By the time Han Jin could walk again with the help of Steelberg, ten days had already passed. As the old saying goes: once injured in the bones, a hundred days are needed to recover. Thus, it was already a miracle that Han Jin could stand up again in such a short period of time since he was so severely injured.
In the past ten days, a lot had changed. Among these changes, the most important and influential one was that the relationship between them had gone through a fundamental shift.
If it was not for these ten days and if Han Jin had not been hurt, it was likely that they would have left the woods for Beitman as soon as Miss Keeley recovered from her grief. And if they got to their destination, they would have gone their separate ways without doubt. Cessacioun might not have a clear plan, but Sunier would definitely leave them. She had her own mission, which was to find an answer for herself and for the whole race of Elves. The answer was beyond the intelligence of Han Jin or Moxinke. Miss Keeley would also go her own way to deal with her own ordeals. They might meet again one day, but no one knows when that day would come , or if they would they still be friends then.
During these days Sunier would often debate with Cessacioun heatedly about the future of the world. Later on, Miss Keeley also joined their debate. Everyone now knew that Sunier was an elf from the Wild Willow City. She grew up with influence in the elvish civilizations. Cessacioun was a bartlet who was used to traveling among cities and towns. He understood deeply the sufferings of the lower class such as ordinary civilians and slaves while Miss Keeley was the spokesperson of the higher class of humans. In other words, they had different status and held different outlooks on life and the world. They often argued fiercely and none could convince the other. Sometimes two of them would gang up on the third, and when one topic ended, the league would disband immediately and a new union would be formed. It was such a changeable situation that it was as though they were three countries confronting each other.
Their friendship had also deepened along with those debates. In Han Jin's opinion, what they argued was useless and actually very childish. The three of them could not even change the destiny of a small town, let alone the whole world and the future of all creatures. But he had to admit that it was the young ones that enjoyed discussing the situation of the world with encouraging words. The saying 'newborn calves are afraid of no tigers' best described it. If the young ones had lost their vigor and invincible spirits, the world would end up as a tragedy.
Moxinke didn't take part in such debates, he was the most boring guy. Just as Han Jin said, he had some petty tricks, but as for any lofty ideals or thoughts such as making the world a better place, he was not interested. In Moxinke's mind, he just wanted to be a sword saint that could defeat everyone in this world. If god gave him a chance to make a wish, he would choose to do so without hesitation.
Seeing that Cessacioun, Sunier and Miss Keeley were sitting by a stone in silence, Han Jin felt that it was strange. He patted Moxinke and asked, "What's wrong with them? At this point, shouldn't they be arguing like usual?"
"Shhh..." Moxinke put up his index finger to his lips and whispered, "They mentioned something about Miss Keeley just now and she's in tears ."
"What is it about?" Han Jin asked with his brows furrowed.
Moxinke restated what had happened briefly. According to Miss Keeley, it was an assessment for her to open a smith's shop in Radon Town. The period was to last for a year, during which she would receive no help from her family and there was a fixed initial capital. The test had aimed to choose a prime candidate as the head of the family. In fact, Miss Keeley should have received such a test two years later, but she knew that her family had preponed it and made her leave Holy Crown City to avoid certain entanglement.
Both Han Jin and Moxinke knew what had happened after Miss Keeley arrived to Radon Town. Then, she received a letter that night. It was from an old friend of her father, the high-grade fighter Hoffman. In the letter, her father told her to leave the town immediately and to go as far as possible and never return to Holy Crown City.
Miss Keely was not an experienced girl. Thus, she could only guess but could not make any accurate analysis of the situation . Cessacioun and Sunier made up for her shortcomings and made things clear. The Black Raven City and Depew City had formed an alliance to attack Dismark, and the reinforcements requested by the owner of Holy Crown City were rejected by the Wild Willow City. This left Dismark with no choice but to expand his armies immediately by himself!
The first issue of military expansion was fund raising. Miss Keeley's family was well-known as the richest in Holy Crown City and undoubtedly became Dismark's target. But due to some reason, the family didn't want to have any connection with Dismark through marriage, thus they made the arrangement to let Miss Keekey leave the city for some time.
But they didn't know that Dismark was already at wit's end and had no energy or time to deal with a businessman. He then found an extreme way. That's why Miss Keeley had received that letter.
Although these were all guesses, but they already had a great impact on Miss Keeley. Plus, she couldn't think of any other reasons except for this.
Han Jin fell into silence too, and after a few seconds he slowly said: "Come on, let's have a seat over there."
"I'm not going, they always talk about boring things!" Moxinke's head shaking.
"You....." Han Jin didn't know whether to laugh or to reproach him, he said: "Come on, we should also think about what to do next."
Upon hearing footsteps, Cessacioun turned around and said with surprise: "Raphael, why did you come out? Your injury... "
"It's all right." While answering, Han Jin sat down on a small square stone.
Miss Keeley forced a smile at him and lowered her head. Sunier looked at Han Jin and asked doubtfully: "Are you really alright?"
"Of course I am." Han Jin shook his arm hard to prove that he had recovered. "We've stayed here long enough. Shall we move to somewhere else?"
"Where do you want to go?" Sunier was startled.
"If everywhere is okay with it, we should at least know what is happening outside." Han Jin looked around and continued. "What do you think?"
"I am easy to please," Cessacioun replied.
"I agree." Miss Keeley looked at Han Jin with a grateful expression. If it were not for Han Jin's wounds, she would have put forward the same idea earlier. It couldn't have been better since Han Jin mentioned it himself now.
"But where should we go? We gotta have a destination, don't we?" Sunier asked.
"How about the Eleventh Town? It's a prosperous town and I am quite familiar with it." Moxinke scratched his scalp.
"The Eleventh Town? What a strange name." Han Jin said curiously.
"Beitman has four acropolis, they are the North City, the South City, the East City and the West City . Each city is divided into four towns. Thus, there are a total of sixteen towns in Beitman, all named by numbers."
"Seems like the owner of Beitman is a very intelligent and rigorous man." Han Jin thought to himself.
"In Beitman, there is no owner of the territory, just a leader. And every three years, the leader will be re-selected." Cessacioun laughed. "In fact the whole Beitman is controlled by the four owners of the four acropolis. The leader is always one of them."
"I see..." Han Jin thought for a while and asked, "Sunier, we should have made quite some profit these days, right?"
"Hmm? You're afraid that I will pocket all the profit?" Sunier sneered.
"I didn't mean this...but we ought to know…"
Sunier opened her space ring and the magic crystals all appeared on the square stone, totaling twenty or more. But none of them were high grade magic crystals. All of them were fourth or fifth grade.
"How much can we get by selling them, Cessacioun?"
"More than one hundred golden coins I suppose. If someone needs them in a hurry, we can sell them at a higher price." Miss Keeley replied before Cessacioun.
Cessacioun shrugged his shoulders. In fact, if Miss Keeley was there, there was no need for Han Jin to ask him.
"That's enough." Han Jin sighed with relief. All of them were poor at present. Although Miss Keeley was a rich girl once, her money had all been stolen by the traitor. Thus for them, all they could do for their dreams was to work by themselves.
"What are you planning to do?" Sunier asked.
"You will know." Han Jin narrowed his eyes. "If the war has broken out in the Holy Crown City, we can sell them at a higher price. Ho ho..."