"Sir, there has been an increase of demons in the city. This year, before the Flyar and Vain families, we should eliminate the demons ourselves." The Guard Captain said resolutely.
The Branch Head was looking out the office window, twisting his beard in thought.
The demons lived in the forest and when their numbers got large enough, some would end up in the city. They'd tried many times to eliminate the cause of it, but for some reason, they kept coming back and trying to take down humans.
Therefore, every once in a while, the king would entrust the 3 branch families to deal with them. Not to say he couldn't do it with the royal guards, but allowing the families to take care of it was beneficial.
When you kill a demon, they have a core inside the head that can be used for a variety of purposes, the main one being increasing your meditation speed.
Since the families are the ones killing the demons then they get all the resources from them. It's a win-win situation. The king doesn't risk his subordinate's lives and keeps the 3 branch families happy.
"You realize what could happen if we did that right? It could result in a larger feud with the Flyar and Vain's," the Branch Head questioned.
"Yes sir, but if we do this we can get rid of everyone keeping each other in check. Acting like dogs to get any scrap of meat thrown. If we're the strongest, we'll get more rewards when events occur."
The Branch Head sighed, "You think we can overpower Flyar and Vain at the same time?"
"With what we've been preparing through the years and this. I believe so, sir."
"Then I leave this in your care, but whenever you decide to leave to clear them. Bring my student along. It'll be good practice."
"Yes, sir."
--The Training Grounds--
"I'm going to use 10-star magic this fight so don't cry too much," Taz said.
Kaiser chuckled lightly, "Who would ever cry from you?"
Then he became serious.
'This is what the devil was using and apparently what the whole world uses. If I can master fighting against that I can beat anyone.'
His determination which hadn't faltered raised again.
Fighting physically was great for getting used to moving his stronger body around and reacting fast, but this was the real challenge.
"Let's start."
Kaiser looked at his opponent. He didn't notice anything unusual, but he wasn't sure how to attack a magic wielder either.
'I should wait for him to make an attack first.'
A moment later Taz rushed towards him, his left hand started turning a fierce red.
'Is that his skill? I should avoid it.'
Kaiser also ran at Taz and threw a left punch, staying opposite the red hand, however, before it could reach anything. Taz's hand spewed out a line of fire, directly engulfing Kaiser's entire arm.
He backed away a few feet, determining his condition. It burned his entire arm, the flames not letting up the slightest.
He'd already been through torturous flames before so the pain didn't affect him mentally, but his arm was out of commission.
Whether it was Taz's doing or not, the flame's intensity dwindled so that he couldn't use his arm for the rest of the fight, but it wouldn't cause permanent damage.
'That fire is powerful and I might even be dead already if this weren't a friendly fight. I have to do better.'
Taz had stopped and waited to see how Kaiser would react to his arm being unusable.
'He's handling it way better than I thought he would. It's like his arm isn't messed up at all.'
He silently praised Kaiser.
Then the fight continued.
Kaiser feinted with his leg instead using his good arm to throw a punch, but he had to pull back as the fiery flames got in the way.
'If I get hit again. It'll be near impossible to fight after.'
He started circling Taz, trying to mess with his head.
So far Taz had only been on the defensive but Kaiser was still on the losing end. In fact, he hadn't even had a chance to properly attack.
When Kaiser was almost behind his opponent, he dashed in to make it look like another punch was coming. Taz used his magic and shot another line of flame attempting to null the initial attack, but Kaiser dodged to the left once again coming in a very close range.
The first time that'd happened his entire arm was burned.
Kaiser attacked where he could easily avoid another beam of fire, the legs.
However, Taz wasn't in the mood to be hit at all.
As soon as Kaiser was close to finally getting his hit, pillars of fire erupted from around Taz. It was instant and sneaky.
It blasted Kaiser's entire upper body, knocking him into the air, and effectively making him lose consciousness.
Taz was completely out of breath but said, "I didn't plan on using that skill so good job Kaiser."
He was out of mana and that forced your body to be tired. Without mana, your body feels like it's missing a key ingredient.
Taz knew Kaiser was out, but he felt like he had to say it.
Approximately 30 seconds later, the healers arrived and started working on Kaiser on the spot.
The Branch Head set that up beforehand knowing magic could make injuries more severe.
--Two Days Later--
Kaiser woke up feeling tired.
The last thing he remembered was being hit into the air by a pillar of fire. He recounted their fight as best he could.
'I lost so miserably.' Kaiser thought to himself.
Summoning fire pillars around you and shooting fire at your opponent.
'I need to be able to use magic to fight the devil and it has to be much stronger than this.'
He was lost in thought until his Teacher walked in.
"How are you doing?"
"Ah, uh I'm doing well. It was interesting fighting against magic for the first time."
Kaiser added distantly, remembering the devil, "Well, second time."
"Yes, it's different in a lot of ways, but would you like to know what mana affinitys you have?"
"Affinities? Isn't mana the same for everyone?" Kaiser replied.
"Not necessarily. Taz uses fire because his affinity towards fire is higher. From the sounds of it, the demon you fought seems more comfortable with water."
He paused, "But that's not to say you can't use other types of mana. It'll just be harder to comprehend and use it. So people tend to master their higher affinities first."
"I understand now, but how would you test it out?"
"I'm glad you asked," the old man said with a smile, pulling out a black iron-looking bar.
"This is the Affininator—well, that's what we call it. Others call it the Identifier, but our name has a better ring to it." the old man replied with full confidence.
'I wonder what my affinity is?'