It was two weeks after Nathan Greville's death that his funeral was held. Many influential people, including most of the High Council, attended the gathering. Even the principal of World Academy, who rarely left the floating island where the academy was located, came to show respect for the deceased SSS Rank Hunter.
Amelia had moist eyes and was sitting with Sylvie, while Asher was sitting with Arthur, but unlike his family, his face was indifferent. It was as if he didn't care about the current situation.
Some people who noticed Asher's expression insulted him for being so cold to his own family. But unlike others, Arthur and Sylvie did not mind Asher's expression. They knew their son the best and had long accepted his cold nature. Sylvie was more worried about Asher now because she felt he was avoiding people even more than before.
Arthur was busy meeting others. David Seymour helped him a lot by greeting people on his behalf. David was an SS Rank Hunter, and his support greatly helped Arthur. But the Grevilles were not that weak, and the biggest support came from Sylvie's family, the Raven Family.
As soon as Alfred got the news of Nathan's death, he informed his wife, the Guildmaster who was under the Raven family. Normally, the Grevilles would have faced many assassination attempts on their important executives, but it was Sylvie's mother who had given the highest degree order in their Guild. In a week alone, many people were dying in Somaria, and most of them were people who were trying to oppose the Grevilles.
"Guildmaster, the World Association has given us a warning to stop the hunt," a man spoke with his head bowed down.
In front of him was a woman who looked old, but the man knew her true strength. She was one of the reasons none of the Elite family had tried to weaken the Grevilles openly.
"My daughter is quite busy these days. Tell that old fool of the World Association that I will stop if those stupid pests stop bothering my little girl," she spoke, but her voice alone chilled the spine of the man.
"As you wish," he bowed again to show his respect and immediately left the room.
A month had passed already, and Asher's condition was getting worse.
Asher had stopped attending dinner with his family, and most of the time, he spent it in his room or the library in their estate. Sylvie was getting worried for her son because she wanted him to do his awakening a bit early, but seeing Asher who was even more distant now, she did not force him.
Damian had come to talk to Asher many times, but even he could feel that Asher was acting strange. Amelia only talked to Damian a bit more, but after the incident at the birthday party, she found it incredibly difficult to speak with Asher anymore. Even living in the same house, Amelia rarely saw Asher, and she kept thinking that it was due to the fact she might have angered him at the party.
But she was completely wrong. Asher, who was in his room, was staring at himself in the mirror.
Unlike the new Asher, the previous Asher was lean, but he had no visible muscles. He still looked handsome and quite charming.
Asher got back to his bed. His room was devoid of light, and he had shut down all curtains and told everybody to stay away from his room.
"Why am I so different?" Asher could not help but ask himself.
From a young age, Asher had noticed that he was quite different from other people. In his eyes, the world was always grey, devoid of any colors. No matter what happened to him or others, his emotions were never shaken. Seeing Arthur emotionally agitated after Nathan's death, he started to think that something was wrong with him.
He had never seen his parents so emotional before. He was quite young when Ivar died, so it was his first time seeing them in a vulnerable state, even if that lasted only a couple of days. Arthur had accepted his reality and was now gathering multiple gems to rush himself to rise to SS Rank soon.
"Arghhhh," a sudden headache made Asher groan on his bed.
This was getting more frequent these days. He was getting this urge to destroy everything around him. He had tried to take many pills to calm himself down, but their effect was decaying. And he thought that it was better for him to stay away from others until he managed to find a way to calm himself down.
Asher suddenly stood up and walked up to his drawer, took out a sharp object, and stabbed himself in his arm. He clenched his teeth as he endured the pain. He took the object out and drank a lowest-rank healing potion, then wrapped his wound with some bandages. This was the only thing he had found that helped him suppress his urges.
Yes, by injuring himself so that the pain would overwhelm his urges.
From a young age, Asher could feel that he had some kind of madness inside him. It was controllable when he was young, but as he learned the basic martial arts, he found it much harder. Asher concluded that he had some kind of mental illness and stopped training altogether. He wanted to get himself in control first before he got consumed by his madness.
He had rejected a teacher that Arthur brought who wanted to teach him runes and other basic stuff for the same reason. People around him misunderstood that he wanted to be lazy, but the teacher did not think the same.
"I think that boy wants to avoid getting stronger for some reason," Neyman told Arthur, who was sitting in his office drinking tea with Neyman.
Arthur nodded slowly. "I understand what you mean. Asher has always been... different. It's something that Sylvie and I have accepted about him. But seeing him like this, it's hard not to worry."
"I think you should let him do as he wants for now. I found that boy's views quite interesting for a 9-year-old," Neyman laughed. "Although he asked me to find fault in his ideas, I could not find fault in them. He is quite an intelligent fellow, Arthur, but his thoughts are unlike those of a child."
In the end, Arthur thought he should let Asher do whatever he wants for now, and Sylvie told him that she would take care of Asher and teach him about her work instead.
Asher agreed to Sylvie's proposal as he thought that it would be a good way for him to learn how to imitate others and appear more normal. And this was how Asher impressed Sylvie with his talent in business and his great insights.
But, unlike what Asher thought, stopping himself from increasing his strength did not help him at all. He had confronted Sylvie in the past once and asked if she thought he was normal or not. But as a mother, Sylvie always cheered him on instead of finding faults in him. For her, Asher only seemed like a calm boy with great intelligence.
"You are so smart, how could mommy find you weird?" Sylvie said with warm look on his face as she kissed the young Asher on his cheeks.
"You are my pride," She hugged him with a smile on her face.
Sylvie thought that Asher had heard something negative about him and asked her about it.
However, Asher still asked the doctors of the estate for a checkup on his body, and all of them told him that he was perfectly healthy. He had researched his problem and found that no solution worked. He tried to act like a friend to Damian, but even after many years of friendship, Asher did not feel a connection with Damian or any other person whom he often met.
Asher was studying many calming reagents in the library of his estate, but unfortunately, there was no cure for mental illness in this world, despite having mana and technology.
If they had something that could help with such problems, the space element would have been the greatest element in the whole world, but it was not. The space element was powerful, but the mental strain it gave made it impossible to have any space mages who lived more than 27-30 years, and given that they did not use the space element often in their spells.
It was two days before the World Academy would begin, and Asher had finally gone through his awakening.
Arthur had given Asher an A Rank Mana gem for his awakening, and Asher did great as his awakening lasted for 3 hours and 20 minutes. Arthur was happy to see that Asher was talented, but Asher was calm and was observing himself with even more caution. He was concerned about how he would fare now that he was finally awakened.
A day before his awakening, he had gotten the news that his sister had won the Representative tournament, and the other winner was from the Whiteheart family.
Damian was the most depressed as he had lost to Kevin. Matthew, another talented individual, was defeated when Sam fought him, but even Sam Allister could not defeat Kevin in the end. Kevin had won without even showing his advanced element.
But the most interesting thing that happened was the duel between Elena and Alyssa Astaria.
"Did you know a girl from the Garcia family attended the tournament?" Damian said as he was spending some time with Asher who had just awakened.
Asher was practicing some of his basic sword movements and getting a bit more familiar with it.
"She was allowed?" Asher asked, but his expression was indifferent as he did not care about it.
"Yeah, but apparently, she used two advanced elements," Damian spoke as he kept watching Asher move around with the sword.
"But she ran out of mana and was badly beaten by Elena Rothschild but she took down some other girl that was assisting Elena. Honestly, I was surprised that Amelia won against Elena and Eva,"
"Good for her," Asher replied as he stopped and wiped the sweat from his face.
"Hey, are you feeling okay?" Damian asked, his expression filled with concern.
He was feeling that Asher was not normal these days. Especially after his awakening, Damian was feeling that Asher was not only cold, but his aura had become a bit intimidating as well.
"Probably," Asher said with an indifferent look on his face.
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