World Continent, Northern Lands, Etwas Mountain Range, Great Unaffiliated Mage Tower.
In an area forbidden for mages below first-class, it was pregnant with clay sculptures, and in front of what seemed to be a finished work to the eyes of a sixteen-year-old stood a fierce figure that many would consider a demon.
Whether he was trained with a sword in his hands or just admiring the masterpiece he had managed to create, the young man with blindfolded eyes and black hair remained still.
At that moment, the young mage's eyebrows twitched slightly as he felt a familiar presence coming from outside this area, which is prohibited to most people.
He opened his eyes and turned his gaze.
There, an elderly man leaning on a cane approached him, waving his hand to greet him.
"Damian!" Calling the young mage with much closeness, the old man approached while smiling.
"Isn't my creation brilliant, Dom?" Damian looked at his humanoid clay figure. This work had taken him three years of his life to complete, and due to its appearance, it was more than four meters tall, taller than an average person. On the sides of its face, it had long wings where the eyes would be, and a long tail extended from behind its head.
"How much longer will this puppet keep you away? Don't get me wrong; you should know that there are only a few days left until you go to the battlefield where magic is required, and you are the mandatory choice to attend that battle."
Young Damian had now completely changed; not only did he give the impression of having a slender build even though his muscles were hidden under a tunic-like garment, but he also currently stood at 175 centimeters tall.
What stood out most about Damian was his long hair style, his skeletal hand, and his blindfolded eyes, which gave him a very calm appearance, but only the mages who knew him closely knew how powerful he had become in just five years.
Dom, who had lost his leg two years ago, furrowed his brow at this incisive student who had practically become the heir to his magic. After a moment of silence, he sighed with regret.
"It's a shame I can't add more regeneration runs; I've reached a limit that I won't be able to surpass even after a hundred years."
"Have you gone that far?" Dom approached Damian's sculpture, and with his eyes, he saw not hundreds but thousands of green runes that interconnected all over the body of this creation, giving it a powerful regeneration that would be practically impossible to exterminate.
"In total, I could only put 12,037 magical regeneration runes on top of its head; there is a magical item that grants compression adaptation; its strength, speed, and body make it a formidable warrior from which I hope many demons will die."
"Your best creation, I would say the only one..." Dom felt breathless as he perfectly aligned all those runes.
"But I still need the soul of a formidable warrior in hand-to-hand combat; maybe I'll find one in my first battle." Damian waved his hand, and under the Divine General, a shadow appeared that connected to him, completely hiding him.
"Are you the only one who hasn't heard that they treat you like a cowardly blind mage?"
"Well, there's nothing I can do. Even the mages who have instructed me over the years don't understand my obsession with creating my perfect puppet."
Normally, mages start facing demons when they become fourth-class mages, long before even becoming second-class mages.
This is practically like a baptism that all mages have—all those who have made a commitment to fight against demons. However, Damian, the cowardly blind mage, was the only exception.
Although Damian was now considered the worst mage in the tower, his current strength could be considered that of a first-class mage, but he knew that wasn't enough, and his ambition to create the Divine General of the Eight Divine Leaves was so great that he spent a long time of his life doing it. But now he knew that everything had ended in time, just in time for the battle.
Many had died over the years, whether in practice, combat, or the deterioration of the magic they were practicing. The war took many lives day by day, and that wouldn't change no matter how much time passed.
As someone who hadn't participated in a battle, everyone would point to Damian as the coward, but only those close to him, like Dom, knew what he was doing and respected that opinion.
"Well, it seems you look a little more animated. You're still too skilled to be just a third-class mage; are you sure you don't want to ascend?"
"What's the point of that? You know everything would be too strange if I suddenly classified as a first-class mage."
"You know it's not about you, but about the missions you would be subjected to."
"That's a quick way to die."
"Die?"
Damian gave Dom a sharp look, who was his teacher. Doesn't he know he's just a sixteen-year-old fledgling? "I can't do anything with intelligent demons over three hundred years old; didn't the same thing happen to you?"
"Since when are you so cowardly? Even if we are mages hundreds of years younger than the demons, we are still killing them; that surpasses any gauge you have to face or not face an enemy."
"I'll find the Fountain of Youth and become immortal." Damian began to rule strangely as he thought about numerous things.
"Do you know what children call you, Damian? A heretic. You use words that no one else has learned, and you come up with ideas that no one else has thought of. Sometimes, when I see you, you don't seem like someone ordinary."
"Well, it's no wonder." Damian felt annoyed.
"Although I'm getting older every day, that won't stop me from giving you a beating. Don't you know that a human can't achieve immortality?"
Despite Dom's threatening tone, Damian, instead of being scared, laughed even louder. "Old man, right now, you can't even beat my puppet; once I get a soul that decides to keep fighting, my Divine General will be ready to be a demon-killing machine."
"How long have you been saying the same thing?" Upon hearing that, Dom simply turned around to return to the tower.
Although Damian didn't reply, he had clearly left his stance against those words.
"Damian, when do you plan to leave?"
Damian shuddered at those words. For the first time, his gaze met Dom's.
Confusion was evident in his eyes behind the black blindfold.
"Did you know?"
"Anyone can know that once you touch the North, maybe you won't be able to come back, but that's also there."
"I wanted to pretend to be dead on the battlefield."
"Hahaha!" This time, Dom laughed heartily at Damian's incomprehensible words.
While others felt uncomfortable with Dom's smile, Damian knew about his teacher's condition and was aware that he had little time left.
"After all the preparations you've been making, how could I not know? Did you really think that we, the old ones, wouldn't know what's happening in the tower?"
There were a few elders in the tower because most had died in battle.
Every day, first-class mages are required on the battlefield. The northern battalions depend on this mage tower to support them with outstanding mages, and it is only because of them that this area remains safe.
But like everything, it wouldn't be long before all of that ended.
Deaths are increasing while humans take longer and longer to train first-class mages.
"Don't worry about that, old man. You also know, don't you? They consider me a blind and cowardly mage, but when I step onto the battlefield, all of that will change."
"Damian, this war is too cruel, and if you really don't belong to it, you shouldn't sacrifice yourself. I can see doubt in your eyes; ever since you came to my class, you were lost as if you didn't know where you belonged."
That left Damian silent.
It was true that he didn't know what his purpose in this world was, and he had opted for the simplest thing, committing to exterminate demons to avenge his predecessor's death.
Humans were losing the war, but everything stabilized when the barriers were put up by that mage who brought Damian to this mage tower.
Since then, five years had passed; Damian had not stopped hiding his magic, leaving a tenth part exposed, and with that magic, he was considered a first-class mage.
Dom didn't believe that now Damian was hiding his magic; after all, humans can't do that, but he was different, and he knew it very clearly.
He trained with the sword, used all the strength of his body to maximize hand-to-hand combat power, and in his spare time, he created his Divine General, which is now complete.
Knowing now that at least he wouldn't die, Damian would accept going to that remarkable battlefield in the north.
Struggling to pronounce the words he didn't dare say, Dom spoke brusquely, swallowing saliva under his chin. "What do you really think?"
"I don't know; searching for that immortality is just a whim, but still, I trust in achieving it. Wouldn't it be a waste for an incredible mage like me to die of old age? Besides, the battlefield won't disappear for a thousand years, so I hope to achieve something notable."
Damian walked towards a tree that seemed too ancient and took a deep breath. Now he was strong, but it was said that there were incredibly powerful beings in the world that couldn't be killed by simple humans, which had given him the need to find what the map recognized as the Fountain of Youth.
"Where did they send Adda?" Damian looked at Dom, who was beside him, and asked, wanting to know more about it.
"She was sent to the extreme south of the north; there is a great city there, so you shouldn't worry about anything happening to her." Dom had carefully studied where the mages would be sent this time.
Taking that into account, Damian looked at the thin sword in his hands, which actually weighed more than a hundred kilograms, and smiled strangely. "When a mage runs out of mana, they are useless, but we are aware that options will never run out."
"Not everyone knows how to fight like you." But at that moment, a series of bells rang out, and looking into the distance, Damian noticed a group of humans with wounds on their bodies.
Something big must have happened for them to be brought here, so Damian approached to look at these people.