Hunt

"Almost there," mumbled Brandon, a middle aged man, as he moved through the forest at a fast speed, occasionally ducking in between branches of trees.

For the past two months, Brandon had been traveling throughout the Magic Continent, but right now, he could finally return to his home.

Right now, Brandon was only a few hours of traveling away from his hometown, where he could peacefully focus on practicing magic without any worries.

Suddenly, Brandon narrowed his eyes, slightly ducking as a bright yellow arrow suddenly appeared in front of him.

Without any hesitation, Brandon fired the light arrow towards a certain bush over one hundred meters away.

In only a fraction of a moment, the arrow had flown through everything in it's path, bushes, trees, rocks, and reached it's target, that bush.

Then, right at that moment, something finally darted out from inside of the bush, prompting Brandon to suddenly take control of the arrow, turning it towards a new target.

Without any warning, Brandon, who was still moving, suddenly ducked sideways, as a black shadow suddenly flew past his neck, only a fraction of a moment later, Brandon's ear was filled with sonic booms.

Of course, Brandon had no time to be distracted by the boom, as the black shadow, which Brandon then identified as the Dark Bolt spell, suddenly flew past his neck once again.

Thankfully though, Brandon still managed to dodge the bolt, saving his life once again.

At the same time, Brandon still controlled his Light Arrow, chasing after his target.

Although the arrow was much faster than the target in a straight line, right now, the target was moving extremely erratically, not allowing the arrow to catch up with it.

And when the arrow did manage to catch up, the target would then merely dodge.

'A robber, had no plan to particularly target me,' thought Brandon as he watched the shadows slowly but surely retreat.

Even though mage apprentices that robbed others were quite rare, Brandon had still encountered three of them throughout his life, and could identify them.

As one would expect, robbers are not the bravest bunch, as such, they always quickly launch an assault on their target before retreating, not fighting for very long.

Of course, there is a chance that this was the only type of robber that would survive out there, after all, although most dark mages would not go out of their way to rob, they would still take advantage of two injuried targets.

After a few minutes, Brandon finally released control over his Light Arrow, allowing it to dissipate, as its target was gone.

...

'He managed to sense me before I acted, surprising,' thought Beatrice as she ran through the forest, at this moment, although only a short amount of time had passed from her attack, Beatrice had completely changed her clothing.

For over half a month, Beatrice had been fighting before changing her location, so as to increase her fighting skills.

Or so her teacher, who right now was sitting on the porch of a small house in the middle of the forest would say, as she was the one that made her do this.

"Hmm, you did well to retreat, he was a high-rank mage apprentice of the light element who had reached the limit of his potential, if he had an elixir of light, then maybe he could reach the level of a Peak Apprentice, you would have been in a lot of trouble if you tried to fight him," mumbled Selena, who was sitting in a comfortable chair, as she read a book.

"Teacher, do you know he how he sensed me?" asked Beatrice as she walked onto the porch, looking at her teacher.

"You shouldn't underestimate other mages, especially the ones that are relatively older, after all, even if they don't have a lot of mana, they managed to somehow survive to their age," said Selena as she got up from her seat, not directly answering Beatrice.

Hearing her teacher's answer, Beatrice slightly rolled her eyes, in this half a month, she had killed four mage apprentices, and two of them looked relatively old, but neither of them managed to sense her.

"Since you have shown yourself in this place, let's go," said Selena as she let out a sigh and began walking towards the forest, with Beatrice following her.

...

Two days later, on a rocky hill,

No matter how many times Beatrice saw her teacher snap her fingers, causing a house to suddenly emerge from the ground, she would still feel extremely surprised every time she saw this.

A moment after the house emerged from the ground, Selena suddenly walked on the porch before sitting in her already prepared chair.

"Remember to beware of Earth Mages in this environment," said Selena, before both her and the house suddenly disappeared.

If not from the fact that the mark on Beatrice's neck, which was telling saying her teacher was still in the spot in front of her, Beatrice could not have reasonably realized this.

A moment later, Beatrice walked away from the house, beginning to look for a place where she could hide in these extremely rocky hills.

'There's no good place to hide here,' thought Beatrice, completely dismissing caves and the tops of cliffs from being options, after all, she didn't want to be at the complete mercy of Earth Mages.

...

Several days later, at night,

'I should be able to arrive tonight,' thought Briar as he silently walked eastwards.

At this moment, Briar suddenly felt a small headache for a brief moment.

Although the headache disappeared a moment later, Briar still became extremely alert, knowing that something like this did not happen for no reason to a Mage Apprentice.

Suddenly, Briar raised his arm, touching his head, or rather, the large hole now present in the middle of his forehead.

A moment later, three extremely loud sonic booms woke up all of the creatures in the area, but sadly for Briar, this was too late for him, as he then fell to the ground, dead.

Suddenly, a shadowy figure appeared beside's Briar's dead body, the figure then began rapidly looting the body before quickly melting into the shadows, as if it had never been there in the first place.