“I’ve been walking for a while now. Is there seriously still no sign of civilization?” Scepticus asked rhetorically. As soon as he said that he saw a bunch of tents. But what were they doing in the middle of the forest? It definitely wasn’t a camping trip as Scepticus saw spears being sharpened and the sound of metal hitting metal. “A village?” Scepticus said. At that moment Scepticus saw a tall man come out of one of the tents. He had short brown hair with a goatee and looked like he was in his forties. His skin appeared as if he had been sunbathing for hours and his eyes were very piercing. He had an instrument which Scepticus didn't know what was. He got out of the tent as he breathed the fresh air.

Scepticus then fell down. Excruciating pain came to his head before he was knocked out. Scepticus woke up. He was looking at the ceiling. He could barely even move. Scepticus turned his head before looking at wooden bars. “Where am I?,” Scepticus thought whilst looking at his hand, Scepticus. They were extremely short and chubby. “Am I a baby?” he thought before letting out a sigh. Scepticus then saw his mother but she appeared to be younger. She appeared to be in panic as if not knowing what to do. At this moment Scepticus woke up on the floor. Because he was so concentrated on the man earlier he didn’t notice the sound of a rushing river. “A river?” he murmured to himself. Scepticus began approaching the river and noticed bags in it. Bags which humans could fit in. The bags’ shapes were also that of humans.

Scepticus then thought to himself, “Why should I care what these people are doing? It doesn’t really matter to-”. Scepticus’ thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sudden appearance of two men in black assassin armour. They both charged at Scepticus at the same time, whilst clenching their daggers. Scepticus was about to get hit as he couldn’t block or dodge both of the attacks at the same time with just pure speed. Fwoosh. As soon as Scepticus was about to get hit he just disappeared and appeared about 50 metres behind the assassin whilst on fire. The fire slowly turned black as purple spark’s began fluttering everywhere. The assassin retreated backwards a bit before appearing behind Scepticus and stabbing him in the gut from two directions. As soon as the assassin’s blades entered his body, the assassins’ tried to swiftly remove their blades from Scepticus thinking their job had ended. But the daggers wouldn’t budge after impaling Scepticus, as he fell to the floor, still burning.

The assassins both gave each other a nod of approval before disappearing and reappearing with a bucket of water. The assassins then threw the water at the fire. The water evaporated and the Hell’s Pyre grew stronger. It enveloped both the assassins in flames as they began to scream. The assassin's souls moved and made it into Scepticus’ soul storage. Scepticus then walked away from the camp. The bandits from the camp quickly came pouring out but Scepticus managed to stay out of sight. It was then that he saw a kid. He looked to be around 11-years old and was floating in the air with a white orb behind him. Then all of a sudden the boy looked at Scepticus. Now Scepticus could see his yellow eye and forest green hair. The ball suddenly started zooming towards Scepticus hitting him square on the face. Just like that he was knocked out.

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When Scepticus woke up, he was tied to a tree whilst the boy looked at him intently with his yellow eyes. “Hmm… interesting. You aren’t normal,” he said. As soon as Scepticus tried to break the ropes vines would come from the surroundings and restrain him further. “Is there something wrong with your other eye? Why is it covered?” Scepticus asked in the most innocent tone he could say. “I saw you murder those people there. Do you think I would tell you?” he said. “Well I could tell you,” he said while twirling one of his braided pieces of hair, “if you become MY student!”. Scepticus wasn’t expecting this. A mentor. A mentor that could knock him out in one strike? Although Scepticus was still cautious it was an opportunity for him. Especially since he needed to kill those bastardly demon lords.

Scepticus then said, “I accept. But we should make a soul pact,”. “Huh what’s that,” the boy said, “In my 100 years of existence I’ve never heard of that”. “It's fine. I know how to do it. But the question is whether you trust me on this or not” Sceptius replied. “I’ll trust my to-be student,”. Scepticus weaved the soul pacts and intertwined their souls and then added the conditions they needed to follow. And then the soul pact was complete. “So what’s your name?” the boy asked, “Mine is Serbius so you’ll refer to me as Master Serbius,” the boy said. “I’m Devlin,” Scepticus replied. “Also why do your eyes look so snake-like?” Scepticus asked. “I’ll tell you soon enough,” Serbius replied. “Ok so what’s my first lesson going to be master?” Scepticus asked. “Make a ball like this,” Serbius says whilst pointing at the floating white ball behind him.

“And how do I do that?” Scepticus asked. “I don’t know. Figure it out yourself. That’s what I did,”. An hour passed by. Scepticus had no clue on what to do. He then absorbed a soul from behind him. Suddenly Serbius began talking for the first time in an hour saying, “Ok first of all do you even know how to gather mana?”. “Yes I do,” Scepticus replied. “Ok. Then you should be able to figure it out by gathering your mana”. Scepticus then begins to sit cross-legged and put his hands on his knees. He began to meditate. He slowly began feeling the mana flowing through him. But he could sense something else. Another presence. He tried introducing that presence into his veins and in doing so his mana turned from a blue to a very dark purple. At least that was what he was imagining. He slowly circulated until he could no longer feel the presence and it was entirely mixed in with his mana.

Scepticus began to open his eyes. He felt different. It was as if he had become more demonic in nature but his appearance didn’t show it. He looked behind him and saw a giant snake’s face. It swallowed Scepticus and he was asleep again. But this time he was in consciousness. “Corra,” he said, “You’re here earlier than expected,”.