"Mom, Micayle got cursed!" my shaken voice hurried to explain the situation to my mother, whose frown got deeper the longer I spoke. The moment she heard the word 'curse,' my mother immediately took Micayle out of my hands and made me retreat three meters. However, as she listened to my story in detail, she became astounded and bade me return to her side. Although my mother seemed to have expected the worse, I could tell she never expected the case to be like this. In fact, she looked to feel a bit relieved.

"You can be said to have benefitted from her disaster," My mother held Micayle in her lap and ran a glowing white hand over her forehead. She looked at me and said, "Your friend will be okay. I will remove this damned voodoo from her, but it has already affected her soul to some extent. This will only heal with time."

"Ah!" I exclaimed suddenly. At that moment, I felt my connection with Micayle vanish abruptly, and the puppy tattoo on the back of my palm slowly evaporated. I spoke, "Thank you, mother! Is there any way I can give Micayle her energy back?" ------- Kiya Prozen's Heart:

I glanced at my son from the corner of my eyes, noticing his other little friend Haan was doing the same. It wasn't that my son's request was impossible. It was merely something I'd rather kill the girl than allow.

I closed my eyes and said, "It matters that you asked, I suppose. Unfortunately, the only way for you to do that is something I could never allow you to do. You are far too young. She will have to find another way until you are not. I will do my very best to help her."

"I can help her, mistress," a sudden soul message caused my entire body to quake.

I almost cried out in alarm but stopped myself. A streak of starlight silently escaped my forehead and shot into the nearby guardhouse. A few minutes passed until out of the guardhouse walked a beautiful woman wearing a guard uniform that hugged her body in all the right places. When the guards rose in alarm, I waved my hand at them. The guards were puzzled but obeyed the command to halt. The new female guard waltzed over carelessly, her slow and measured steps seeming to carry profound mysteries. She arrived before me and bowed humbly.

"Greetings, my mistress," the woman's pretty voice made everyone present feel warm inside.

"Lucky, Dove...this is your mommy's best friend in the world," I wiped the tears from my eyes, unsure when they started to flow. "Her name is Rubiset! Call her Ms. Ruby."

Ryatt and Haan exchanged baffled glances before both performing juniors' bows and shouting in unison.

"Hello, Ms. Ruby!"

-------

Luciano Graves' Heart:

When Drakel and Harding left, I was stuck struggling to land a hit on the small green-haired boy in front of me. Slash after slash of my saber hit empty air. This little bastard had the nerve to max out his luck today of all days. What kind of joke was this?

I wore a solemn expression on my face. I had only managed to graze this boy’s uniform twice, and every other attack had hit nothing at all. Nothing at all, I say!

"How could you possibly have become so agile all of a sudden?" I pointed my blade at the ground as he asked in frustration. This blade was bonified hero weapon, yet it was so useless here. I no longer attacked and started to calm down completely. All I felt was frustration, commanding, "You were the fastest during races before Drakel came to our club, but you have never been too monstrously flexible or swift. Tell me what is happening, now!"

"Hehe, I’m not sure either," the talking shrub rubbed his nose in an embarrassed manner. "But even if I knew, would I tell you?"

I decided in my heart I was definitely going to kill this punk.

------- Mikah's Heart:

Today things felt...different. When I was submerged in the pressure earlier, it felt like something in my body had cracked and then shattered. I felt a surge of vital energy sweeping through my body, naturally gathering in what felt like a newly formed hole below my abdomen.

Is this what they call the pit of the stomach?

Before I had a chance to understand what was happening to me, my friends fled, and Luciano attacked me. As the latter tried to kill me, I felt the actual threat of death. My back was drenched in a cold sweat, and I felt like cotton was caught in my throat. Being in this near-death/near-life state, I could feel my state of mind getting tempered. Once I relaxed more, I noticed how the air itself seemed to be trying to communicate with my heart. I could even feel some minute changes in the atmosphere around me. This is elemental awareness! Without possessing elemental awareness, it's impossible to refine the heaven and earth origin energy, otherwise known as mana's ambient elemental power. Without refining elemental power, it was impossible to escape the Humble Realm. The old merchants had repeated this to me countless times. Now that I could sense an element, I could slowly interact with air particles in the future.

Could it get any better than this? My dream of becoming a hero was getting closer and closer.

Thanks to my insights, I had been able to go untouched in this fight, even though I also had no way to fight back. Actually, I worried that if I relaxed for even a moment, I would definitely die today. Right now, I felt close to actually escaping the Humble Realm. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to make the advancement. I knew that, without a teacher, I could spend my entire life stuck on the cusp of a breakthrough. I understood that I could only keep dodging because Luciano is more arrogant than talented. Even though Luciano was already at the Power Hunter stage of the Hero Realm, I guessed he only achieved this rank by relying on external means based on his earlier words. Such was the benefit of having a family backing you. That was something I couldn't compare to.

Luckily, I heard that those like me, who first comprehended an element’s essence, would be far more powerful than those like Luciano once I entered the Hero Realm. Even without entering the Power Hunter stage, I already felt far less pressure when facing an enraged Luciano. Although I couldn’t defeat my opponent, Lucci could no longer prevent me from escaping or even touch me at all. Every time I dodged, I seemed to realize something else about the wind. Every realization lured more air particles into my body, making me feel lighter and lighter.

"You’re not sure?" Luciano’s eyes narrowed at my words. "Even a no-level punk like you dares to keep secrets from me? I truly will have no face left if I don’t kill you."

"Ahaha, can you even kill me?" I laughed complacently. Luciano snarled in discontent. After all, he really couldn’t do anything to this brat. Luciano knew my words held merit.

I wasn’t sure yet what I had just comprehended about airflow, but I knew it was definitely mysterious and useful when predicting the opponent's movements. Only through careful meditation would I be able to comprehend these secrets of the air element in detail. For me, someone who focused on long-distance combat sports, this was only the beginning of my path. "I may not be able to do anything to you, but can you do anything to me?" I laughed as I started to retreat rapidly. I no longer had anything to gain from this struggle, as Luciano already no longer possessed the means to kill me.

------- Luciano's Heart:

My face turned unsightly because I realized this punk wasn’t wrong at all. I hadn’t landed a single attack on this twerp, and my power base’s suppressive power seemed to no longer be as effective as it was before. In a few dozen exchanges, Mikah went from clumsy evasions to skillful dodging. At this point, I was finding it difficult even to touch the corner of this damn shrub's clothes. "Is this why they say behind disaster hides great fortune?" the green-haired lad mused to himself.

Hearing Mikah’s quiet words, I almost coughed out blood.

Mikah felt incredibly excited, and all he wanted to do currently was reunite with his sister at home and lock himself in his room to study airflows. He had a feeling this would be the start of his journey to becoming a magic refining pharaoh formulator! Mikah didn’t have any lofty ideas about evolving his life-form. He wanted to reach the Profound State and control magic treasures! Before, Mikah only dared to dream of having tremendous power one day. He didn’t believe it would happen at all.

Today’s incident changed everything. However, none of it mattered if something happened to Micayle. This wouldn’t be a fair trade, as Mikah would spend his life in agony.

Seeing that Mikah had started to put all his energy into escaping, I became even more frustrated. That was because no matter how I swung my blade, all it touched was air! Mikah’s steps were swift to the point of me barely being able to keep up. Every time I swung my blade, Mikah would get a bit further away. I had yet to awaken any elemental awareness, so I hadn’t refined much elemental power into my vital essence yet. Even though I had a power base, it was currently superficial! I could only use it to exert pressure on weaker opponents. Other magic refiners were beyond my ability to deal with.

"Mikey!"

The damn shrub and I both watched as a handsome youth wielding a wooden katana came rushing over from more than 60 meters away.

"Listen up, you little bastards," I stopped my crazed pursuit, staring menacingly at Mikah. Adding that Axel Harding to the mix, I lacked the confidence to continue this solo pursuit. That wasn’t even the worse part. Just now, I noticed my curse seal had been stolen from me somehow! Someone stole my slave while I tried to kill Mikah! I lost my slave right after receiving her! I gnashed my teeth in anger as I said, "You twerps are toast, you hear me? You’re all going to die! You’ll never have another peaceful night in this city!"

I turned around and ran back toward my injured crew. It was past time for us to leave the area. After all, the higher-ups couldn’t lock down the area forever.

"We aren’t afraid of you, Grave-digger!" Harding shouted as he rushed over. "You can’t do anything to us unless you go beg for help from your Black Tyrant Legion. Some young master…"

"Silence, Harding!" I bellowed in anger as I retreated. "That brat Drakel heavily injured several students today. Let's see how the education bureau feels about it. Before long, he’ll be out of school and on the street. You’ll know by then if I can do anything to you fucking turds."

"You bastard!" the shrub cursed before turning around and escaping at top speed.

He didn’t even bother to look at me again as if I had just lost the little respect Mikah started displaying as we fought. Originally, this weakling shrub only respected my Power Hunter status. Mikah looked like he was still reflecting on that feeling from before, and he didn’t have the concentration to do anything but run away. When the shrub reached Harding, he didn’t stop at all. Harding faltered momentarily before staring menacingly at me. However, he still turned around and caught up to Mikah as the two sped off, presumably toward Drakel and the others.

Seeing this, I was stunned, speechless. If I were in their position, I would've never let myself retreat. They were soft, unworthy of my concern. After a breath, I shouted, "Don’t worry, even though your sister is already my bitch, I will take great care of her!"

------- Mikah's Heart:

Even though hearing Lucci's words made me incredibly angry, I was no longer as impulsive after the harsh lesson I earned earlier. Due to my negligence, my sister almost got snatched, and she could’ve even been killed.

'If it weren’t for Lucky…'

I didn’t want to think about it at all. Thanks to that experience, I understood the bigger picture a bit more than before. One bad decision, one moment of arrogance and pride, could cost me everything. I truly had no way to defeat the Power Hunter Lucci, no matter how nasty the latter’s words were. Right now, what I should do is run away find the rest of my friends.