Chapter 15: A boy with a dream.

"What do you think?" Asked a very burly man, Rodrick Bluewing, to his son.

They had just left the Winterridge house after a pleasant dinner with their friends and their daughter and were now on their way to go back to their own house.

"She was incredible…" mumbled the boy.

The girl had left a heavy shadow over the boy's little heart and not only because of her beauty.

Her looks were incredibly unique, with her steel gray hair and icy blue eyes that brimmed with power, sometimes lightning could be seen flowing through them.

Years after their first meeting made her even more resplendent, with her sharp gaze and even sharped mind.

The little poor Roman felt intimidated by the girl, the way her sharp eyes looked at him made it seem like she didn't even acknowledging him, this was the only thing he didn't like.

But what could he do?

She was the most talented mage in their generation, shining of her own light, the spectacle at her parents wedding and the obvious favoritism from the leader of the city's mages, Sigmund, cemented her position as the number one.

Many were jealous, but they couldn't do anything at all, everything about her was different from the other children.

She went outside the walls and fought against the beasts while they remained inside in the safety of their homes, she passed all her time researching and, more recently, training physically while they played around between each others.

Other's didn't like her, but Roman thought differently, he had long since remained mesmerized by the girl.

The first time they met he felt bad that she didn't even look at him, but he was there while she casted her magic at that wedding.

He was there and he saw just how much effort she put into that spell, so much, in fact, that she even collapsed after finishing it.

And the smile on her face while she did that remained ingrained inside his mind even now, years later, she was the one that pushed him to train with a sword and study magic to become a great merchant just like his father.

Like this, maybe, one day, she would actually look in his direction.

"Do you like her?" asked the father with a grin on his face.

"Yes." admitted the boy.

In the Wild Lands men were taught to never hide their feelings, feelings are part of what gives magic its power and are what brings a person to push themselves beyond their normal limits.

Rodrick then made a serious expression, "You've chosen yourself a fantastic target, son."

"But a difficult one." interrupted the mother, Lara, she had remained shocked at what the girls magic was capable of doing, she wasn't a mage herself, but she had seen what her son could do, at it was nothing even comparable.

"Difficult indeed," replied the father with heartily laugh, "but let me tell you something, Laurence told me that she's been training with the sword in the last year and you're not half bad, how about you join her, even if it doesn't go well, you'll both learn a lot from sparring with each other."

The boy's eyes shined in excitement, "Yes! Where? When?"

"Why did he tell you?" asked the mother.

"He wants his daughter to have friends, he kept introducing her to every couple who had a child her age that he could find, but she never showed interest in anyone."

Roman knew about this, at least the part of the dinners with many families, it was what most of his friends talked about for several days after the fact after all, but he never knew the reason.

Now he did.

"About your questions Rom, apparently she trains everyday in the tree area in the afternoon."

"Great!" exclaimed the boy, eager to at least trying joining his crush the next day.

Which was exactly what he did.

In the afternoon of the day after, he went to the place his father had told him and there she was.

In all of her relative glory, glistening under the rays of the sun while swinging an iron sword at tall as she was.

"Hey!" He exclaimed, calling to himself the Ice Queen's attention.

I was training as usual when I heard a voice calling me.

I had finished my usual muscle training and started my sword training, when a boy, just a bit taller than I was, with a sword on his side, called me.

'Who's that?' I thought, finding the boy's face oddly familiar, it took me a few seconds to actually understand who it was, Roman Bluewing, the boy with whose family we had dinner the night before.

But what was he doing her, was the question in my head.

So I eliminated the sweat on my body and asked him about it, "Roman, do you need something?"

"No, I mean, yes," he stuttered, once again, "Your father told mine that you were training with the sword, I thought that you could need a sparring partner, I've been training with one for years too!"

After the initial stuttering he seemed to get his bearings together, saying the first perfectly clear speech I ever heard from the boy.

'Why not?' I thought to myself, I needed a sparring partner, after all my regular training wasn't enough to make me a good swordsman.

"Yeah, sure, do you want to start immediately?" I asked.

"Yes!" replied the boy with much enthusiasm.

It looked like he really wanted a sparring partner a lot, maybe I finally found a battle junky to pit myself against of.

I took out my sword, obviously dulled by my father as it was only for training purposes, and took my stance.

It was a stance very similar to my father's, seemingly relaxed, but ready to strike at any moment.

My opponent did the same after taking a deep breath, his stance was different from mine, he put one feet in front of the other while keeping his sword in front of him with both hands.

I looked at the boy straight into his eyes and motioned him to come at me, I wanted to see for myself what he was good for.

I couldn't say that I was good at all, but I had used my sword against beasts a couple of times, father was always ready to interfere and I used mostly my magic, but it was indeed a start.

On the other hand, I didn't to believe that my opponent had any actual battle experience.

He took my invite and started coming in my direction fast while keeping up his guard and when he got near enough, he attacked with a fast strike.

I tried side stepping it, but it was too fast for me to do it, so I had to use my sword to deflect it out of the way, but a follow up strike followed hist first.

I had to parry the second too, then the third and the fourth before I finally had a chance to step back and regain my bearings.

"I'm sorry I underestimated you, I'll take this seriously from now on."

It was indeed a very big oversight on my part, the boy in front of me had trained with a sword since way before I did and he also was the son of a merchant, so it was inevitable for him to have received optimal training.

"You better, otherwise I'll beat you without much difficulty."

'Did this guy just taunt me?' I thought, and the answer was yes, this guy did indeed just taunt me.

From this moment, it was personal.

I gripped my sword with both hands pointing the tip of my sword to the ground and emptied my mind from every thought other than beating my opponent with my iron stick.

I went in his direction and let him attack first once again, but this time, I was ready.

The strike came from above so I parried it to the side while releasing my double grip on the sword and punching the guy with my now free left hand right on his shoulder, causing him to release his grip on his swords, letting it fall to the ground.

"Ow, why did you do that?" He asked with an unresigned look on his face, evidently he didn't like the way the duel had gone in.

"A fight is a fight, we never said that punches were excluded." I grinned, taking revenge for his earlier taunt.

I knew that I was being childish, but I hated losing.

After hearing my answer the boy seemed to relax and calm down, but then he looked back at me with conviction, "Let's go again, it won't work a second time."

And so the second duel started again, and it went more or less the same way as the first, except that instead of a punch, with he was fully ready for, I sent him a kick which broke his guard and netting me a second win in a row.

The opponent was more skilled than me with a sword and it was exactly because of that, that I wouldn't limit myself to just fighting with a sword.

"Again!" he shouted.

I had to admit, this guy had passion, the next few duels were much more difficult than the first two, he grew cautious of my unusual strikes making taking him by surprise more difficult than before.

But difficult, didn't mean impossible, so there were times I managed to land an unexpected hit and taking a win.

But there were also times when the guy managed to hit me fair and square, netting himself the win.

It was fun, at least from my point of view.

Unfortunately, the guy got way too tired to keep going after half an hour, I would have used the spell I used to get rid of my own tiredness on him, but unfortunately I wasn't good enough to do such a thing.

The boy went home after that and I continued my training, but he came back the day after that, and once again the day later.

He kept coming back for more duels for a month, in this month I grew a lot more comfortable with a sword, and somewhat closer to the boy.

I wouldn't teach him any of my self made spells, but I didn't giving him a hand if he had difficulties with learning any spells, but this also helped my learning a few minor tricks that I didn't know.

For example, how to desiccate tissue with water spells.

Normally this was impossible against living beings because their innate mana would actively fight against any attempt to do so, but the same wasn't true for dead things, so now I could desiccate grass blades.

Useless, but cool nonetheless.

But the time had finally come to do something far more important than training, every month father and I would go back to Kilbury to discuss with the outsiders, well, he would discuss, I would read and enjoy the place.

But the problem was always the same, the nearer I was to that crater, the more strongly I felt it's call.

But it was finally time to do something about it.