Traveling to Saltstar City

The last few days before the Fuller family could start their trip passed smoothly. Vicente was gradually getting used to his new reality as a graduate of the Academy of Star.

Ian had already left for his aunt and uncle's home in Saltstar City, where he would have to take a test at the Royal Academy in the city in around two months.

If he passed, Ian would continue to stay there for the next whole year until it was finally time for his vacations, where he would return to his family in the Martell Village, along with visiting his old friends.

On the other hand, Vice had focused these days on getting his things ready and training as much as possible, this was because he would be traveling for the next few weeks and would not be able to train.

Vice still had some of his responsibilities in his father's business, albeit learning less these days and helping him more with other duties.

So, the time continued to flow for him, and finally, at the dawn of this new day, he and his family left the village in a carriage that was large enough to house all of them.

While the birds were chirping, the dirt streets of the Martell village remained silent, and many of the residents were still in their sleep, the horses tied to the Fuller family's carriage began to gallop while pulling the carriage along with them.

There were three men at the head of the carriage: the old coachman, whom Vicente would ask for advice every now and then, and also receive answers to his doubts, and the other two were the General warriors.

Warriors were people who were capable of manipulating mana and followed the path of fighting. Among the warriors, there were three types.

Magicians' warriors: they were people with Magic Gems or ordinary magicians with combat skills. 

General warriors: these were those who didn't have Magic Gems but could still use the mana in their body to strengthen their physical attributes, and, through fighting arts, they could display unparalleled combat capabilities.

Finally, there were those who were capable of following both paths at the same time.

For the second type of warrior, it had its own hierarchical classification. The Generals were subdivided between levels 1 and 9. 

It was considered that a level 9 General had combat power that was equivalent to a Low-level Mage.

But that was a path for low-level people or people coming from lesser regions. Due to their limitation, a level 9 General would never be able to compare to a magician who was capable of overcoming the 3rd stage.

Anyway, between these two Generals, one was at level 6, while the other was at level 7.

On the other hand, Vicente, his sisters, their father, and their mother were inside the carriage. Lauren sat next to one of the doors while Nina was sitting between her and Vice.

In front of the siblings were their parents, Andrew and Kate, both were smiling however, Kate looked somewhat tired.

"Mom, are you okay?" Lauren asked with sorry, noticing that sweat dripping down her mother's forehead.

"I'm fine, honey. It's just that I get tired easily," Kate nodded, smiling subtly. "Your brother is pretty heavy for me, so I get tired easily."

While Kate was still pregnant, the birth date of her 4th child was not far off.

The baby should also be out in at most two months, within which they would already be in Saltstar City.

Hearing their mother, Vice sighed. He hoped that their little brother would be born soon, not only so that he could meet him but also because his mother could return to her normal self.

Vice loved his family and wasn't against having several siblings. But pregnancy in this world was filled with even more dangers than the complications on Earth.

This thing worried him a lot, thus, he couldn't help but be apprehensive about his mother's situation.

Luckily, his family had enough to pay for a good doctor, and the chances of having an issue for his mother and little brother wouldn't be so significant.

"Dad! Dad, how long will it take us to reach our destination?" Little Nina, who was currently 4, asked aloud, fidgeting a lot as she looked into her old man's eyes.

Andrew looked at little Nina, and his lips opened, showing his perfectly white teeth. "It won't be quick, Nina. But I promise it will be fun.

We'll get to know a few places until we reach our destination, so you'll be able to see many new vistas."

"Hehe, I can't wait!" the little girl giggled in excitement.

Lauren closed her eyes and shook her head. 'New vistas... This means that we'll be stuck in this carriage for quite a while.'

Her thoughts were pessimistic, however, she was feeling even more worse internally.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that Lauren was practically suffocating, constantly fiddling with the door handle next to her, thinking whether she could open it and run away at any moment.

By the end of this trip, she would turn 14 and go through the Awakening.

That was incredible, yet she was sad because, as a woman, she would also have her engagement declared very soon!

As Lauren sighed, the carriage of the Muller family left Martell Village, embarking on their long journey to Saltstar City.

Saltstar City was practically at the opposite end of Scott Province from Martell Village. This was the reason why their family could not reach their destination quicker, as this territory spanned over 400,000 square kilometers.

While their horses were fast, there were no paved roads in the Seidel Kingdom like the ones on Earth.

The wheels of the carriages could break, the low-level magicians needed to rest and eat, and if they didn't take care of themselves in the right way, they could also get sick. Thus, a long journey like this could take time one way or another.

However, this wasn't all. In the magic world, forests and roads were places filled with dangers.

Not only could other humans and animals cause trouble to them at any instance, but even the vegetation had the ability to victimize an entire group.

If someone was careless while traveling through Polaris Realm, they could easily inhale toxins that were released by poisonous plants or have their mana sucked out by parasites, succumb to mana diseases, and so on.

And so, the Fuller family's group would travel slowly, giving Nina all the time she would need to experience new landscapes.

...

Two weeks after leaving Martell Village, the Fuller family's group had left the plains of the region near their hometown and were about to enter more rugged terrain.

The further they moved away from that area, the more extreme the relief, climate, and vegetation continued to get.

Vicente and Lauren had already understood why it was like this. Still, these days, Andrew and Kate had been explaining everything to Nina, telling her that this was because of the free mana in the atmosphere.

The denser the mana was in a place, the more extreme the characteristics of that particular region would be.

If a place was naturally cold, it could turn freezing if the mana concentration in that area was too high or just chilly if it was low.

The Martell Village was located in a relatively mana-poor region, with enough mana to sustain only low-level magicians, such as humans, at one of the first two magic realms.

On the other hand, the further they traveled towards Saltstar City, the closer they were getting to an area that had much denser mana, where more powerful beings could develop.

Given this difference, it was natural that the weather and landscapes would change greatly along their path.

Particularly, the group had been quite lucky today, and the area through which they were passing by was sunny and had relatively calm winds.

The surroundings glowed a vibrant green, and the scent of nature enveloped the barriers of this family's carriage as if it didn't exist and continued to reach the nostrils of these people who were passing by.

Vicente had usually been reading quite a bit on his trip. Still, on this particular day, he took some time out to lie over his family carriage, basking in the sun's rays as the horses raced by.

"Ah, the day is simply perfect," he murmured with his eyes closed, sensing it as the daylight penetrated his skin and warmed his body.

He didn't know if he still needed to sunbathe to stimulate vitamin D production in his body. However, he still kept this earthly habit, and it felt great to do so.

While he relaxed on top of that carriage, Vice could hear the warriors who were here to protect his family, talking to the coachman while his father and mother were sleeping.

Nina and Lauren were munching on something, and he could even hear them as the two chewed their food.

All remained peaceful in this region which lay in the middle of the vast expanse of green lawns.

With the peaceful surroundings around them, there appeared a big smile on Vicente's face. He was simply unable to hide his teeth in such a pleasant atmosphere.

However, he suddenly felt as if a big cloud had appeared above him as he noticed the brightness over that area suddenly started diminishing.

'Uh? There was no cloud in the sky just now...' He wondered before opening his eyes.

When he opened his eyes, Vice saw something that widened his eyes almost wide enough that it felt as if they could simply drop off his eye sockets as before they rapidly moved up and down, as if trying to gauge something.

Gulp!

In that instant, he noticed that there were two people who seemed to be struggling dozens of meters above their carriage.