The Sword and The Shadow

“President!” helped Leguna with shock.

The first impression he had of Wayerliss was that he was a powerless and nondescript elf. But now he’d called himself the president of Moonshadow! It made Leguna take a second look at the elf. He realized he couldn’t feel a single ounce of power from him even after a careful inspection.

There were two possible explanations. The first was that the elf was indeed as normal and powerless as he’d thought. The the other, that his control over his power had reached an unfathomable level, he could keep all his power inside his body and not let any escape.

Seeing Leguna’s suspicious expression, Wayerliss smiled.

“You don’t believe me? Arikos, please come in.”

“Understood, Mr. President,” replied Arikos respectfully as he entered the room.

“You believe me now?”

“I…”

Leguna stared wide-eyed at Arikos, the man he believed to the strongest one he’d met in the last few months, answering to the beck and call of this elf with a respectful expression.

“Yes…” Leguna gulped before he bowed, “Leguna pays his respects to the president.”

“Alright. You may leave now, Arikos. Thank you.”

“By your will.”

Arikos bowed before and left.

“What? Surprised?” asked Wayerliss looking curiously at Leguna.

“I… I never thought the largest human thieves’ guild on Lance would have an elf as its president,” answered Leguna with a bitter smile.

Due to the fear and respect he had for a powerful person like Wayerliss, he lowered his head and didn’t look him in the eye.

“I can be any race, gender or age I want.”

Before Leguna noticed, Wayerliss’s voiced became husky, fitting of a seductress. When he looked up, he realized the man had turned into an unbelievably bewitching human woman with ink-blue hair and a voluptuous figure.

“Sir, you…”

Leguna jaw dropped to the floor.

“Want to learn how?” the female asked, teasing-smiled.

Leguna’s heart skipped several beats.

“Yes. Please teach me, President.”

“Too bad you can’t learn it. It’s elven magic.”

Marolyt’s capriciousness had affected Wayerliss. Leguna was completely speechless.

“Alright, I’ll stop messing with you,” Wayerliss said, returning to his elf form before anyone noticed, “Even though you can’t learn elven magic, I can teach you the disguise techniques used by assassins. Apart from that, I can teach you how to synthesize poisons, the secrets of stealth, and close combat techniques. In simple terms, I can make you stronger, much, much stronger. But you’ll have to suffer a lot. Are you willing?”

“Of course I am, President!” exclaimed Leguna without hesitation.

In this world, power was everything, everyone yearned for it.

“I can also give you a huge sum of money. It’ll be enough for you to live in luxury for the rest of your life. You’ll no longer have to run errands out in the wilderness. You can only pick one, though,” continued Wayerliss.

“Uhmmmm…” Leguna began to hesitate.

He’d wanted nothing more than to spend his days in comfort for the last ten years of his pitiful life. It was why he wanted power. Now Wayerliss had offered exactly that to him, what reason was there to obtain power? He didn’t know whether Wayerliss really do it, nor did he know which option to take.

“Before you make your decision, I should tell you a few things. I believe they’ll influence your decision,” Wayerliss said as he looked at the hesitating youth, “First, I’d like you to know that you’re born to be an assassin. You’re a shadow dancer.”

“A shadow dancer?”

Leguna had never heard of this before.

“You lack knowledge, but you should know that both impetus and magic have different aspects, right? There are six in total: wind, fire, earth, water, light, and darkness. The aspect that a person’s impetus or magic manifests depends on their affinity for the six aspects. Take, for example, your boss. His body has high an affinity for fire, so his impetus leans in that direction. Yours has an incredibly high affinity for darkness,” explained Wayerliss slowly.

Leguna nodded in agreement. While he had heard a few bits and pieces about aspects, it wasn’t until Wayerliss’s explanation that he had a clear understanding of them.

“There are people in this world that have a really high affinity for one or more aspects. Not only does it allow them to control those aspects easily, they will also develop unique abilities. For instance, Annelotte… Oh, since there’s no longer a point in hiding it, I’ll have you know that she’s actually someone I sent to keep an eye on you.”

“Annie?”

Leguna’s heart skipped another beat. While he had an inkling it was her that had brought him here for detoxification, she was nowhere to be seen. As for whether she was a member of Moonshadow, he didn’t care. After all, she had already saved his life a number of times and had never done anything against him.

Wayerliss didn’t care about what went through Leguna’s mind.

“Annelotte has an incredibly high affinity for water, so she has relative ease training in ice-related magic. Other than that, she also obtained abilities such as Cold Resistance and Glacial Domain.”

“What are those?”.

Leguna realized the president was more talkative than he’d expected. He no longer spoke formally and loosened considerably.

“Cold Resistance, as its name suggests, allows her to withstand cold temperatures. Even temperatures down tens of degrees below zero can’t harm her.”

No wonder Annie said she had a unique constitution.

He’d been curious about how she could weather the chilling temperatures 40 below and more without batting an eye for a while now.

“Glacial Domain is an incredibly effective offensive ability. She can lower the temperature of an area with her will alone. It can go so low a person’s blood would freeze.”

How horrifying!

Though he already knew Annelotte was powerful, he didn’t think she’d have such powerful abilities hidden away.

“That’s why she’s somewhat similar to you. She’s a water swayer. Light breaker, shadow dancer, wind walker, water swayer, fire guide and earth binder. Those are names others frequently use to describe those like the two of you who have aspect abilities.”

“But, President,” Leguna said with a bitter smile, “I don’t have any aspect abilities.”

“Actually, from what I’ve observed so far, you do have one. As for your others, I believe they just haven’t awakened yet,” Wayerliss said as he took out a document and handed it to the kid, “Look. According to our observations, even though you only have sixth-stratum impetus, your potential is actually beyond the tenth stratum. This is one of your special abilities.”

“This…”

Leguna didn’t know whether he should be glad or not. Annelotte had a defensive ability, Cold Resistance, and an attack ability, Glacial Domain. The one he had only made him hide better.

What should I call this? Zero Presence?

“Don’t look down on it,” Wayerliss whispered into his ear from behind him suddenly.

“This is incredibly threatening. Think about it, you can approach your foe without the slightest sound. What other ability could be more useful to an assassin?”

Leguna dropped a few drops of ice cold sweat. He looked down and realized a dagger was pushing against his throat, he had no idea when Wayerliss had brought it out or placed it against his throat. If he cut deep, he wouldn’t even know how he died.

“What could my next ability be?” asked he excitedly.

“How should I know? There’s no way to tell until it awakes,” shrugged Wayerliss.

Looking at the youth who was wearing a stupid smile, he snapped.

“Feeling full of yourself now, he?”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Leguna tightened his facial muscles immediately.

“Alright, I do think you have some right to be proud. If I had this ability, I wouldn’t have suffered a loss against that old ruffian,” said Wayerliss as he gave Leguna’s shoulder a tap.

His tone turned solemn almost immediately.

“However, never be overconfident. Even though only one person in tens of millions has these gifts, the sheer number of people alive means are quite a few gifted around. You only have high affinity for the dark aspect. There are people who might have an incredibly high affinity with two, or even three, aspects. They will have even more terrifying gifts than you. Despite that, a large number of them die before becoming saint-ranked fighters or myth-level magi. You shouldn’t be proud just because you’re a shadow dancer. It’s no doubt your talented, but don’t mistake it for power.”

Leguna hurriedly corrected his mindset. Wayerliss’s words made sense. In a world as large as this one, even the strongest geniuses would be as common as clouds. Yet, people who were able to enter the saint or myth level were few and far in-between. Compared to people with real power, talented geniuses were absolutely nothing.

“Alright, I’m sure I’ve already made my first point clear. Now, here’s the second one. You might have just made yourself an enemy. His name is Balor, he’s the guy that attacked you.”