"Hey, big improvement, kid! From sleeping for a whole month to a fifteen-minute nap."
The steel puppet in the shape of Horace pretended to sip from a cup of tea. There's tea in the cup, but obviously, the tea isn't consumed. Just wasted inside the machinery to have a semblance of normalcy.
"Just get a better feel and mastery - soon, you'll be casting spells 1 rank above your own without breaking a sweat."
Horace anticipated Kyrian's reaction, but changed his mind as he broke the news.
"Oh, and yes, Minerva replied, the Headmistress of Arcana; she said we could come there as soon as the Soul Mage arrives. Too bad, the same Soul Mage who healed you earlier went on a trip."
"Then we can come in a few weeks?
Kyrian stood up from the soft bed that he was sleeping on. He noticed that they were in a different room as he could see the arena directly from the windows. The boy never noticed that there were hidden rooms from the training facility as this was just the first time he was seeing it.
"Try a few years. With the increased lifespan of mages, our perception of time is different from mortals. If we wander around trying to seek for enlightenment, or researching new spells, then even ourselves wouldn't notice the time"
Kyrian felt like there was something wrong as he heard his master, "Wait, shouldn't we have done the tests when the soul mage visited earlier?"
"Oh, I forgot… Just kidding. I tried to ask him to check on your condition, but he refused. Saying that he had something else to do, and examining your body and soul requires some special resources. I figured that he saw that there was something wrong with your body and arrived at a conclusion that necessary resources must be acquired to do his tests."
"Then what are we going to do for the meantime?"
"What else? Master all magic available to you."
"But shouldn't there be other Soul Mages available that can check my condition?"
"That Soul Mage is the only one I could entrust your secrecy with. We have no choice but to wait for him."
Kyrian fidgeted, as if wanting to say something to his master.
"Master, before we go to Arcana and meet other people, there's something you have to know."
Kyrian nervously asked his master. He thought about it for weeks ever since he had been accepted as a disciple. He never asked his master to go out of the estate despite wanting to explore the cities. He had seen from the records how towering cities of magic and technology sprawled across the lands of The Republic.
As a child who had never gone beyond the trees, rivers, and mountains, even as an unusually mature kid, he yearns for these sights. He longed to see other humans and see how they work and function as a society. That might be a bit mature for a kid, but still, he wants to make a human connection.
He felt that he shouldn't keep his master in the dark about his past. If he were to be seen by powerful people, then there is a high chance that he would be recognized as the Lightbringer.
It was a dangerous situation as he wasn't sure where his birthplace was.
He knew that he lived in Iavrin, a continent faraway from The Republic. Another clue he had was that the phenomenon that happened at his birth was felt by all the powerhouses across the world.
Anyone with a reasonable power and influence will connect the dots when they see him. He has the signature hair color and eyes of the Lumenharts, accompanied by the monstrous affinity with light element, and the odd timing of his age and event of the ten rings of light in the heavens.
If people learned that he was the baby who caused the ten rings of light in the sky, then there is a high possibility of others wanting to harm him.
The list of enemies is countless.
Starting from the top, there are the arbiters of fate.
Kyrian assumed that the three arbiters have their own organization and amass followers.
Despite being sealed by the Lumenharts, some of their remnants must be lurking in the dark. It is better to be cautious and hide from the world until he has the strength to defend himself.
Demons are also a threat to him. He remembered how Aunt Shenghua said that the Lightbringer is the bane of the dark dwellers. Who else were the dark dwellers, but the demons.
As the news of the demon's attacks on Zara a few days ago, he recalled how cold-blooded they were by causing the deaths of innocents to achieve their goals.
While Kyrian was mulling over telling his master everything, Horace replied, "What? You're going to tell me that you're a Lumenhart? That you're the one who caused the ten rings of light?"
A visible shock appeared on the disciple's face. Kyrian had a hunch that his master knew, but pretended to not know so that he could feel comfortable.
The shock on Kyrian's face was replaced by shame and realization.
There were also signs when his master mentioned the Lumenharts during their training and the discovery of his high aptitude in light element.
Kyrian wondered how his master knew the Lumenharts despite their seemingly unknown origins in the Republic. There are no prominent families that specialize in light magic in the western republic.
That must mean that either the Lumenharts are a family that emerged within the past 800 years, which means that they're off the records in the library, or they came from another continent.
"I've always known of your origins, Kyrian. Your face is like holding a huge sign saying, 'I'm a Lumenhart' with your golden eyes that seem to radiate the warmth of the sun."
"Not my hair?"
"Oh, Lumenharts usually have golden hair, you must have gotten it from your father."
"Do you know my father?"
"Hmm, I've heard of him." Horace answered nonchalantly.
Kyrian's eyes widened since this would be the first time he would hear about his father for a long time, aside from the mixture of lies and truth that his mother told him and the bits of information from his Aunt Shenghua.
It made sense that his master knew his origins.
Obviously, if he was worried about others connecting the dots, then his master, as one of the mages who stands at the zenith of powers and influence, should reasonably infer his disciple's origins.
He planted a palm on his face and realized how stupid he was.
It seems like his streak of mistakes after mishaps kept on piling up. He was lucky that it was his master that he first encountered, along with Aunt Shenghua.
'Wait… It seems like he was lucky. Too lucky. The unnatural progression of his like felt like someone was moving behind the scenes to keep him safe.' He kept this to his mind and asked again.
"Then? What about my father? I only knew that he guarded the gates of hell and he disappeared."
"He's known as Yves Aquinas, the Guardian of Hell, the Exalted Asura, the Unchallenged, and the Peerless."
"Why does he have so many titles?"
"Well, if he didn't guard the gates of hell and prevented the destruction of this world for… I don't know. Thousands of years? Then he would've ruled the world. That kid, Aurelius, would get his bum kicked out from his title of the strongest man in the world."