As the red haired kid neared Aiden, he raised his hand immediately after a side step to the right with the intent of knocking Aiden on the back of his neck and making him lose consciousness.

He sensed that his hand was about to make contact with Aiden and smirked.

But at the last moment Aiden moved back with incredible speed and slapped the attacker’s hand away.

“Hey I don’t want to fight. Why are you attacking me?”, Aiden said. He could feel that it was a mana user and he was probably in the later stages of core formation, or in other words, Foundational Realm 1-dan.

“So you have been trained in mana arts as well? Humph, I didn’t make a wrong choice when I suspected you. Tell me which academy are you from?”, the red hair said.

“Which academy? I don’t even study in an academy! What are you talking about?”, Aiden was irked at the baseless assumptions his opponent was making.

“Don’t wanna talk huh? Don’t worry I’ll make you talk soon.”, and he rushed towards Aiden once more, this time throwing a spinning hook kick with his right leg.

Aiden simply kept stepping back while maintaining a straight posture. At the stage of cultivation he was in, the attacks of a cultivator in core formation were barely any threat at all. It was as if time slowed down when he circulated mana, and his opponents attacks were much easier to see through due to a higher clarity of mind.

The red hair kid kept throwing punches, kicks, hooks, uppercuts, jabs and every other way he could attack, but all of them were smoothly dodged by Aiden who either deflected the move or stepped back.

It wasn’t that Aiden was trying to embarrass his opponent by dragging this fight out or anything, but he really needed to do this. While it was true that he had an advantage in terms of speed or power, but he was extremely green when it came to actual fights and battle experience. By dodging, deflecting and predicting his opponent’s move, Aiden was basically honing his skills and getting accustomed to the energy output that his body could provide at the stage he was in.

“You are a natural talent at fighting, kid; I’ll give you that.”, Denzel remarked observing Aiden’s moves.

“Why thank you! You finally said something good about me.”, Aiden smiled.

His opponent, on seeing the smile on his face, got infuriated. “How dare you smile and take it easy when battling with me, I’ll…….”

“TYLER!”, the one leading their group spoke up, “You aren’t a match for him, get back here.”

Aiden’s attacker, who was apparently named Tyler, stopped his advance and jumped back to his comrades without letting his eyes wander from Aiden.

“I’m sorry for my friend’s foolishness”, he spoke,”We are students of Trimshire academy and have come here today on a mission. My name is Nilger and I am in charge of this party. We can’t let anything go wrong so excuse us for the sudden actions we were forced to take.”

“Oh it’s fine, no worries.”, Aiden laughed it off as he spoke.

“You are way too naive.”, Denzel commented silently.

“Hey, but they apologized right? If they are sorry for it, shouldn’t we forgive them? That’s what Matilda has taught me.”, Aiden replied.

“Sigh. Let me phrase it for you in simpler terms. If you didn't have the power to have kept yourself safe from his attacks, would they be so courteous and apologize as they have done now? Ponder over it.”

Aiden paused a bit. Denzel’s words had truth in them and he knew it. But being the 12 year old he was, with little to no exposure with the variety of characters that can show up in human society, Aiden still believed in the goodness of the heart of some people.

“Well they can’t harm me anyways, so it’s fine to forgive them.”, Aiden replied, pushing these thoughts to the back of his head.

“Thanks for understanding,” Nilger replied, “If you don’t mind, may I ask under whose tutelage have you studied mana arts?”

“That…..uh..”, Aiden was at a loss about what to say.

“Tell them that your master is an eccentric who likes to travel a lot and doesn’t like his name being disclosed.”, Denzel said.

“Will they really buy such a line?”, Aiden asked.

“Just trust your elders for once will you?”, his voice was as lazy as it could get. “Or you can choose to think up some other line but time is ticking.”

“Oh fine!”, Aiden gave up and spoke the exact words that Denzel had said to the leader of the group.

“Oh I understand then. I won’t enquire further.”, he accepted Aiden’s sentence “As I was saying, this mission is very important for us and we can’t afford any hiccups. So do try to stay out of whatever happe…..”

Suddenly he stopped speaking and listened closely. Aiden had also heard it. A low audible cry of a beast.

And it didn’t take long for its source to come into sight. Flying in from the east, where the sun was supposed to rise from, a winged creature with a serpent's body and deviously shaped head appeared.

“The young fidialatus is here. Guys, get ready”, Nilger spoke up as the different members of the group split up and went off to various parts of the town.

“Fidialatus?”, Aiden asked Denzel. “What’s that?”

“You really don’t know?”, Denzel questioned.

Aiden : “Well of course not. How do you expect me to know that?”

Denzel : “Well you see, it's a huge creature with flappy wings that currently happens to be making its way towards you.”

………………….

When the creature came close, Aiden observed that by an estimate, it was at least 6 metres long and had scales all over its body. However its wings, which were only about 2 metres long, happened to look very disproportionate for its body size.

“Ah so that’s why these kids were being so serious over the mission”, Denzel spoke.

“What?”, Aiden asked, clearly confused.

“Well you see, the fidialatus happens to be a very huge creature. Big enough to be able to touch opposite ends of this small town if it lays down straight.”

“By itself, a fidialatus can not specially use mana and it’s body isnt build for fighting. But it has quite a lot of strength and extremely sturdy defences.”

“However that is only if the fidialatus is a grown up.”

“So this one is just a kid huh?”, Aiden asked.

“That's correct. It is in fact, just a newborn. A very young one. It isn’t even powerful enough to kill off a foundation realm 1-dan cultivator. And can be easily subdued by the group of students in front of us.”

“But then why are they so tense about this? If their goal is to capture the newborn then they’ll be able to do it easily right?”, Aiden said.

“Of course.”, Denzel chuckled at this point, “ But their goal was never this fidialatus if I’m not wrong.”

Just then the fidialatus landed in a part of the town and Aiden sensed all the the students from Trimshire rush there.

Aiden : “Wait then what exactly is their goal?”

Denzel : “Who do you think is the first to notice when a little kid wanders away from the family?”

“Well that’s obviously the…….wait….…you don’t mean….”, suddenly Aiden's voice was cut off by a loud roar that seemed to come from a far off valley. It was similar to the roar of the young fidialatus but mch fiercer and angrier.”

“Ah.”, Denzel finally said, “The mother is coming.”