1 The Beginning of a Host

When Spring gathered every ounce of strength to open his heavy eyelids, a simple, crude yet tidy room appeared before his eyes. This familiar scene caused him to blink distractedly, unable to make sense of why he was here, though soon after, he promptly turned his head in a flash of understanding. Sure enough, he saw the two figures of a man and a woman seated at a table in the room.

"Father, mother..."

As Spring gazed at the two figures, he grew spirited and let out a soft cry.

Dressed somewhat plainly and about thirty years in age, she looked quite homely. Her body was a bit, let's just say, wide, and her arms muscular from doing the chores daily. This was Spring's mother, May.

"Now, shall we speak about the 'incident'?'"

Seated beside the woman was a man who looked to be about thirty or forty years old. His body was slightly frail yet he had a bit of sternness in his brows, he also seemed to be suffering from serious malnutrition as his body was extremely skinny, which in turn masked up a large part of his sternness. This was Spring's father, August.

Turning to face his oftentimes-stern father, Spring ostensibly displayed a sliver of fear, pulling back his neck, though soon after he somewhat defiantly declared, and "It wasn't my fault. He insulted me."

"So you picked a fight with a boy 2 layers higher than you?"

"In my defense, it was a really mean insult."

"You came home on a stretcher!"

As he spoke, Spring reached to feel the still aching wound on his chest and clenched his teeth. Today was merely one of the several times this had happened. His elemental rank was rather low, and his family didn't have access to many spells. Today's setback hardly dented his faith in himself because he had only been training for about half a year and he did not expect to make much progress. He remained confident that given the same time and conditions to train, he would not lose out to anyone. After all, he had a high elemental affinity, and we worked tirelessly every day.

Nevertheless, right after the class ended, as Spring was preparing to make his way home, he encountered a fellow with whom he had some bad history. His original plan was to ignore that chap, however after a few rounds of deliberate provocation, he could no longer stand it and in a moment of fury, the young and hot-blooded Spring attacked the provocateur. Nonetheless, the results were obvious as spring was bringing a fist to a gun fight, or rather, a fireball fight.

Fireballs are hot, they hurt, and they burn, apparently.

"Melon, you had better remember this! The next time, I will..."

Unfortunately, he could not complete his sentence as he had fainted. After all, fireballs are bad for health.

Spring ground his teeth together. The Melon mentioned was the perpetrator of this incident and an enemy in Spring's heart. Because their fathers had bad blood between them, Melon constantly tried to inconvenience Spring, and the latest incident was just one of many.

One moment he was resolutely clenching his jaw, yet the next, Spring was hanging his head dejectedly. Though Melon was extremely vile, the fact remained that he was currently already a 1x4 fire mage. In Turquoise village, this kind of achievement was considered better than average. Compared to Spring, a 0x2 wind mage, it was indeed much better.

Mages have differences in power. The power of spells is dependent on two factors, the mana of the mage, and the proficiency in using glyphs. Thus, the ranking system of mages consists of 2 values, the proficiency of symbolisis, the art of using glyphs in combat, and the total mana capacity. Although both values usually improve concurrently, this is not always the case, and the two values can increase independently of each other.

When one reaches the 1x3 rank, one can actually use the most basic of spells, while at 0x3, one has mana, but is unable to efficiently use it, and at 1x2, one can proficiently use glyphs but doesn't have enough control over mana to cast anything of value.

Since Melon was currently past that threshold, Spring, who was nowhere near there was no match for him.

As for why there was such a disparity between the two, although they were both of similar age, it was not due to a difference in their potential. Spring is a main character. Of course, he has potential. Probably. No, the reason was due to a lack of cash. Simply speaking, he didn't have enough $$$ for potions, which would increase his mana. His dad also refused to teach him glyphs until he reached 0x3, which is difficult. Because, after all, lack of potions is bad for health.

This is the so-called wealth!

The reason why Melon was able to surpass Spring by 1x2 was not that he had trained for half a year more but largely that his father had wealth. In comparison to Spring who lacked this good fortune and therefore the access to potions. Thus, his training progress was naturally much slower than the former…

"It's your fault I can't beat him anyway…" Spring muttered under his breath.

Suddenly, as August heard Spring's mutterings, his palm that was resting on the table clenched tightly, as his expression grew a shade darker. To the side, May, who had seen this change, promptly signaled to Spring with her eyes before the latter hastily shut his mouth.

"You ungrateful brat! Do you know how much your medical expenses cost us? Perhaps if you stopped picking fights so often, we would have more funds to buy your potions. Why don't you try earning money, you miserable prick?"

He raised his hand, as though to hit Spring. His arm stayed in the air for a few seconds longer before he slowly put it down.

"Go."

"Father, I..."

"I don't want to hurt you. Just leave."

"Father..."

"Get out of here!"

Spring quickly left the room. He had made his father angry.

August waved his hands as he said, "May, take the Redleaf Mushroom and throw it away. The kid doesn't need it anymore. Ungrateful brat doesn't know how to appreciate..."

"Honey..."

"There's only half a year left till the grand competition. If he doesn't make the most of this time to train, he will only bring shame to us. Yet he's roaming around, picking fights, insulting parents, and..."

"He's just a kid..."

August subconsciously clenched his fist tightly as a deep pain flashed across his face. A moment later, he stood up and tiredly walked outside the room.

Gazing at his somewhat decrepit back, May's eyes reddened, who could have imaged that the man who was once the most gifted and remarkable man in Turquoise Town would end up in such a slump...