[A/n: This is the first Chapter written after the break so I hope the quality is to your liking.]

"You want to die, you fool?" Leon shouted as he kept trying to free himself but Hector pressed the blade deeper into his neck and it started to sink in.

"Next time won't be just a scratch…" Hector wanted to affirm his demand by putting more force on his threat.

At that moment, what he didn't expect came to hit him. The ship shook immediately and the whole deck went left, right, and left. With the blade deep in Leon's neck, he felt a burning sensation but he immediately took the chance and twisted Hector's wrist.

Vadim also took the chance and rushed as everyone else lost their footing. A stout Dwarf wasn't to be shaken by this kind of rough waves and he took the opening Leon made.

Leon ducked in at the last moment as Vadim's fist flew into Hector's face. With his neck wounded, Leon only pressed at the wound with his right and cast "Heal".

The warm light flowed from his hand but he didn't stop and he rushed to the figurehead where Vadim was.

"What are you doing?" The old mage shouted, "Get back to the orb."

"No! Vadim, you power the Orb. Leave this one to me."

Vadim, who just punched Hector out of the ship, turned to Leon and without saying much, he went to the Orb and put his Light Mana into it.

As for Leon…

"This won't work. You need Fire Mana to…" The old water mage seemed annoyed but he was immediately baffled when he saw Leon discharge fire from his left hand at the figurehead.

"That boy…" His thoughts made him frown but he was surely taken by the talents Leon displayed.

An assassin, a water elementalist, an air elementalist, a light elementalist, and now a fire elementalist? Just how many talents can one child have?

But as Leon discharged his Fire Mana into the statue, he felt something wrong with it. By that time he healed the wound on his neck as fast as he could and put all his focus on the figurehead. To the old man behind him, the boy was even more interesting in how efficiently and fast he handled magic as if it was just a thought at the back of his head.

"Treat it like an Anima!" The old man said something to Leon.

"Like what?" Leon asked with a busy mind trying to figure the figurehead out.

"An Anima!" The old man replied as if Leon was supposed to know what that means.

"The fuck?" Leon became more annoyed than ever.

"Like an Anima, lad." Vadim replied, "A staff, a weapon, a conduit!"

Even Vadim seemed to be trying to explain it to Leon. Something that he, who has the Arcane Theory book embedded into his head, failed to understand.

But if Vadim explained that this "Anima" thing is something akin to a staff or a weapon, Leon had a rough idea of how to use a conduit of magic even though he wasn't that expert in the field yet.

He fixed his hand on the figurehead's body and started to let his pure mana flow in without violently discharging it at the statue like he did with the orb. As it entered the statue and he was still feeling its presence connected to him, he found that the Mana wasn't being eaten away by the statue that is the figurehead and it started following a specific pathway inside.

"That's…" Leon almost freaked out but he kept some composure.

He was supposed to use Fire Mana but rather, the fire was changing its intensity while maintaining its nature.

Something clicked!

No… it crackled… like a spark.

The ship shook violently as the body of the Sea Serpent was now grinding against its hull as it coiled and coiled again. The destruction of the ship was imminent. Vadim's power through the orb started to flicker and the haughty old water mage used both his hands to control the rudder.

"If you're doing something, let it be now!" The old man shouted.

"Do it, lad! Do it!" Vadim shouted.

Leon's black eyes were flickering to the redness of the flames but at a moment of intense pain and pushing against what he couldn't understand, he found something… or rather… something found him.

An intense clarity!

Quietness!

A melody played by crackles stronger than that of any fire.

It wasn't going to yield to anything or anyone.

It just wanted freedom.

It wanted to strike.

And…

*CRACKLE!*

*RAOOOOOOOOOOOOOR*

"THUNDER!" Leon shouted as the entire body of the Sea Serpent was struck with lightning.

It didn't come from the figurehead as one would naturally imagine but it was attracted to it… FROM HEAVENS!

< "Fire Magic" F → E >

< You've learned"Lighting Strike" >

The Sea Serpent wasn't even able to resist anymore and like molten wax started to come apart together and fall back into the water.

"LEON!" Vadim shouted as he saw a sight he couldn't ignore and was about to rush at Leon but suddenly…

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A wave of water struck him sideways and attached him to the orb before freezing into ice all around him.

"Keep to the orb!" The Old Man seemed not to appreciate Vadim's concerns with the boy who kept performing miracles since the moment he first saw him.

Rather, the old man rushed towards Leon himself.

Leon seemed to have fallen when the lightning struck the figurehead and his hands as well as his forearms were completely charred black.

"Boy! What are you?" The man approached Leon slowly and checked him out.

"NO! LEON! WAKE UP!" Vadim called but Leon seemed to have passed out.

He seemed to be breathing and despite the wound he took but as soon he looked at the boy's side, he noticed a dagger with an unusual glint.

"Mithril?" The old man recognized the metal of Leon's dagger almost instantly and extended his hand toward it.

A second didn't pass after the old man took the dagger and he saw the insignia imprinted on the blade.

"Merlin?" The old man's eyes widened from shock and reddened from anger all at the same time.

He didn't even think as his right was completely enveloped in Ice that took the shape of a spearhead as it accelerated towards Leon's chest with no intention of sparing him.

"NOOOO!" Vadim shouted.

But the surprises weren't over just yet. The situation wasn't ending.

As the Sea Serpent dissolved like molten wax, the whole scenery around them was dissolving the same way, even the ship, the orb, and everything in their vision. Leon himself disappeared from where he was as the ship's deck seemed to have swallowed him down.

"WHAT? NO! HOW?!" The old man remained baffled by what he saw and stood over there watching everything around him change as his hand was enveloped in ice and the other was holding Leon's dagger.

What he saw was that he was in a Cave of some sort.

Water had reached half of his body as if he was in a cave bond and all he could see around him was painting on the cave walls.

All of that just now… was it an illusion?

And of such caliber?

Something he couldn't even sense or fathom.

"AAAH!" Vadim surfaced from the water hammer in hand and his eyes were locked on the old man, "I'll KILL YAAAA!"

He started to move violently but the man waved his hand and a wall of ice formed between him and Vadim on the water. He looked further into the cave and saw that the water was actually a small part of it and it rose above the water level into a dry cave area. He was about to move further in by himself but at that moment, a wave of fire came hitting at him from the back.

"Annoying Dwarf!"

He reacted immediately leaving no chance to his attacker and was about to cast magic back but as he waved the fire away, his entire being was shaken.

"ARGH!"

It was it… the crackling white… the power that all mages fear, Water Mages above all.

Leon was up from the water and masked his Lightning Attack in a wave of Flames. The old mage was caught off-guard and his mana was halted for a second, a second was all that Leon needed to land his knees at the mage's face and hold the hand that had the dagger in it.

"AAAAH!"

The mage screamed and lost his focus, he retrieved his hand but it was now missing two fingers, and his face was twisted wrong.

Leon was already here… above him.

He landed with his dagger aimed down at the mage's head.

They both fell into the water, Leon on top and the mage resisted but the hand he held out to block Leon's dagger was stabbed through and the dagger was going for his eyes.

His instincts kicked in, he's in water, his habitat. He can get away!

Just like a stream of water, the old man's body merged with the liquid substance and slipped off Leon's hand aiming to get away then freeze all the water.

However, Leon wasn't giving him a tiny chance to take his breath and held the man by his hair as they slipped out of the water together. The man landed on the ground and Leon on top of him and blood was everywhere.

It was turning into a messy situation.

"STOP!" The man struggled against Leon and managed to slap the dagger away from his hand but what came was way worse.

With his hands against the man's head, Lightning crackled and struck the two of them together. Both Leon and the old man were stunned badly and got separated from each other.

Leon fell to the ground panting and the old man flew with all his mana up the cave to the hole they originally fell from.

It was… exhausting…

The ice wall surrounding Vadim shattered and the angry Dwarf came out waving his hammer and his eyes were reddened with rage.

"LEON!"

He looked left and right until he found Leon. He mindlessly ran and held the boy up seeing that all the blood around was barely his and there were a lot of white hairs in his fist.

"Spirits! You're okay, lad?"

The fear and shock overwhelmed Vadim as he saw the sorry state of Leon, whose arms and face seemed in a dangerous state.

"You're… loud." Leon replied, barely able to move.

"That just now… you made… the storm." Vadim patted Leon's head and sat beside him, "People will get mad if they hear what ya just did, lad."

Leon remained lying there but from the water in the cave, many people started to drift over to the side. They were the Elves as well as Hector Norman. Their eyes were wide open but their pupils were frozen as they floated in a vegetative state.

"They are all taken by the illusion." Vadim said.

"An illusion?" Leon asked, "All of that was unreal?"

"I've never seen anything like it myself." Vadim said with a shiver running through his spine, "By the mountain's beard! Erielle would die if she saw an illusion this vivid."

Leon sat up and then stood straight with a pained body. He pushed himself to the limit against a dangerous mage and forced him to retreat but now that he injured him badly, he must finish what he started.

"What are you doing?" Vadim asked but Leon didn't reply with words.

Instead, he asked for a hand at rescuing the Elves from the water, and just as he took one of them out, they started to come back to consciousness.

Those puny Elves were nothing like Erielle, who's a High Elf. If Leon was to compare them with anything he knows, they're more like Christmas Elves, petite and with sharp features.

They were grateful to Leon and Vadim who saved them both in the cave and in the sea. But just as the last person to save was Hector, Leon stopped Vadim from dragging him over.

Instead, he used his foot and stepped on Hector's neck to drown him down.

"Lad, that's not a proper way to kill." Vadim said.

"He'd disagree." Leon said and looked down at the man, "Well, no witnesses now."

Leon was cleaning the mess he left in Karanberg and Hector Norman was a loose end he had to deal with. Those who were left behind were the ones Leon was sure they wouldn't tell on him unless they were caught and tortured by those who wanted him in their hands. However, those whom he was sure would sell him out must die.

Covering one's tracks and tying loose ends is a dirty job indeed but it also has its ethics. Leon was a professional in that field too.

As Life and Hector Norman parted ways, Leon wanted to worry about the elderly Water Mage but a man of such caliber would be too much and a cornered dog would bite the wildest.

Leon looked up and beside him, there were some of the Elves as well as Vadim looking up to the cave's ceiling. Their eyes seemed to have caught something which made Leon look up too.

Aside from the small hole which they all seemed to have fallen from when the cave was being dug, the cave's walls and ceiling were made of smooth stone so it was better to call it a dug tunnel rather than a cave. However, that wasn't the important part.

What was important was the thing Leon couldn't help but identify in an instant. The sea, the ship, the lightning, the sea serpent. All of them were drawn just like the Pride of Del Mar on the walls and the ceiling.

"Hah!" Leon laughed, "What a marvel!"

"Indeed." Vadim agreed, "This wall painting was made with magic and the water beneath it would vivify the sensation of the sea. It was all a very elaborate illusion."

"At least we have a way to get out." Leon said then turned backward, "But there's something inside."

Far deeper into the dim cavern, Leon knew Hector Norman came for something, a treasure or something of great value.

Why not dig that thing out?