When the monsoon of Essos, carrying a salty and humid breeze, swept across the dusty town of Fallen Dust, Lynn was crouching in the corner of the backyard of the magic apprentice workshop, wiping the scattered scroll fragments on the ground with a coarse linen cloth. The afternoon sun filtered through the tattered wooden windows of the workshop, casting dappled light and shadow on the dusty floor. The air was filled with the scents of ink, parchment, and a faint whiff of sulfur—the residual smell from the apprentices' failed attempts to practice the Fireball Spell.
"Lynn! Hurry up! If you delay the sorting of the scrolls that the lord needs this afternoon, I'll throw you into the mire outside the town!"
The roar of Gray, the leader of the apprentices, came from the front yard. His voice was like a whip dipped in ice, making Lynn's back stiffen. He quickly stepped up his movements, but his fingertip was accidentally cut by the frayed edge of a scroll. Bright red drops of blood fell onto the yellowed parchment, spreading into small dark stains.
Lynn instinctively reached out to wipe off the blood, only to hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Gray, followed by two lackeys, blocked the entrance to the backyard. Gray was wearing the finest linen mage robe in the town, with a short staff inlaid with a shoddy fire-element crystal tucked at his waist—his father had spent half a month's earnings to buy it for him, and among the apprentices in Fallen Dust Town, it was considered an extremely decent piece of equipment. At that moment, he was sizing Lynn up and down with his disdainful eyes, as if looking at a stray dog on the side of the road.
"Oh, isn't this our 'zero-affinity' Lynn? What's the matter? You even cut your hand while wiping scrolls. Are you trying to gain sympathy by playing the victim, hoping some lord will take pity on you and give you a formal job as a handyman?" Tom, the lanky apprentice beside Gray, spoke in a sarcastic tone. He even deliberately kicked the pile of scrolls on the ground, scattering several fragments that Lynn had finally sorted into the mud.
Lynn quietly clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into the wound on his palm. The sharp pain helped him retain his last shred of reason. He knew he couldn't fight back—Gray was the most valued apprentice of the town's magic tutor, while Lynn himself was just an orphan picked up by the tutor three years ago. Born with zero magic affinity, he couldn't even cast the most basic Light Spell. In the workshop, even the lackeys of the other apprentices could bully him at will.
"I'm sorry, I'll sort them out right away." Lynn lowered his head, his voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz. He bent down to pick up the scroll fragments in the mud.
But before his hand could touch the fragments, Gray stepped heavily on the back of his hand. Intense pain shot up from his手背, and Lynn's face turned pale instantly, with fine beads of cold sweat oozing from his forehead. Gray pressed his foot down even harder, a cruel smile curling up at the corner of his mouth: "Do you think a mere 'sorry' is enough? Do you know how precious these scrolls are? These are the draft scrolls of the 'Wind Blade Spell' that the tutor is going to show to the inspector mages of the Holy Light Council. Can you afford to compensate for them after you've dirtied them?"
"I didn't do it on purpose..." Lynn gritted his teeth and tried to pull his hand back, but Gray pressed down even harder.
Gradually, a crowd of apprentices gathered around. Some stood with their arms crossed, watching the scene like spectators; others whispered among themselves, but not a single person stepped forward to help him. Lynn glanced at those familiar yet unfamiliar faces, and his heart turned as cold as if doused with ice water—Over the past three years, he had woken up before dawn every day to clean the workshop, washed the apprentices' mage robes, sorted their scrolls, and even secretly copied magic theory notes for them. Yet in return, all he ever got was mockery and bullying.
"Didn't do it on purpose? Then prove to us that you didn't do it on purpose." Gray suddenly lifted his foot and looked down at Lynn, pointing to the magic experiment table not far away. "I heard you secretly watch us practice magic every day. Then why don't you show us what you've got today? You don't have to cast the Wind Blade Spell. Just cast the most basic Light Spell, and we'll let this matter go. If you can't—"
Gray paused, then reached out and snatched the stack of scrolls that Lynn had just sorted out and was holding in his arms. Those scrolls were a complete "Minor Fireball Spell" scroll that Lynn had spent three days piecing together from a pile of discarded scrolls. He had originally planned to secretly hand it to the tutor when the inspector mages arrived, begging the tutor to give him another chance to test his magic affinity.
"If you can't, these scrolls will be mine." As he spoke, Gray threw the stack of scrolls heavily onto the ground in front of Lynn and trampled on them fiercely with his feet. The sound of parchment tearing was like a knife cutting into Lynn's heart. He watched as the scrolls he cherished like treasures were trampled beyond recognition, and tears finally welled up in his eyes.
"You're going too far!" Lynn stood up abruptly, his red eyes fixed firmly on Gray.
"Going too far? I haven't even started yet!" Enraged by Lynn's gaze, Gray raised his hand and shoved Lynn hard into the mud behind him. The cold mud soaked through Lynn's thin clothes in an instant, covering his face and hair with filth, making him look extremely embarrassed. The apprentices around burst into loud laughter, and those laughs were like sharp stones, striking Lynn and making his whole body tremble.
Gray looked at Lynn in the mud and laughed even more triumphantly: "Look at you! You really are a good-for-nothing who can't even sense magic! I advise you to get out of the workshop as soon as possible and go dig mud in the mire outside the town—that's where you belong!"
With that, Gray walked away triumphantly with his lackeys, leaving Lynn sitting alone in the mud. The afternoon sun gradually slanted westward, and the wind grew colder. Lynn hugged his knees, buried his face in his arms, and his suppressed sobs echoed intermittently in the empty backyard. He didn't understand why he was so useless. Clearly, he recited magic theories secretly every day, and clearly, he watched the apprentices practice magic with utmost concentration every time. But he just couldn't sense even a trace of magic energy, as if he had been abandoned by the entire magic world.
After crying for who knows how long, Lynn slowly raised his head and reached out to pick up the trampled scroll fragments on the ground. When his fingertip touched a particularly tattered piece of parchment, he paused—it wasn't from the workshop. He had found it half a month ago in an abandoned ancient tomb outside the town. It was carved with strange black patterns, which were neither the runes of elemental magic nor the marks of Holy Light magic. It also felt cold to the touch.
Previously, Lynn had regarded it as an ordinary old parchment and placed it together with other fragments. When Gray trampled on the scrolls just now, this piece of parchment had been pressed at the bottom and surprisingly remained unbroken. Lynn carefully picked it up and wiped the mud and water off it with his sleeve. At that moment, a drop of blood oozing from the wound on his palm happened to fall onto the black patterns of the parchment.
In an instant, the parchment suddenly emitted a faint golden light. The black patterns seemed to come alive, wriggling slowly along the bloodstain and coiling around Lynn's fingertip. Lynn was startled and tried to throw the parchment away, but found that it was as if it had grown onto his hand and couldn't be shaken off at all. Immediately afterward, a warm stream of air gushed out from the parchment, flowing slowly into his body along his fingertip—it was an energy he had never felt before. It was neither as scorching as fire-element energy nor as cold as water-element energy. Instead, it carried a faint smell of ashes, yet it made every pore in his body relax.
Lynn sat呆呆 in the mud, feeling the strange energy in his body. He could clearly sense that this energy was slowly healing the wound on his palm, even flowing slowly through his meridians, and finally converging at the position of his Dantian, forming a small, throbbing light spot.
"What... what is this..." Lynn's heart beat wildly. He remembered what was written in the magic theory books—only those who could sense magic energy and form a "magic core" in their Dantian could practice magic. Could it be that he had finally...
Just then, Gray's voice came from the front yard of the workshop, seemingly showing off to the other apprentices how he had bullied Lynn earlier. Lynn looked at the glowing parchment in his palm, then thought of Gray's arrogance and the mockery of those apprentices. A surge of courage he had never felt before suddenly welled up in his heart. He instinctively clenched his fist, concentrated his mind, and tried to channel the ashen energy in his body.
In the next second, a small gray fireball, about the size of a fingernail and emitting a faint gray flame, suddenly floated out from Lynn's fingertip. The fireball looked weak, but it exuded a strange suction force. The residual sulfur smell (fire-element residue) in the surrounding air was quietly sucked into it, and the light of the fireball brightened a little.
Lynn was both surprised and delighted. He looked at the small fireball at his fingertip, recalling how Gray had trampled his scrolls and the bullying he had endured over the past three years. His eyes gradually became firm. Without hesitation, he raised his hand and waved gently in the direction of the workshop's front yard—the small fireball with the smell of ashes flew straight toward the front yard like a gray shooting star.
Soon, Gray's scream came from the front yard: "My mage robe! What's going on! Why can't this fire be put out!"
A smile that Lynn had never shown before curled up at the corner of his mouth. He lowered his head and looked at the parchment in his palm—by now, the golden light of the parchment had faded, and the black patterns had returned to their original state, but they faintly emitted an aura that was connected to his blood. Lynn carefully folded it up, tucked it into his arms, and then slowly stood up from the mud.
He knew that from this moment on, his life would no longer be that of a "magic good-for-nothing" who could be bullied by anyone.