung its tree around.

Astra landed besides Fausto and pointed south, “Run towards my house. Ask for Roussel or Darcy.”

“Thank you, young man.” The man slowly limped away.

Staring at the ogre in front of him, Astra wondered if it would’ve been better to just ignore the man and ran away. It was too late for regrets as Astra had already caught the ogre’s attention.

“Now then, how should I deal with you?” Astra looked at the ogre from top to bottom.

This was Astra’s first battle against a monster of this level. He was unsure as to how to defeat this thing. If Astra couldn’t beat this ogre, he and the man would be dead. Astra analyzed the situation. From the look of ogre’s charge, it would be impossible for Astra to act as a decoy and run in the opposite way to buy some time, not to mention there weren’t many trees here in this mountainous region so the ogre would have an easy time charging right at Astra.

A battle of endurance? Astra immediately casted that thought away. The ogre was enormous and swung a tree around like it was a stick. It was bound to have more energy than Astra who only trained for several years.

There was only one option left.

Astra had to fight the ogre.