Journey

When he awoke the next day, Lucian felt groggy-headed as a light weight pressed down on his chest.

He moved his gaze to find Tess still asleep, her head and arm on him as if on a pillow.

'Right. Today we leave.' He thought with forlorn realisation.

Giving a slight sigh, he wished they hadn't cleared the branches above, as he could really use something to block the sunlight right now. The rays of heat on his body still felt great as he absorbed tiny portions of life from the sun, but he was feeling a headache coming on from the light.

As carefully as he could, so as to not wake up Tess, Lucian turned his head around to look for the others. He smiled when he found Delia and Tyr sleeping very closely. He had learnt quite early after his subtle rejection of Delia that Tyr had feelings for her, and it seemed that he had made progress. In fact he was far quicker than the hesitant Lucian was with Tess.

Lucian then looked to Theo who was still fast asleep and gave a small sigh. He did not like complicated relationships or drama, and tried to simply ignore any inconvenient feelings his friends had for years. For this reason it took so long for him to deal with Delia's feelings, and he still had not mentioned Theo's interest in Tess.

It was something he had been aware of ever since he and Tess had become closer, Theo's reactions giving it away long before Lucian could sense emotion. But it seemed his friend was moving on, and Lucian hoped he would find someone as he ventured out into the world.

'But what kind of people could he find in the Hungry Woods?' He thought with an inwards chuckle.

As he felt a shifting by his chest, Tess gradually came too, shielding her eyes from the sun and taking in her surroundings. When she saw him she did not blush or hide, but smiled radiantly.

"Good morning."

"Morning"

The two gradually stood and stretched, both groaning as their stiff bodies got a chance to wake up. They couldn't just leave the others, but neither did they want to wake their friends up, so the two moved a distance away to talk freely.

"Are you sure you want to go to Heavensfall?" Tess asked, still with a sleepy voice.

"I am. If we have to do constant missions after this, then I might not get another chance to spend so long at The Shards. Besides, you're forgetting that I actually like cultivating as much as battle."

Tess gave a smirk and a short chortle before continuing. "I'm well aware. But I feel like you're missing out. This may also be your only chance to go on your own adventure and explore without orders or objectives. It's as much a chance for this as it is to visit The Shards."

Lucian thought about it seriously for a while.

"Maybe."

Tess' head perked up for a moment before speaking a second later.

"Then, follow me. You don't need to come to the Valley of Mist, but let's go on an adventure. Just three months, or half a year. Then you can go to Heavensfall and I'll head to the Valley. Deal?"

Lucian smiled warmly. He'd be lying if he said this wasn't perfect. He didn't like the idea of suddenly being completely alone after a decade surrounded by this new family, and he did want an adventure almost as much as he wanted the chance to visit Heavensfall.

"All right then." He replied as his smile grew slightly wider. "But where will we go?"

"Well… Let's start with Rehall, I want to see where you lived before the estate, and meet Mistress Helga. Then… I'm not sure. Let's just see what happens?"

As the two continued to talk, the rest of the group groaned themselves awake one by one, each standing eventually as they gathered together while Lucian and Tess approached.

With no reason to hang around, they all began making their way back to the Clarke Estate with strangely slow steps. They reached the western gate, crossed the large opening behind the manor, and finally made their way to the mansion itself. All along the way they had circulated their cultivations to expel any drowsiness and remove the headaches, not wanting to present themselves to the instructors as they were.

"I'll head to helpers lounge in an hour, will I see you guys there?" Lucian asked, receiving affirmations all around.

Splitting from the group, he and Theo returned to their dormroom to wash up and make sure they had collected everything they needed.

When done, Lucian looked at himself in the mirror. As he was now he would be unrecognizable to his previous self. When he had first come to the estate he had been thin and somewhat short, lacking anything he now displayed openly. Only his dark hair and blue eyes had remained the same, but even those had changed in other ways.

His eyes were not dull, nor child-like, but sharp, with an intense blue that drew the attention of others. His hair was no longer short or mat with dirt, but long and wild, like a vivid black cape or mane.

He wondered what he would look like if his path in life had not been changed, if he had not left Rehall. Would he have become a hunter? No, he'd likely have become the village chief. He knew only now that Headmistress Helga had planned that for him, teaching him bits and pieces of literacy where she could.

She really had loved him, and yet, he could barely remember her face, left only with an impression of what she looked like.

'I wonder if she'll even recognize me as I am now?' Me smiled slightly thinking about her shocked expression, and that smile itself made him feel better.

'So it's not gone.' He thought. 'I do still care.'

Breathing in deeply, he expelled his hesitation about returning home and began to consider other things. How would his old friends be now? He did not remember their names or faces, and to be honest he didn't really care about them now as he still did for Helga, but he was curious nonetheless. Perhaps one of them was taught to read and write instead.

When done in the dorm, both Lucian and Theordorn made their way to the helpers lounge. Every student was told to stop there before leaving to acquire what they needed for their travels.

When he entered the lounge, after knocking twice, he found Tyr, Tess, and Delia already within. The helpers lounge was quite a large room with tables, lounges, chairs, and even a small stocked kitchen. There were also other rooms accessible from within.

When he entered, Lucian nodded to his friends before making his way to the back right corner where he saw Helper Melia. For years now Melia had been his personal trainer and had even roped in not just helpers but instructors to aid in his training, something he was incredibly thankful for.

"Look at you, already leaving poor old me huh?"

Lucian had assumed Melia to be about thirty years of age when they first met, despite her often overly energetic attitude, but now that so many years had passed, he expected her to have aged. But she still looked the exact same as when he first laid eyes on her.

"I'm sure we'll see each other around. By the next time we meet, we may even be colleagues."

Melia gave an indecipherable smile at his remark. "No, I doubt we'll meet again. Not so long as the Demia kingdom remains safe."

Lucian was confused by her statement, detecting a distinct tinge of regret in her voice, but before he could press for her meaning, she snapped out of it and looked to the table by her side.

"Right. You'll be wanting this."

She rest her right hand on top of a series of small boxes and pouches.

"Money for your travels, and resources for cultivation. Don't worry about returning the leftovers, it's yours now whether you use all of it or not."

Lucian moved closer to give the items a quick lookover, recognizing the many boxes to contain herbs or stocked pill bottles. The pouches held currencies of all three major kingdoms, excluding the recent defector state of Toubia he'd heard of, as well as spirit stones and other energy vessels to use in cultivation.

All in all, it was an incredibly expensive gift. Lucian looked to Melia solemnly and thanked her.

"Don't thank me. If I had all this stuff lying around there's no way I'd give it all to you" She replied with a smirk. "It's from the crown, not me."

"I know. I mean, thank you for everything you've done. If you ever need help, I owe you one."

"You owe me more than one brat." She said with a smirk, before frowning. "Brat doesn't sound right when I'm looking up at you. Learn to crouch down when we speak from now on."

Lucian chuckled, stored the crown's gift in his knight's badge, and then crouched down, repeating "Thank you", before standing and moving to his friends.

"Are you all ready?" Tyr asked as they head out of the helper's lounge, moving towards the front entrance of the estate.

"About as ready as I'll ever be," Lucian replied, as the others affirmed his words.

Standing before the front door of the estate, Lucian pinched his platinum badge depicting his status as Fist of the King and willed it's function.

"This is Lucian Moretti Valaran leaving the Clarke Estate to return within a year."

In his mind, Nicholas' voice echoed, "Understood Lucian, go ahead."

And with that, he left, leaving the others to each do the same.

He did not collect a horse this time, his mastery of the lightness technique was substantial enough that he could travel faster and for longer than any horse.

When the others each finished reporting their departure, they too left through the front door and caught up with him. The platinum badge they each wore acted as means to receive orders across long distances, and report information or findings.

Within short range they could be used to communicate with other wearers of the platinum badge, but across long distances, only complicated relay stations using forgemaster arrays could communicate, and that cost a great deal of spirit stones.

When all five of them had gathered, they walked down the path that exited the Clarke Estate slowly, passing the southern gate and walking to Beckton.

This was the first checkpoint in their journey wherein some among them would part ways. To go back to her home, Delia would have to head east to the center of the kingdom, to a town named Goldenhill. To do that, she needed to go east and pass through The Declaration, an incredibly long mountain range that split most of the continent into left and right halves.

The Declaration mountain range got its name from an empire of old, the Halduk Empire, who in order to maintain relations with ancient Demia, declared they would treat this mountain range as an eternal border and never conquer the lands beyond.

At that time, there was no Toubia, and no Nalduri, only the western Halduk, eastern Demia, and the much smaller, southern Lansha. Of course, Halduk no longer exists, the "eastern" Demia of the time forcing their way through The Declaration to conquer Halduk in it's entirety, and dominating three quarters of the continent for a brief time. That was before Lansha reclaimed the south and later fragmented into the many countries that would be united as the present Toubia Empire and Nalduri Dynasty.

As Delia and Theo bid their farewells to the group and left Beckton the the east, the group was reduced to only Lucian, Tess, and Tyr, all of which traveled south.

Heavensfall was actually south-west and not too far away, but from what Lucian had been able to gather in his research, Rehall was 21 days ride south of Beckton, long past Heavensfall.

He had thought he would spend only a week or less getting there, sprinting with the lightness technique, but the journey turned out to be far more leisurely than he had expected, the three walking the roads at a calm and slow pace, stopping at towns along the way.

It was 14 days after leaving Beckton that they had to part ways with Tyr. The man wanted to travel southeast from there and look for recruitments at the border with Toubia, quite close to the Valley of Mist as it turned out.

Following their departure with Tyr, Lucian and Tess continued their slow and leisurely journey, the atmosphere rosier with only the two of them.

They both wore weapons openly and with Lucian's intimidating physique and Tess' sometimes frightening eyes, there were no fools to interrupt their pleasant atmosphere. Even when they visited towns and cities, the gold and platinum badges at their chest bought them peace wherever they went, even if some shopkeepers were annoyingly eagre.

When they finally reached Stonemount, the closest town to the village of Rehall, Lucian was surprised how quickly the two months had passed. During this time, he no longer felt an obsessive compulsion to train and experiment and temper his abilities. Of course that did not mean he would stop doing so, he and Tess both had these practiced habits ingrained in them since childhood, but he did not feel as if the world was wrong for a whole day if he cut a morning exercise short.

Just two more days and they would finally reach Rehall. The only question left was, what to do after that?