I'm Glad To Be Back

As the voice called out, his focus and resolution broke. He sighed whilst discreetly grumbling as he dispersed his mana threads and turned to face the newcomer whom he was all too familiar with. As his body rotated, slowly but surely, the figure of a beautiful girl greeted his eyes, her deep green eyes were especially mesmerizing as they seemed to sparkle with delight in meeting him. When he analyzed her figure however, he got somewhat worried as he identified the several scratches and cuts she had received, as well as the slight damage to her emerald dress, it was after all in the hearts of all men to take care of a beauty, and when he saw her like this, he felt somewhat guilty for being so hot-headed towards her earlier and leaving her to her own devices.

"Look….I'm sorry for..."

"Don't mention it" the girl interrupted, "I was not exactly a lady when we argued earlier, so there is no need to say sorry for any of this"

Ventus simply nodded and spoke no more. Seeing that the girl did not resent him he was quite relieved, if he had later on troubles do to petty resentment, it was going to be quite a burden, and right now, he had no time or will whatsoever to deal with such matters, thus, seeing that everything was fine was quite relaxing.

"So…" the girl continued, "I take it you've had some tough luck yourself huh?"

"Well, it's not called a hazard zone for nothing no?" he chuckled bitterly.

He then looked at his own body, although the wounds had closed, scars were still visible from his battle with the corona cactus defensive formation and its deadly magnetic spikes.

"What's that tattoo on your shoulder by the way?" the girl inquired.

"Oh this?" Ventus said somewhat worried.

How was he to explain the elemental hearts, its structures and its treasures? He knew well that there were times to share and times to hide when it comes to treasures and life-saving cards, the things he received from that place were far too precious to be revealed, especially the absolute wind bloodline. His mind ran through several excuses to give, but none of those were plausible nor could he say them out loud with a straight face, which troubled him and made him nervous, his face scrunching into a frown trying to come up with a believable lie. At that moment, the ever-energetic wind avatar's voice rung in his voice and calmed him down.

"Tell her that you've got the recognition of the wind element through refining wind elemental mana when you managed to enter an enlightened state as you executed your refinement technique on your core, allowing for you to, by luck, obtain a true wind affinity seal"

"Will she even believe that though?" Ventus retorted.

"Be at peace young one, she certainly will" the avatar replied, "It is not uncommon to obtain true elemental seals by enlightenment, but it is somewhat rare for it to be obtained with your strength, but then again, your also done things like executing a technique inside your core with your level, so it's not impossible for you to achieve a true elemental seal with your power"

With the reassurance from the avatar, Ventus confidently relayed the information to the girl, she, on the other hand, was shocked by this development. From her father, she learned what exactly a true elemental seal was as he also had one himself, albeit from another element. He taught her that such a thing was exceptionally rare in the world and even those monstrous geniuses and powerhouses that stood at the pinnacle of power might not have one since it was absurdly hard to attain such a feat of obtaining the recognition of an element. This made her view Ventus in another light entirely.

Previously she thought that he was only a talented boy that had some achievements in mental strength and was somewhat capable in a battle via his use of the earthen element technique he practised. That, in addition to him saving her life, made her have a bit of respect and a good view of him, however, after learning of this new achievement of his, her respect for him rose a couple of notches, and she had to admit that he was someone whose future was, if not struck down early, filled with greatness. Her goodwill towards him increased as she now deemed him worthy of befriending which caused her usually cold demeanour warm up towards him as she now decided to treat him with proper respect and friendly intentions.

"In the first round, many thought that you were just a lucky fella who managed to land an apprenticeship with a powerful master" she said, "when you showed our lack of knowledge towards the mental world, many looked down on you since you were clearly a greenhorn that didn't know a thing about the world"

"But now I guess I've been proven wrong" she chuckled, "for you to know about true elemental seals, your master must've taught you a lot right? Perhaps he just didn't have the time to teach you about the mental world since he didn't consider that an important thing at our level of strength"

"Riiight…" Ventus shamelessly lied, "He taught me a lot, it was just an unfortunate coincidence I didn't learn about that specific matter"

"Anyway..."Ventus quickly changed topics, "did you manage to obtain the king viper's poison sack?"

"I did" the girl replied, "I was lucky to find a young golden sand venom dragon that had not fully developed, and after a strenuous battle that almost cost me my emerald golem, I've defeated and completed half of the mission. What about you? Did you find the corona cactus flower?"

"I did"

"Were there more of it?" she asked in expectation, if possible, she did not fight with him to acquire the flower.

One had to know that although their relationship had improved, they were still competitors, and thus, they would inevitably clash should their objectives stand against one another.

"No" he declared bluntly, "in the spot I found the flower, there were no more of its kind whatsoever"

The news made the girl's heart grow cold as she now was certain that they would, unfortunately, clash, but before her hostility towards him was able to flare up, he spoke once more.

"But that doesn't mean there are no more flowers in this place, look ahead, aren't there many more golden sand venom dragons as well? What are the chances that there aren't more corona cactus flowers?"

"That's right" she nodded as her eyes glinted with happiness.

Considering this information, she was of course quite happy. If there were more flowers, she wouldn't have to fight with him for the flower, and if there were more king vipers, he wouldn't have to fight her for the poison sack she possessed. The coldness in her heart that had quickly built up was dispelled just as quickly with the development, and as such, her mood was quite good.

"By the way…" she spoke, "what exactly is going on up ahead? And with that said, why are you here and what were you planning to do when you almost manipulated the earth a few minutes ago when I found you?"

"Up ahead there are, as you can obviously see, several beasts standing in a staring competition against each other for the ownership of a treasure that has been born or placed in that area" he explained, "from what my master taught me and from what I confirmed using that information, the treasure up ahead should be a soul pearl"

"A soul pearl!?" she exclaimed in surprise, "Are you sure? If it's real, that thing is invaluable!"

"Positive, I'm 100% certain that is a soul pearl" he grinned.

"Then could it be that is the hidden treasure placed in this dimension by the association?" she asked in clear excitement.

"From what I can gather, it most likely is" he smiled lightly.

He did not precisely know what the hidden treasure of the dimension was, but he had a fair amount of confidence when he thought the treasure was the long-forgotten golden dragon core that most likely no one actually knew the true existence off, so, he decided to just state that the soul pearl was the most likely to be hidden treasure.

"You're quite courageous you know?" the girl chuckled.

"Why do you say that?" Ventus replied confused.

"Well, you were about to face off against hundreds of beasts that could absolutely squish you like a bug just to obtain a treasure, that takes quite a lot of courage" she laughed.

"Oh shut up Luna!" Ventus replied as his cheeks grew slightly red.

"Would you look at that, the brave Ventus blushing after being praised, how cute!" Luna said teasing him.

"I'm not cute!" he said as his whole face now flushed red, "I'm a manly man!"

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say manly Ventus" she laughed loudly.

The two laughed for a few minutes as they fired at one another teases and praises, wide smiles on their faces as they had genuine fun with each other. At a point they laughed so hard that they fell to the ground holding their bellies whilst tears fell off their eyes, after while they went silent as they laid down with their bodies stretched, their view focused on the still dark sky with a slight tinge of sunlight rising on it, from time to time, their eyes would take furtive glances at one another, and sometimes their eyes even met before they furiously turned their heads away from one another trying to hide their embarrassment.

"Hey Luna…" Ventus finally spoke, still not looking directly at her.

"Yes?" she replied quietly, almost in a whisper, her voice somewhat giving hints of expectancy.

"It's good to see you again" he spoke rapidly, his voice trying to hide his embarrassment in confessing this fact.

As his voice entered her ears hurriedly, the girl could not help but smile. Her heart fluttered as a new emotion was born into it, an emotion that would be unknown even to herself for a long time, but one that would surely change her path, but those were worries for the future she had no idea the would ever have to face.

"I'm glad to be back"