The prison guard who came to deliver lunch to Leonardo stopped short when he saw the untouched tray from before. He stared blankly at the figure sitting motionless against the wall.
Leonardo slowly raised his eyes from the floor to meet the guard’s gaze. Clicking his tongue, the guard unlocked the cell, retrieved the uneaten meal, and placed a new one just beyond the bars.
“Suit yourself. Not eating’s your own loss.”
Even as he said that, he clearly didn’t want to get too close—he left the tray at arm’s length from the door, locked it again with a click, and backed away.
He gave Leonardo’s face a few more cautious glances, then scolded the noisy prisoners who were yelling for the discarded meal. With that, he opened the iron door at the far end of the corridor and left.
The heavy door shut with a final thud. Grumbling voices filled the hallway in its wake. Leonardo remained still for a while before lowering his gaze to his wrists.
Thick iron cuffs bound his hands, each attached to the wall with heavy chains. Even if he stretched as far as he could, the bars were just out of reach. The guards had measured the chain length precisely, likely taking into account his history of escaping even a reinforced iron cage.
Sensing some of his strength returning, Leonardo leaned forward slightly and glanced up at the small window behind him. The bars were reinforced, and the opening was so narrow that it was hard to imagine even fitting a head through.
He stared quietly at the slanted shadows cast by sunlight through the window.
I haven’t heard the clock tower chime since I got here. That must mean the walls block external sound. Judging by the guard bringing lunch just now... it should be slightly past noon.
Sunlight’s coming in from above and at an angle, while the opposite side gets none. That means I’m on the east side. The bar shadows fall nearly vertical, with just a slight lean left—so this must be the southeast building of the Council.
The southeast sector was distant from the main building—dark, highly restricted, and under constant surveillance. He’d heard that its interior was maze-like. The blindfold during transport now made sense—it was for security.
Good thing I got a rough look at the layout while bumming cigarettes back then.
Having approximated his location, Leonardo rose to his feet, gripping the chain to keep it from scraping the floor. Any sound might alert the guard stationed nearby.
Eyes closed, he counted the seconds as he walked a few measured steps within his permitted range. He guessed the sensors wouldn’t flag this level of movement as unusual.
Moments later, he opened his eyes and calculated the distance he’d covered.
It took about 10 seconds straight, then 15 more after a left turn. I passed through three doors and descended stairs... This must be an underground chamber with a lightwell dug into its center. The depth’s tricky to guess since the stairs spiraled...
He raised and lowered his legs in place, gauging the stair height from memory.
There were 18 steps per flight, with a repeating light source to the right. That happened about 75 times... Roughly the fourth basement level. About 3 meters per floor.
Next, he pressed his hand against the wall to test its integrity. As expected of the Council’s prison, the stone was dense and nearly impenetrable.
No chance of breaking it through force, especially not while wearing mana-restricting cuffs.
“Are you trying to escape or something?”
The voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Leonardo flinched slightly and turned toward the source. The prisoner in the diagonally left cell had pressed himself against the bars, grinning with a leer.
He’d been quiet for a while, and Leonardo had assumed he’d given up trying to talk. Now, seeing him again—filthy, yellow-toothed, and crude—Leonardo’s brows pulled into a deeper scowl. Even beyond appearance, the man had been spewing lewd remarks non-stop, tossing vulgar invitations Leonardo ignored.
He seemed like an old fixture of this prison, speaking casually with the guard earlier. Just by eavesdropping on his shameless chatter, Leonardo had pieced together that the man had been jailed for sexual misconduct—and that it wasn’t his first time, either.
Leonardo had done his best to ignore him. Of all the prisoners, why did they have to put him next to this guy?
Still, now that their eyes had met again, a thought occurred: if the man had been here for a long time, he might know things about this place.
After a moment’s pause, Leonardo opened his mouth for the first time in hours.
“Hey. Where is this place?”
“Oh-ho! He speaks! He finally talked!”
“What? He did?”
The prisoner reacted as if a miracle had occurred, causing the inmate in the adjacent cell to perk up as well. Leonardo’s brows furrowed even further—he felt like an animal in a cage, surrounded by gawking voices.
The diagonal prisoner grinned.
“Where? You’re in prison, obviously. Didn’t know that when you got dragged in?”
Leonardo didn’t respond to that painfully obvious statement. Instead, his eyes shifted to the window behind the man’s head.
“What’s outside your window?”
The man turned, glanced at the wall behind him, and then thumbed toward it.
“That one?”
Leonardo gave a short nod. The prisoner grinned wider.
“What’ll you give me if I tell you?”
Leonardo stared at him in disbelief and waved him off.
“Forget it.”
“Alright, alright, don’t be so touchy. There’s nothing out there but another prison building. Probably the same view as yours.”
It was a boring answer—but not unexpected. Leonardo’s disappointment showed clearly, though the prisoner seemed thrilled just to be getting a response.
“Hey, what’d you do before ending up here? With a face like that, did you make a living off it?”
“...”
“You can forget escaping. I've tried—plenty of times. This place is a fortress, I’m telling you.”
The prisoner to the left cut in, picking up the thread of “escape” and launching into grand tales of past attempts. But they all ended the same—getting caught right away. He didn’t even know much about the layout. It was all useless chatter.
Still, the two men were so eager to talk, they kept chatting amongst themselves even when Leonardo gave no reply. Sighing, he wrapped the chain around his hand again and returned to his earlier routine.
Then something caught his attention.
“Anyway, these days, you’ve got to be careful. The surveillance’s gotten crazy tight because of that guy—Leonardo Blaine.”
Leonardo’s ears pricked up at the mention of his own name. Though the talk was nonsense, he paused, then sat down again—just in case something useful came out of it.
It was clear neither of them knew who was sitting next to them.
Noticing his stillness, the diagonal prisoner grinned and said,
“I heard that guy went berserk in the Imperial Capital. You come in this morning? Did you see the commotion? Damn shame I missed it. Imagine—escaping a transport cage and giving Kazad hell. That’s legendary.”
“Yeah, I heard he got lucky too. A glass bottle flew out of nowhere and shattered—spooked the horses pulling the cage, they went wild! The guards were talking about that all day.”
Glass bottle?
Leonardo raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t known that had happened. He’d figured the horses just spooked and bolted—but if a glass bottle really had flown in and shattered near them...
He stared at the air in front of him and asked, voice calm:
“Who threw the glass bottle?”
“How would I know? Must’ve been one of those people, right? Anyway, those idiots are just as clueless.”
The prisoners laughed among themselves, mocking the civilians who had been present at the scene. The topic quickly drifted to something else.
Leonardo, finding nothing more worth hearing, rested his chin on his arm, draped over one raised knee. But the prisoner across from him misread the gesture as interest. With a sinister grin, he scooted closer to the bars and said,
“But... aren’t you worried I might tell the guards what I just saw?”
He was clearly referring to Leonardo grasping the chains, measuring distances, and inspecting the layout earlier. Just giving the impression of trying to escape would get him placed under intense surveillance—this lowlife was trying to blackmail him.
Leonardo’s eyes turned icy.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Oh my, such harsh words.”
Still grinning, the prisoner didn’t back down. Leonardo answered coolly,
“Go ahead. Tell them. I’ll kill you before you get the chance.”
He was already in a foul mood, and the fact that this crude bastard kept clinging to him just because they’d exchanged a few words only made it worse. The prisoner blinked in surprise, momentarily silenced.
Leonardo thought he’d finally gotten the message and would shut up now—but the repeat offender was even more hopeless than expected.
Flashing his yellowed teeth again, the prisoner formed a loop with his fingers and mockingly jabbed another finger through it, smirking at Leonardo.
“You’ll kill me with this? Damn, I’d be honored.”
A laugh erupted from the cell beside his, one prisoner cackling wildly at the crude innuendo. Leonardo’s hand twitched with a genuine urge to kill.
Should I actually do it?
He was seriously considering it. Breathing the same air as these degenerates felt like a waste of oxygen. But after a beat, he drew a long breath and restrained himself.
Still, the grinning idiot was too much to tolerate.
Leonardo extended his fingers slightly and lifted his hand toward the prisoner.
The man watched him with mocking curiosity.
“Hey,” Leonardo said calmly. “Stay still.”
“Huh?”
“You might explode if I hit the wrong spot.”
He narrowed one eye and aimed his fingertips at the «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» space between the prisoner’s legs.
Even with mana-suppressing cuffs on, he could still use a faint level of magic—just enough to intimidate. Normally, he wouldn’t reveal that he could use multiple elements, but after they’d already extracted his mana, it didn’t seem worth hiding.
He snapped his fingers lightly, and a compressed burst of air fired straight toward the target.
Pop.
A sharp sound rang out, like a melon cracking open.
The prisoner’s face went white. He collapsed backward without so much as a scream.
Leonardo froze, hand still extended, uncharacteristically surprised.
“...Oops. My mistake.”
He hadn’t meant to actually hit him. It was supposed to be a bluff—but somehow, it landed.
The prisoner to the left, unaware, laughed dismissively.
“What, is he faking it now?”
But as seconds passed and the other man remained motionless, his laughter faltered.
Leonardo glanced up at the sensors, tense. Fortunately, the movement hadn’t triggered them. A few red lights blinked, then faded.
And the wall between cells meant no one could see what had happened. No witnesses.
Leonardo exhaled softly in relief.
****
“His primary attributes are fire and electricity, but he can manipulate all four basic elements. In short... he’s an All-Rounder.”
In the Grand Conference Hall of the Council, Hugo stood before the main screen, arms folded, silently reading the report.
The medical officer delivering the mana analysis concluded his presentation with visible awe.
And Hugo wasn’t the only one astonished. Around him, elite personnel of the Council—commanders, strategists, officers, even Council members—exchanged murmurs and astonished gasps as they studied the data.
All-Rounder.
A mage capable of wielding all four elemental types: fire, water, earth, and wind.
Such individuals were vanishingly rare not only in Raina Logia but across the continent. And even among those labeled “All-Rounders,” most could barely utilize their non-primary elements beyond trivial spells.
But Leonardo Blaine was different.
Fire and electricity—his main affinities—were abnormally powerful, to the point of imbalance. Yet even beyond those, he had clear aptitude in the remaining three elements.
Possessing two primary attributes was already proof of an exceptional mage. But being able to freely manipulate all four basic attributes... that was nothing short of genius.
The room remained quiet, filled with silent tension.
This All-Rounder—until now buried in mystery—was suddenly emerging as a prodigy too valuable to lose.
The last time the Council had discovered someone like him... had been twelve years ago.
Hugo Agrizendro’s mana component exam.
