To the east of the Sapphire Sea, there lies a human kingdom so large it's borders spanned the dwarven kingdom of Istvein and Dumoss to the north all the way south to the forest kingdom of the elves of Qirith and Veria. Karnesia it was called; and it is a country ruled by the just and pacifist king Alvion III, whose rule is upheld and supported by the mage-knight order called the White Lions.

One can find many villages, towns, and cities in Karnesia, but the grandest cities are the port cities located on the shores of the Sapphire Sea.

North of Catfish river that almost cut the country in half lies the port city of Usbhub where people of different races mingle, the port city of Hardisk whose vault holds historical records from ancient times, and the port city of Midi where bards from all over gather and display their singing skill.

At the mouth of Catfish river lies the city of Pcie, which is actually made up of three neighbouring towns -Isabus, Eisabus, and Vesabus- whose individual administrator had decided to band together under a single administration to form the city.

To the south of Catfish river lies the port city of Raideon and Anvidia, whose population are dominated mostly by alchemist and have annual alchemy competition between the two cities.

And then there is the city called Firewall. Situated at the southernmost end of Karnesia between a cove and a mountain, it provides the only way into the kingdom from the southlands with a road that goes through a narrow passageway. Indeed, one can say that the way to enter the kingdom of Karnesia from land is effectively blocked or extremely limited thanks to Firewall city. It is precisely in this city of Firewall where our story is centered, on a young human girl, a lass known to her friends as Tinian 'Tinny' Lockheart.

Tinny was orphaned at a young age. Her parents were powerful sorcerers; in fact, she came from a long line of distinguished magical family. When she was younger, she had followed her alchemist mother in gathering plants and herbs to make magical potion, as well as helping her enchanter father collect chemical and magical minerals to forge magic items. She had learned a lot from her parents, and is bound to become a great sorcerer in the future if she kept up her efforts.

Unfortunately, one day, her carefree days ended when both her parents were cast out into the void, along with more than half of her home. While her mother was experimenting with a new recipe upstairs in the potion room, her father's latest enchanting project reacted violently, causing the spells they were casting to intertwine and become wild. A tear in space-time was created which sucked everything and everyone into it. Tinny escaped the disaster solely due to she was not at home at the time; she went out to run some errands and only arrived home to see the house finally being sucked into the void before closing itself...

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

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4 years have passed since Tinny moved into the orphanage. At 13 years of age, she is now eligible to apprentice herself to a master craftsman. Unfortunately, her diminutive size and waif like appearance proves to be a stumbling block; being smaller and thinner than most girls her age, she were shunned by most craftsman whose craft requires certain physical competency.

One time she went to try out as an apprentice smith, but found out she could pathetically magically charge while hammering the red hot mythril ore only 40 times (out of the minimum 200 times usually needed to create mythril weapons, armors, or tools). The dwarven runesmith Flint at the time shook his head and told her to 'buff up her muscle' when she failed for the third time. Dwarves were legendary for the fact that they were not an emotional race. The tears that were streaming down his face that day when they dispose of the unuseable three portions of mythril while escorting Tinny out of the smithy is a testament to how 'moved' Flint was with her efforts.

There was also the time when she went to the bowyer street and tried to apprentice herself to the elven master craftsman Silvanas. After crafting the third lopsided bow and countless lopsided arrows, she was gently but firmly escorted out of the shop by other apprentices. Firmly, because she had been hugging Silvanas legs crying while begging to be taken in as an apprentice.

And then there was the time where she somehow managed to burn down a magic scroll shop and were thus banned from going to the magic market section for a time.

And the time when she tried to apprentice herself to a familiars/pet summoner master, and accidentally summoned a somewhat nasty and bad tempered wyvern, who proceeded to wreck the shop before being banished by the master summoner.

As she sat morosely outside near the entrance of a shrine to the earth goddess Demeter, a passing shaman saw her and offered to exorcise her bad luck in a ritual. Unfortunately the effects of the ritual rebounded on the shaman, with the said shaman being hit with daily minor accidents.

However, all of these bad luck events that has dogged her for some time changed one day while returning to the orphanage after an unsuccessful attempt of getting an apprenticeship. While walking down Stargazer street, she caught the attention of a grand wizard sitting on a bench in front of a magic item shop, drinking tea...