As Damion emerged from his portal in the Benault Forest he took a look around the area. There were clear signs of a fight. Several trees were knocked over and even more had branches broken. And all around the area Damion could see signs of Phil's Ice Breath.

'Phil,' Damion called out through their bond.

No response came. Damion could still feel the presence of the Snow Hawk, so the lack of response he took to mean the Ferocious Beast was unconscious.

Laying on the ground, not too far from where Damion portaled in, he saw an armored man lying on the ground. Rushing over, Damion checked on the man's condition. He was dead. His neck torn through by what looked to be something razor sharp.

'Phil's talons,' Damion thought as he looked around the area again.

Looking back to the corpse, Damion noticed the emblem over the heart of the man's armor, he was a Justiciar. This did not bode well. Why were the Justiciars after Phil? Most likely they had come after him and ended up fighting Phil. But it still did not make sense.

Damion stored the corpse in the Magic System Inventory. He felt it best to conceal as much evidence of this fight as possible, at least until he knew what was going on.

Now that he was closer, Damion could sense Phil clearly. The Ferocious Beast was hurt, but alive. However, he had no way to know how long that would remain true. The problem he had was, how was he going to rescue Phil without alerting whomever it was that had hurt his companion?

He needed a spell that could let him sneak up on his opponents, or at the very least, remain hidden long enough to figure out the situation and possibly call for help. He started moving in the direction he sensed Phil while pulling his tablet out and going through the list of magic seals Mage Teft had given him.

Damion had two affinities he thought might be useful in getting close. Earth and Shadow. In the list of spells there was an Earth magic seal called Manipulate Earth. A tier 2 spell that would let him freely manipulate the ground around him. With it, he was fairly confident he could simply tunnel his way to Phil's location. The problem was, he did not know how much noise the spell generated or if the manipulation would cause tremors in the ground.

Years ago, Mage Titus Glint had used this spell to shift the underground cavern the Aerico dungeon was found in into a basin. Damion doubted he would have the power to do so much with the spell until he raised his mastery of it, but it was a versatile spell and being only tier 2 was a surprise to him. However, once he considered that it only manipulated the earth and did not create anything, the tier of the spell made more sense.

Of the available Shadow affinity spells, Damion found two that could prove useful. The first, One With Shadows, would allow him to conceal himself in a shadow and as long as he was within a shadow be completely hidden. Unfortunately, the spell also came with a warning that opponents with high perception skills or that had much greater magic power than the user could pierce the illusion. Given that he had no idea how strong the people who were after him where, it was a big risk to take.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

The other Shadow affinity spell he looked at was Shadow Step. This tier 3 magic seal was similar to Blink, but it allowed instantaneous movement from shadow to shadow. When used in conjunction with One With Shadows, Damion believed he could leap from shadow to shadow and keep himself concealed. The problem was, at F Rank, Shadow Step could only move him to a shadow that was 1 meter away.

In the end Damion decided to learn all three spells. He hoped one or a combination of them would give him the ability to get close to Phil. As long as he could get close to the Snow Hawk, he was certain he could rescue him. The problem was, how was he going to rescue the Ferocious Beast without revealing too much about himself.

*Ding*

{Quest Completed}

[Quest: Learn a Tier 2 Magic Spell – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 500 Store Credit]

*Ding*

{Quest Completed}

[Quest: Learn a Tier 2 Magic Spell – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 500 Store Credit]

*Ding*

{Quest Completed}

[Quest: Learn a Tier 3 Magic Spell – Status: Complete – Reward: 100 Experience, 1,000 Store Credit]

After having the Magic System record the three spells, Damion dismissed the notifications and began wondering if he should buy more spell slots. He now knew 37 spells and his current limit was 45. He still had room to grow, so for now he put the thought aside and focused on finding and rescuing Phil.

'System, status.'

[Magic System]

[System Level: 3]

[User: Damion Wells]

[Age: 19]

[Magic Talent: EX]

[Magic Affinity: Ice EX, Water E, Poison D, Spatial D, Fire A, Earth A, Shadow A, Holy C]

[Mana: 4,921/4,408] (10%) - 4,848

[Magic Power: 10,092] (10%) - 11,101

[Mana Recovery: 212 P/S] (10%) - 233

[Strength: 116]

[Dexterity: 120] (10%) - 132

[Vitality: 253]

[Intelligence: 147]

[Experience: 7,600/20,000]

[Store Credits: 788,048]

Damion had already activated Mana Absorption and began gathering as much mana he could. Even with his higher-than-normal capacity and his insane mana regeneration, he felt like this fight was going to be difficult.

The only reason Damion could think of for a Justiciar to be involved in a plot against him was for one of the noble families to have paid them off. To use their paid Justiciar as a lackey to force a punishment on him with trumped up charges. Going after Phil was no doubt because they were not able to find him.

With the help of his new spells, Damion began to move quickly through the Benault Forest towards Phil. Judging by the distance he was having to travel, it was clear that the Snow Hawk had tried to flee, which meant there had to be at least a B Rank opponent ahead. It also meant there was a good chance an A Rank individual was involved.

Damion was certain Phil would have been able to flee from a B Rank. But if the Ferocious Beast was caught, then it had to have been done by an A Rank. Luckily, because of the distance Phil managed to flee, he was certain no S Rank person was involved.

Before long, Damion reached a freshly cleared patch of forest. All the trees for about 50 meters had been cut down and laid out along the perimeter of the clearing. In the center of the area was a cage and Damion could see Phil inside.

What he also saw, was who was responsible for cutting the trees down and putting Phil in a cage. They were not standing in the clearing, instead they were hiding in the trees surrounding the clearing, apparently waiting for Damion to show himself.

Unfortunately for them, Damion's True Sight spell was able to point them out to him. There were four people hiding in the trees. Three were C Rank knights, while the final one was an A Rank knight. He could not tell from this far away who the A Rank knight was, but there were only a few knights who had reached that level and only one Damion knew. Justiciar Willem Straus of Argentum. Which meant this was probably about Mage Teft killing Mage Thomas Sorin.

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