Side Story: Perspectives on Caelum’s Abnormality

Elton – The Butler

From the moment I laid eyes on the boy, I knew something was different.

There was a maturity in his gaze that didn't belong to a mere fourteen-year-old. A sharp awareness paired with an unreadable confidence—yet, he was utterly ignorant of his own worth as a mage.

When he proposed that reckless bet, I wanted to intervene.

He was a mage—physically frail. Even I could have slapped him unconscious if I wanted to. Mages had fragile bones and weak limbs. It had long been noted that excessive exposure to mana weakened their physical bodies.

A single punch should have sent him sprawling. If it connected.

But he wasn't normal.

The way he moved, the way he countered brute strength with nothing but positioning and precise bursts of mana—what kind of mage fights like that?

He knew. If he got hit even once, he'd snap like a twig.

I have spent years in the service of nobles and scholars alike. I know the difference between talent and mastery.

What Caelum displayed wasn't luck or instinct. It was knowledge. Experience. Skill.

Then, the spell.

A mental influence spell on an aura user?

That alone shattered my expectations.

When he cast it on the chief guardsman, and it worked again—despite failing to suppress his aura entirely—I saw the shift in everyone's eyes.

This wasn't just a talented mage.

This boy understood magic in ways that suggested he was at least at the level of a seventh or even eighth-circle mage.

A prodigy among geniuses.

Then came the mention of his tower.

Blue Sparrows.

A prestigious institution known for producing mages who shaped history. Other towers envied it. Scholars sought to study there. Mages from its lands were first-rate citizens, held in the highest regard.

So why… why had they let him go?

Yet, when I saw the flicker of bitterness in his eyes at the mention of Madam Salvine, I knew.

The tower had discarded him, unaware of what they had lost.

And we had picked up the golden egg they abandoned.

As we rode in the carriage, I watched him closely.

I wanted to ask him so many things.

But he avoided my gaze, lost in thought.

He knew.

Maybe not the full extent, but he knew enough.

And that alone made him more dangerous than any mage I had ever known.

He could read people like spells and shift the way he acted accordingly.

That… was terrifying.

Dextra – The Merchant Escort

At first, I pitied the kid.

A young mage, cast into a world of manipulation and oppression, clearly out of place.

Most mages left the tower at twenty. They were given contracts, exposed to the real world in controlled settings.

Yet, from what I had gathered, this one had been cast out.

A failure, perhaps.

It was rare, but it happened. Mage towers either drained the mana from failed apprentices or… well, killed them. It was all speculation, of course, but as they say: if it smells rotten, it probably is.

Then, I saw the fight.

He didn't fight like a mage.

Didn't even fight like a noble.

He fought like someone who had been through something.

Like a survivor.

Someone who had needed to learn to fight to live.

What kind of mage tower produces someone like that?

And when he evaded, disrupted, and dismantled his opponent's aura like it was nothing, I realized something—

We weren't dealing with a mere outcast.

He wasn't a failure.

He was something else entirely.

When we arrived at the town, he acted as though what he had done was nothing special.

When we asked how he learned to move like that, he merely said he practiced by himself.

What kind of mage practices physical combat?

When a guard, amused, gave him a playful shove, he yelped in pain, chastising them, reminding them he was still a mage.

Yet, when they tried to catch him in good humor, he dodged them effortlessly—tripping a few in the process.

During the duel with the chief guardsman, I expected an interesting fight.

What I got was history in the making.

The mages in the tavern looked at him like he was an aberration.

Some wanted to follow us. Others, jealous of his talent, scoffed that he lacked the "pride of a mage."

That was when I saw it—the flicker of emotion in his expression.

Not arrogance.

Hurt.

But I? I saw opportunity.

This boy—Caelum—wasn't just another mage scholar.

He was the future.

He had slipped through the cracks of an outdated system.

And now, he was ours.

Scoof – The Stable Coach Driver

I've seen all kinds of people in my years—arrogant young nobles, cutthroat mercenaries.

Mages?

They're usually all the same—soft-bodied, high-strung, noses in the air, thinking the world bends to their will because they can light a candle without flint.

Caelum was different.

Not in the way he dressed or carried himself.

But in how he moved.

How he thought.

From day to night, he never complained—unless it was about how slow the journey was.

As if he was used to traveling faster than horses.

That made no sense.

He had an odd way of speaking.

He petted the horses, helped with spells to ease their fatigue, even aided us in sleeping better.

He warded off wild animals effortlessly, as if it was second nature.

But still, I thought—he's a mage. Just an odd one.

Then, the fight.

That should have been a joke.

But the way he handled himself… the way he used his magic—not in grand displays, but with precise, calculated efficiency—told me otherwise.

This wasn't an ordinary, coddled tower-raised mage.

He had been refined by the best of the best.

And yet… they let him go.

Why?

What had he done to be cast out?

When the chief guardsman asked him to repeat his trick, I already knew the outcome.

The kid was skilled. He would succeed.

And even when he failed at first, he adjusted. Adapted. Overcame.

Forget the third-circle mage nonsense.

To us, he was already at the sixth-circle level.

And the mage tower, blind fools that they were, had let him go.

Now?

He was ours.

The future of our Duchy.

And we were just lucky enough to witness the beginning of his rise.

A Few Days Later—A Rural Village Tavern

"At first, I thought he was just another snobbish, sheltered brat with too much magic and not enough sense," Scoof admitted, leaning back in his chair.

The rest of us laughed.

We had gathered here, all of us.

A band of newfound friends, united by a single realization—

Caelum was something else entirely.

"When he made that ridiculous bet, we all expected to see him sprawled out on the ground, bleeding from his nose," one of the mercenaries said, shaking his head in disbelief.

Instead…

Instead, we saw magic in its purest form.

Not just spells, but something greater.

He moved like a warrior.

No—like a dancer.

He had the instincts of a survivor, the precision of a scholar, the talent of a prodigy.

And yet, the most baffling thing of all?

He didn't even realize his own worth.

The mage tower had raised a golden egg…

And we had been the ones to pick it up.

The world had yet to know.

But we did.

And we would never let him go.