A Genius of Unparalleled Talent.

Far away in the east a man in his thirties with white hair, ice-blue eyes and a couple of beautiful crystal horns, was kneeling in front of a woman whose beauty was unparalleled. She had dark purple hair, rose pale skin, large golden eyes, and on her head a pair of golden horns which she proudly wore as a crown. Her soft and curvy body made every man fall in a trance at the first glance.

"Your Highness, I, Curtin, am here to report about my mission."

"You mean the mission you should currently be carrying out instead of being here, Curtin?" Selina interrupted Curtin without an ounce of rage, although her remark made the man shiver from head to toe.

"Your Highness, I am aware of my impundance coming back this early without accomplishing my mission." Curtin bowed his head until it was an inch from the ground. "But I need to report what I saw an hour ago."

"You may go ahead then." Selina's soothing voice made Curtin breathe a sigh of relief.

"Then without ado, I will now start to report anything I saw from five years ago until now."

One hour worth of report later.

"Your Highness, Marduk is a genius of unparalleled talent and intelligence, we must bring him here to nurture him adequately." Curtin advised with strong conviction.

"So he's not only a martial artist at the initial stage of the middle rank at the young age of five, but he even recognised, analyzed and managed to replicate fusion magic from a mere low rank magic beast at first glance, eh. He is indeed worthy of being my son." Selina proudly said.

"Even so, he should learn and grow while traveling the world. So that one day he will be the sharpest of the blades and mightest of the warriors."

Selina then directed her attention to her subordinate.

"You will go back to your mission now. But with a slight change." Curtin, who was still bowing, raised his head with a knowing look on his face.

Ten hours later, Marduk's room, Mint.

Marduk opened his eyes and immediately checked his surroundings. Ensured of his safety he then focused on the girl softly sleeping on the edge of his bed. As he recognized the sleeping face a little smile slipped his lips, but it dissolved as he delicately shaked the sleeping beauty.

"Marduk! You are finally awake!" The girl shouted while a stream of tears poured down her soft cheek.

"Yes Telia, I'm awake" he said while gently patting the head of the crying girl.

Telia was the seven years old daughter of the pharmacist of Mint, who had followed Marduk since the very first day he started training through the village. The young girl had hazelnut hair and eyes, along with a very energetic and conditioning personality. She was the only one in Mint who managed to break apart Marduk's defenses, becoming therefore his only friend.

"Telia, I'm fine, so please stop crying." Marduk said with a pleading voice, one that Telia never heard before.

Telia then stopped crying and started reprimanding him. "You disappeared for six months, without any kind of warning, and when you return you are sleeping and unresponsive. You have no right to tell me to stop crying, but since it is the first time you show me your true emotions, I will forgive you at one condition."

"May I know what said condition is, Milady?" Marduk said in a sarcastic tone, still maintaining his plain expression.

"You'll let me train with you from today onwards!" Telia said confidently. "No! Never! Impossible!" Marduk instantly replied.

"But why? I'll not hinder you and I'll do my best every day!" Telia exclaimed.

"It's not that, Telia, it's too dangerous for you and you have no need to become stronger." Marduk said in a calm and stern voice. "But I want to be of use to you and I want to stand proudly beside you!" The conviction and ardor of her will moved Marduk, who decided to check her talents before making a decision.

"All right, Telia, I'll now show you something you'll never tell anyone, not even your sister or mother, are you ready?" The young girl remained calm and promised to never tell anyone what Marduk was about to do. A few seconds later Marduk's light gray eyes changed and started shining in a golden hue, as he used the Deity's eyes on Telia.

Telia Erb

Class: none

STR: 5 STA: 10

DEX: 5 INT: 20

AGI: 8

Talents:

Bend Magic: Average talent;

Fusion Magic: Low talent;

Martial arts: High talent;

Alchemy: Very high talent;

"Telia you have high talent in martial arts and very high talent in alchemy. You can train with me half the week while studying alchemy the other half, this seems to be the best way for you to be successful in the future." Marduk said in a monotone voice.

"Marduk! You can see people's talents?! How do you do it?! It's incredible." Telia exclaimed in a cheerful tone.

The day after the joyful reunion, Telia started training, while Marduk was tormented by Kayden who wanted to know all about the mana's patterns. Initially Marduk wanted to keep the existence of fusion magic a secret, but after four days of incessant harassment, he gave up.

"Master, you know of the existence of magic, right?" Marduk started explaining. "Of course, Who do you think I am? A fool?" Kayden answered in annoyance.

"All right then can you tell me the full name of the type of magic that humans, elfs, demons and dwarfs use today?" Marduk said in a mocking tone. "What do you mean with a full name? Magic is magic! It doesn't have a full name!"

"Oh, but it does. Its full name is Bend Magic. It is called that because it bends the outside world as the invoker desires.

An easy example is the spell wind blade, indeed the mana inside the caster flows outside his body and it bends the air surrounding him to create a blade of wind."

"Yeah, I already knew the way magic works. So it is called Bend Magic, uh. Fascinating."

"Anyway, what your subordinates saw that day was another type of magic."

"Right… so?"

"So what?"

"How does it work? What is it? Are you planning to keep it a secret now that you have come this far?"

"I wished I could. But if I don't explain it now I won't be able to sleep with you harassing me the way you do. So I will explain if you promise to keep it a secret between me and you."

"I promise! After all, I'm still your master and grandfather!" The light gray eyes of Marduk were staring at Kayden as he pronounced those words.

"Yeah right, the father of the man who threw me out because of my lack of talent in bend magic…" Marduk whispered so that Kayden couldn't hear him.

"Very well, the type of magic I'm talking about is Fusion Magic. It is called that because the caster moves his mana inside his body and, through fusion, he can enhance his physical ability and achieve several other effects. When a user of this type of magic moves his mana through his body those patterns will appear. As simple as that."

"So you are saying that this other type of magic allows the caster to boost his own physic, eh."

"Not only, but yes I'm saying that."

"That's why you had that enormous mana pool even with your scrap talent. You have amazing talent in this type of magic."

"Yep."

Ending the long discussion with Kayden, Marduk went back to his training in martial arts coming soon to a conclusion.

"So I have reached my best possible stats with my current body, uh." Marduk thought watching his stats screen which showed no growth. His body had recently reached the current limit of 150 for each stat, producing the following screen:

Marduk Van Licht

HP: 1500 MP: 25000

STR:150 STA: 300

DEX:450 INT: 375

AGI: 150 DEF: 140

Since he couldn't train his stats he started dedicating half of his days to train his techniques' proficiency level while refining his mana patterns the other half. Like this another couple of months went by, when suddenly one morning Dorran showed up in Marduk's room at the crack of dawn.

"Marduk! Come with me!" It was the first time that Marduk saw Dorran so talkative, and so he decided to follow without complaint.

Reaching the forge, Dorran made some tea and they both sat on a couple of worn out stools at what seemed like a working bench. Then the dwarf took a deep breath and started talking.

"Would you like to become my apprentice?" The bulky man was so embarrassed that his face turned redder than his hair.

"Yes."

"What just like that?"

"Yes, after all if you hadn't brought it up, in two more days I would have come on my own to ask for your teachings."

The bright red dwarf then gulped down his cup of tea to calm himself, he stood up and started explaining the foundations of blacksmithing.