Marvin and Cate were motionless. They stared at their son in disbelief, wanting to run to him to protect him from anything that might endanger him, yet they couldn't move either. Somehow, when they looked at Andrew, they felt a presence that terrified them so much that they couldn't move a single muscle.

Andrew was finally able to look around a bit after the dust had settled. He didn't know what had caused the explosion to happen in the first place, but he immediately realized something was off: the house crumbled down due to the explosion, and he could see large pieces everywhere.

Everywhere but near him.

... Did I cause this explosion?

Andrew was finally able to wearily get back on his feet. His parents, while still a bit terrified, got their minds back in the right place and ran to him as they started asking him questions about his well-being.

"Were you hurt?" Cate asked worriedly, "Are you injured anywhere?"

Andrew's throat was dry, but he was still able to make a tiny sound: "I'm fine, mom."

"Can we talk about what just happened?" Marvin asked in awe, "Why did our house just blow up out of nowhere? And why is Andrew unscathed or anything like that?"

"So would you rather Andrew get hurt?" Cate snapped back at him.

"I, uh, I'm just wondering a few things," Marvin replied, "He doesn't mind, right, Andrew?"

"Not really, no," Andrew replied.

"See?" said Marvin.

Cate sighed.

"Mom, I'm fine," Andrew reassured her.

Marvin nodded and placed his hand on Cate's shoulder, calming her down. Then, he and Cate started digging through the ruins of their former house to find if there was anything left in their destroyed home. Meanwhile, Andrew just sat by himself by the apple tree, pondering everything that happened to him. Despite the house getting destroyed, Andrew had finally acquired a mana pool - he could be a mage. But when he closed his eyes and tried to access his mana pool, he also felt something else. There was a large sphere of condensed mana - but right next to it was something strange. It was a book of some kind. A grimoire, perhaps. It emitted a dark aura, and despite its aura being somewhat unsettling, Andrew felt strangely close to it. He reached out to the book, trying to grab it, just before he got rudely interrupted by Marvin:

"What are you doing, little Andrew?" he said loudly at Andrew's face. Maybe it wasn't as loud as Andrew thought, but Marvin broke his concentration, which was simply unacceptable because he was so close to reaching the dark grimoire.

A bit annoyed by Marvin, Andrew was going to snap back at him just before he saw both Marvin and Cate covered by dust, trying to scavenge what was left of their home, and Andrew calmed down. Cate was able to recover her safe, which contained most of their money, and Marvin was able to scavenge some daily essentials that they had at home.

Andrew sighed. He was still oblivious to what had happened, and while he did want to find out what happened to the house, what he was more interested in was why didn't the explosion that destroyed an entire house didn't even affect him in the slightest. And suddenly, he thought of something.

"Dad, I want to show you something," he notified Marvin quietly.

As Marvin turned back at him to see what was so important his son wanted to show him, Andrew focused on his mana pool to try to conjure up a spell to show his father that he was a mage. While the dark grimoire was much more of an important discovery, and despite Andrew trusting his father completely, he knew that showing someone - anyone, really - that he had such a strange object in his possession could either turn them against him for its power or endanger them because of the ones dreading its power. Andrew wasn't sure exactly how to conjure a spell, so he simply reimagined what happened when the explosion happened. He imagined a large burst of hot energy dazing through his face. He imagined what it felt like when the explosion surrounded him. And all of a sudden, a small fireball burst out from his palms. It flickered weakly as if it was contemplating its miserable life before vanishing into nothingness.

Andrew sighed in disappointment. He had hoped for a better result than just a small, short-lived fireball that couldn't even do anything, Marvin begged to differ. While Andrew was calm and was even a bit disappointed at his 'accomplishment', Marvin couldn't even speak. And when he was finally able to speak again, the first words that came out of his mouth were:

"MY SON IS A MAGE?"

The following weeks were... strange, to say the least. While Cate wanted Andrew to get proper magical education, Marvin was confident enough that he could teach Andrew, since he was an augmenter himself. But Andrew didn't have time for any of it, for he was still working on the dark grimoire.

Andrew wasn't sure what it was, but what he knew was that whatever it was, it was powerful. It was much more powerful than he could imagine (maybe the fact that he hadn't been to the outside world that much so he didn't have that much imagination had something to do with it).

The mana pool was much easier to control in his opinion. While he wasn't able to do much with it, Andrew had grasped the basics of what he had to do with his mana pool: he just had to close his eyes and focus on what would happen, similarly to how he had conjured up the fireball he used to show Marvin. He wasn't sure how others learnt to use their magic, but he was able to use fire magic quite easily after only a few weeks of training.

In those few weeks, his parents were also restless. While they didn't have to focus on learning how to use magic like Andrew, they kept arguing about his education. At first, it was just whether Marvin should teach Andrew magic or not, but then it escalated to if Andrew should even be an adventurer like Marvin.

Three months after Andrew blew up their house and discovered that he could use magic at the age of three, Cate and Marvin had finally decided that Andrew shouldn't stay at home and learn how to use magic all by himself: he would go to Waldenbach to visit an old friend of Cate, who could get Andrew a private tutor and maybe even get him into Arius Academy.

"Arius Academy?" Andrew asked.

"It's an academy for young mages like you," Cate explained gleefully, "Lilia's family has been a generous donor to the academy for generations, so I think their headmaster will be more than happy to take you in as a student."

"Yes, but then we'll have to get a place in Waldenbach," Marvin said, "If we just got him a private tutor, we can all stay here."

"Maybe we can stay with Lilia?" Cate suggested, "She wouldn't mind it."

"But what am I going to do there?" asked Marvin, "It's a long way from Waldenbach to any dungeons," his voice suddenly lowered, "And I heard from the Guild that the way to Waldenbach is infested with strange monsters right now."

Marvin and Cate continued arguing about the details of their trip to Waldenbach when Andrew suddenly chimed in, "What if we ask the Black Tigers to come with us?"

Cate looked at Marvin as if she was asking him the same question. Marvin shrugged his shoulders.

"I'll ask them, I guess," he said reluctantly, "I just don't want to bug them."

"Oh, don't worry about it. It's barely gonna be an inconvenience!" Ryan said excitedly.

Ryan was a comrade of Marvin in the Black Tigers, a renowned group of powerful adventurers who were nice enough to agree to accompany Andrew's family on their way to Waldenbach as a goodbye gift for their leader Marvin who would be leaving the group to stay at Waldenbach.

The Black Tigers, despite having a rather 'ferocious' name, was really just a group of really nice people. The leader of the group was Marvin Brandt, Andrew's father. His second-in-command was Tabitha Carlson, a woman in her early 30s who was a coffeeholic and a crazed battle-lover. Her best friend was a guy in his late 20s named Ryan, who, according to Marvin, was a 'wisecracking idiot'. Their tanker was a man called Franco, who was the definition of the phrase 'don't judge a book by its cover': Franco was a tall, bulky man who always wore a thick and warm wool sweater who seemed cold, but as Andrew got to know him, he discovered that Franco was anything but cold: he was more like a child in the disguise of a man, who loved rainbows and cotton candy. The strangest among the Black Tigers was a young lady who looked like more of a teenager than a lady. She was the newest and youngest member of the Black Tigers, called Nebula Samson. While Nebula seemed cold and untalkative at first, Andrew grew close to her on their journey to Waldenbach, and she soon became his close friend.

It was just a normal afternoon on their long journey to Waldenbach. The Black Tigers were just clearing a small camp of Grass Goblins, a type of goblins that inhabited the wide plains everywhere in the wilderness when suddenly they heard a drumming sound. Marvin, who was protecting Andrew and Cate, turned around to see where the noise came from. The Black Tigers all looked around for any clues of the noise when they saw something all of a sudden.

There were about twenty Grass Goblins coming as reinforcements for the camp they were just clearing, but what they saw next was even more terrifying than an army of Grass Goblins.

It was a Grass Juggernaut.

Grass Juggernauts were basically giant Grass Goblins that were much faster and stronger. They were rare sights only seen in dungeons or domains, but there it was. A Grass Juggernaut running at them at full speed, its axe waving high.

The Black Tigers all raised their weapons at the Grass Juggernaut. Ryan was the first to leap at it, stabbing his dagger into its neck. But the Juggernaut just shrugged it off and threw him away. Franco and Tabitha both ran at it, trying to kill it before it could do any more harm, but neither of them could stop the Juggernaut.

It was coming straight for Cate and Andrew.

In that one moment, Andrew suddenly felt his body thrusting forward as a fireball formed in his right palm.

He leapt at it, throwing the fireball at its face. The Juggernaut, while uninjured by the puny attack attempt, was fazed by the attack, and that was all Andrew needed. He grabbed onto its large horns, trying to hold it down with his small arms.

Nebula, who was waiting for the right moment, didn't waste a second and ran at it, striking its leg down, with Franco right behind her, who held his shield high and bashed it onto the Juggernaut as the monstrosity fell off the cliff, with Andrew still on its back.

And everything turned black.