32 Ahn Bayari

A week passed since Savyrran's last conversation with Master Bufan. Soon, Saturday was here again and Savyrran was particularly looking forward to it. This was mostly because this was the last time she would be going to Ahn Bayari to sell her toys. As she did every Saturday, she woke up early and did her usual chores. By the time it was 8:00am, she was already at the train station. Forty minutes later, the train reached Ahn Bayari Market.

The first time Savyrran came here with her father, she had been awestruck by the sheer size of the market in this city. In her eyes, at that time, she felt the market was even far lager than her town. Everyday was a hectic day at this huge market. It was always so busy that in a day, it was flooded with millions of people. Even after coming here for the past eight years, Savyrran could still not get over how large the place was in terms of size and population.With a total population of thirty-five million people in the city, Ahn Bayari did not only function as the district capital of Cape District. It was also the provincial capital of Southern Cape Province. In the entire province, Coast Town was the smallest town, thus, for someone like Savyrran, this place filled in her a sense of awe and wonder.

Ahn Bayari was several kilometers far from the sea, thus, unlike Coast Town, this city was a lot hotter during the day. Savyrran could feel herself drenching in sweat as she waded through crowds of people. The people were either buying, selling, or just walking about. There was a blend of various noises all around.

After darting across various alleys, all displaying different kinds of wares in stalls, she finally reached a larger stall. An old woman with short gray hair and a cheerful face was sitting in this stall. She was selling jewellery of all types and sizes and the goods shone with brilliance when it was exposed to the sun's rays. There were also a lot of valuable artefact that may look like jewellery, but had more important uses than mere decoration. As soon as the old woman saw Savyrran approaching, her smile grew even wider. When Savyrran reached the woman's stall, she greeted her and the old woman greeted back.

"I had been expecting you." The old woman said. Savyrran simply called her Naama, since that was the honorific title given to older women in their Gaonan culture.

Savyrran gently rubbed the small brown ring on her finger then suddenly, a fairly large chest appeared in her hands. The ring was as brown as her hands and thus, almost invisible unless one looked closely. "I'm here now, Naama." She opened the chest and then began to pick up her beautiful toy collections one after the other. Then she carefully arranged them on an empty table next to Naama's table.

"These new toys are amazing. The children would really love it." Naama said gleefully. The first time she learned that Savyrran made her own toys, she had been amazed by that. That day was actually an evening six years ago, and Savyrran was only nine years old then. At that time, Naama was going back home after a hard day's work at the market.

Even though Ahn Bayari Market had a lot of people during the day, by the time it started growing dark, the number of people drastically reduced. Thus, alleys that would be bustling with activity during the day would become empty and desolate at night. It was while Naama was passing through one of these alleys that a group of masked hoodlums decided to attack and steal her goods.

Like most people in Dream Kingdom, Naama stored her valuables, including her goods, in her space ring. The space ring looked like an ordinary ring one wore, however, it was imbued with soul energy. When one put their consciousness within the ring, they would find within it a space they could store non-living things within. The size of the space within the ring would depend on the grade of the ring and they could range from a small room to a very large city. There were some space rings purported to have even larger spaces.

It was within Naama's ring that she had stored not only her market goods, but also her entire life's savings. These rascals who were about to steal from her knew what kind of valuable things she sold and had thus decided to rob her. The old woman, who knew she was no match for all these young thieves, was helpless.

She was by no means rich, but this job ensured she was not poor either due to the high demand of her goods. If she lost them to these hoodlums, won't she be left with nothing? With her weak red essence, trying to fight back would simply have her killed. She was about to give in to the demands of the thieves when a young voice tore through the dark quiet alley asking the thieves to leave the woman alone.

Once the thieves saw that the voice belonged to a child, holding a long black sword, they started laughing hysterically. What could a child possibly do in this situation? There were six of them, and two of them were orange users while the rest were red users. There was only one of the child. Even if she had a stronger essence, what could she do without her soul armos? From how young the child looked, it was obvious she was not old enough to have a soul armos.

But when the girl saw that they were prepared to fight her, she did not hesitate to charge at them with great speed, Badisk, in hand.

At first, Naama had been worried that the child would be killed by the thieves. But her worries soon dissipated when she saw how easily she defeated all of them, even without releasing her essence. Seeing how monstrously strong the child was, the thieves fled, shivering with fear.

That was how Naama first met Savyrran. Savyrran, not wanting the old woman to get attacked again, offered to walk her until they reached a safer area. In the beginning, Naama was impressed by the girl's strength. But once she realized how polite and kind Savyrran was, Naama instantly became fond of her.

As they walked together, Naama wanted to know what a child was doing by herself. It was not uncommon to see orphaned children roaming the streets of Ahn Bayari. But Savyrran's clothes were clean, and even though they did not look expensive, they were of good quality. Thus, the child did not strike her as a street child. Savyrran explained to Naama that she was actually from Coast Town and often came to Ahn Bayari every Saturday to sell toys.

Even six years later, Naama had not forgotten Savyrran's act of kindness. It was for this reason that she had asked Savyrran to come sell her toys in her stall. She explained that children usually took the route in front of her stall whenever they returned from a school nearby. As gratitude, she had also gifted Savyrran one of the space rings she was selling.

Savyrran looked up at the old woman with a grin. "Of course they are. I stayed up all night to make them. It's a shame I would not be making anymore."

Naama cocked her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"My brother and I are leaving in a few days to the royal capital. We are going to apply to Royal Dream."

Naama's eyes beamed with pride. She was not even surprised that Savyrran was going to one of the greatest academies in the kingdom. From the first day she saw how fiercely she fought back against those cowards who tried to steal from an old woman, she knew Savyrran had big things to achieve.

"That is great news. I hear the trials one has to go through before being accepted can be very dangerous. But I believe in you."

Savyrran smiled at Naama, nodding slowly.

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