"I don’t know, Senior."
Master Garron bowed low the moment he saw the man.
The man had come to Eldrin Hall only a few days ago. Garron knew almost nothing about him. He only knew one thing: this man was an important figure in the group of knights from Moonhaven City.
The man turned around. His voice was flat and cold.
"Because that boy’s mind isn’t like an ordinary person’s. Why else do you think he could show talent like that?"
Leo Ashford ran toward home, a tiny glass bottle held tight in his hand. He was grinning from ear to ear.
To the other kids, the liquid inside was just a bitter medicine they could barely swallow.
To Leo, it was the whole reason he had come to the Knight Temple.
"Jax was right," he whispered to himself as he ran. "This Elemental Training Liquid is amazing. Ever since Mama started drinking one bottle a week, she’s been getting stronger!"
His voice dropped.
"I’m sorry, Mama. You taught me a man should never beg. But if I hadn’t passed today, I could never bring you the next bottle."
If Master Garron had heard that, he would have been speechless.
The Elemental Training Liquid was a special medicine for children under fifteen. It made basic training work better. It helped with practice. It built a strong foundation for the body.
And Leo had almost failed today for one simple reason.
He had never drunk even one drop of it!
Every bottle he got, he gave to his mother.
One year ago, he had been a thin, weak little boy. Today, he had to fight with everything he had just to reach a score of 10. All because he had given away the very thing that helps with spiritual energy practice.
For a nine-year-old, passing that test was harder than it was for any other child.
Sunlight fell across his small body. A golden glow shone from within him, as if it were coming from deep inside his heart.
Leo’s home was in the western part of Eldrin Town. To get there, he had to cross a river.
He dashed over the wooden bridge. But he didn’t go straight home. He took a small path and slipped into Eldrin West Woods.
Whenever he got a bottle, he always picked wild herbs first. Before giving the medicine to Mama, he mixed it into a strong-tasting soup. That way, she would never taste the medicine.
He got to work quickly.
For years now, Leo and his mother had only each other. Their house was the poorest in all of Eldrin Town. A child from a home like that learns chores early, while kids his age played all day.
He wanted to carry some of Mama’s burden.
They lived by sewing clothes, on the little money his mother earned. Still, Leo felt his life was a happy one.
Soon he had gathered plenty of herbs. He knew them well. They were only wild herbs, but they didn’t taste that bad. He knew because he had eaten a lot of them since he was little.
He was about to pack up and head home when he heard a faint sound.
He froze.
The woods weren’t totally quiet. Wild animals wandered in sometimes.
He looked toward the sound. A small, blurry shape lay on the ground.
Curious, he crept closer, one careful step at a time. After a few steps, he saw it wasn’t an animal.
It was a little girl!
She was seven or eight years old, very pretty, with short purple hair. Her clothes were torn. Blood was seeping from at least six or seven places on her body.
She was awake. She tried to get up, but the pain was too much.
Leo hurried over. He tried to help her sit up.
"Are you okay?"
The girl flinched. She slid backward without thinking and stared at him from the corner of her eye.
That was when Leo saw her face.
Dust covered her lovely cheeks. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. She looked helpless. Yet her beauty could stop anyone in their tracks.
But her beauty was nothing like Leo’s.
Leo’s eyes were soft. People felt warm just looking at him. This girl’s eyes were stubborn and cold as ice. When she suddenly glared at him, Leo shivered.
The girl looked surprised, too. Maybe she felt something toward him. Maybe it was something else. But she calmed down quickly.
"Are you okay?" Leo asked again.
She raised her hand weakly and wrote on the ground with her finger.
*I can’t speak. Bad people are chasing me. They’ll be here soon. Sister, please save me!*
Leo read the words and froze. Then he read the last two, and his face fell.
"I’m a *brother*, not a sister!"
He pouted and explained. Then he made up his mind and scooped her up in his arms.
After passing the knight test, his strength was close to that of a grown man. And she was very light. She felt like nothing at all.
He carried her back to the spot where he’d tied his herbs with a thick rope.
But then the girl grabbed the corner of his clothes in panic.
Leo looked at her. He quickly set her down on the ground.
She wrote at once.
*I can feel them. They’re almost here. They find me by my scent. Run! Hurry! Or it’ll be too late!*
Leo’s brows pulled together. He shook his head firmly.
"No way! I’m a man. I have to protect you."
He was only nine. But when he said those words, his small, handsome face looked unbelievably brave.
Then he stopped.
"Your... scent?"
His eyes changed.
In the next moment, he grabbed some wild herbs nearby and crushed them in his hands until the juice dripped out. He rubbed it all over the girl’s body. Then over his own.
After that, he carried her to a thick bush and hid her carefully inside.
Then he lay flat on his stomach. He propped himself on his elbows and stayed perfectly still.
He didn’t notice something. While he did all this, the girl he was saving kept staring at him in silence with strange eyes.
Leo stopped moving.
A moment later, he heard footsteps beyond the bushes.
He peeked out through a gap in the leaves.
A group of men in black clothes stood there.
They were huge and tall, and something about them felt wrong. A few of them looked like experts at tracking by smell.
"Why does the scent trail end here? Did someone come to save that little girl?"
A deep, rough, terrifying voice echoed through the woods.