"Sis, you look a bit different today," Mark asked after seeing his sister smile for the first time after William left. "Nothing. I just sorted some things yesterday." She replied with a huge smile on her face.
Mark looks at her worriedly. She had gone cold for a week and the sudden change somehow made him worry. "Are you sure?" he asked again but Hannah has already left for work. "Weird. There is definitely something wrong." He said to himself. "Should I be worried?" after pondering for a while, Mark realizes that he should not see it negatively and just be happy for his sister.
"Things happen for a reason." He tells himself while packing his things. The day for him to leave for the Blue Tower had come and no one was there to see him off. "Ha~ this is a bit frustrating. William, that bastard. I still can't forget that day. How in world did you pull off something like that? Really, you are a monster." He said to himself as he walks out of their house.
To his surprise, he saw William's father, Alfred standing beside a tree in front of their house. "Good day, mister Albert." He greeted him with a bow. "Good day to you too, Mark. I just came here to give you something." Albert then takes out an envelope and gave it to Mark. "William did not want me to give this to you on the day of his departure. He figured that you can't stay in this town for long and will want to explore the world, so when I heard that you got recruited by the Blue Tower Master, I saw the opportunity to give you this."
Mark took the envelope and smiled. "Thank you, mister Albert."
"Take care of yourself out there." Albert pats his shoulder and left. He did not want to stand there and hold Mark back. He was considerate enough to give him some space. He knew that even though he used to injure William in the past, he is still a good friend. "Son, I hope that you achieve what you want and come back home." Remembering William made him tear up.
He also misses his son.
"William, you idiot. How far have you looked into the future?" Mark could not help but smile as he opened the letter. Unlike Hannah, Mark is the kind of person that doesn't want to drag things out longer and wants to get over them immediately while he still has the energy.
The carriage that came to fetch him arrived and Mark boarded it. He watches the fields as he thinks of the things that he will miss for a long time. "Looking back in the past, I used to hate the idea of leaving the town. All of the things that I needed were here. Did William also influence me?" he thought to himself.
He looked at the letter in his hand and smiled. "Rival, huh? Are you even kidding? I will become a mage much stronger than you that you will regret ever leaving the town and made my sister sad. I swear that I will stand toe to toe with you soon. So look forward to it."
It is a declaration. Mark is not a weak person, to begin with, and has always looked after William and sees him as his brother. But since his departure, Mark realized that William is one of the reasons why he was not able to leave the town. Constantly reminding William of his limits had shackled him, and by the time William proved to everyone that they are wrong and left to pursue power, Mark is left without any goals and aspirations.
"It was my fault that I have become stagnant. In the end, I regret looking down on you. The moment you arrive at that stage is the moment when I realized how wrong I was. You really can't tell what will happen in the future. And William, you proved that everything is not fixed. I admit that you will surely become a monster in the future, but I swear I will be a monster that will stand beside you."
Instead of being sad, Mark sees it as an inspiration to move forward. "I can't wait to meet each other in the future."
"His whereabouts are still unknown, your majesty." A soldier reported to the prince who is sitting at a table and reviewing all the information concerning William. "Hmmm- that is to be expected. That kid disappeared right after the test was concluded. He is smart. He knew that this will happened and hid away from everyone else before the rumors even reach our ears." The prince smiled.
He did not expect to be interested in William just like the Tower Masters and other organizations that are looking for him. "Interesting, indeed. To think that a kid is making all of these important figures scratch their heads. That kid- is a genius, I must say."
The soldier stood there for a few minutes even until the prince finished reviewing the information. He cannot move, he needs an order to do so. The prince realized it and let the soldier go back to his post. "You should have said so, you know that I tend to forget about everything going on around me when I am focused on something."
He ended up scolding the soldier for not saying anything which the latter immediately apologized for. "I apologize, Prince Luther. I will keep that in mind in the future." The soldier then left without another word before the prince get angry at him.
"Hah~ where was I? Oh- right." He looked at the information about the people seeing something flying in the sky towards the great mountains. "But it was not confirmed so it can be anything. The animals in that part of the region are quite large than normal. So a giant bird flying in that part is highly probable."
He could not help but smile at how difficult it had been to locate the whereabouts of the person that he is looking for, he is amazed at the elements that William had used to hide his whereabouts completely hidden from them. "A Void Mage that has a strange magic. Transformation magic or not, it is still something that none of us had seen. I'd say it is on par with the kinds of magic that defies the logic of the world. Is he a Primordial Mage?"
The prince arrived at an interesting question that most of the Tower Master had concluded. William's strange magic falls under the category that separates Primordial Mages from all the other kinds of Mages.