Villagers stared at Damon in shock as he jogged through the village, covering every street. This morning routine revealed Damon's recovery to the village for the very first time, and for a while, it was the gist of the town.
The cursed boy no one knew of had recovered and was even healthier than his peers. Watching Damon's sweat-covered body, running through the streets of the village, slowly became a daily routine for young maidens.
Not only was Damon built like a superhero, but he also had the looks to back it up.
Damon's sudden fame amongst the village maidens only attracted the curiosity and envy of his peers. They wanted to know how he recovered and how he gained so much muscle in a short while. Many questions bothered them and a few were brave enough to engage Damon in a discussion, but they only got ignored.
The God of Death knew his time in this small village would soon come to an end, so he didn't bother engaging with them. What he was waiting for was an opportunity, and it was just around the corner.
In a world of magic, for a kingdom to thrive, it needed a functioning system to keep account of its mages. For that reason, a yearly recruitment team travels across the kingdom, gathering kids with potential and allowing them to be of use to the empire.
During the last two years, Damon had seen this happen. He planned to join the recruitment team and leave this village for good.
After jogging for a few hours, Damon reached the edges of the village and froze in his tracks. Normally, he would run along, but there was something different about the lonely path leading into the forest today.
{Why are we stopping here?} The voice asked but got no response.
After a minute of contemplation, Damon began running down the lonely path. The feeling he got from this route was something he was familiar with.
"Death…" Damon's gentle face twisted into a maniacal grin.
The sun's rays slowly vanished under the thick canopy of leaves as Damon ran deeper into the forest.
'It seems I need to hurry.' Damon muttered under his breath as the stench of death thickened.
"Zeph!" Damon muttered under his breath as his eyes revealed a gray light.
Swish!
The wind flow beneath Damon's feet improved rapidly while he surfed on it. His movements improved drastically while also granting him fluid movements.
To cast a spell, one needed to accumulate mana within their core, then visualize the spell, and then cast the spell. The quality of a person's core determined how fast they could accumulate mana, thereby affecting cast speed.
As for the visualization of spells, a poorly visualized spell would always come out poorly. This requires immense concentration and also contributed to the reduction in cast speed for most mages. While incantations helped with the visualization, most mages needed more than that.
To bypass this problem, grimoires were invented. These are enchanted books that record both incantations and artistic depictions of spells.
Such a precious item was extremely costly and available only to nobles.
For someone like Damon, his spirit magic allowed him to skip incantations and his five thousand years old memories were picture-perfect, allowing him to visualize perfect depictions of his spells effortlessly.
Using accumulated also allowed him to fill his core with world energy instead of mana. Using the world energy as a fuel for his spell instead of mana improved its power, control, and general effectiveness.
…
Peng!
Peng!
Two men dressed in chain mail armor slashed forward, but their swords only bounced off the thick hide of the Nightfire wolf.
The Nightfire wolf was over six feet tall on all fours with thick dark red scales. The tip of its tail was engulfed in fiery flames, matching its fiery claws.
Without hesitation, the beast let out a furious cry as it swiped its fiery claws at the two men. They skillfully leaped back, avoiding its claws while shielding the terrified youth behind them.
"You must leave this place at once, my Lord, there is no time to waste." One of the men pleaded as he turned to look at the youth.
It was a youth with light brown hair and deep brown eyes. The boy was dressed in sleek black armor with a blue cape attached to it. On the Cape was the image of three daggers stringed together, this was the family banner of the Ross family.
"Young Master, you must return without us and warn Lord Ross of the presence of a Nightfire wolf in his territory. We will hold the beast off for as long as possible!" The second man pleaded.
The youth was rooted to the spot, his face pale with fear. He couldn't hear the voices of the guards, neither could he move from that spot.
He was terrified.
Grrr!
The Nightfire wolf's eyes flashed with killing intent as if looking past the two men, toward the younger human behind. It could smell the youth's fear and was prepared to pounce, however, something unexpected happened.
The nightfire wolf froze in its tracks and the raging flames at the tail tip snuffed out as a chilling presence washed over it. Behind the brown-haired youth was a thick forest and within its darkness was a singular dark green eyes glaring at it.
Awooo…
The terrifying beast suddenly lost its threatening presence and lowered its head in fear. Slowly, the Nightfire wolf began backing away, stunning the two guards and the young master of the Ross family.
The guards shared confused glances and saw hope in each other's eyes.
"Get back!" One screamed, swinging his sword but not taking a step forward, while the other raised his sword high and made embarrassing noises.
They weren't sure what was happening, but they believed the beast must be terrified.