Adam watched the fight from the second level of the warehouse, sitting on the ground with his legs hanging over the balcony, his arms resting on the lower level of bars that made up the railing.

He knew about the match before Blake had begun leaking it, having 'overheard' the agreement between the two. That was why he had subtly let people know about it before Blake began to do so. He wanted a packed room.

Well, warehouse.

Not for greed or anything, but to see how things were handled. No one knew that he was the one behind the underground fighting rings, and he went to 'great' lengths to keep it so. No one suspected a kid of being the owner, which actually made it easy.

When the ref called for Cam and Eden to fight, Adam turned his gaze not to them, but to one of the agents in his line of sight. All six of them were on the first floor. One was along each short wall, and two along each long wall, all six hidden through the crowd.

Snorting, he wondered if the two who had light mind barriers knew he'd already slipped through. They weren't any threats, and he planned on ensuring none of them managed to track their quarry that night.

Returning his gaze to the two sparring mages, he saw that Eden had managed to get close to Cam before Cam's mind blasts took over. Cam seemed to have a difficult time moving away while continuing the assault, but still managed to put distance between them.

After three minutes, Eden surrendered the fight.

Adam nodded, then watched as the two left, Eden immediately heading to collect the winnings, Cam to join with Greyson and Blake before doing so. As the agents went to follow, Adam misdirected them with a gentle application of mind and light magic. They'd eventually realize they were following the wrong people, but not before their intended targets were long gone.

Once most everyone had left, Adam himself took his leave, heading to the suite he lived in at the top of an apartment building. Things had been set in motion, and he hoped they panned out.

After taking a shower and getting some sleep, Adam pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans, an orange tee, and then pulled a black button-up with short sleeves, leaving it unbuttoned. After fixing a belt around his waist and slipping his feet into black and orange sneakers, Adam grabbed his wallet and keys, then left, making his way down to a diner that served excellent pancakes.

"Hey, Adam," the hostess greeted him. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," Adam smiled. "I'm supposed to be meeting a friend here. He's twelve, but on the short side, and with platinum-blond hair and dark blue eyes. Do you know if he's shown up?"

"Sure has," she answered. "Just sat him a minute ago. He's over in Kelly's section."

"Thanks," Adam smiled, then made his way into his favorite waitress' section, locating the platinum-blond mind mage, who jumped the moment he came into view. "Hello, Cameron."

Adam sat down across from him.

"Who are you?" Cameron asked, eyeing him suspiciously. "How are you doing that?"

"Doing what?" Adam asked. "Making it so you can't sense my mind?"

Cameron gave him a small nod.

"I've some talent with mind magics, too," Adam explained. "Though I've probably been doing them for longer. I'd like to make a deal with you."

"The voices say you're thousands of years old."

Adam paused. He hadn't been expecting that comment.

"The voices?" Adam asked.

"They're in my head," Cameron stated. "All the time. And they said that you're thousands of years old. And that you should go and die already."

Adam groaned, smacking his head into the table just as Kelly arrived.

"Everything alright, Adam?" She asked.

"Where's the nearest cliff?" He asked.

"Don't say that," she gently slugged him on the arm. "Who's your friend?"

"We're not friends," Cameron stated.

"He's Cameron," Adam lifted his head back up. "And he's just brought back some really painful memories. I'll have an orange juice and a milk, and put his order on my tab."

"What would you like, Cameron?" Kelly turned her gaze to Cameron.

"Milk."

"Alright," she said. "Two milks and an orange juice, here in a minute. Do you boys want to order breakfast now, or when I come back?"

"When you come back," Adam told her, and she nodded, then left. He turned his gaze back to Cameron. "So-"

"Why do the voices want you to die?"

"Who knows?" Adam shrugged. "I don't even know what the voices are."

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"They're in my head, and they say that the nearest cliff can be reached by-"

"No," Adam held up a hand. "I don't want to hear it. I can sense that you're highly suspicious of me, Cameron. That's why I arranged for us to meet here, not where I'll be meeting with Eden later."

Cameron started to ask why he was meeting with both of them, stopping when the waitress showed up with their drinks. They both ordered breakfast, then she left again.

"You're meeting with both of us?" Cameron asked.

"Yes," Adam responded. "I have talent in both mind and spatial magic, and have trained in them over the course of my life."

"How do you look like that when you're thousands?"

"Blood magic can assist with the aging process," Adam stated. "I've dabbled in all schools at one point or another."

"So you prevented yourself from aging at thirteen?"

"Can I please talk?" Adam asked. "Without being interrupted?"

"Depends on how much I like you, and right now, I'm not liking you very much."

Adam took a deep breath, then spent several long seconds letting it out.

"I wanted to offer you a deal, as well as mentorship in your mind magic."

"And the same deal to Eden, but with his spatial magic?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You two," he said. "Bring in money to the arena. You also bring me entertainment. One day, he'll manage to best you. However, you're both limited by what little magic you know. I can help you. In exchange for training with me, I'd ask that you and Eden both come on Fridays, when able, and fight each other once the blocks are over. You'd both receive a five-hundred bonus for it, as well as ten percent of the overall winnings. The ring will only take twenty percent. The reason for this is because with you two fighting, there would only be a single bet, with the majority voting on one. Normally, people bet either on specific winners and time to win, or how many times someone wins in a row that night.

"With the two of you," Adam continued. "It became predictable. If you two fight, you win. If you fight someone else, you win. If Eden fights someone else, he wins. There's no variation. What it ended up being was people simply betting how long each of you would last before no one would challenge, which is why winnings were what they were.

"For last night's match," Adam pulled napkins from the dispenser and began arranging them on the table. "Nearly everyone who bet did so on you, and on how long it would take you to take out Eden. While that's a valid way of betting, it's kind of bad when it's always the same person winning because then it becomes difficult to actually do the payouts properly because there aren't enough losing money, either."

"Oh," Cameron said. "I can see why that's bad.

"Only half of the spectators bet on that match," Adam continued. "If I train the both of you, and you both study well, the matches can become more varied. He could have had you simply from his teleportation. If he can manage a mental block, it'll take you longer to push him back with your mental ram. That would give him the opportunity he needs. If you can manage to increase the power of your mental rams and your skill and getting through mental blocks, you could still take him out before he did something to you. I can teach you both other spells within your roots to augment those as well.

"However," Adam stated. "Your mental ram is your most powerful weapon at the moment, and as you were doing before, with the fights, training it's your best bet. If he can take you out before you can overwhelm him with it, then he wins. If you can manage to get through his mental barriers and disable him until he yields, you win.

"Trained up," Adam repeated his earlier statement, pulling his hands off the napkins and setting them on his lap. "The fights will get more varied. People will bet on the one they like the most, even if they expect them to lose. And that brings me to another point.

"One day a week," Adam said. "You and Eden would fight alone, against others. With you two becoming known as untouchable, stronger mages are coming by, wanting to fight you two. Unregistered mages with reputations beyond the arena or in others. People will bet on them."

Adam fell silent and looked at Kelly, who was returning with their stacks of pancakes and plates of sausage and bacon. She set them down, then grabbed their glasses to refill. The two boys ate in silence as Cameron digested Adam's proposal. When he finished, he looked at the other boy.

"What kind of training?"

"Depends on what you want to train," Adam answered. "Though I'd have no issue letting you use your mental battering ram on me. With my mental defenses, it's unlikely you'd be breaching them anytime soon."

"Because of your thousands of years of experience?"

"What else do the voices say about me?"

"That you should go and die already."

"Anything else?"

"That you've called yourself a god."

"I didn't call myself a god," Adam snorted. "That's what regular humans called me. I didn't ask to be called any of what they called me. I am simply me."

"Do you know much about empathy?"

"The ability to sense the minds and emotions of others?" Adam asked, and Cameron snorted. "You have it?"

"I can't turn it off."

"Is it your primary root?" Adam asked.

"The voices are."

"Can you tell me about the voices?" Adam asked. "What they are? What they do? I've never heard of them before."

"They call themselves the Zratakai."

"Yeah, never heard of them," Adam shrugged. "Not unusual. Are you sure they're your primary root?"

"I could hear them before I had my empathy."

"It's possible you have a dual-primary, then," Adam said. "It's rare, but it happens sometimes. They're usually in different schools, but you're probably both in mind."

Cameron thought for a few moments.

"Shut up, will you?" He hissed, and Adam raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, they were getting annoying."

"You can't tune them out?"

"Not since I started hearing them properly," Cameron shook his head. "I can manage them just fine, though. I can't turn off the empathy, though."

"There's a breathing exercise you can do," Adam told him. "It worked for the innate empath I met. You can adjust the range, right? There's just a minimum?"

"Yeah," Cameron nodded.

"Okay," Adam said. "Inhale slowly and deeply, then exhale slowly until your breath is all out. Do it again, and this time, expand your rage to its maximum as you inhale, and decrease it down to your minimum when you exhale. Expand, then shrink, for five breaths. For the next five breaths, reverse it – shrink when you inhale, expand when you exhale. Then, do another neutral, like you did at the start. Repeat this four times, so that you do a total of five sets, or fifty-five breaths. After, do another inhale, then another exhale, then inhale as deeply as you can, shrinking your range as much as you can. Hold that breath for as long as you can, then slowly exhale. The whole process should take around ten minutes, if each breath takes ten seconds."

"What does that do?" Cameron asked.

"Try it," Adam told him. "At least once a day. Don't focus on the minds you sense as you do it, either. This will help you increase your range, your focus while doing it regardless of how many minds you're sensing, and you'll find yourself, over time, being able to reduce your range even more. It's a good exercise for controlling your range with it and with controlling the power itself. Eventually, you'll find yourself able to simply pull the sense back within yourself."

"Oh," Cameron said.

"So," Adam said, stopping his arranging of the napkins to put some cash on the table to pay for the meal. "Do you accept my offer?"