The guards looked at the now set sun and the two, they decided that it was not worth it and allowed Caius and the man entry into the city before the monsters started to roam the lands at night.
Caius walked behind the man—in his head, he was trying to understand what the man meant when he said he was his apprentice. Knowing he cannot get answers just from asking himself, he decided to make his thoughts known to the man. "Why did you say I'm your apprentice? I don't believe we have met."
The white-haired man turned around and grinned at him. "Well we have, after all it's not every day brought find one with such magical aptitude as you…" He gave him a knowing wink. "After all, you did lift the lake earlier."
Caius paused. "You saw that?" He was excited to have the ability to use magic and mold mana that he forgot his surroundings—his eyes narrowed slightly, he could sense mana but he didn't sense the man's just like when he dropped behind him at the gate.
The man bopped his head in a nodding fashion. "Yup, and I decided to follow you, I can feel you have an innate potential to magic, you even have that fox there…" when he addressed the fox with a knowing look which alarmed Caius. "So I decided to teach you, you know pass down some of my techniques, plus I haven't had pupil before so it checks all the boxes. And what happened to your eye?"
Caius sweatdropped, he was unwillingly roped into being an apprentice because the man wanted to have a pupil? But the man's concealment of his presence showed that he was atleast good, and Caius himself needed help to become stronger. "My eye is a long story…the question is, can you make me strong?"
The man nodded again, "if I couldn't do that much, I wouldn't be a S-rank adventurer named Asterion."
Caius' eye widened. 'An S-rank adventurer? He is on par with a holy knight?' He thought as he looked at Asterion's figure.
'You will need everything you can get, if you hope to have a chance to returning to my homeland.' The dragon yawned as it stirred awake.
"Come! Marvel at our creator and savior the lord of light who has blessed the day as we are about to be plunged into the darkness."
"His divine hand shall protect those who believe and follow his path! The path of the righteous, the monsters of the lord of darkness shall not prevail for we are blessed."
Caius stopped walking as he looked at the center of the town where a large congregation of people gathered—they were watching three people wearing white robes standing at the heart of it, talking about the lord of light and darkness.
Asterion stopped alongside him. "Best ignore those ones, they are nothing but trouble."
"How so?" Caius knew the royal family were believers of the lord of light, as his blessing was passed down onto them, even the church which the holy knights were part of believed in the lord of light as the supreme deity.
Asterion pointed at the child running at the people in white. "In this town specifically, there are people who don't believe in the mercy of the lord of light, because of the monster attacks that claimed lives…look at their faces, are they the people who actually believe that this supreme deity of theirs exists? Why are they suffering? Families lost and separated by the attacks and the holy knights? Act like they don't exist."
Caius took note of the facial expressions of the people there—most of them had contempt plastered all over their faces. The child Asterion pointed at, threw a rotten, half bitten apple at the people in white and the apple smeared all over them causing the people to stop their preaching.
He watched as one of knights with them draw his sword at the child and posed it to strike the child.
'So this is what the people not in the capital experience?' He thought as he took into account the state the buildings were in; dilapidated, and old almost clinging to life, like the people there.
Asterion vanished from Caius side and appeared before the knight and held his hand. "That's too extreme don't you think?" His eyes narrowed at him.
The knight tried to wiggle out of his hold but couldn't. "This doesn't concern you, he soiled the image of the witnesses of the lord of light, that's a sin punishable by death!"
Asterion tightened his hand around the knight's wrist denting the armor he wore. "Overlook this for once."
The knight nodded wanting to be freed from the hold—and Asterion did that, he turned to the kid and rubbed his hair. "Run back home, I'm sure your parents are worried sick." He offered the young boy a smile and the boy nodded and turned tail running into the congregation.
Asterion returned to Caius. "Phew, let's get an inn and be ready to begin your training."
Caius nodded, the event of what had happened, weighing heavily on his mind. He wanted to talk with Eirene—to ask her about the situations in the kingdom and to clear his name from the rape accusations he was almost killed over for.
*
True to his word, at first dawn Asterion was with Caius in the forest and the two of them were locked in combat—Caius jumped up and threw a roundhouse kick with all the force he could master and Asterion grabbed his foot blocking the attack and sending him flying in the distance which the former did a backflip and landed on the ground skidding to a halt.
'His body is extremely strong, despite the unstable mana core, he can hit as hard as amplifiers without body amplification magic.' Asterion thought as he looked at the bruise on his hand, he knew had he not used amplification magic, his hand would've been broken from the impact. His eyes landed on Caius and he smiled, the boy was a gem.
"next is magic, your hand to hand combat is better than most I've seen." Asterion said as he opened his palm and the surrounding forest became hot, multiple fireballs flared to life and he threw them at Caius.
'He's tryna kill me! I already died once!!' Caius complained as he ducked behind the trees avoiding the fireballs which would violently explode each time they came into contact with the trees sending chunks of the barks flying at him.
"Fight back! Use your magic!"
Caius heard Asterion yell at him and he gritted his teeth. 'the hell you think I'm trying to do?'he thought.
'You are pathetic.' The dragon commented as it watched from the trees—Caius running from the fireballs was entertainment but he was pitiful despite being a magic Overlord, the supreme ruler of magic itself.
'You aren't helping! So shut your trap.' Caius glanced at the dragon and that proved to be a mistake as the fireball exploded behind him sending him flying.
The dragon laughed. 'As much as I enjoy this, remember the feeling when you first used your magic, feel that flow again and picture what you want the magic to be, whether fire or lightning you'll be able to materialize it.'
Caius came to a stop and got to his feet. "Aww! That was my only shirt!" he complained looking at his torn clothing. He closed his eye and focused like the dragon had said, he suddenly felt it—flickering in the distance deep within him, he imagined his hand grabbing it and he gave it an imaginary form in his mind, multiple whisps of fire.
The moisture in the air dried up and around Caius, nine flames appeared much to Asterion's delight, but unlike his fire, Caius fire was dark blue which surprised Asterion as well.
Boy!
Caius snapped his eye open and he stood before a massive creature with orange, ringed eyes covered in wood, the creature had shark-like teeth and it roared at him, sending Caius flying.
I am an elderwood! Your soul is mine to command!
Its boisterous noise caused Caius mana core to distort and the horrifying mana from the beast core flooded into the core, as if trying to take over.
In the real world, Asterion felt the malevolent mana erupt from Caius and he glanced at the boy, watching his flames distort to obsidian black.
"Shit!" He cussed as he saw the boy's skin slowly turn dark.
In a blink he disappeared and appeared in front of Caius, Asterion punched Caius in the stomach and his magic flowed into the boy creating a magic rune on his navel.
Caius metamorphosis faded and the boy collapsed forward.
Asterion looked at the boy.
"What did they do to you?"