Chapter 140 - 25 Years Ago

In 1326, a thirteen-year-old boy was enrolled in the Royal Academy of Valemont.

His name was Anthony Mitchell. Thirteen was young. Too young actually.

The Academy trained young nobles from the year they turn 15 or 16 mostly, as it is considered the peak age to awaken.

Nobody walks through those white-and-silver gates at thirteen. But Anthony had been exposed to a huge amount of Spiritual Power in his childhood, which resulted in his awakening early.

That was the only reason they let him in.

He didn’t arrive with much family behind him.

His father had died before he was born, so Anthony had never met him.

His mother died when he was three. After that, his grandfather took care of him. The miserable old man lasted three more years, and after that, he died too, at that time, Anthony was six. Three people gone before the boy turned seven.

A child that young should have been asking where everyone went. Anthony stopped asking early. People left, and nobody came back to explain, so he learned to live without explanations.

His paternal uncle decided to take care of him after that.

Anthony grew up quiet. He was an introverted kid who kept his things to himself, and he never got involved in the secrets or business of others.

If someone had a problem, it stayed theirs. If someone had a secret, he didn’t go looking for it. People around him learned quickly that he wasn’t the kind to ask questions, and that suited him fine.

At fourteen, he made his first trip to the Realm of Evil.

The Realm is a separate reality, and you don’t wander into it. You walk through a Gate, and on the other side is the home of the Unorthodox creatures, where one law rules everything: the big fish eats the small fish.

Grown Awakened think twice before going in. Anthony went in at fourteen, which made him one of the youngest people ever to do it.

Most people would have assumed he wouldn’t come back.

The Realm didn’t care that he was a child. Its law only cared who was bigger, and a fourteen-year-old was not bigger than anything.

He came back. Alive.

And he came back an Inferior Awakened, which is a rank that takes most people far longer to reach. A fourteen-year-old had walked into the Realm of Evil and walked out stronger than when he went in.

Two years later, at sixteen, he joined the Twilight Order.

He stayed a year.

Then the Order gave him an opportunity: a chance to advance to a Silver Core.

They chose him for two reasons: One was his talent. The other was his ability to solve things. Put a problem in front of Anthony, and he would work at it quietly until it made sense. In the Realm, that kind of mind was worth more than a strong sword.

So they put him on a team of six and sent them back into the Realm of Evil.

Time didnt move the same way in there.

For every day that passes inside, about four pass outside.

The team spent roughly half a year in the Realm, fighting, surviving, and growing stronger. When the Gate finally opened and they walked out, two full years had gone by in the real world.

All six of them came back alive.

And all six had advanced to a Silver Core.

Six people had gone into a place where the strong eat the weak, and not one of them had been eaten.

Anthony knew how rare that was. He stayed quiet about it, the way he stayed quiet about everything.

It was a rare result. A team of six goes in, and six come out, every one of them a rank higher.

Anthony now stood only one step away from Superior Awakened, the Gold Core. One more step, and he would be counted among the strongest.

He was nineteen years old.

That... was when he joined the G-Agents.

The G-Agents were an organization made by the alliance of the Five Kingdoms. It didn’t come under anybody. No king owned it, and no Order owned it. Its purpose was to resolve conflicts without favoring any side. It had twenty-five members in total, numbered from zero to twenty-four.

Anthony was given a number.

He became G-18.

It was a strange thing for a quiet boy who had grown up keeping to himself. He was now one of twenty-five people trusted by five kingdoms at once. They had chosen him for the same reasons the Order had, and they wasted no time putting him to use.

His first mission was one of the deadliest and most secretive of all time.

The target was Captain Rose Hill of the Glacier Order.

She was guilty of human trafficking. That was the reason she had to die. But there was a second reason, and it was the one that made the mission secret.

If the news leaked that a Captain of the Glacier Order had done this, the whole reputation of the Order would be destroyed. Everything it had built would be ruined overnight.

So it had to be done quietly... Without letting anyone know.

Anthony did it.

His performance was remarkable, yet again. It didn’t go unnoticed. The people at the top of the G-Agents had watched him closely, and they liked what they saw.

A Silver Core with a clean record, a sharp mind, and a habit of finishing what he started.

Anthony never bragged about any of it, not the Realm, not the Silver Core, not the mission. He didn’t need to. The results spoke for him, and everyone who read them reached the same conclusion.

So the G-Agency gave him a choice.

Go back to the Realm of Evil. Go in once more, and come out as a Superior Awakened.

A Gold Core. A core that 99% of people would never reach. He, as a human being accepted.

It was the worst choice he ever made.