It was the year 3011 on the World Calendar and the Sun Dynasty was bustling with crowds in each city across the empire. Recently, the king birthed a son who was said to be the one to take the throne in the future, and so in celebration, the king allowed businesses to receive several cuts in their taxes. With such a wild thing occurring, not just the locals, but even big business owners stationed in neighboring empires made their way over, hoping to make more money. 

This did not just boost the Sun Dynasty's wealth, but it also made other empires around the world concerned enough to keep a closer eye on them. The Sun Dynasty's royal family had been in power now for over two thousand years, but they allowed a particular religion to be allowed within their borders. The Church of Light, although taking some influence away from the royal family, boosted the Sun Dynasty's overall strength allowing the empire to flourish and gain a foothold on the world stage. 

Normally, an empire would not allow a religion to exist in order for the royal family to hold complete power, but the Sun Dynasty was a different story. Plagued with high crime and wars, the Church of Light was formed originally assisting the poor citizens across the empire. However, once the royal family found out that the leader of the religion was a 9th rank mystic, things changed immediately. 

Usually, an empire wouldn't have anyone whether in their military or part of an organization ranked that high as a mystic, but rather, warriors were a little more common in this regard. Mystics were individuals who were able to utilize a particular element to cast techniques unavailable to warriors.

With a 9th rank mystic now in their grasp, the Sun Dynasty became closer with the leader of the Church of Light and used its leader to politely urge the other empires to think twice before launching any more attacks. And with the help of the royal family, the Church of Light was able to expand quite a bit and slowly became a truly fearsome power. 

In a small township called Granite Township located on the border of a rather big city within the Sun Dynasty was a ruling noble family. Using the granite mine located right outside of the town, this noble family was able to slowly gain some power and wealth utilizing the citizens of the town who had no combat ability to train to become even a 1st rank warrior. 

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A ten year old child by the name of Lance, was the next soon to be leader of his noble family, but there was a rather big issue, and that was the Yellow Serpent clan. This was an influential clan within the nearby city that was considered one of the three top rated powers within it. 

Lance's family, who was named the Sacred Ember clan, had a dispute since their founding with the Yellow Serpent clan. Originally, when the Sacred Ember clan found the granite mine, the Yellow Serpent clan tried to soak their clan into their own ranks so that they could control the mine and the endless wealth it offered. 

Lance's ancestors refused the Yellow Serpent clan and took all of the wealth created by this granite mine for themselves. Since they couldn't do anything to the granite mine in order to hurt the Sacred Ember clan, the Yellow Serpent clan just made it extremely difficult for them to sell these resources within the city and surrounding area. 

With one of the top rated powers suppressing them, the Sacred Ember clan was still able to make ends meet, but not a single power wanted to even ally themselves with the clan. It was even to the point where very little merchants who had headquarters in other cities, chose not to do business with them. So only able to deal with those who were on the lowest tier in both power and wealth, caused the Sacred Ember clan to barely grow and remained as a noble family only in name within this town. 

Even in an empire such as the Sun Dynasty, the strongest of powers were still able to suppress and bully the weak. Knowing that his family's future rested on his shoulders, Lance could only work as hard as he could since he was able to lift a sword, and to train to one day become strong enough to finally lift his family to the heights that they deserved to be. 

With hard work and determination, Lance since he was only the age of five years old, vowed that he would be a worthy successor of the family and would make his ancestors proud. And so with this, he was known as a caring but strong willed child by those who cared for him as well as the normal villagers who would run into him every once in a while.