Translator: AnubisTL
In Elosia Prime Plane, within a vibrant new city rebuilt atop ancient ruins, a boy named Chuck was engaged in a heated argument with his friends.
"Wizards are real! My grandpa's father saw them with his own eyes!" Chuck insisted, his face flushed as he argued loudly with the older, taller children surrounding him.
"Come on, Chuck!" one of them scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You're being so childish! Wizards? Those are just stories adults tell to scare disobedient kids!"
Another chimed in, "Exactly! If wizards could really fly and breathe fire, why would we need the city guard to protect us?"
But Chuck remained stubbornly convinced that his grandfather wouldn't lie to him.
In that distant era—supposedly over a hundred years ago, during the dark, war-torn times—when his grandfather's father was a young soldier, he must have witnessed those godlike wizards descending from the heavens with his own eyes!
Children's arguments often lack logic and reason.
Inevitably, the dispute escalated into shoving, shouting, and even a full-blown brawl.
"Stop it! You little brats!"
Fortunately, a patrol of city guards quickly discovered the commotion.
They initially stood by with folded arms, watching the spectacle with amusement. Only after the spectacle had run its course did one of the guards, who appeared to be the captain, step forward with a stern expression and halt the chaotic brawl with a commanding voice.
Outnumbered and defeated, Chuck returned home bruised and battered, drawing a wave of pained scolding from his mother.
Yet, strangely, despite his defeat, Chuck showed no signs of dejection.
Deep within his eyes, a hint of indescribable smugness remained hidden.
During dinner, as he watched the sky outside the window gradually turn orange-red in the approaching dusk, he quickly finished his last bite, bid farewell to his parents, and prepared to leave.
"Be back early!"
Amidst his parents' concerned reminders, he slipped out of the warm house with a piece of rock-hard black bread he had secretly taken from the kitchen.
Soon, relying on his familiarity with the terrain, he deliberately avoided the city guards still patrolling the streets and arrived at an abandoned area on the city's edge, bordering the outskirts.
In a dark, damp alley cluttered with debris, Chuck finally met the person he had arranged to meet—a hunched figure huddled in the alley's deepest shadows, draped in a tattered black robe.
The figure's face was completely obscured by the deep shadows cast by the hood, making it impossible to discern any features.
Combined with the figure's grotesquely hunched posture and the faint, eerie stench of rotting flesh that emanated from the robe, it was easy to tell this was no ordinary person.
Yet Chuck's expression brightened with delight.
He hurried forward, his face beaming with anticipation, and greeted the figure enthusiastically, "great wizard! I'm here!"
He vividly remembered the day, just a few days prior, when he had accidentally witnessed this strange figure casually conjure a ball of black fire from thin air to drive away a stray dog.
That single moment had confirmed beyond any doubt that this person was indeed a real-life wizard from legend!
A child's boundless curiosity, powerful enough to override all caution, instinctively made him ignore the unsettling aura of strangeness surrounding the "wizard."
Especially after discovering that the "wizard" seemed quite approachable, Chuck clung to him like he'd found a treasure trove.
Finally, after days of relentless pestering, the "wizard" agreed: if Chuck brought him food, he would teach him some real "spells" today!
Watching the wizard's withered hand emerge from the shadows to accept the black bread Chuck had brought, Chuck's imagination ran wild, uncontrollably fantasizing about what kind of spells he would learn.
Would it be fire-breathing?
Or flight?
He even began imagining how he would teach those disbelieving friends of his a lesson once he mastered magic.
The wizard took the bread and, oblivious to Chuck's presence, stuffed it into his mouth, the grinding of his teeth making a grating sound.
After finishing, he looked up at Chuck, a sinister grin spreading across his shadowed face, revealing rows of bone-white teeth.
"Very good, little one... Let me think... What spell should I teach you..."
As he spoke in a raspy, unpleasant voice, he extended his withered, claw-like hand toward Chuck's tender neck.
"Stop!"
At the critical moment, a thunderous roar filled with fury erupted from the alley entrance!
Chuck turned in surprise to see the city guard captain who had stopped their fight earlier that day.
Seeing the captain and the fully armed squad of city guards behind him, the "wizard" clicked his tongue in annoyance, clearly frustrated by the sudden interruption.
He turned and fled deeper into the alley.
However, the city guard captain didn't immediately give chase.
He strode over to Chuck, his face stern as he scolded him harshly: "You little brat! You're coming with me to see your parents later! I'm going to make them give you a proper scolding! Don't you know that shady characters like this, hiding their faces, are often child traffickers?!"
Meanwhile, the "wizard" hadn't gotten far when another group of city guards armed with sharp blades emerged from the opposite end of the alley, sealing off his escape route.
The guards on both sides had effectively trapped him.
Just as the child trafficker was about to be cornered like a rat in a trap, he suddenly let out an inhumanly furious roar.
Instantly, a fist-sized, pitch-black fireball materialized in his palm, which he hurled violently at the slowly advancing city guard.
"Watch out!"
The city guard captain's eyes widened in alarm.
With a thunderous roar, he channeled all his strength into his core, launching his refined steel lance like a bolt of lightning.
The lance struck the black fireball with pinpoint accuracy, detonating it prematurely in mid-air.
Boom—Rumble!
The explosion's shockwave still shattered the alley walls, sending them crashing down. Even the captain's own city guard were thrown off balance, men and horses alike toppling over.
Seeing another, even more dangerous black fireball forming in the enemy's hand, the captain, now sprawled on the ground, gritted his teeth. Without hesitation, he yanked Chuck beside him down, shielding him beneath his own body, prepared to endure the lethal strike with his own flesh and blood.
Just as the "wizard" prepared to unleash another attack, intent on eliminating these troublesome mortals, he suddenly felt an inexplicable sensation of being watched.
He jerked his head upward, gazing at the sky, and what he saw defied belief.
In the dim expanse above him, two figures hovered silently, as if they had been there all along.
The pair stared down at him with keen interest, as if... studying some unprecedented, wondrous creature.
Jieming floated mid-air, observing the black-robed figure below and the violently burning fireball of negative energy in his hand. He tilted his head curiously.
Turning to David beside him, he remarked, "I thought he was just some ordinary child trafficker. Turns out, there really is something abnormal about him."
David, however, wasn't as relaxed as Jieming.
He stared at the man's unnaturally hunched posture and his withered, corpse-like arm that still manipulated the elements. His expression darkened considerably.
He said in a deep voice, "The mutations on this creature show signs of artificial modification... The situation is far worse than we anticipated. That illegal wizard has definitely stolen more than just a fragmented meditation technique!"
Jieming nodded in agreement. "To wield such power without being a wizard... that illegal wizard must possess knowledge that allows him to grant power to others!"
Hearing the conversation from above, the "wizard" felt as if ice water had been poured over his head. His twisted mind was finally consumed by boundless terror.
He couldn't help but cry out in panic, hurling the fireball in his hand toward the sky. Simultaneously, violent flames erupted from his body, propelling him away like an out-of-control rocket!
Unfortunately, he was facing two true second-tier wizards.
Jieming casually extended a finger.
A faint, almost invisible ray of energy flashed through the air.
It precisely annihilated most of the creature's body, leaving only a head frozen in a terrified expression to plummet from the sky.
"Thank you for your assistance, great wizard!"
The city guard captain, having narrowly escaped death, immediately rallied his men. Overwhelmed with gratitude, they knelt and bowed toward the two figures in the sky, shouting their thanks.
Jieming merely glanced at them indifferently, paying them no heed.
These city guards were mass-produced artificial humans from the Noren Workshop.
The emotions they displayed—excitement, gratitude—were all pre-programmed routines designed to maintain social stability.
Though remarkably lifelike, their feelings were ultimately artificial.
With a flick of his wrist, the severed head lying on the ground floated into his hand.
He casually handed it to David beside him. "Analyze this. See if there's any useful intelligence left in its soul."
Having completed these tasks, Jieming turned his gaze with keen interest toward the boy who had been staring blankly at them in the sky since the beginning—Chuck.
The child's face was a mixture of lingering fear from his near-death experience and awe at witnessing the clash of "spellcraft."
His pupils contracted sharply under the overwhelming emotional shock, his mouth gaping unconsciously as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
The boy's youthful face was now etched with the purest, most primal awe and reverence for the unknown world.
Jieming watched him, a hint of surprise in his eyes.
"Interesting..." he murmured, stroking his chin. "I didn't expect that after just over a century of preliminary bloodline optimization, humans with innate talent approaching that of second-tier wizard apprentices would begin to appear naturally."
"If this is the case," he calculated mentally, "it probably won't be more than a few centuries before the Noren Academy branch on the Elosia Plane can officially begin recruiting qualified wizard apprentices from the local population."
Without lingering further, Jieming and David finished analyzing the information within the skull and departed without hesitation.
Watching the two figures transform into shooting stars and vanish over the horizon, Chuck remained frozen in place for a long time, his eyes burning with an eternal longing for the existence of "wizards."
(End of the Chapter)
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