Three and a half years have passed since Gregorios blew up a third of his house. At the time, his parents woke up with the roar of the explosion and found their son surrounded by the fire that had spread through the old wood. As was to be expected, the fire did not harm the boy, as much as the two were still extremely concerned. Spells cast will only harm the non-user of the spell. In some rare cases, some users who don't yet have full control over their mana usage can be harmed by the spell itself. This was not the case with Greg.
At just five years old, Greg already had some stable control over his mana. After blowing up part of the house, Greg no longer had access to any of his father's magic books. Arthur began to lock the room he and his wife slept in every day.
This was no problem for him, as he had already read everything he theoretically needed to at least learn to control and invoke the magic of this world. Already able to communicate, albeit reasonably, his mother no longer had any doubts that her son was truly a prodigy. His father only agreed with the woman when little Greg, at age three, cast Ignis's magic in front of him, nearly burning the entire cornfield. It was spectacular.
Some mages take weeks, months or even years and many decades to perfect their spells. It took Arthur a few years to use Ignis correctly, as he didn't have full control over his mana. Renoelle was always concerned about her husband's well-being when he left to train in front of the house.
Greg, on the other hand, had mastered the simplest variations of Ignis in less than a year, all at the age of two. Perhaps, the fact that he was a powerful mage in his old life allowed him to have high control over his mana, even though the magic of Earth and Hyorvan are so different from each other.
The boy, now much bigger than before, with long black hair and bright brown eyes, walked out the front door towards his father, who was plowing the land. The little one's fair skin was similar to his mother's, as his father had brown skin due to the time he spent in the sun. The sweat-covered man turned his face away, facing his son who was waiting for his father to finish the job. He smiled and then laughed. Every day, at the same time as Arthur's training, little Gregorios went to his father to train with him. The man decided that doing so would be a good way to teach his son not to blow up the house again. Or himself.
Arthur was not a great wizard. In fact, the man only did this because he felt it was necessary to protect his family, as his wife had no control over her mana, preventing her from using magic. Everything he had learned so far was through the books he bought from Gervon, the friendly merchant who always visited them monthly. The fact that he had reached the mid-range of magic by studying and reading alone was surprising to any professor of magical fields. Still, he wasn't a genius, let alone a revolutionary wizard.
"You can't get enough of it, little Greg. And neither do I." Arthur said as he manipulated the fire in his hands, right after he had summoned Ignis' magic. Gregorios stared in fascination at the flames circling around his father's callused hands.
"Ignis!" And flames began to rise from Gregorios' hands, far beyond the fire his father had summoned.
"Amazing! When are you going to teach me how to do this son?"
"When you buy me that book about magical creatures and their attributes, maybe I'll teach you, Dad."
The two laughed and continued to train. Greg had already started training the air and water spells. Some people were limited to casting only one elemental spell, called unique. Others were limited to invoking two or three, called doubles and triples. And others could learn four or as many spells as they liked, so-called quadruples and enablers. His father could never hide his face in surprise at seeing his son controlling the air or manipulating the water. Arthur could only control fire and its variations and Gregorios still didn't know which category he fits into.
Greg watched his mother arrive at the front of the house with two buckets full of water in her hand and one in her head, being carried with essential balance.
"Any of you amazing wizards could you help me?" Greg laughed and his father went to his mother, helping to put the buckets inside the house. They would have water for the next three days.
In the late afternoon, Arthur and Renoelle watched their son from the window, who was still training hard outside. They didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing for someone that age. Greg knew he shouldn't push his body to the limit, so when he realized he couldn't handle training for the rest of the night, he decided to go to sleep.
As he fiddled with the sheets on his new bed, Greg wondered why his parents never visited the neighboring village. Why did he never have contact with the people who lived there? Why did the three of them live isolated from these people? Whenever Greg had the opportunity to run away from his parents, he did, running towards the village. He once hid in one of the woods and watched the children playing there. Not that he wanted to play with five- and six-year-olds, given his mental age. But the question still lingered in his mind until he finally fell asleep.
"They felt a strong magical presence around that place. Between Russia's border with China."
"It could be anything, you know that."
"A magical presence of this level... not even Lee has anything like it."
"Guys" A female voice spoke, calming everyone around. "We just need to analyze the place. Decide if what's there is dangerous or not and then go back to our homes. Simple, don't you think?" The woman said confidently, calming the spirits of her allies.
"Yeah, I think you're right Coralee."
"And since when am I not?"
The next day, Greg woke up from the nightmare that had haunted him all night. His father questioned him if everything was okay in the morning, but all the boy wanted to know at that moment was not revenge, but whether breakfast was ready.
"Dad, can I ask you a question?"
"Of course! If it's about that half-blue fire I conjured yesterday afternoon, you're going to have to..."
"No, that's not it. Why can't we visit the village? Has something happened to upset the villagers?"
An awkward silence formed in the living room and kitchen. Even the noise of food being prepared was muted.
"I think you're old enough to know." Arthur said as he drank a glass of warm water.
"Your mother and I are outcasts. People who cannot live in any of the villages that are part of the alliance of villages around the fields."
"Why? What happened to make you isolate yourselves like this?"
Renoelle was still preparing eggs in the fire Arthur had conjured earlier. The sound of frying and burning embers no longer filled the boy's ears.
"Long ago my grandfather and your mother's grandfather committed crimes. Barbarian and cowardly crimes. When the village alliance discovered them, they expelled them along with all their family members. All the descendants of the outcasts suffer the same fate, living isolated from the villages. That's why you don't have grandparents. Or uncles and aunts. We're what's left of the crimes they committed a long time ago."
Greg remained static until he was startled by the noise of the plate being placed on the table. His mother had finished the fried eggs and was already serving them.
"I think you scared our son with all this dark and exclusive talk. Even more so at breakfast time."
"Would you prefer it to be at dinner time? That would be unpleasant."
They both laughed as Renoelle sat down, joining them. Greg couldn't fully understand. They are happy. He could feel it. Even with all the sadness that surrounded them, his parents remained steadfast. Happy. Surviving. They loved him so much that they tried to build a reality different from the one they had lived in for so long.
Greg looked at the fried eggs on the plate and the glass full of fresh milk. He smiled and then ate the eggs and drank the milk.
It was delicious.