Category: Chapters – Version 1

At the same time that Nihil was talking to Ignis, Stella was pouring over the inscription pattern, memorising each and every minute line that was marked down on the blueprint. At this point her aim was just rote memorisation, so she put off trying to decipher and understand it’s construction until after she and Stella had met their master.

In order to not distract her sister, Lunam was passing the time by catching up with a couple of old friends that lived within the capital. The group of five people were sitting around a table in the busy pub section of Stella and Lunam’s inn, enjoying a few drinks. After the small talk had passed, the topic naturally shifted to Lunam telling stories of the Sun and Moon Adventurers’ escapades over the recent years.

After excellently portraying some of the exciting battles and quests the party had gotten into – including the various stories of how the group had gradually grown to be quite so big – Lunam took a long draught of the water that was on the table in front of her.

“A couple of interesting guys have been travelling with us recently. They work as bards, so they probably would have told those stories better than I did.” She laughed in high spirits.

“Oh? Did they have any good legends to tell you guys?” A small, fairy-like girl, with sparkling gold hair, asked from across the table.

“They did share one, but it directly contradicts history and that didn’t sit too well with Stella especially.” Lunam laughed awkwardly in response to the girl called Rashida.

“That’s got me interested now too.” A tall lady with mint green hair and pointed ears piped up from next to Rashida.

With nods of assent from the other two present, Lunam was forced to summarise the song Nihil had performed then.

“Before we start, can one of you cast a soundproofing barrier, please? It doesn’t align with history and the atmosphere’s a bit tense in the capital at the moment.” Lunam requested after some thought.

Only once the barrier was in place, did she start telling the story Nihil had described. By the time she’d finished, the group of four had shocked expressions and even had tears in their eyes that they steadfastly refused to let fall.

“That’s definitely a new take on Avalon’s history.” A strange voice that seemed neither totally present nor completely absent, agreed.

This voice belonged to one of the four people sitting around the table with Lunam. He was a special type of demon that didn’t have a physical form. As such anyone from this ‘Soul Clan’ wouldn’t have a choice except to be a mage – as they had no body they could cultivate.

The final member of the small group was a low-ranking demon with a light red tail and a matching pair of wings. Despite his bloodline, he was still a decent mage falling into the upper end of average. In fact everyone in the group Lunam had met was a mage at least at the upper average level.

As mages from the Mage’s Guild, they were guaranteed to be skilled. Average and weaker mages would invariably end up in the Adventurer’s Guild (which is why the Sun and Moon adventurers didn’t have any even in such a large party).

The small girl named Rashida was a half elf, half dwarf cross. The green haired, tall woman was called Mel, and she was a pure blooded elf. The translucent demon from the Soul Clan went by the name of Seis. Finally, the pretty boy, red winged demon’s name was Rood. They were all old friends of Stella and Lunam, and used to party together before they all transferred to the mage’s guild. They’d still often bump into each other on various quests, though.

At this point Mel spoke up quietly. “Actually I have heard whispers of this story back in Alfheim.”

“You have?” Lunam asked, surprised.

“We elves are naturally longer lived than humans, so it’s not unusual for our histories to be more accurate – especially when the humans are deliberately trying to hide the truth.” Mel pointed out.

“Why would they try to cover that up, though? It’s a very touching story.” Rood questioned, confused. Demons lived for roughly the same length of time as elves, but they were more solitary and generally didn’t bother with passing down histories.

“The problem isn’t with why it was founded, but with how. It’s not apparent with this story, but it’s actually set before the Great War.” Mel explained.

Avalon’s official history stated that the country was formed after the Great War in an effort to help the survivors’ lives regain a sense of normalcy and peace.

“This Nihil seems to have deliberately worded it so that the timing wasn’t obvious.” Mel continued in an impressed tone. “I’m sure he already knows of the father and son’s crimes following the end of this story too.”

“Crimes? Just what did they do?” Seis questioned, thoroughly intrigued by his friend’s teasing.

“Haha, ok I’ll stop beating around the bush. We already have a soundproofing barrier up, so I might as well just say it bluntly.” Mel laughed. “In an effort to increase their country’s power rapidly, and to completely establish their rule, they caused the Great War.”

““““What!?”””” A collective shout rang out.

“Wait, wait, wait. Why would that even help them!?” Rashida asked, shocked.

“I’m not sure what they were actually planning – if they meant for the casualties to be as high as they were, or not. But, if you think about it, the result was that the races’ hostility to each other grew; the population decreased by a lot; and they were one of the more powerful groups of humans since they had been fully prepared for the war far in advance of everyone else. By the time the Inter-Species Council had calmed the war down enough that the pact could be signed, the Royal Family were the only possible option of representative that humans could send to sign it.”

The other four people at the table all had shocked looks on their faces, like they couldn’t quite believe just how smoothly it had gone for the two.

“What the hell!?” Rood’s muttered exclamation effectively summed up everyone’s thoughts at that moment.

“If even you know this much, then how could the Inter-Species Council let them get away with it?” Seis asked.

“No-one knew about it until much later. At that point it was too late to do anything. Even now, these are only rumours flitting around in Alfheim. Though the reality is that the Inter-Species council are greatly suppressing Avalon’s Royal Family.” Mel answered.

“Perhaps this is part of the reason why Prince Pravus is so hostile to the other races?” Lunam mused.

“That would explain a lot.” Seis agreed, nodding his head.

At that point, Rashida looked outside at the moon high in the sky. “Ah! It’s this late?”

“We should probably go back to our own houses.” Rood agreed.

After they’d all said their goodbyes, Lunam made her way over to the counter to talk to Hera.

Making her way up the stairs, Lunam softly opened he door to her shared room with her sister.

“It’s about time to wrap up your studying today.” She gently reminded Stella after seeing the girl still absorbed in her research.

“Mmn …” Stella agreed, still looking at the blueprints.

Just then an enticing smell made its way to Stella’s nose. Glancing up, she saw her sister holding a tray of delicious food and a tall mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate chips. Seeing this, her eyes lit up and she immediately stopped what she was doing.

“Thank you!” Stella exclaimed at the same time that her stomach let out a loud rumble.

Lunam just laughed and handed the tray over. While watching her sister eat, Lunam asked how the research was going.

“Mmh, it’s taking a while, but I should be able to try it out for the first time tomorrow.” Stella replied around mouthfuls of food. As she ate, her cheeks bulged out, reminding Lunam of a hamster.

Smiling gently, Lunam told Stella how their friends we’re doing. She didn’t talk about the last conversation they’d had though, because she had no way to set up a soundproofing barrier, and Hera’s warning about there being prying ears was still fresh in her memory. She decided to tell her only after they’d left the capital again.

* * *

While Nihil was describing his few memories to Ignis, he had been fiddling with the various weapons in the room so that he didn’t have to see his friend’s reaction. However, once he’d finished speaking he didn’t even have time to turn around before Ignis had slung his arm over Nihil’s shoulder, ruffled the man’s hair, and unhesitatingly declared “No matter how old you are, or what you’ve done before, I know who you are right now. You’re my best friend.”

“You might want to withhold that statement until you see the next room.” Nihil had briefly mentioned what he’d done, but hearing about something, and actually seeing it were two completely different things.

Seeing his friend’s serious expression, Ignis nodded his head. Judging from the plethora of weapons in the room they were currently in, he had already started to form an image in his mind of the next room.

Stepping through the door, the room that greeted him was a lot plainer than Ignis had expected. He’d been picturing a stone table with various large torture devices around – such as an iron maiden or a stretching table. By contrast, the chain and hook was completely innocuous.

Despite this, Ignis could clearly see just how much the room had been used in order to get such a uniform coating of the walls, floor, and ceiling. In truth, such a revelation was a bit of a shock to the system, and he had to take a few steadying breaths before his emotions calmed down enough to properly focus on the woman currently hanging in the middle of the room.

While Ignis was getting accustomed to his surroundings, Nihil’s eyes seemed to get just a little more lifeless – he had the feeling that this room was just scratching the surface of what he’d done in the past. If this had been a normal situation, Ignis would have noticed this minute difference in his friend immediately. As it was, he was too distracted and didn’t spot it at all, and by the time he looked at his friend, Nihil had automatically hidden the change. It was unknown whether he’d even noticed it in himself.

“Wake up.” Nihil calmly said.

Contrary to what most people would expect, this actually was enough to wake the woman up. But that wasn’t surprising to the two men, after all Nihil had used magic to project his voice even into her subconscious.

In a confused and dazed state, Scarlet focused on the two before her and her face paled when she remembered what situation she was in.

“N-no matter what kind of t-t-torture you put me through, I-I won’t t-talk.” She stuttered out in an unconvincing tone.

“That doesn’t matter.” Ignis replied when he realised that Nihil wasn’t paying attention. He casually nudged his friend before asking the first question himself.

“Who exactly sent you after us? And how much did they tell you?”

Scarlet’s face paled even more – it was clear that she was desperately terrified of the one who’d given her this mission. In a similar fashion, Ignis’s face also blanched a second or two later.

“No way!” He exclaimed as he fell a step back. “Callum? I thought he was …”

Hearing this name snapped Nihil back to his senses as he tried to reassure his friend. “We’re not in the same situation anymore. I have some of my memories back, so I am a lot stronger now too.”

Stepping in front of Ignis, Nihil’s eyes hardened as he started asking questions once Ignis seemed to have calmed down somewhat.

“How much of our past do you know?”

“Well, I’m now wondering if Callum has any connection to you guys, at least.” She mocked. Seeing Ignis’ reaction was enough to make her feel confident again.

Naturally she’d wondered how Ignis knew it was Callum who’d sent her, but she assumed that she must have said the name out loud by accident. He had always terrified her, after all. Luckily it seemed to have had the same affect on her captors as well, so she didn’t panic too much.

With all this going through her head, Ignis had to indicate to Nihil that he didn’t get what they needed. Receiving his friend’s signal, Nihil’s eyes flashed as he struck her left cheek bone with some brass knuckles that Ignis hadn’t noticed his friend pick up from the other room.

“Remember the situation you’re in. You don’t have the luxury to be able to look down on us.” He all but snarled viciously. “How much does the Royal Guard know about us?”

Ignis glanced worriedly at his friend, but quickly refocused his gaze back on the captive who was spitting out some blood that had trickled down her cheek into her mouth.

Scarlet showed her bloody teeth in a scathing smile as she replied. “I’m. Not. Telling. You.”

This time however, Ignis had gotten what he needed. This allowed Nihil to move on, but the man still spitefully struck her again in the same place as before. Hissing in pain, Scarlet just clenched her jaw and glared at Nihil, while thinking some vicious swear words in her heart.

“What exactly were your orders?” Nihil asked his next question. This time Scarlet didn’t actually mind answering as she knew it would serve to further piss them off.

“Haha! Callum doesn’t actually care about Ignis so much, but he’s desperate to get you back.” She replied smugly, knowing exactly what would be in store for him when he eventually got recaptured. “You can’t run forever. We will hunt you down, and make you wish you’d never been born!”

This fanaticism concerned Ignis, so he frowned and focused even harder on the person in front of him. A few seconds later his eyes widened and he flung his gaze over to his friend.

That can’t be true! Ignis thought vehemently. But … what if it is? I can’t tell him until I know for sure. The way he is now, he’ll accept it as fact without verifying it, and he’ll hate himself.

“Why is Callum’s goal so important? Aren’t people strong enough already? More power will only create more destruction.” Nihil asked without waiting for his friend’s signal.

He wasn’t sure why he was quite so certain of this fact, but something in his subconscious was telling him he’d experienced this for himself.

Grabbing Nihil’s elbow, Ignis dragged his friend back into the other room.

“What’s going on with you? Ever since we joined up with the Sun and Moon Adventurers you’ve been letting your emotions show a lot more easily.” Ignis started. “While that’s normally a good thing, if you let them overwhelm and control you then you’ll be no different to a magical beast.”

Ignis’ words managed to get through to his friend, but it still didn’t look like Nihil was ready to talk about it yet. He wasn’t sure why, but Ignis instinctively felt that bad things would happen if Nihil ever got too caught up in his own emotions. For most others, Ignis would have been happy to see them coming out of their shell, but he only felt a growing sense of dread whenever he saw his friend doing just that.

“I should probably tell you what I’ve learned from our captive.” Ignis quickly changed the subject.

He had a bloodline ability that let him read the flow of mental energy around a person and accurately decipher what they were thinking at that moment in time. Ignis had only relatively recently discovered this ability so he wasn’t all that good at using it yet. As a result if a person had mental defences set up, or wasn’t currently thinking about something when he was trying to read them, then he couldn’t get much useful information. This was why Nihil had had to prompt Scarlet with the questions earlier, since even if they refused to answer out loud, people usually couldn’t help but to think of the answer when prompted.

“Most of the Royal Guard don’t know the specifics, they just know that Callum was researching how to allow people to both cultivate and develop their magic as well. They know that you are the key to this, and that you aren’t human so they don’t think that forcing you to take part is wrong.” Ignis explained. “It almost seems like they were all brainwashed by the prince when they were training to enter the Royal Guard.”

“That could be a problem – even for the inter-species council.” Nihil muttered in response. “Do we know what the average Avalon citizen thinks of these human supremacist beliefs?”

“She didn’t think about that, so I’m not sure. But her orders were to keep her actions a secret from the general populace, so I would guess that they’re not all on board with that line of thinking.

“Since Callum doesn’t care about my whereabouts too much, it seems that we were successful at convincing them that I was just another failure, though.” He answered.

“That’s great. I wasn’t sure if we’d let it slip during our escape.” Nihil replied with obvious relief. “What about the earlier questions?”

“She was only sent as a scout to figure out where we are. Despite her fame for the ‘Scarlet Blade’ incident, she’s actually much better at stealth than combat so she only attacked us because we discovered her.”

“That’s unexpected – her sonic attack didn’t exactly seem to lend itself to stealth.” Nihil commented.

“It could have been developed to help her during combat – it does effectively stun most non-human opponents.” Ignis pointed out, shrugging his shoulders.

“That is true.” Nihil realised and smiled at his friend. “If she was sent to locate us, then how much has she told her sergeant?”

“That’s the problem. She told them we were travelling with a group in this area. Luckily she only found us after we split up and she doesn’t know the group by name, but it might still be best to leave the adventurers – for their sakes.” Ignis was worried that they’d drag people into their mess and that someone would get hurt because of it.

Since they had already disappeared for a while, it might be better to just stay separated like this until they managed to either resolve the situation or report them to the inter-species council.

“Where is her squad? I’ll check in on them quickly.” Nihil decided to check on the situation before he committed to a particular option.

In response Ignis just furrowed his brows while he concentrated hard on sending a set of coordinates and an image to his friend. Receiving the information, Nihil opened a gate and stepped through, leaving Ignis and Scarlet behind.

After eating their fill at a nearby impartial tavern, Stella and Lunam crossed the city square and entered a large enchanted equipment shop. The store was called The Draconic Armoury. Since dragons were well known to have the toughest hides and the sharpest claws in all of Axis, this name was a clear indication of the store’s confidence in their enchantments’ power and efficacy.

Immediately upon entry, the two girls were greeted by a young shop attendant. With the new atmosphere in the capital, it was easy enough to tell which stores were neutral and which ones were refusing to serve non-humans. The latter stores would require the customers’ visas or citizenship cards. These cards indicated a person’s species and if they weren’t human, then most stores would discriminate against them. In comparison, the neutral stores wouldn’t request any proof of identity, and would serve any customer that approached them.

“Welcome to our store, my name is Peter. Is there anything specific that you’re looking for today?” The attendant asked with a genial smile.

Peter was a young man with tousled mousy brown hair, and chocolate eyes looking to be around 16 years old. Stella and Lunam had been watching the store from the earlier tavern, and they had noticed that The Draconic Armoury didn’t request proof of identity upon entry. The reason they chose to check out this store first, was because they had thought that this would be the case. The Draconic Armoury was a world renowned store that was commonly regarded to sell the best equipment in all of Axis. They had many branches in every country, so it was highly unlikely that they would be swayed by the opinions of just one country’s future ruler. Avalon also couldn’t afford to offend the franchise by creating trouble for them.

“We would like to buy a grade 10 blueprint for a passive poison resistance enchantment.” Lunam answered the boy’s question.

“Is this a service that this store could provide? If not, is there a place you’d recommend that would be willing to do so?” Stella questioned Peter, somewhat embarrassed. Even low level inscription patterns were highly regarded by most enchanters.

“If you would come this way to our meeting room, I will immediately go and ask to see if one of our enchanters would be willing to make this trade with you.” Peter replied kindly. “It will end up costing more than just buying an item that has already been enchanted with the same effects, though.”

“That’s fine. If you can find an enchanter that’s willing to trade with us, we will do our best to meet the price that person sets. If we truly can’t afford it, then we would be more than happy to buy a similar item that this store has enchanted.” Lunam replied with a smile. The two sisters had already agreed that they would just buy one if it truly wasn’t possible to obtain the blueprint.

“Very well, then.” Peter agreed, before leaving the room that he’d guided the women to.

Lunam and Stella sunk into the comfy leather sofa in the waiting room. It was the sort of sofa that was too soft to allow one to easily stand back up again once they sat upon it.

“As expected of The Draconic Armoury, even their furnishings are top quality.” Stella commented with a mock sigh of envy.

In truth, she was very happy with the way she was living her life at the moment. Despite the sisters’ dubious upbringing and the desire for vengeance that they carried deep within their hearts, their master had not only taught them cultivation, but had also instilled in them the importance of not letting their dark pasts consume them. As a result of her teachings, the two girls had decided to become adventurers and had gradually met everyone who was now a member of their Star and Moon adventuring party.

“If those two are really as you say, I wonder just how strong they actually are.” Stella commented quietly.

Peter was likely to take a while, so she brought up the subject that was most on her mind at that moment.

“Hmm … they’re either using a rare Mysterious Technique to lower their realms, or they’ve reached a high enough realm that they can freely control their auras.” Lunam mused, immediately knowing that her sister was talking about Nihil and Ignis.

“I wonder why they would go so far to hide.” Stella muttered. “Surely displaying their strength could only bring them benefits. If the Royal Guard knew their true realms, wouldn’t they be more likely to back off? After all, strength is the only absolute law that people unremittingly obey.”

“True. But since that’s the case and they’re still hiding their abilities, then there must be more antipathy between them and the Royal Guard than either party is willing to admit to uninvolved parties.” Lunam pointed out calmly. “I get the feeling that those two have a more complicated past than even us.”

“Well, it’s at least certain that they are deeply entangled with this country’s royalty if the Guard are getting involved. We might just happen to have a common enemy.” Stella hadn’t realised that her feelings towards Nihil were slowly becoming more positive now that there was some distance between the two of them. However, it still remained to be seen if her opinion would remain favourable when the two groups met up once again.

“If that’s the case, then we probably shouldn’t mention their names within the capital. Talking about them just now was risky too, but we’re at least in a private room in a neutral store so the risk isn’t as bad as it would be in a busier place.” Lunam realised this too late, but she hurriedly ended the conversation before any damage they may have caused could get worse.

“Ah!” Stella exclaimed in surprise. “It’s a good thing I didn’t mention their names just now, then. I hadn’t even thought of that. Hera just warned me about being too loose lipped in Imber as well.”

“It should be fine since we haven’t said all that much about them and it’s just the two of us in this room, but we should be careful from now on.” Lunam once again reassured her sister.

A few minutes later Peter came back into the meeting room along with an ageing, grey haired old man. He looked to be around 70, but considering his status as an enchanter, he could have been anywhere up to 1500 depending on his talent.

“You’d like a passive poison resistance blueprint?” The old man directly questioned. His arrogant tone was normal for an enchanter – especially the top class ones – since enchanted weapons and armour were indispensable for adventurers. They could also enchant tools, making the daily lives of the regular citizenry much easier.

“Only if you’re willing to sell it to us.” Lunam responded, her tone respectful but still calm. “If we’re being too presumptuous with our request, we can only apologise and buy a ready made charm with similar effects.”

“Hmm … it may just be a low level enchantment, not requiring too much energy to carve, but it does require a steady hand and an accurate placement of all the lines. Are you sure you guys still want such a blueprint?” The man inquired, seemingly testing them. “Besides I can tell that you’re both cultivators, do you have a suitable mage to perform the enchantment?”

His displeasure was clearly obvious as he asked the second question. Lunam and Stella paled slightly, realising that the man was offended that the enchanter apparently didn’t personally come to make this request. However, the two were still reluctant to reveal that Stella could actually enchant despite her status as a cultivator.

“Ah, yes our friend is a mage and they said they’d be willing to carve the enchantment for us. It’s a present for our master so we really wanted to personally create it together. Unfortunately our friend suddenly got called back to their family because their mother suddenly took a turn for the worse and could be passing away soon.” Lunam explained. The sisters even convincingly managed to squeeze out a few tears, seemingly distraught over their non-existent friend’s plight.

“N-not to worry. I’m sure we can quickly come to an agreement so that you guys can hurry to your friend’s side.” The man didn’t seem to be able to handle seeing the two girls suddenly weeping in front of him.

Sniffling, the sisters tried their best to suppress their tears. The enchanter grabbed a box of tissues from the table behind him and offered them to the girls. Dabbing at their eyes with a tissue each, they ‘finally managed’ to control their emotions and looked up at the old man with bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you for your concern. We grew up with Marie, and her mother practically raised us. If possible we would have immediately rushed back with her, but she insisted that we stay behind and get the blueprint.” Stella sniffled out, even casually naming their imaginary friend. “It’s looking like Marie’s mother was poisoned, so she’s probably especially scared of people close to her being poisoned.”

Stella was worried that she was giving too much background to ‘Marie’, making their deception more obvious. However neither Peter nor the enchanter seemed to find anything amiss with their story – even asking further questions due to their genuine concern.

“Poisoned? Who would do such a malicious thing?” Peter exclaimed in horror.

“She had just brought up divorce with her husband – on the grounds of cheating – when she suddenly fell ill and collapsed. Marie refuses to admit it, but we believe that her father thought that being a widower was preferable to having been divorced.” Stella’s voice was barely even a whisper by the time she reached the last sentence, as if she was upset to even think of the possibility.

At these words, both sisters started tearing up again and hurriedly grabbed another tissue each. Exchanging awkward glances, Peter and the enchanter hurriedly decided to stop this line of questioning and changed the subject back to the blueprint.

After a while of discussion, it was settled that the girls would exchange a dwarven made spear for the blueprint. However, Stella and Lunam knew that the price was only so low due to their deception. As a result, they directly added several swords, shields, and another spear to their price. All of these were made by the dwarves in Agartha. The two sisters had been gifted them by a friend of their master’s, while they were adventuring in the underground metropolis that spanned the entire country.

Dwarfish craftsmanship was the best in all of Axis, and the materials were able to support several high-level enchantments. This made it very desirable for all adventurers, and this many items could pull in a massive amount of profit for the store.

A smaller store wouldn’t have been able to guarantee the protection of such items before they’d be able to get sold, but The Draconic Armoury was internationally recognised as the best, and had more than sufficient security to do so. As such, they were absolutely not loosing out in this deal – even ending up on the better end.

Handing over a storage ring, Lunam and Stella quickly wrapped up the deal. Fergus (the enchanter) promptly emptied the ring’s contents onto the table, both to look over the items’ quality, and to return the storage ring to the girls. Though the space inside the ring was only a few cubic metres in volume, the cost of such an artefact was still exorbitantly high due to it’s rarity and difficulty to produce.

Once he was certain that all the weapons were in good shape, Fergus swept them into his own storage ring, and immediately handed over the inscription pattern design. He also included a detailed hand-written explanation of all the key points to pay attention to while inscribing the array.

It was immediately evident to the two sisters that these were Fergus’ own notes that he’d made when he was teaching his student to inscribe this pattern. These made the instructions clear and easy to understand.

Expressing their gratitude, they returned to their room in the inn. Stella and Lunam quickly poured over the notes and the blueprint, and carefully memorised every line that was recorded down. Looking over the inscription pattern, Stella rapidly became daunted by the complexity of the design.

The overall shape was a simple skull and crossbones with a line through it, enclosed in the usual curved border. However, that was where the simplicity stopped. When one took a closer look at the picture, the lines were made up of ancient runes that formed the spell that was the base for the enchantment.

“This looks like it’ll take some time for me to study before I can even start trying to engrave it on an actual core. If I want to thoroughly understand the design, it could take me several years.” Stella commented sadly. Then she continued in a determined voice. “But if I just want to learn the pattern, and the shape and placement of each rune, then it should only take me a few days to start practicing on the actual materials. I should be just about done in roughly a week.”

“Ok, I’ll let Hera know our schedule, and ask her to get in touch with our master.” Lunam nodded her head. She had been underestimating the difficulty of enchanting, but now she had a new appreciation for the profession. “I’ll leave now so I don’t distract you from your studies.”

Hearing her sister’s comments, Stella just grunted – she was already deeply absorbed into studying the principles behind the pattern.

* * *

Meanwhile, Nihil and the others were making their way through a grassland where each blade of grass was more than 1.5 metres tall. Linley, the smallest member of their group, was only a head taller. In his green camouflage outfit, he quickly merged into the plants whenever he bent over. Even his onyx wings and tail seemed to blend into the shadows. His cultivation technique mainly focused on stealth, so it was almost an unconscious effort for him to disappear into the background by now. As a result it was normally quite difficult to notice him, let alone when he was seemingly being swallowed up by the surrounding foliage.

Noticing this, Nihil approached the man and muttered something to him inconspicuously. Thereupon, Linley gradually decreased his presence even further before seeming to vanish from the spot altogether.

Noticing the two’s shifty actions, the rest of the group gave them both questioning looks. However, they quickly realised that something was up when they saw Nihil’s concerned expression. Upon comprehending this, they stopped the questions that were forming on their lips and immediately acted as if nothing had happened.

After travelling with Nihil for this long, they had started getting better at reading the boy’s moods. That being said, this was the first time they had seen him worried. He was usually serious, but no matter the situation he always seemed to give the impression that nothing would ever phase him.

Just then a muffled grunt of pain echoed out from behind them. Turning around to look, the group were surprised to see a huddled figure about a kilometre away. She was bending over in pain – apparently Linley had socked the stalker in the stomach while incapacitating her. Another blow to the neck knocked her out and stopped her struggling.

“She should be out for a few hours now.” Linley calmly informed the rest of the group.

“What’s going on?” Merry demanded at this time.

“She’s been following us for quite a while now. I thought it was a coincidence at first so I didn’t mention it. However, a few minutes ago I felt her killing intent directed toward us, so I decided to talk to Nihil about it.” Ignis explained casually.

“Just what kind of crazy senses do you have? Not even us mysterious beasts noticed anything out of the ordinary.” Klaus replied, shocked. It was well known that mysterious beasts had the strongest senses, closely followed by demons – well, except for dragons that is.

At that moment the same thought flitted across everyone’s mind, but was then quickly dismissed by most of them. They had never heard of a dragon that could take human form – they weren’t the same as mysterious beasts, as a dragon’s power was far too much for a human form to contain. Only one person in the group had heard about a special clan of dragons that were rumoured to be able to shape-shift into any form they wished. However, as a cost of this none of their numbers could use magic. This was especially hard on them because they had to eat highly concentrated fire energy (similar to that of the power of magma). Due to this, they rarely left Tartarus and it’s abundance of volcanoes covering the entire country’s surface.

A flash of surprise flitted through Lucas’s eyes as he thought of this possibility. However, he ultimately decided not to voice his suspicions to the group as he felt that it wasn’t his place to say anything. Besides, he wasn’t certain that Ignis was one of these ‘Fire-Eaters’. Some people were born with uniquely strong characteristics and talents, after all.

As if he knew what Lucas was thinking, Ignis revealed a conflicted expression and shared a look with Nihil. The two seemed to have a silent conversation before smiling and shrugging their shoulders, deciding to leave things as they were.

At this point Linley had finished dragging the stalker over, and tying her up so that she couldn’t cause any more problems.

“Let’s wait here until she wakes up. Then we can question her – we’re still not sure why she was following us.” Linley suggested.

“Nor if she was targeting some of us specifically.” Ignis muttered under his breath remorsefully.

At his words everyone subconsciously looked towards the two boys in concern.

“Well there’s no point in speculating at this point.” Claude spoke up to calm the group down again.

Everyone agreed with Claude and Linley’s logic, so they all settled down and each went about doing their own things to pass the time. Nihil pulled out a book written in an ancient language and started to read it, drawing several shocked and impressed glances – not that he noticed any of these.

Meanwhile, the others split into groups to train, or just to chat. Ignis however, just quietly accompanied Nihil as he read. Nihil could immediately tell that his friend was trying to distance himself from the group again, since it was likely that the woman had been tailing the two fugitives on behalf of either the Royal Guard, or for that place.

Sighing, Nihil simply let his friend act as he wished. After all, they were still separate groups that were just travelling together – it wouldn’t do to get too close to them.

Nihil himself wasn’t sure why exactly he felt that way, but some part of his subconscious deeply rejected letting anyone get too close to him. Ignis was the only one who’d somehow managed to slip past that barrier through sheer persistence.

It was dusk before any changes occurred to the stalker’s condition.

---

* A/N: 10 days = 1 week, 5 weeks = 1 month, 10 months = 1 year

While Stella had been talking to Hera privately, Lunam had spoken to Clark, Paul and Carl about the use of the magical beast cores they’d collected. As expected, none of the three had a problem even if all of them ended up becoming scrap. They also agreed that the rest of the Star and Moon adventurers would share the same opinion on the matter.

“I may know the basics of enchanting, but it’s not like I’ve ever studied it before.” Stella cut into her sister’s thoughts. They were sitting around a small table in their room.

“You have a valid point.” Lunam responded with a vague frown as she tried to think of a solution. “For now at least, I think we should test to see if it’s actually possible for you to complete a functional inscription pattern. This will only require basic knowledge, and then we can try to find a more experienced enchanter to teach you the specific pattern we want.”

“That’s true.” Stella replied. She’d been so concentrated on the outcome, that she’d forgotten to worry about the process to get there.

Tentatively choosing a lower quality core, Stella cleared her mind of all the distracting thoughts drifting through. For lack of a more specialised tool, she grabbed her operating stylus in order to engrave the basic Energy Focussing Array. This stylus was made of orichalcum which could help draw out the internal energy of cultivators. Stella would often use it when performing highly detailed operations.

Orichalcum was vital for a cultivator to emit their internal energy, normally Stella would use special gloves with a thin plate of the metal covering her palms. This helped her to draw out a large amount of her internal energy, allowing her to manipulate it to heal her patient.

Stella tested to see if this stylus would mark the core, and when a line appeared her face lit up in celebration. Quickly composing herself, she continued with the carving. The next stage was to see if the healing technique, to stir the energy inside the core, was enough to allow the completed diagram to activate and cause a noticeable change in the world’s energy.

After an hour of difficult engraving, a complicated pattern slowly emerged on the palm-sized core. As with all patterns, the centre of the the inscription was framed with a curled border. The main part of this particular patten consisted of hundreds of strokes to make up the form of a swirling vortex.

This pattern was the most basic starter inscription as it didn’t matter too much about the placement of each individual stroke. Only the number of strokes and the overall shape mattered in this design. With more advanced patterns, if even a single line was less than a millimetre off then the entire enchantment would fail to activate.

The Energy Focussing Array that Stella was drawing, would gather external energy to increase the density in the surroundings and was greatly beneficial to developing a mage’s power. This change would also help to focus a cultivator’s mind, helping them to bolster their internal energy at a slightly faster rate. However, it was definitely more beneficial to a mage.

Upon completion, Stella breathed out a sigh of relief. Taking a few minutes to stretch out her stiff muscles, she finally looked up at her sister. A nervous smile flitted across Stella’s lips, as she tried not to think about the possibility of the enchantment failing.

“I don’t think I can bring myself to try it out.” Stella spoke to her sister weakly. She was knackered after expending so much mental energy, and would have to spend some time recovering before being able to activate the array, let alone carving another inscription.

Without saying anything, Lunam just nodded at her sister’s words and picked up the gem. Inserting her mental energy into the core, she sensed the presence of an enchantment array and sought to activate it.

With the influx of mental energy, the inscription started gathering the world’s energy around them. Soon, the amount increased enough for the still air in their room to start swirling into a helix around the two sisters.

Cutting off the link to the pattern, the wind soon died down and the two girls were left staring at each other in excitement.

“It worked!” Stella shouted happily, grabbing her sister’s hands.

The two quickly packed away the tools and started discussing what sort of enchantment they wanted to inscribe for their teacher.

“I was thinking of some sort of defensive enchantment.” Lunam mused. “She has a bad habit of forgetting to worry about her safety. But I think that any defence formation we could engrave wouldn’t have much of an effect for someone of her level …”

“That’s true …” Stella agreed with her sister. “It would also have to be a passive enchantment, so we’d have to store a lot of energy inside the formation. Only a high level core would be able to withstand that kind of energy.”

“So which formations are easier to convert to a passive status?”

“Well, most low level defences normally start out as passive. The stronger shield-type defences that have to block magic or physical attacks, have to be active, though.” Stella seemed to have a higher base knowledge of formations than her older sister.

An active enchantment was an inscription that required a constant influx of mental energy in order to sustain the effects of the formation. However, once a passive enchantment was completed, it’s effects would constantly be present until the energy stored inside was used up. The quality of the base material was the predominant factor that affected how much energy an enchantment could store.

“How about a poison resistance enchantment?” Stella suggested. “That way, even a low-quality formation could potentially save her life.”

“That’s perfect!” Lunam’s eyes lit up at her younger sister’s idea. “Now we need to find an enchanter who would be willing to teach us just such a formation.”

“Yeah that’s not gonna be easy, though. Formation blueprints are an enchanter’s life.” Stella replied dejectedly.

“We won’t know until we try.” Lunam pointed out optimistically.

Stella reluctantly followed her sister out onto the capital’s busy streets. The two headed towards the centre of the city to find one of the larger enchanted equipment stores. Since they had access to more (and better quality) formation blueprints, they were generally less protective over the lower grade formations. As long as one had enough money, or an object that could tempt an enchanter enough, a copy of the original blueprint could usually be bought.

The reason Stella was pessimistic about their chances, was because neither she nor her sister had much money on them. Due to the Sun and Moon adventurers being such a large party, most of the money they earned would go towards daily expenses such as food and lodging.

“Stella,” Lunam started as they were making their way through the busy streets. “What do you think it is about Nihil that makes everyone instinctually abrasive towards him?”

She knew that Nihil was a touchy subject for Stella, but Lunam was genuinely curious as to what her sister’s opinion on this would be.

“Ugh …” Stella wasn’t expecting her sister to bring that guy up all of a sudden. “I’m not sure why I even react so strongly against him. If I calmly think about our exchanges, it’s clearly always me provoking him while he remains the same as ever. If there’s anyone who rises to my provocations, it always seems to be Ignis, and yet I’m perfectly normal around him.”

Not even Stella could explain her own behaviour. Whenever she was around Nihil, it was almost like a red haze covered her vision and made her act obnoxiously.

“Well, it’s usually pretty amusing at least.” Lunam commented, suppressing a small laugh.

“Why did you suddenly bring him up now, though?” Stella asked her sister in confusion.

“There’s something about him that has been bothering me ever since we first met in the inn.” Lunam started explaining. “Even just a brief glance at him across a crowded room was enough to rub me the wrong way. I thought I’d ask you while you’re calm because he isn’t nearby.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Stella replied grudgingly. “But why would you invite him to join our party if he bugged you?”

“Hmm … I’m not really sure …” Lunam mused. “I guess that despite him pissing me off, I also got the feeling that there was more to him than it seems on the surface?”

“Really? I don’t think he’s as complicated as all that.” Stella commented.

“Well, I will admit that he certainly doesn’t help himself. Even if he has a face that pisses people off, he could be friendlier to help people get past that.” Lunam shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “He gives me the impression that he’s actively trying to keep people at a distance.”

“You have a point … I’ve also got that feeling from him before.” Stella agreed. “There have been a few exchanges where I’ve felt that his response was originally going to be different, but in he end he decided to go for the more abrasive option. That’s part of what pisses me of so much about him.”

“I wonder how he and Ignis became such good friends.” Lunam muttered. “They seem to be polar opposites, and yet they’re a perfect team.”

“They grew up together, so I guess they naturally ended up growing close.” Stella wasn’t too interested in such a story.

“Really? Somehow I have a hard time believing that.” Lunam questioned. “They look to be similar ages, but there’s something about Ignis’ implicit trust in Nihil that makes me think he’s much younger. Also, I’ve often caught Nihil looking at Ignis with a sort of ‘fatherly’ pride when he thinks no one is watching.”

“Huh? That’s creepy.” Stella said thoughtlessly. “How old would that make him? There’s no way that’s possible. I’ve heard of people looking younger than their actual age, but that kind of gap is just creepy.”

“If a person trains to a high enough level, they can look whatever age they feel like looking.” Lunam pointed out.

“But those two clearly have low cultivations. Their auras were only at the 6th repetition, and they’re already past the age where they could have reached the ‘Expert’ level. They’re clearly just ordinary people who pissed off the wrong guys.”

“And yet they’ve managed to keep up with our pace without slowing the group down at all.” Lunam commented pointedly.

Stumped for words, Stella realised that her sister had brought up a very good point. She hadn’t really thought about it since she could move that speed with ease, but it was certainly true that normal people would require a horse for long distance travel in order to keep up with the group.

“It’s not surprising that they’ve kept secrets from us – we’ve only just met, after all.” Lunam spoke up, seeing her stumped sister. “It’s not like we’ve told them about our own circumstances.”

“That’s true …” Stella agreed.

If she had been around Nihil when Lunam had pointed this out, Stella would have overreacted and kicked up a massive fuss, demanding to know the truth. From this, it was evident that Nihil’s aura affected her behaviour more than she cared to admit.

“Maybe he’s not entirely useless …” Stella muttered.

Unknowingly, Stella’s feelings towards the unsociable guy had improved somewhat. It remained to be seen if this improvement would actually help the two get along better, or not.

Hearing her sister’s comment, Lunam smiled in amusement. Stella was never straightforward about her feelings, and Lunam always found it interesting to watch.

“Hey, you’re thinking something rude about me, aren’t you?” Stella demanded when she saw her sister’s teasing smile.

At Stella’s remark, Lunam just let out an even bigger smile in response.

“Let’s have a late lunch before heading to find an enchanter.” Stella eventually changed to subject in mild annoyance.

* * *

At this point, Nihil was finally starting to get along with the adventurers.

“As usual, your cooking is top notch.” Linley sighed, even his onyx tail was gently swaying indicating his satisfaction.

At Linley’s words, several enthusiastic grunts of assent echoed throughout the group while they continued stuffing their faces with the the stew and bread that Nihil had prepared.

“Speaking of the food, how come this bread seems so fresh?” Lucas asked curiously. “It’s even still warm, like it’s straight from the oven.”

Glancing at Ignis, Nihil decided to reveal at least this much.

“The truth is that I have a void-space ring.” Nihil replied, twisting the emerald ring on his finger.

Naturally everyone’s eyes were drawn to the movement and they noticed the ring for the first time.

“When you say ‘void-space ring’ you are talking about what I think you are, right?” Merry spoke up in shock.

“The storage ring that can stop even time …” Alexis muttered. “That’s a super high level enchantment, how did you manage to get ahold of one? Not even all the money in the world would be enough to buy it.”

“One of the clients of our merchant caravan was in desperate need of some medicine that only we had. They didn’t have any money, and they thought that this was just a normal ring, so they used it as payment.” Nihil calmly responded.

Of course this wasn’t the truth, Ignis and Nihil had snatched one from the Royal Guard during one of their heists. It was the only one that the entire Kingdom owned, so that was the reason that all the lower ranked Royal Guardsmen were told for why the two boys were being pursued.

Ignis also owned a void-space ring, but the reason behind that was a bit mysterious as he’d had it since birth. Naturally the researchers had taken it from him, but since they hadn’t managed to recognise what it truly was, they hadn’t placed too much importance on it. Thinking that it was just a family heirloom, they hadn’t investigated it too deeply and just kept it away from Ignis. As a result, the two friends had managed to steal it back as they’d been escaping from that place.

“How could someone even make that mistake?” Claude exclaimed, dumbfounded.

“Void-space rings have a slight trick to activate them.” Ignis jumped in to reply. “An untrained eye can easily make the same mistake, but it’s also very easy to check if you do happen to know how.”

“There’s a trick to it? Are they not controlled by mental energy just like other storage rings?” Lucas asked. Since no one present had ever had the chance to use a void-space ring, they were all confused.

“Kinda … you need to circulate your mental energy through it in a particular pattern. It’s also possible to seal the ring to your particular mental signature.” Ignis explained. “When sealed, the only way to overwrite it is with the owner’s death.”

Since the Royal Guard had needed to pass the void-space storage ring around (with many different people needing to use it) they had never sealed it to a particular signature. As such, it was a simple matter for Nihil to use and imprint his own signature upon it.

After a while, the group packed up their lunch and continued on their way, quickly leaving the small woodland. It wasn’t long before they got attacked again, but the enemies this time weren’t anything they couldn’t handle easily.

Ignis suddenly sensed something and glanced behind him with a small frown of concern flitting across his features. Leaning towards Nihil, the red-haired boy whispered something into his friend’s ear, and a similarly concerned look flashed through his golden eyes. Quickly composing himself, Nihil told Ignis not to worry, and the two reintegrated themselves into the group.

Claude was the only one to notice this exchange between the two boys, but he decided to leave it be. He figured that if it was anything they needed to know, then Nihil would tell them sooner or later. He was already feeling guilty for pushing the boys to tell him some of Nihil’s secrets.

Naturally Claude was aware that he wasn’t told everything, however he was perfectly fine with the outcome. He could also tell that Nihil had only revealed his true form in order to distract Claude from questioning Ignis about his secrets as well. After all, while Nihil’s tail was questionable, he could have played that off as being a fox type Mysterious Beast. However, it was unknown which species could happily eat fire – especially a flame that dense and powerful.

Truthfully Claude was extremely curious, but he didn’t want to risk their tentative friendship over something which didn’t really involve him. Moreover, he had faith that if it ever did concern him, then either Nihil or Ignis would promptly tell him.

“Hurry up Claude, you’re starting to lag behind!” Archer shouted, turning back to check on his friend. At this point, Claude was already over half a kilometre away. Shocked out of his thoughts, he hurried to catch up to the group.

No one noticed the shadowy figure swiftly approaching, hidden by the tall grass underfoot.