"How and why do you know so much about the crimson mages and dark knights?"
If someone were to ask Damien that question, they would experience how terrified a mortal feels when a giant and bloodthirsty serpent stares at them.
However, Roy was his cousin. Thus, Damien spared him the trouble. Otherwise, he would have surely looked at him with a piercing and cold gaze until he was mortified and his back was drenched in sweat.
Not many knew, but Damien hated talking about his past and everything related to it, and it just so happened that his interest in Asil arose because of something that happened when he was a child.
Those who used his past to trouble him were already six feet under the ground. As for those who unintentionally or intentionally poked around, trying to discover what happened in his obscured past, they were beaten to a pulp by him.
Because of this, he once clashed with the Wiseman Association.
Wise man.
It's a name given to those people who are extremely nosy.
Their main profession is to use their connection, experience, and strength to gather information, set up an information shop, or work at one in order to attract customers and sell this information.
They dress like gentlemen, and it's widely believed that they existed long before the empire came into being.
Some say that they appeared when the kingdoms were founded, while others claim that they existed even before that.
They even had evidence to back up their claim called the stone of history, a runic stone like no other. It recorded a part of Lost History. They believed that this is what the wisest of the wise men used to record what happened 850+ years ago so that it won't be lost with time.
Only one had been found so far, stored in the depths of the empire's treasury.
It's said that there are other stones like this spread across the vast land of the Far West major realm, each containing a part of lost history, and whoever finds all of them will realize what happened 850+ years ago.
Basically, a mind-blowing truth will be revealed to them.
The wise men had a bad habit of butting into other affairs, but that's just one of their bad habits.
They were no strangers to stalking others.
Some would just use force and beat the truth out of a person's mouth, while others would stalk a person until they knew everything about them.
Truly, they were shameless and had no work ethics and were a degenerate group of people that had no sense of privacy!
Before Damien became popular, there were barely any records of him.
He was covered in a veil of mystery, and not only countless beauties but also ambitious men wanted to rip it off of him in order to know more about him.
These people approached him for different reasons, but their goal was the same.
For example, the ladies had read too many romance novels and wanted to cultivate feelings with him, while the lords wanted to recruit him into their family. In the end, they all wanted a piece of him and were looking for any information on him, such as what he liked and so on, to get to know him better so that they won't embarrass themselves and better please him when they actually meet.
Popular yet mysterious men like Damien were the best target wise men could ask for.
Thus, they went for him.
The weakest among them were thrashed around. He also warned them not to do it again because next time, they won't be as lucky.
Curiosity killed the cat. No one wanted to die. They left him alone, not bothering him anymore.
But that wasn't the only reason why they so willingly backed off from Damien.
At that time, he had just awakened, and although he could sweep the ground with aura masters, he lacked the strength to intimidate true experts at the grandmaster level into backing away.
But the same couldn't be said for his father.
The people trying to investigate his past after he became famous were bothered by Arlo, who, as compensation, took half their wealth.
After getting threatened and looted by a burly, unbeatable, and unreasonable man who defeated them as easily as swatting a fly and got them into trouble with their superiors, they felt so scared and ashamed that they took off without ever looking back to spare a glance at Damien.
That day, Damien was pleasantly surprised to find out that the stronger ones, the ones he couldn't defeat, the ones that had continued to pester him, had mysteriously disappeared.
He never saw them again and realized that Arnard must've helped him deal with them.
Of all the top-notch agencies under the Wise Men Association, not a single one knew about his past. That's just how secretive he was. His past was a closely guarded secret, and only a few people knew about it.
It went like this.
Damien was doted on by his parents. The first few years of his life were without any difficulty and full of love and peace. Maybe that's why things took a turn for the worst when he turned 4.
There were people in this world who knew about their truth. They knew that the Baldwins weren't just special but the descendants of the Crimson Dragon, Yulran. They also knew about the Water Celestial and Female Sirens.
Damien, who was born to the descendant of Yulran and the Water Celestial and had accepted both of their blood, was a hybrid like no other. He could become the best War Weapon!
When news about this leaked, he was targeted by different types of people.
Blinded by greed, a few organization and Aristocats of the empire tried to kidnap him. They wanted to monopolize him, brainwash him into believing that they were his family or that he was their servant, and so on. Many failed until, eventually, one caught his parents off guard and succeeded.
