Somewhere in Fire Town.

Leon's figure emerged from the dark tree line, stepping out of the forest and into the edge of town from the side where no gate stood.

Fire Town was porous by nature. Not many guards. Not much structure holding the perimeter together. You could walk in from almost any direction if you knew where the gaps were, and Leon knew them all by now.

He moved without hurry, crossing into the outskirts and heading straight for his house.

He had paid a full year's rent before leaving. No one would have touched the place in his absence, and no one had. The door was exactly as he'd left it.

Luckily the inheritance ground had been time wrapped. If it hadn't, he'd be walking back to an empty lot and a landlord with no memory of him.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"The swindler."

Levi's voice drifted over from slightly above and to the left.

The little serpent was stretched out across the trey, using it like a surfboard, floating at a comfortable height with absolutely no urgency about anything.

"Shouldn't you go check on him? Wouldn't want him talking to the elements students."

Leon glanced over with a slight smile.

The trey itself was not a small thing. What Leon had initially taken for a simple piece of the old hydra's leftover furniture had turned out to be a high level treasure in its own right, with details inside it pointing to a morphing and reconstruction spell that Levi had already started picking apart with interest. Comfortable to ride. Useful beyond that.

Levi had claimed it immediately and without discussion.

"Yes." Leon said. "I'll do that tomorrow."

The little serpent said nothing more and went back to floating.

Only Leon understood what Levi had actually been suggesting.

Not a visit. Not a conversation.

The serpent was thinking more and more like him with every passing day, and what it had just recommended, wrapped in casual words about checking in, was that Leon kill Lucan before the man became a problem.

Leon filed the thought away and went inside.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The next day arrived.

And with it, something Leon hadn't planned around.

At the town's main gate a troop of armed soldiers had arrived, escorting a group of scholars dressed in robes of varying colors, each color sitting in a specific order that anyone in the central continent with even basic awareness would recognize immediately.

"The five element school."

The first townspeople to spot them said it out loud before the thought had fully finished forming. Recognition hit fast, followed almost immediately by something closer to joy than surprise.

There was a reason Fire Town ran so light on guards and so loose on structure.

Every so often, as a matter of tradition, the five elements school made rounds through smaller towns like this one. They came to recruit. New blood from outside the school's usual circles helped mix the pool of candidates, brought in angles and talents that wouldn't have surfaced otherwise.

The town knew this.

They had been waiting for it without knowing exactly when it would come.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The council of elders emerged from wherever elders went when they weren't being needed, moving to the gate in full formation, their posture dropping into something that sat right at the edge of submission.

"You're welcome to our town, humble lord. Would you like some tea? Perhaps a feast…."

The town head spoke carefully, each word placed with the specific weight of someone addressing people who could end him without paperwork.

The young men from the five element school listened.

And looked at the elders the way someone looks at livestock.

No attempt to hide it. No softening of the expression.

It was a general trend across the central continent. Those without magic, or without the inclination toward it, occupied a category below warlock in most practitioners' minds. Not quite people. Not quite worth the full consideration one would extend to an equal.

The elders kept smiling anyway.

"We are here to select some talents." The one in the lead spoke without preamble, a pinned emblem on his chest throwing off five distinct colors. "Bring your most able bodied youths to us here so we can test them."

Five colors.

A level four mage.

A great mage.

Even in the central continent that rank carried weight that most people spent entire lifetimes never getting close to. The power sitting behind that title was not the kind of thing you argued with at a town gate.

"Immediately!!"

A guard barked it with a spear already moving in a wide threatening arc, the motion more warning than anything else.

The elders scattered.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Word moved through Fire Town fast.

Doors opened. Parents called out into streets. Young men and women who had been going about ordinary mornings suddenly found themselves being pushed toward the gate by relatives who understood exactly what this moment was worth.

Someone knocked on Leon's door.

"Good morning, Mister Leon."

He opened it and looked down.

A young girl stood on his doorstep. Small, clearly a commoner's child, the kind of kid who had grown up knowing the names of every neighbor on the street because that was just how you lived out here.

Leon had seen her around before. She lived next door.

"Hello Clara." He crouched down and ruffled her hair once, an easy smile on his face. "What are you doing here so early?"

He didn't particularly care about the people of Fire Town. Including this child. But he had lived here long enough that knowing no one would have been its own kind of visible.

"The big people from the holy place came to recruit." She fumbled slightly over the words, shy in the way small children get when delivering a message they're not entirely sure they've memorized correctly. "My baba said you need to go to the gate."

"Big people? Holy place?"

Leon frowned for just a moment.

Then nodded.

He closed the door, then opened it again.

"Noted. I'll head over in a minute." He smiled at her and she scurried back next door.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

At the gate the crowd had grown to fifty young people, most of them standing close to whoever had walked them there, some hugging parents, some just standing near relatives quietly because neither side knew what to say.

It was the dream of every young person in a place like this.

The five element school. A name that carried the weight of a world giant. Getting in didn't just change your life, it changed the life of everyone connected to you.

"These are enough no?" One of the school's students muttered, watching the numbers climb.

"Seventy to be safe." The one beside him said it with an easy smile, like they were counting inventory.

Seventy was reached quickly.

"That's enough." The great mage's voice cut through the noise and the crowd stilled immediately. "All of you are the lucky ones. The school rewards punctuality and obedience. All who are here now will automatically become apprentices."

The crowd broke open.

Tears. Actual tears, running down faces, some of the elders dropping to their knees right there at the gate. Even a measly apprenticeship carried influence in this region. It meant leaving commoner life behind. It meant something for their families, their children, the people who shared their name.

All because they had been standing at the right place at the right time.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"Hey."

Leon's voice landed on a specific shoulder near the back of the selected group.

"Aren't you like thirty?"

Lucan turned.

The fear that moved across his face was immediate and uncontrolled, the kind that arrives before the mind has time to arrange itself into something more composed.

Leon.

Alive.

Standing right there with a hand pressed casually onto Lucan's shoulder and a calm smile on his face like running into him here was the most natural thing in the world.

Wasn't this man supposed to be dead? 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Don't say anything." Leon's hand pressed down slightly, keeping him in place. "Let's just watch the show."

Lucan stayed very still.

Leon kept smiling.

Because it wasn't this easy to join the five element school.

It really wasn't.

This was a world giant they were standing in front of.

And something about this entire scene was not adding up.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​