Irwyn trod through the grass as he left the forest, Alice, Elizabeth and Desir in tow. He silently walked all the way to the middle of the large clearing before he finally stopped and spoke to his entourage: "We have arrived."

“Finally,” Desir sighed, very obviously eyeing their surroundings together with Alice. Meanwhile, Elizabeth did much better job hiding her curiosity, her eyes only discretely flickering from side to side, “What even is this place,” Desir naturally asked, being the most blunt of the three.

“The humble garden of the Blackburg family,” Irwyn nonchalantly waved his hand around the surroundings. The forest around the clearing was full of various deciduous trees full of leaves so uncharacteristic of the ever frozen North, meanwhile, the grass and shrubs seemed to prosper beyond reason in the artificially hot climate of the area. Almost any northerner would find something like this beyond strange, only the few who had ventured beyond their continent would find this scenery to be quite similar to the vast canopies of the central continent.

“How does this place even fit on the map, the distance we had just walked is definitely at least twice as long as what cartographers made the Blackburg estate seem like,” Desir took a deep breath when he heard Irwyn call something like this humble. As someone who had to often cut corners in order to save what little money he had, Desir now truly felt like he and Irwyn lived in a different world.

“It’s spatial magic, right?” it was Alice who answered this time around, glancing at Irwyn for confirmation. As someone who had the second greatest degree of talent in time and space magic she could naturally guess as much.

“Indeed,” Irwyn did not deny, “the Blackbrug family had once upon a time invited 4th tier mage to create a massive formation that would shrink this forest to one-tenth of its size as it was partially separated from the rest of the realm. That is also what allows the weather here to be so strangely warm.”

“Just how much does it cost to maintain something like this,” Desir gasped, perhaps imagining the astronomical sum, “Even for a dukedom, that amount of money cannot be easy to withstand,”

“It’s just a drop in the ocean,” Irwyn waved his hand, “You should not compare the Blackburg family with other duke houses. But enough of idle chatter. Let’s get to the point,” Irwyn suddenly smiled as he reached inside a nearby barrel no one had somehow noticed until now. In fact, now that they looked down everyone could see that there were at least 10 such barrels, most of them still sealed shut. Nonchalantly Irwyn took a handful of some strange orange grains out of the barrel before he suddenly threw then at his three companions.

Surprised, they each had a different reaction. Elizabeth, who was the furthest in front managed to duck inbeneath the unexpected barrage. Alice in the back merely covered her face and braced for impact. Desir reacted very differently: He erected a barrier of pure mana in front of himself, confident in his ability to block, a smug smile even began to appear on his face.

That smile was quickly brushed right of when those grains hit that barrier of his. Instead of stopping they quite literally exploded into clouds of fine powder. Said dust like particles seemed to have no qualms about passing directly through Desir's defences, subsequently enveloping both Desir and Alice. As soon as the dust entered their lungs, the duo began to intensely cought, to the point where Alice fell down to her knees and Desir deeply bowed as they attempted to force the substance to stop choking them.

"What the fuck is that thing?!" Desire asked in a hoarse voice the moment he was done coughing out his lungs. His eyes were obviously teary as he looked up.

"It's called cloud powder,” Irwyn explained, “a very eccentric weapon used in close combat against mages. Upon the slightest contact with mana, it will explode into an extremely fine powder which can pass through most magical defences, and is extremely irritable to the human body, usually incapacitating the mage for at least a few seconds. However, its main strength is also its greatest weakness, on an actual battlefield, any wayward wave of mana could make this thing blow up in the users face. Because of that its use in real combat is very limited.”

“And what exactly are we supposed to do with it?” Alice, who took a bit longer to recover than Desir asked.

“Train,” Elizabeth exclaimed as she bent down and picked up something from the dust cover ground in front of Desir. Bringing it up to their eye level it quickly became clear what the object was: It was a splinter of iron or some similar metal.

“Exactly. As I have said previously, I have arranged a special training course for you. The first step is to raise the control over your magic until you can do something like this,” Irwyn then turned towards the barrel, and sunk both his palms into it like a bowl, bringing out at least three handfuls. Without hesitation, he threw all of the dust into the air above his head. There was no wind, and thus the grains began to quickly rain back down on Irwyn who remained unmoved. Without any resistance the grains fell down to the ground, some of them bouncing off Irwyn’s head and clothes. But that was not the point of what Irwyn did, instead, it was the ball of iron fragments that was now suspended in front of Irwyn. Pieces of the metal with various sizes gently landed on Irwyn’s palm as the remaining trio gazed on with slight haze.

“As you can see, splinters of iron are mixed into the cloud powder. Your goal is to achieve exactly what I just did: Separating them without a single grain exploding,” Irwyn finally told them what their task was, and the trio looked a bit daunted. It was one thing if the task in front of them was incredibly difficult, however, it was another if whenever they failed they would be literally showered with a downpour of intense coughing powder.

“Now, each choose a barrel and get down to it,” Irwyn smiled at their expression and stepped aside to watch. It was frankly quite hilarious, watching those 3 great geniuses of their generation nearly cought their lungs out over and over again. However, Irwyn did not just stand by for long, as after he observed them for around half an hour he saw something from the corner of his eyes. Without any need to excuse himself, he walked to the very edge of the clearing, apparently somehow evading the notice of his pupils who did not even raise their eyes to see where he had gone.

“Is it done, Lucas?” Irwyn exclaimed as he reached the edge, and an elderly figure walked out from behind a tree. It was none other than Lucas Wisenose, Irwyn’s former tutor and, as Irwyn came to realise in the recent years, one of the most capable information officers the Blackburg family had at their disposal.

“Exactly as you had instructed,” Lucas noded, “Your mother agreed to your request and already underwent the procedure. My own appointment is scheduled right after I make this report.”

“Good. I assume the forgeries are already in place,” Irwyn decided to confirm.

“As I have said, everything is exactly as lord Irwyn wanted. I have personally checked the forgeries, and they are flawless. All disposable personnel was quietly erased, and the rest was taken care of by Shade himself,” Lucas said “After I undergo his treatment myself, lord Irwyn will be the only living person aware of this matter.”

“Excellent,” Irwyn nodded in satisfaction. What he had done this time around was very likely to bite him in the future had he left the slightest amount of evidence behind, “You should return,” he nonchalantly dismissed Lucas as he already began to return to the middle of the clearing. A smile was plastered on his face. Everything was going exactly as he had planned.