12 To The City - 0

As Ali and Naire reached the hut , they saw Nodus standing in front of the door , staring at the sky as if he was waiting for something. She should be here soon.. As he was preoccupy in thoughts , Ali ran up to him and stood beside him , turning around and staring at the same direction as Nodus. As Naire also approached the hut , looking at Nodus , he was reminded about the fact the young man left at night and came back with a magical beast , impressed , he tried to pat Nodus shoulder and give him a praise. As he stood beside the young man , he found out that his hand was blocked by a invisible force and with veins in his forehead , his hand was shaking as he put more strength into his arm.

Puu , releasing a slight sound from his mouth , Nodus revealed a unimpressed expression. "Ah! How is your magic so strong? It's not fair!" Hearing the loud complaints by her husband , Lati and Luru walked toward the entrance of the hut. "What's wrong dear?" As soon he heard his wife , he ran to her and held her hips as he cried on the floor."Wife! It's not fair! The beautiful boy is not cute at all!!!" While voicing many complaints , Lati let out a soft sight and her first landed on the husband's head. Ali and Luru laughed at his dramatic play while Nodus suddenly walked forward as he called the little leopard's name. Shishi happily ran out past the dramatic scene and jumped onto Nodus shoulder while staring at the same direction as him.

Looking at the black dot in the sky , Nodus revealed a rare content smile while Shishi was happily cheering on two legs and Ali who was standing behind Nodus also saw the black dot as she slowly moved toward the back on the young man."What is that Nodus?" Ali tugged his shirt as she curiously stared at the sky , with her words , the family in the hut were also curious as they left the hut and stood in front of the door while staring at the dim lit up sky.

As Sasha notice the signal on the visor , she dove down toward the ground and quickly approached the wooden hut. "How..How is that possible.." Seeing that is the same white leopard approaching , Naire and Lati were bewildered as the last times they saw the magic beast , she was only a rank 4 , how was it possible it could fly?! Only a supreme magic beast could fly without wings. White the couple had the same thought , they looked curiously at Nodus as he was the only one who seemed to know about the situation. "She is Sasha , the mother of Shishi." Said Nodus with his usual short explanation , noticing that the couple were not alerted , he felt he didn't need to say anything more. As Sasha was close to the ground , she quickly pounced side to size like a Z and slowed down her fall as she landed on the snowy ground.

"You learn fast." Said Nodus as he walked forward and pat the big white leopard. Shishi ran to her mom and gave her a licking greeting while Nodus untied the rope and threw the bag onto the ground. Hearing the heavy sound it made , Nodus could guess she brought in alot of orbs. "Nodus?" The blue haired woman came behind him as he landed on the ground , Nodus turned around and saw her curious face. "What's wrong? Sasha is with us."

Not knowing what she wanted to know , Nodus tried to reassure her but Lati quickly shook her head and thought the young man didn't know about the situation at all , so , she decided to ask the beast directly instead. "I know you were trying to protect your family , but I also have a daughter... I am Lati , pleased to meet you Sasha." The blue haired woman held her hand upside down and a white steamed bun appeared on her palm. "Would you like to try it?" Sasha nodded and licked the food off her palm as she said " Thank you for looking after my son." While the two mother got to know each other , Ali and Luru surrounded the big white leopard as they admire her in details. "Yo! It was a good match back there and how can you fly in the sky? Is it because of those black things?" Said the husband as he approached Sasha with a smile with a wave of his hand. The wife angrily glanced at him and turned around toward the leopard with a troubled expression. " I am sorry...This is my husband .. He is a little bit silly and you don't have to answer him as he was just curious how you were running in the sky."

Looking at Nodus , Lati understood from the white leopard that it was all his doing and she should ask him instead. With a nod , Nodus opened the bag and saw 16 energy minerals. "Correct , I made the armor pieces for her and added a little bit of...magic into it." Not wanting to bother explaining his universe technology , he extended his arm and the watch released multiple into the minerals. Quietly waiting for the young man to finish , Lati and Naire examined the armor closely. They found out that the materials were unknown and mistaken the pink lights for magic inscriptions. "Wow.. so mysterious.." Said Naire as he held his chin and hearing the sound of something chewing on rocks , he turned around and noticed the mineral transforming into sand. "W..W..what happened! Is your.. Artifact doing this? "

Nodus nodded at the curious middle aged man as Lati crouched down to pinch the sand. " It seems like.. your artifact needs to absorb these minerals?" Noticing how sharp this blue haired woman was , Nodus nodded without hiding the fact that he needs big amount of energy , the more the better. " I see..If we were in the kingdom I could of give you mountains of them.. but now we don't have any since there is no point carrying them in our storage ring because we are not black smiths and such.."

Nodus was at least happy hearing that these minerals could be bought from the big kingdoms as long you have plenty of money and the rare ones could be worth an entire city! " Mhmm It's fine , I can easily find some myself with my scanner. " Lati got up and she curiously asked him many question while relating them in term of words. "Scanning.. means you can detect for nearby energy minerals?" Noticing that she also calls them energy minerals he also concluded that there was regular minerals and ore aswell. " As long I have enough energy , I could scan this entire wor-.. continent." Not wasting any more words , he opened up his 3D map and showed to her , Naire who stood beside realized that it was the entire hologram of the mountain they were on.

"A..Amazing " With her mom being surprised , Luru quickly joined the conversation and Ali followed right behind her. Explaining the consumption rate and the ability to map things in details , the group of curious people seem to have forgotten about their trip. " Ahem..I can create those armor for humans too.. With sufficient energy of course , but humans aren't adapt to running for a really long term." Understanding his explanation , Lati nodded in agreement with Naire , what kind of human would be able to kick the air and not be tired in less than a minutes , probably only a supreme ranked being who came in contact with the nature comprehension could.. But they can already fly by themselves without effort so the armor would be useless for them , mostly for humans in general. With a sad expression , Naire could only dream about the supreme rank as it was the hardest hurdle in the cultivation history.

"But..but..Doesn't it mean Nodus is a inscriptionist and a blacksmith?!" Said Luru as she could not help to be sure. Nodus nodded and not wanting to say anything , they stop questioning the young man. "Alright , we need to give some space to Nodus and beside.. we need to leave for the road now." Lati wanted to make the most of it during the days to travel as it was almost not visible during the night here , she asked Naire if there was any horses they could buy or rent as he went around a lot more than her. "There isn't many but the problem would be the carriage..It will be hard for the horses to pull it though this snow so it doesn't make any sense for anyone to build one." The couple decided to walk ahead while discussing some plans about the trip while Nodus sat on Sasha who was slowly following behind them. "As promised , I shall add more energy into your suit and I will code a indicator onto your visor." While typing on the hologram keyboard , Sasha visor now had a energy gauge with a time estimation software. While he was programming on his watch , he also instructed her on how to activate some of the visor function. By telling her to focus on the words Scan and Show , Nodus matched the wavelength of her brain and made it so when the visor felt similar signal , it would toggle these two function.

With spare energy and a little practice , Sasha happily nodded as she sent a question through his mind . "Thank young master , will the visor not activate if I simply say it out loud in my head?" Nodus shook his head and said. "Only if you think hard and focus on the words and just call me Nodus." The white leopard kindly refused as she respected the young man a lot and with her constant disapproval he let her call him what ever she wanted. With his 2% left in his suit which was only in a form of shoes for now , he transferred 8% to it and 12% to Sasha and a whole 30% to White Jade that converted into pure 3% energy. With 16% left in case of emergency , Nodus was finally relieved from duties and noticed the two girls who walked beside as they held hands , stared at him with a envy expression.

"Come." Nodus held his hand toward the girl as he leaned a little bit to the side , noticing the young man intention , Sasha crouched on the ground to let the girls get on . "Ah so soft , thank you Sasha and Nodus." Said Ali as she laid on the broad back of the white leopard while Luru was petting Shishi on her laps. As the couple reached the edge of the forest , they looked at the children who was on top of Sasha and smiled . " Here we are trying to find a carriage..." Said Naire as he shook his head. Not wanting to frighten the villagers with Sasha , Lati told Ali to lead them around the village and to wait on the road while they buy some few stuff from the village.

Standing on the road was slightly lower than the snow covered ground with broken fences on each side that led toward a specific directions , the wooden fences were so old that most of them weren't even connected to each other. Hmm.. Hopefully the road is not like this everywhere...