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It was a day like any other for Grace. She woke up early, as usual. Prepared a meal for Markus, Dora and Kano, as usual. Tended to the herb gardens near the woods, as usual. Everything was as it had always been!

Or that was at least what she kept telling herself. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn\'t overlook the very visible man who sat opposite her at the meal table. Nor could she overlook the new din that persisted near the orphanage when kids from the village came over for their schooling.

"That man\'s trouble!" She would mutter intermittently, in a vain attempt to brainwash herself.

She was constantly wary of the man\'s presence. He was just like one of them, after all. She kept waiting for something to go wrong, a reason for her to take action. Her subconscious would constantly urge her to waste him where he slept, to avoid any unwanted surprises. But her conscience would always say otherwise.

Because no matter how much she distrusted his kind, his being here had definitely netted some positives. Nowadays, whenever she spoke with Markus, the boy would constantly go on and on about things his "Master" had taught him. Not just magic, but insights into life. It wasn\'t all fruity and self-righteous, it was actually practical and applicable. Most of the time Grace found herself agreeing along. And truthfully, Markus was also more upbeat and personable, except for when he locked himself in his room. Who knew what he did in there? Grace, for one, did not want to find out what a boy nearing puberty was up to behind closed doors!

And then there was Kano. That introverted and closed off chap, who Grace feared would remain in her care till his adulthood, was also slowly coming out of his shell. There was no longer a dense, dark cloud hanging over him. It was now replaced with a bright sun that only paled in comparison to the smile the boy would intermittently flash her way.

Sometimes, Grace wondered if that man cast some illusionary spell to hypnotise them over to his side.

"He\'s just too... effective," she sighed as she strode out from the herb garden, back to the orphanage. On her way, she happened to stumble across Kano, who was excitedly running towards the steps leading into the village, with an interesting model in his hands.

"Kano! Be careful, or else you\'ll trip and break your head!" She exclaimed.

Kano stopped in his track and followed the voice. The moment he noticed Grace, he smiled and greeted her, "Hi, Matron Reva!"

"Where are you going in such a hurry? And what\'s that in your hands?" She asked while nudging her head.

"I\'m going to the village to meet D-D-Durkas. And this is a clay model of his finch, I wanted to g-g-gift it to him," Kano said as he presented his handiwork.

Grace was immediately taken by the exquisite craftsmanship of the palm-sized clay model in Kano\'s hands. It was so lifelike that, if not for the lack of colour, Grace was prepared to grab it before it flew away. Grace always knew that Kano had some talent in art and craftsmanship, but she didn\'t know the exact extent of his prowess until she saw the model. To be able to achieve such accuracy and precision, on a model that was almost to scale and at such a young age...

"It looks beautiful!" Grace exclaimed. But then she furrowed her brows and inquired, "Why are you making this for that boy? Did he bully you again?"

Grace was preparing herself to march over to that Durkas boy\'s household and raise a ruckus, but Kano quickly shook his head and stopped her. "No, no! He didn\'t bully me. I\'m making this on m-m-my own volition."

"Volition?" Grace asked in surprise.

"By my own choice," Kano explained.

"No, I know what it means. But how do you know such a big word?" She said with an impressed tone.

"I read it in a b-b-book!" He answered with a proud expression, begging for praise.

"You read it in a book?!" Grace asked in shock. But then she quickly wiped the doubt from her face and tone, and followed up with sincere praise, "Good job!"

Grace immediately diverted the conversation back to the model, "You still didn\'t tell me why you made this?"

"D-D-Durkas\' finch took flight today and flew into the woods. He was p-p-pretty sad about it. I wanted to make this to cheer him up!"

"But why? Wasn\'t he always bullying you?"

Kano shrugged his shoulders and answered, "He used to. N-N-Not anymore. He apologised. And T-T-Teacher Larks always says that I need to t-t-treat people the way I want to b-b-be treated back!"

\'Not Kano too!\' Grace lamented upon hearing Kano\'s final sentence. She was already struggling with hearing that man\'s name and praises from Markus, now she had to hear it from Kano\'s mouth as well?

While Grace was grovelling internally, Kano decided to leave. By the time Grace came back to herself, he was nowhere to be seen.

She sighed loudly and with a bitter smile, said, "Now it\'s just the girls left..."

Right as she was about to enter the storage room in the orphanage, an audible blast reverberated from within causing her to nearly drop her basket filled with herbs.

"What the heck was that?!" She exclaimed.

She hurriedly placed the basket on the ground and rushed over to the source of the sound. It wasn\'t hard to find, because the moment she entered the orphanage, she saw Markus laying and groaning on the unhinged door from his room, while covered in dark soot.

"Markus! Are you okay?!" Grace shouted as she rushed over. The boy rolled off the door and coughed loudly, "I\'m okay... I\'m *cough* okay..."

"What the hell happened?" She asked, but she knew immediately that magic was involved.

Once she made sure that Markus was physically fine, she struck the boy\'s shoulder and reprimanded him, "What the heck were you doing?"

Without waiting for Markus\' explanations, Grace continued, "Are you trying to kill yourself? Because I can do it for you! It won\'t be as loud and won\'t damage the damn house either. What were you thinking? Where is that man?!"

She grunted in displeasure while swivelling her head in search of Guy.

"Guy! GUY!"

"I\'m here!" Guy panted as he rushed into the room. "I heard an explosion?!"

"Yeah! Your dear student nearly blew up the entire house doing god knows what!" Grace berated sarcastically.

Guy looked incisively at Markus, who lowered his head while wincing in pain. He then sighed and interrupted Grace before she entered a long tirade, "I\'ll fix it. And I\'ll talk to him."

Grace harrumphed and left in a huff to retrieve her basket, leaving Guy and Markus alone.

"How are you feeling? Are you hurt?" Guy inquired concernedly.

"I\'m okay," Markus assured him.

"Let\'s get all of this fixed. Tell me what happened after," Guy instructed while bending down to pick up the fallen door.

The two worked synchronously and started to clean up the damages. Within the hour, they were able to return the house back to its initial condition. Thankfully, the explosion wasn\'t too large and hadn\'t damaged the house in its foundations. Furthermore, the house itself was pretty solid and managed to disperse a large portion of the impact, which was surprising.

Guy then followed Markus into his room, and the two sat down facing each other.

"Explain," Guy said.

Markus scratched his elbows in embarrassment and confessed, "I was trying to replicate a spell, but the modular combinations weren\'t quite right."

Guy furrowed his brows and inquired further, "Which spell were you trying to replicate?"

Markus grit his teeth and maintained silence.

"What\'s wrong? You can tell me," Guy coaxed.

"I was trying to replicate that spell Gaige cast during our fight," Markus said in defeat. The moment he finished, his entire aura unwound itself as if a large boulder was being lifted off of his chest. Ever since he\'d returned to the orphanage, Markus had been tirelessly researching in an attempt to crack the secrets of that devastating spell he\'d suffered through, near the end of his match against Gaige.

But he knew that he could only pursue this in secret because he couldn\'t let his Master find out. Master Larks had told him many times that the loss wasn\'t his fault, but Markus wasn\'t willing to accept that. Yet there was nothing he could do to change the fact that he lost that match. All he could do was to prepare for the future like his Master kept telling him.

However, at every turn, Markus was brought back to his terrible defeat and was forced to live through the horrific spell that nearly crushed him to death.

"Just what was that magic?" Markus asked Guy bluntly.

Guy tilted his head, and smiled mysteriously, "First, I want you to tell me your thoughts. You were obviously researching into it. Tell me what you found out?"

*******************

A/N:

Recently, I\'ve been going back to my first set of chapters and reading through them. I noticed that my story has evolved quite a bit since then. My initial intention was to write a plot that parodied stories like LotHP, Absolute Great Teacher, other sect-building novels, but I found myself getting increasingly involved in the world and with the characters I was writing about.

I consider this to be a good thing! At first, I wasn\'t really feeling connected to my characters because they didn\'t seem original or relatable. But one day, around chapter 25, things just clicked! I got inspired and the world I was writing about just opened up to me.

As for the MC, I realised that Guy happened to exhibit one of my own characteristics that I was LEAST proud of. This meant that he could now have a decent character arc and opportunity for growth!

Guy no longer became a 2D cutout, like every other generic MC, that never underwent any form of character development.

With the MC growing more real in my mind, the story became more personal for me.

Ultimately, this was all thanks to your (readers\') support. Without you guys leaving comments, voting with power stones, I wouldn\'t have had the motivation to persist. For that, I am truly grateful.

I now have at least 3-4 volumes worth of plot jotted down. If all goes well, I hope to write up to 450-500 chapters. I even have an ending ready, which was a massive deal for me because before I was just writing without an aim in mind.