Dad's hometown

After calming myself from my emotional downs, I feel more refreshed.

I didn't notice that night came already, and that I fell asleep on the bed on a strange way.

I also heard my Dad making dinner, and my Mom was packing up things on the other corner of our room. I quickly felt that our house was really small because of the luggage that we're gonna carry tomorrow.

"Oh Kaff, you're already awake? Come and prepare the plates."

Nothing much happened that night, my parents avoided talking about what happened earlier and they excitedly talked about the next town that we'll be stopping over, having the day end with a happy mood.

***

We rode the carriage that's destined for the next town, and the different thing this time is that I don't have to be in hiding while riding a carriage so I was able to see how the various places in the city looked like.

Phione is so huge that we traveled over half an hour before I've seen the Civil Corps in the city. Their place extended a wide area almost as big as the Borollo church and school. The various different colored buildings scattered over the place and I can see few people coming in and out, with more of them beasts. I can see the human guards, and they seem to be on edge, but that's not my problem.

There's also a branch of the Merchant Union, and since this is after all, a main city, I just realized that it housed the only building that stood the highest, which had a glossy gold color to it, probably over a kilometer high, towering twice over the Civil Corps and Borollo. The area it's in also as wide as the other two. It looks like there's a maximum area for the buildings here.

There's not much detail that I can gleam over since we're currently riding and moving away at a fast pace.

After seeing a few more prominent building that overtook each other, I was somehow reminded of my previous life. Luckily, there isn't much pollution here as there are no vehicles that emit smoke, and there are also a lot of sweepers on the roads. This place definitely is developing rapidly like an actual capital city would.

Before we got to get out of Phione, I felt sleepy as the road started to become ragged and bumpy.

***

In a certain manor at the far side of Phione---

"NO! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!"

"Calm down young miss---"

Sorn caught a pillow using his face, and Dorother was flustered while standing on her bed. She was still wearing a pajama on, and had bed hair.

Sorn put back the pillow properly back to its owner, only to make contact with his face again.

Dorother started crying, and it evolved into a mournful wail with matching tantrums.

She rolled on her bed, clutched the mattress, kicked whatever she could, her tears and snot scattered all over the place as she kept on screaming.

It took about finishing a cup of coffee's time for her to finish wailing.

Unlike Kaff which had a soul of a twenty seven year-old, she is only an eight year old child, after all.

"Of all the days... On my BIRTH...DAY...!!"

She then continued crying but with weak bouts of anger instead.

The butler left the meal that he was supposed to deliver by the door, and took his leave. He knew better to leave the young girl alone for the time being.

Emotions couldn't be changed in a short time, after all.

(I don't believe it... I don't believe them...)

Her tears kept on falling, and she kept wiping them as soon as her vision blurred. The corner of her eyes were turning a bit pink from the swelling.

"Don't even think about following that boy."

Along with the door to her room opening, a red-haired boy with black robes strutted in, and even flickered his sleeves after standing in front of the girl's bed.

"Why are you here?! Get out! This is MY room!"

"We'll soon be a thing, after all. When you turn twelve, you'll be mine anyway------so what's the fuss?"

Besides the butler, the boy now caught a pillow using his face... followed by a flying kick unknowingly targeting his solar plexus.

***

Three days later, in a certain carriage that went out from the city of Phione...

***

These days we just traveled during the day, and camped during the night, resting the mounts.

I felt bored inside our carriage, and there's nothing much to be seen outside except for the green scenery, so I took a look inside and observed the people instead.

Our carriage currently housed eight people, so that's five besides my family. The other four seem to be acquaintances, so it makes the other one a stranger for all of us. He was wearing black robes with dignified patterns though, so he must be a Vates.

I can't help but ask my parents after I dozed off, exactly where is their hometown?

My Dad told me that Mom's place is a bit farther here, but it's near south of Allpeak. Since a lot of the books were outdated and weren't really available in print for mass production, my Mom laughed when I asked about our travel time being five years.

She said that it would take five years on foot. Why haven't I thought about that?

So it would really take only a few months then.

While Mom's place is farther, then Dad's must be closer, then he mentioned that it was a few weeks' time of travel.

Considering the speed we're running right now, and the time to take to that place... that distance sure is far.

As if letting me on a suspense, he decided not to tell me what the name of his town was. Mom's place was called Efir.

A lot of them did hunting there as there are a lot of beasts and wild animals. At the mention of beasts, instead of being scared, I was a lot more curious and both my parents were quite amazed with it. The Vates beside me was also probably listening, and I can see his eyes looking at me? Or my belly?

"Hail Hamion."

"Hail Hamion."

We exchanged greetings, and then the words that came from him was quite a shock.

"I can sense something inside of you, did you ate some kind of weird thing?"

After that I told him about eating something, but I didn't give the exact details.

Who knows if he would also attempt to cut me up and implicate my parents just because he wanted the Origin Fruit inside of me?

"I could help you with that, but you have to let me touch you for a bit. Is that alright, sir, ma'am?"

Both my parents looked at each other for a moment before my Dad replied.

"Surely. We were also planning to find a doctor to help him with it, and we're about to stop at the next town to get him checked."

I saw a hint of curiosity from the Vates' face for a split second, before he told me to close my eyes at the moment.

He put a hand on my shoulder, and I could feel that same sensation from when Three performed a circulation of light inside me for the first time; and as always, my mark also shook. I also did the same and followed the Vates' path of inserting source magic inside my body. I felt slight shudder from his hand after that, pausing for a while, then continued.

His path differed a bit from Three, and I was confused and opened my eyes.

"Can I see how you perform the circulation of light within your body?"

With a surprised face, the Vates had a sudden realization...

"You're that boy from the Numbers Law? Along with Skip?"

"Yes. I thought only few knew me?"

"You don't know this, but after that fatboy Krog missed all his debilitating spells at you, your name was known throughout school, and reached even the church. Since then no one tried to mess with you again."

I'm pretty sure it's Three's reputation instead of mine there though, I didn't even do anything back then besides dodging and avoiding trouble when possible.

I just smiled in reply and then took his robes partially, where an inner leather armor enveloped half his body. He proceeded to perform his light circulation, and it was a bit different from Three as I suspected. I also found that the light was a bit dimmer and in some places, there were delays. Maybe they all have different ways of doing it?

"I'm sure you noticed that there are differences. I'm doing my circulation as an experiment to see if I could have some improvements."

Improvement in what? Anyway I asked him to perform another circulation for another time before I memorized the paths the light trode. After that I politely told him to check on me and closed my eyes.

As I tried to feel the light inside me, I also felt that cool but different feeling before.

The flush?

The sound of a flushing toilet suddenly just appeared in my ears, and it was disgusting. The volume lowered as seconds pass, then I noticed that the flushing didn't end.

My body felt cool, my head was hurting a bit, and I could feel my belly rumbling.

The flushing toilet disappeared from my view, and it was replaced by a blue vortex.

I could feel winds converging towards me, and I unknowingly forgot what I was doing earlier, sticking to this sensation.

After a few more moments passed, the stars in my eyes disappeared, black became blue, then white.

I found myself standing on nothing, floating in the middle of nowhere.

There was some sort of converging light in front of me, and it looked like a kind of spiraling vortex.

On the center, a white weaving core was slowly forming, and when it became a solid color of blue, it stopped.

Few seconds later, there was a loud explosion, the core cracked, and inside it was a blue sphere but the difference was that there was a vortex inside, and it seemed to be increasing in size very slowly.

Blue and white light converged towards the core, as if being sucked into it.

Thinking of what I'm seeing and remembered what was happening earlier, I snapped back to reality, my senses were pulled as if falling from some place very high, and I woke up and fell on the ground on the carriage.

Just what the heck happened earlier?

"Are you alright?" The Vates asked.

"Yes but... How about the thing inside me?"

"I'm not sure what happened, but before I reached my light to touch it inside you it just disappeared, and when I tried to sense it carefully, it was gone. Really strange."

In confusion, I just blurted out something crazy.

"Did my stomach just digest that something?"

"It's possible, but I don't even know what it was except that it held some kind of aura. Maybe you should ask the owner of that thing."

I only gave a frown after that, and he realized that I wouldn't be able to do so.

"Well, I gave the help I could. The deed is done. Donations would be appreciated."

After that I could see the Vates giving a smirk and looked at my parents. They were surprised by the sudden asking fee, but paid him as if he were a doctor nonetheless.

That was quite the trick that he had there. An obnoxious one, but really isn't unfair. The fact that the troubling thing inside me is gone was a happy thought and we could cut on a doctor's visit.

"My name is Holdin by the way. Nice to meet you folks."

After that event, the four other people that were together frowned at him, and moved a bit farther away, nearing the driver's seat.

I only gave a polite thanks to him, and I know that not all Vates are really bad. Their black robes are a bit intimidating though. What does Hamion even think to make his religion a sort of cult? If there was one thing I'd like to say to him, I'd say change his set of followers' robes!

The light they show off via magic is golden, they have a valid church, he's a god. A high level Vates feels like a divine presence, yet they're all colored black?

Oh well.

"Seeing you being still nice to me, let me tell you a few more matters about us Vates. I know you've been to school for a very short time so you must have missed on a lot of info."

He told me about the various levels or thresholds of a Vates.

First there were the elementary practitioners, which were referred to as acolyte-level. Next to them were the priest-level, scholar-level, mage-level, and the master-level. Each level are separated depending on their current magic power progress, which are usually conducted in a source spirit scanner. A mage-level and above could also see what the current progress of a person is, which is viewed as a golden light orb inside a person's body.

After reaching master-level, they undergo a self-seeking journey and travel the world to become one with it and attain the next level, which is the grandmaster-level.

Three's uncle is a grandmaster-level, so as her father, but clearly her father was stronger by a few levels?

Holdin then said that after the mage-level, each level takes quite a time for a person to progress and they are sent on different places to conduct missions and investigations, a few of them erradicating beasts and monsters.

Also, when they refer to beasts in this way, they are only the low level ones that haven't much intelligence yet.

After a beast gains intelligence, they usually acquire the Beast God's mark from their nest, and then are permitted to go into human settlements with a partial transformation.

He doesn't have much information about the beasts' different kinds of levels but the beasts that usually gain intelligence are around the mage-level too. So in a way, we could say that the mage-level is the ideal level for everyone that gets to have a bit of freedom from their respective churches.

As for Holdin, he's a mage-level and is currently on a mission regarding the next town. As for the levels below mage-level, he hates that period a lot because increasing source power is difficult; there is competition and that a lot of contests and fights are usually conducted just so people could see who is better than the other. It was detrimental for him since he only wanted to increase his power in peace, and not go along with those that wanted to fight and such.

Fights weren't easily avoided because everyone wanted to know what progress of each person and flaunt their abilities... Who would use the scanner since it's boring? Oh boy, that's a lot of kids.

I could understand that nature since all people that acquire a source spirit would feel special. As for me...

He also told me a bit about how there aren't much wild beasts and large scaled fights in our area since we live in a capital city after all, and if a big fight breaks out, these people will fear Vates above the master level.

It turns out that Grandmasters a somewhat the peak for most common people, and increasing their power becomes a struggle after the first level. I could only assume then that Three's father is at the top of the world at this point.

Finally, he told me that there's also a legend-level, which a person's lifespan increases to the point of almost becoming immortal. They could destroy cities, turn the mountains and seas, and even shake the surrounding air. But at his level, he had no knowledge of about how to reach it. He's got high hopes though, and it's why he wants to mostly go alone so that no one could disturb him.

Seeing him explain all this, I could see a glow in his eyes that's comparable to a boy in his early ages. Excited for ambition, even when he looked like he was around twenty years old. Almost as when I first started on employment then?

After the legend-level, of course there are the gods. But who knows if that was really the case?

After a few more days, we reached the next town, and Holdin and I became quite a bit of friends, even though the other people still hold him in bad regard.

It was a small town, and we got to say our goodbyes. As we took off, we stayed at an inn for two days, then replenished our supplies, and after resting a bit and waiting for our schedule to depart, we rode the next carriage going to the next town.

There wasn't much an event for a week, until we reached the next town.

Our mount immediately stopped, and I saw the driver scratched his head, as if in worry. Later on, all of us stood and tried to check what the matter is.

It wasn't just a small matter.

It's my first time seeing a town getting destroyed.