Caius opened his eyes to the splashing of water on his face—he coughed a bit and sat up right. His vision focused on his surroundings and he saw a small stream near his feet and trees around him.
Must've been a dream. He thought as he got to his knees and crawled to the stream to look at his face.
Contrary to his thoughts about everything being a dream—his reflection set his reality. It was not a dream, he was indeed banished from his family and was almost killed because of it. As he stared at the scar crossing his forehead and eye Caius' felt something burn within him.
Hatred and contempt for his family and his former betrothed.
He had forced himself onto the younger sister? Why did he not have any memory of such?
Maybe he was framed?
His thoughts were disturbed when he felt a spike in mana around him and Caius got to his feet. "Who goes there?"
The trees rattled and a small dragon came from the tree lines yawning. Why are you so cranky?It asked as it laid down on the grass.
Caius' eyes widened; a dragon was before him—he knew that the creatures should be extinct, it was documented in the kingdom's history that they were hunted to extinction by humans and other races. "Why's a dragon here?"
The dragon opened its eyes and stared lazily at Caius. I'm a materialization of your mana, in this part of the world my species don't exist because they were hunted for their cores
"Oh," the only words he could muster to speak. It was not a dream; he truly did inherit the Elderwood core and this dragon, however, what of the screens he had seen before the dragon.
As if responding to his thoughts—the system activated and the blue screens appeared again with some of the screens missing.
[Caius Thorne — The Overlord Of Magic ]
[ Rank: SS ]
[ Title: Magic Overlord ]
[ Beast Wills: Dragon core (SSS Rank), Elderwood Core (SS rank) ]
[ Magic: Gravity Magic, Disturbance Magic, Wood magic, Enchantment Magic, Elemental magic, Healing magic ]
[ Special ability: Magic supremacy (Incomplete) ]
Caius stared at the projections with wide eyes—overnight he had become massively powerful. Before today, he could barely use magic; it was because of that, he was shunned by his family. Possessing no remarkable talent to his siblings, his sole purpose was to marry into the king's family and become the husband of the crown princess not because he was strong but because of the king honoring his father's contributions to the kingdom in the last holy war.
Now? Caius could fight on even grounds with one of the Holy knights, one of the few strong individuals with the honorable ranks of S+ capable of laying waste to an entire city by themselves.
He closed the system and turned to the river flowing before him; he had nowhere to go, and he was weak even with the magic he had, he wasn't certain he could be of use if someone attacked him.
Caius took a breather; he had elemental magic, he could use all the affinities including the sub affinities—this was something that even his father could not achieve himself.
He cleared his thoughts, "let's begin," his mana flowed throughout his body and his dark eyes glowed before it flared around causing the water to rise with it till the waves were hovering above Caius obstructing the sun from touching him.
The entire river was floating above him including the fish and other marine life. He grinned to himself, this new found power was amazing.
After a few minutes, he started feeling light-headed and staggered to the side before he collapsed on his behind, the water no longer being influenced by his mana crashed down into the hollow channel and splashed his whole body as the flow resumed.
Caius breathed heavily, but a small smile was present on his face. "That was awesome."
Too flashy if you asked me. I'm certain you attracted some attention. The dragon spoke as it got up and stretched—it had been observing Caius practice with water affinity magic and to say it was not impressed would be a blue lie. The feat of holding the river up as long as the boy did? was nothing short of remarkable.
Caius looked at the dragon and scoffed. "It was just practice. I want to get to now the extent of my abilities."
The dragon gave him a side-eye and flared its nostrils. Still that's too flashy. We need to move. It morphed into a small fox and jumped on his shoulder.
Caius nodded and got up. He did not know where to go; the only source of protection he had was within the walls of the Thorne family and with that gone he had to make a way.
Moments after Caius left the clearing, a white haired man wearing a red robe walked into the clearing. His red eyes stared at the silhouette of the boy and a smile appeared on his face. "This boy has potential."
*
The sun began to set, the colors of the fading star painted the sky a lovely shade of multiple colors.
Caius sighed, his feet were throbbing from walking all day, his stomach growled from hunger, and his throat felt extremely dry. His shoulder hurt from the dragon turned fox occupying it—despite all of that, he could see the footpath leading to the next town within Aridth kingdom, Just on the outskirts of the kingdom.
"You know, you could just fly or walk on your own!" Caius complained to the dragon.
Ha! Me? Walk? Absurd and you can't complain that I am heavy. The dragon retorted as it let out a small fox yelp of defiance.
Caius' eye twitched and he was about to reach for the animal and throw it away when a set of wheels came rushing down the path, hooves of horses were loud and clear to him.
Caius jumped to the side as the carriage passed him, he looked at the carriage as it passed and raised an eyebrow at how weird it was—it seemed like a cage behind the cloth, but it wasn't his problem, he shrugged and continued his walk, he needed some place to rest and food to eat but there was another problem; he was broke, he had no money on him.
The gates of the city came into view and Caius hurried to the entrance, the last of the merchants were already crossing through, and if he wanted to stand a chance at entering he had to go with them—his advancement was stopped by the two gate-guards as they looked at him, their spears crossed to stop his entry.
"Halt!"
"State your name!"
The guards spoke in tandem, not even missing a beat with one another—they had looked at Caius, and his torn yet bloodied clothes, the grime and dirt clinging to his face and hair made him look untrustworthy.
Caius groaned a bit, the last person to enter before him, was not asked any questions like he was, however, he knew defiance would only backfire on him. "Caius Thor…" he caught hinself before he blurted out his family name. "Just Caius."
He did not want to be associated with the Thorne family name after what he had went through.
The guards looked at him, having caught the hesitation in his voice; they weren't convinced about his story, the hesitation made him appear extremely untrustworthy, further than he was when he first arrived.
"Caius where are you from?"
'Tell them you lost your memories and can't remember, just say you woke up in the forest.' The dragon spoke but this time his voice was in his mind.
Caius nodded. "I don't remember, what I remember is waking up in the forest and walking until I came to this city."
The guard's eyes slightly widened, the boy was no older than fifteen and he crossed that forest alone? They cast a glance at the forest and then Caius with his pet fox and everything made sense to them, his torn clothes was because of the monsters lurking in that forest.
"it must've been rough crossing that forest alone, but one last thing, who is the man behind you?" The guard asked having taken notice of the white-haired man behind Caius the time he looked at the forest.
Caius turned and looked at the man wearing a red robe, the dragon on his shoulder growled as it glared at him.
'He is dangerous.'
Caius nodded in agreement. 'I know.' he could feel the emanating mana from the man despite his attempts to conceal it, maybe he wasn't concealing it from him, but the guards? That was a possibility too.
The white-haired man smiled at the guards and winked at Caius.
"He's with me, he is my protege of sorts if you can say that."