12 years since the death of Lucia, year 1043 of the Holy Templorian calendar.
Icarus landed in the back alley. It branched and led straight, back, and turned to the left. The left turn led to a river that ran through town.
He quickly exited the alley and fled to the river, which led to a drainage gate out of the town.
Since he had killed Governor Troy, the gates would likely hold anybody trying to get out. He had found this drainage channel when he searched the alleys surrounding the governor's estate. This was the quickest and most effective way out.
His heart beat faster than ever before, his mind raced a million miles an hour, guilt flooding his thoughts.
The governor had likely been an honest man; a slave like him wouldn't have any information, but the reason he had been sent to kill him was likely due to his having conflicting beliefs about the slave trade itself.
The slave trade was not just the selling and buying of humans; it was an organization that would ruthlessly terminate all that opposed it, of course the deeper you go into Temploria, it becomes more frowned upon and a crime in the capital and surrounding cities, but in the coastal lands, the east, and the surrounding territories, it was common.
Icarus waded through the water; he gagged and tried not to look down as all the town's waste was also sent out through this channel.
He arrived at the gate, which was barred, and there was a small gap. There were some very disgusting blockages around this point. Icarus stared in disgust, which increased to horror as he realized the only way out.
A small slot, about the size of his shoulder width, was submerged underneath the dank water.
He hesitated for a long while, considering whether handing himself over to the guards would be better.
He shook the thought off, "just close my eyes... And imagine a nice... Pool!"
Icarus pulled the book out of his upper pocket. He wedged it between the two bars and ensured it would not get wet.
He then closed his eyes and wormed one arm through, he felt it pass and his chest touched the water.
Without overthinking any further, he dived into the beautiful pool.
Icarus pressed himself through the slot, his upper body fit through the bars. He hurried to rise to the surface, but his right leg got stuck. He strained and thrashed; he was running out of oxygen and became increasingly less confident in his visualization technique.
One final thrash and his leg untangled.
With a snap, he felt this knee give way, he floated to the surface, suppressing a scream of pain as he gasped for air, the scent of excrement surrounded him.
His broken leg fell out of the slot; he stood on the other side, biting his lip in pain. Icarus turned and grabbed the book, angrily shoving it in his upper pocket.
He made his way to the bank of the shore and lay down there for a moment. He could not walk back, and if he crawled, it would take him days.
He furrowed his brow; it felt as if he was forgetting something important...
He blinked, and above him, a guard stood.
Icarus stared in shock, but was in too much pain to move.
The guard raised his sword, and the light reflected his face into Icarus's view.
The reflection showed something Icarus could not believe: it was not just a town guard, but the knight who had saved him at birth.
The sword swung down with almost unreadable speed.
.
.
.
Icarus gasped and woke up with a start, sitting up hard and smacking his head into the top of his wooden cage.
He rubbed his bruised forehead, his star-like eyes glinting in the darkness.
It had been two years since he escaped the town, he had never broken his leg, and had not been killed by the knight, yet some nights he still dreamed of that day with different endings and strange things happening at the end almost every time.
He smiled, "Seems you truly don't forget your first." He then frowned and thought back on it. When he had escaped through the drainage pipe, he had actually gotten out and hid in the back of a caravan on the way back, but that never happened in the dreams.
He shrugged, "Maybe the psyche is just weird like that, or maybe I subconsciously think I didn't deserve to get away so easily."
His first mission was the hardest; since then, he had killed again and again, with increasing ease each time, mostly people of lower status who owed debts that could only be paid in blood.
He was not limited to killing either; he collected debts, settled issues with fights, paid off gangs, and even captured new slaves.
He was strongly opposed to the last one at first, but of course, there is no way for him to resist; his master's control is absolut,e and it would mean his death.
On top of that, he has been told that he is approaching the level of a "grunt of the slave trade."
Icarus smiled to himself. He was truly unforgivable; he should have taken his master's life long ago, but was too much of a coward.
Tomorrow, they were headed to a new city; they typically frequented this town, which, after the death of the governor, has a slave trade executive as its leader, and other towns in the area.
This new city is on the coast, one of the largest on the continent, and a pivotal center of the slave trade.
Valerius had promised him more high-profile contracts should he come; Icarus had become wanted pretty quickly in this area, though the new governor ensured his face was incorrectly portrayed on posters.
Icarus still had no reason to stay here, which would mean being pawned off to another master who might be even worse than Valerius.
Nevertheless, he could see rays of light coming into the cellar, the magical locks clicked open, and other slaves silently got up and exited their crates.
Once outside, they were loaded onto cattle carts and instructed not to speak or reach out from the carts.
After this, they were towed away.
.
.
.
Several days of travelling passed by, and the group arrived near the sounds of bustling crowds, birds cawing. and the smell of the sea and wood.
Icarus peered out through one of the small slots in the wall. He saw towering rigs, which were used to lift ships for cleaning, as well as several of these ships docked. They were wooden with metal sheets and nails holding them together, and were impressively large vessels used for trading and travel to other territories in the unexplored lands beyond the horizon.
The car came to a stop after they passed through several districts. At the signal of one of the workers at the head of the convoy, a barrel of smoke powder was ignited and dropped, and a haze of harmless smoke erupted and blinded everyone in the area.
The slaves rushed out and into the nearby building before the smoke cleared, a typical method to prevent any trouble from more righteous guards or pedestrians.
The other slaves funneled downstairs, before they had left, Valerius had instructed Icarus to wait in the building for him; he had forgotten about this temporarily, but was reminded by a faint burning sensation on his throat, indicating that if he did not wait, the burning would trigger.
He sighed and sat at a dusty wooden table.
A few minutes later, Valerius entered. He was heavier on his stick these days. After observing him for these years, Icarus had realized it was not an injury, but an illness that caused this.
Valerius greeted him with a nod and sat down across from him. Icarus stood up and sat on the floor as a gesture that he was not on the same level as Valerius.
Valerius coughed slightly and spoke. "Well, I suppose I might as well give you your first contract, but first! I trust you have learned more Illusion magic to aid in assassination?"
Icarus nodded. Over the last two years, he had learned much from the book, "Magical Pathways and How to Follow Them."
This took him back to two years ago, as he read the book in the darkness of the basement with his eyes, which adapted to darkness better than most humans.
An author's name was not written; he had no other means to study this book or figure out its origin, but on the first day he had opened the book, a list greeted him.
[You Will Be Stuck with your pathway until you put in much effort to learn a new one.]
'Please see the pathway index after reading the pathway finder below.'
The pathway finder had a list of items, he skimmed through the options, Grimoire pathway, alchemy pathway, enchantment pathway...
His eyes locked on the words, "Visualization Pathway/Imagination Pathway."
Each of these sections had descriptions, the description for this was [You imagine a certain flow of magic, for example, your mana expels from your finger and ignites like a candle.]
This description was identical to Icarus 'Candlelight spell.'
He quickly flipped to the index, the visualization section started at page 50
On page 50, he saw the title: basics of Visualization Pathway;
[You imagine different things; you must have a genuine feel for the thing you imagine, or it is unlikely you will be able to perform it. There are advantages and disadvantages to this pathway as it is theoretically the strongest, but in practice it is typically hard to maintain the strain of using this technique on your gate and on your mind.]
Icarus continued. He felt rather vexed by this information. The next 20 pages contained mostly minor spells and some simple visualization to cast them.
It took him about a year to get through the next level of spells, which allowed him to summon a fake small animal like a mouse with an illusion spell, and turn water into ice, among other things.
He was still limited in the amount; it seemed this pathway was limited by the scope of the spells it could cast. The Grimoire pathway, or the alchemy pathway, simply required a Grimoire or a certain combination of rare elements to cast more impactful magic. Visualization was based on what you could truly imagine yourself doing.
If Icarus imagined himself forming a fireball, for example, it would likely disappate the moment it left his hand.
This is because he could not effectively think of a way to throw his mana that far out of his body.
The matter of a gate was also something he was stuck on.
On one of the very first pages, it stated very plainly: [Every living being has a gate. This gate is what transforms mana into magic.]
It went on to say that you should be able to feel your gate in or, in some rare cases, in a one-meter area around your body.
Icarus could not feel his gate, no matter what. He figured it must be hidden or have something conditional about it that he could not see.
He clearly had one as he could cast spells, but how could he visualize something he couldn't feel?
Icarus reached the second last page finally, beside him, a small Ice cube hovered with a ring of fire surrounding it. With his other hand, he conjured a rock figurine that vaguely resembled a human from the ground.
He fired the ball at it, and it shattered on contact.
"156 attempts." He wiped the sweat off his forehead and looked back down at the book, [once you have combined basic earth, ice, and fire spells, turn the page to discover the last step to visualizing higher level magic.]
Icarus smiled. Even though he was a slave, he had still reached where he wanted to be somewhat. He greedily turned the page.
Page 100 flipped straight to page 102. A gap in between them, the other side was the start of a different pathway.
Icarus stared, a creeping feeling of annoyance made its way up his body until he slammed the book shut in anger.
The old book had suffered some damage after all. What a rotten run of bad luck.
He snapped back to reality. Valerius had been droning on about something from the ride, but he had not been listening.
'shit! Please don't be anything important!'
Valerius turned to him with a questioning look, "Were you listening, ah whatever, it was just tedium anyway."
His expression got strangely serious, especially considering the next words that left his mouth.
"Let us go on a walk through the markets."