-----Sebastian POV----
Tears blurred the numbers on the page. My skull throbbed where his knuckle struck like a god tapping a mortal for insolence.
"THAT'S WRONG! FOR THE LAST TIME! WHAT IS 8X7?"
He stood like a storm made real.
Lightning danced across his fingers. His eyes locked onto the child, who clutched a pencil like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
My hands? Shaking. My brain? A scrambled egg of panic. I'd just learned addition and subtraction an hour ago and now this lunatic was electrocuting me into multiplication. Even my father, who once taught me numbers wasn't this unhinged.
zap
"HIIIIEH?!"
"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION! I DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!"
"Eh… Arh…?"
Oh great. Now we're doing electroshock math drills. This is worse than slavery. No... Maybe this is slavery?
His face is morphing, wrinkles folding, and eyes burning with rage. Every second ticks louder than the last, and the only thing running through my head is how the hell do I escape this living horror?
I glance at the door. Too far. Windows? Barred. My pencil? Useless. Unless I stab him and pray he's weak to burned coal.
"I AM GOING TO COUNT TO THREE, AND IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME THE CORRECT ANSWER, YOU'LL BE WISHING YOU WERE BACK IN THAT IRON CAGE!"
"???!"
What the hell—
"ONE…"
OH SHIT OH SHIT! Wait—he said multiplication is just addition on steroids, right? Adding the same number to itself over and over?
"TWO…"
His fist clenched. Lightning crackled. The sound alone made my brain short-circuit.
Okay—if multiplication is just adding 8 to itself seven times… then the answer is—
"THRE—!"
I closed my eyes and braced for the incoming lighting punch--
"FIFTY SIX!"
"..."
Silence.
No thunder. No pain. Just the sound of my own heartbeat trying to escape through my ears.
"Correct"
Master then sat back to his seat, calm as a corpse, writing on his papers like this was just another day. Like he hadn't just threatened to electrocute a child over basic arithmetic.
I stared at the stack of papers growing on his desk.
Was this my life now? A never-ending gauntlet of life and death problems?
...
Lunatic.
I picked up the pencil and went back to solving the rest of the math problems.
Maybe… Just maybe the iron cage wasn't so bad after all....
----Sebastian POV----
It's been three days.
Three days of being physically abused by this lunatic in front of me in the name of education. Reading, writing, arithmetic crammed into my skull with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Honestly? I've never learned anything faster. Turns out fear of pain is one hell of a study aid.
Now that I'm no longer twitching on the floor, Master has decided it's time to return to his laboratory. Which means we are going out of the city. So I packed our things and followed his lead.
...
We've been out in the wilderness for a while, but something has been bothering me all this time...
Why am I the one carrying everything?
As if master heard my inner thoughts, he turned and locked eyes with me.
I froze. Every hair on my arms stood at attention.
"Sebastian, I know what you are thinking."
He took a step closer. His boots made that slow, deliberate thunk on the ground floor. The kind of sound that says, you're on the clock.
"Making you carry all the luggage might seem unreasonable," Master said, "but think of it as physical training. I've noticed you're abnormally strong. Adaptable. More than most kids your age. Are you… perhaps half-blood human?"
This man… He's been watching me.
"Yes… Tou-san was from the dwarf race."
Master eye twitched, but then he stroked his chin and gazed at the drifting to the sky as if the answer had unlocked a memory he didn't want to revisit.
After a brief silence. The man spoke.
"Mhm… Was your mother a human magician?"
"Yes? How did you know?"
His eyes narrowed at my chest, more towards my heart.
"There are two types of energy sources we living beings use to enhance our battle prowess," voice steady, eyes distant. "Touki and Mana."
I leaned in and listened closely.
"Touki is for physical prowess," he continued. "Mana is for matter manipulation. Both are energy that is converted by the body into the vision we desire."
I nodded slowly.
"Dwarves have high affinity with Touki but poor in mana. Humans… it depends on the individual, and in your case, I can see that you inherit a very high mana quality."
He then points to my heart.
"Sebastian, you've inherit a dwarfs physical traits and a human's mana pool. Your own body couldn't filtrate the mana that you produce," voice low. "Which explains why you're so sick. A healer probably tried casting a support spell to help you recover, but in your case, that would've made things worse."
Memories of my last year within the village flickered, bedridden and extremely weak, twitching like a broken puppet.
My body convulsing. My breath shallow. My eyes wide and unseeing.
My parents stood helpless. The villagers elders whispered. The priest muttered prayers that dissolved into silence.
No one knew what was happening.
Then a question piqued my curiosity.
"How do you know all of this?" I asked.
Master furrowed his brows.
"Throughout my time adventuring alone across many continents, I met a little girl who was barely taller than a wine barrel, twice as volatile, and claiming to be 'the Demon Empress', bestowed upon me the Demon Eye of Magic Identification."
He pointed to his left eye. It shimmered faintly, a subtle shade of purple, like bruised twilight.
"With this eye," he continued, "I can see mana. Its flow. Its density. Its origin."
He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make me uncomfortable.
"And yours, Sebastian, is not ordinary."
He crossed his arms, and his index fingers began thumbing a slow rhythm against his forearm.
"I've met countless people from every corner of the world," he continued. "Beast folk, elves, dwarves, heaven, sea, humans, and even dragonkin. And what I've learned is that races aren't just defined by their bodies. They're defined by their mana.
He extended his hand into the air, fingers splayed into the air.
A fireball bloomed from his palm.
"The world's understanding of mana is limited, but with this eye…" He tapped just below his violet-tinged left eye. "I've discovered that mana's properties shift depending on the physical traits of the user."
The fireball began to morph.
First, a triangle, sharp.
The tower collapsed inward, reshaping into a pyramid.
Then it stretched upward, extruding into a tower with the pyramid as its top.
That shape... That looks like a ...
Spear.
"Mana," he continued, "is like clay. If it's too hard to mold, or too soft to hold, your capabilities are limited. Your potential… capped."
The spear started to rotate, faster and faster, until its edges blurred and it snapped into a beam of light.
"And with enough control," he said, "you can shape your mana through sheer will."
Then he moved.
A sudden stance with legs wide, arm draw back.
With a swift motion, he launched the beam of light towards a tree.
It whistled through the air and pierced the trunk clean through, embedding deep with a hiss of scorched bark.
I stared.
Not just at the tree.
At the man.
At the fire.
At the idea that mana wasn't just power.
It was art.
"Woah..."
A question caught in my throat.
"Can I ever cast magic like that?!" I blurted, excitement spilling out before I could stop it.
Master smirked at me.
"Sebastian, besides the strongest man I've ever faced, your mana quality is the purest I've ever seen. But…"
His expression shifted. The approval vanished, replaced by something colder.
"You simply don't have enough of it to cast spells."
And just like that, my world shattered.
No magic. No lightning. No shaping fireballs into spears of light. Just… nothing.
I don't like that...
Something stirred in my chest. A familiar pressure that brought memories I'd buried deep.
Then the words of that man ringed back to my ears.
'you are weak'
I gritted my teeth, my eyes started to burn up and my chest started to hurt...
This is... Frustration.
Master turned away, walking without waiting for a response. As if the conversation was over. As if my fate had been sealed.
But as if there would never be another chance to ask him again.
My body moved on its own. Running past my master and turning to face him.
At that time, there could be multiple reasons that I moved without thinking.
But at the moment. What I wanted...
"Master! Please teach me magic!"
----Rudeus Greyrat POV----
Two more days of travel before I reach the teleportation circle and finally get back to my research.
Teaching this kid and keeping him alive has taken more time than I expected. Slowed everything down.
I figured I'd run into plunderers by now. Traveling with a kid is basically wearing a sign that says "Please rob me, I'm emotionally compromised."
But strangely… nothing.
No bandits. No monsters. Not even a suspicious little girl laughing on top of her lungs saying "I am the Demon Empress!".
...
Crap.
Did I just raise a red flag?
"Master… the food is ready!"
"Right… let's eat."
I usually cast protection and silence spells when camping. But tonight, I doubled them. I'm not taking any chances, not after the creeping suspicion that someone's has been watching me. Also I am still not sure if my information was leaked, and if it was... Who knows who would be coming for my head?
If I could count the grains of sand on a beach, that would be the number of reasons people in this world want me dead.
I then sat down by the fire, where a small pot of stew simmered gently. The flames crackled while I scooped some soup into a bowl and tasted it.
"URGH?! What the hell did you put in here, kid?!"
"??? I followed the recipe?"
"It's way too salty and… gross! Tell me exactly what you put in this stew!"
"Uuuuuh… chicken… potatoes… and some of these red herbs for spice?"
"Red Herbs? I told you that we use the GREEN ones! Don't tell me you are actually color blind?!"
I snatched the leaves from Sebastian's hand. He just stood there, dumbfounded.
As I looked closer, these herbs looked quite familiar but they are not the one's that I usually use for spice...
Then something ominous hit me like a wave. My face went cold. My brain started screaming from the back of my skull.
My muscles tensed. I shot to my feet and scanned the area.
"Wh-what's wrong—?"
The boy froze, his voice faltering as the air shifted around us. He could feel it too.
With a firm, commanding tone, I said one word:
"Quiet."
My brain went into overdrive.
The barrier was intact.
No signs of movement outside it.
The airflow hadn't changed.
Nothing felt out of place.
I looked back to the herbs, trying to inspect it again hopefully I was just drunk out of my mind and that it was simply my paranoia catching up to me.
But looking at these leaves… These are not native to the human continent.
They weren't the ones I use for Sebastian's tea either.
And yet—they looked familiar.
That's what bothered me most.
Where had I seen these red leaves before?
...
Better cast a detoxification spell, clear my head, think straight.
I started to gather mana in my hands.
But when the mana begun circulating in my veins, as if the very mana rejected my will. It snapped back rushing throughout my blood vessels like molten iron.
A boiling sensation tore through me, cooking me alive from the inside.
"ARGHHHHH!"
I dropped to one knee, gasping, every nerve screaming.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
"Master?!"
The boy ran to me, grabbing my shoulders as I dropped to my knees, coughing up blood.
The pain snapped me out of it.
I remembered those red leaves.
It's infamous among the Heaven Continent races, known for blocking mana circulation and sealing the arterial veins.
I gasped for air, but the more I breathed, the less air I found.
I was suffocating.
Then a jolt hit my brain.
The barrier was broken.
I looked up.
Three hooded assassins were approaching from the front—slow, deliberate. I sensed three more behind me.
An ambush.
These leaves have become a popular tool for assassinating magicians lately. They're brutally effective once consumed. Mana locked. Veins sealed. No casting, no defense, no escape.
So if you're wondering why I didn't prepare for an easy attempt on my life like this… Well, that's because the "cheat code" got patched by the admins.
The cure?
Water.
If I'd had a sip in the last hour… hell, even the last day… I'd be fine.
But I've been drinking everything except water.
So someone's been watching me.
For days.
I looked at their faces.
They hadn't moved even with me wide open and bleeding. That told me everything.
They must be at least Sword King.
Since they didn't charge in swinging. That's the mark of someone who's survived long enough to sense danger before it is up in your face.
My second barrier that I casted early is a double edge sword. The moment it breaks, we all go up in flames.
It's risky, sure. Betting your life on a magical landmine isn't exactly ideal.
But I've learned something over the years—no matter how tough I make my barriers, there's always someone who can cut through them.
So I stopped trying to make them unbreakable.
Instead, I made them untouchable.
That's why I built this barrier—rigged so that even the slightest crack will blow me and you bastards into pieces.
Suicidal? No, this is a form to beat the strong.
But now we're in a stalemate.
Until they realize the fatal flaw in this setup…
Ranged attacks.
At least this hesitation buys me a moment of safety.
But I can't lose focus.
I was losing oxygen every second,.
I leaned against Sebastian, clutching my chest like I could pry my lungs open and force the air back in.
I looked at him, eyes wide, jaw clenched, hoping he could understand what I was trying to say without words.
Water.
I needed water.
Now.