Zalroth, with Iris sitting on his head and Lola, Kusana, Scarlett, Snow and Kiki sitting on top of his tails, stopped near the outskirts of the city of Talkia and noted the shear volume of people lining up at the sandstone city gate. The girls excluding Iris, since she was already looking at the line of people, stopped playing their game of rock paper scissors when they noticed Zalroth had stopped moving.

"Kusana believes this'll be inconvenient," Kusana mentioned as the group looked at the mile-long line of people and their various forms of transport(Cars, wagons, bikes and even a few hoverboards).

"Yeah...," Lola remarked as her ears drooped down. Zalroth yawned as he rubbed his face and started to walk towards the city gate.

"Don't worry about it, if you'll notice everyone's lined up on the left side while the right side of the entrance of this city gate is completely clear," Zalroth remarked while pointing to the left city gate. The girls glanced at the side of the city gate Zalroth mentioned and confirmed that no one was using it.

"Hey you're right, but why's that?" Scarlett asked.

"That's because it's used for adventurers and such," Zalroth replied. Snow and Scarlett seemed confused by Zalroth's reply mixed with him walking directly for the adventurer-only side of the city gate checkpoint.

"But I thought you said you weren't able to become an adventurer?" Snow quietly asked. Zalroth nervously chuckled.

"Well, Sophia was referencing a story I told Lola, that she then told Sophia, about my first ever adventure that lead me to become an adventurer, from a few centuries ago," Zalroth explained. Scarlett quickly hurried over and placed her hands on Zalroth's left shoulder.

"Wait so you're actually an adventurer?!" Scarlett inquisitively and excitedly asked.

"In a technical sense," Zalroth replied as he waved his hand(in the way that conveyed the phrase sort of but not entirely accurate) before he leapt over to the road and walked over to the city gate. As Zalorth walked past the queue of people they began to angerly mumble amongst themselves until they spotted Kiki.

"Hey... isn't that the sister of the guy that's hosting the Maxicannion Tournament this year?" a female queuee asked.

"Yeah, she probably got lost or something, and that guy must be an adventurer tasked with finding her." the guy next to the female queuee remarked. As the members of the queue continued to murmur amongst themselves until Zalroth walked straight through the checkpoint without a single alarm going off, which made the crowd stop murmuring.

"Um... excuse me, sir...." a young-sounding girl's voice asked. Zalroth slowly walked backwards until he was in front of the checkpoint and turned to face it. Kiki recognised the young adult zombie sitting in the checkpoint booth.

"Oh heya, Tila," Kiki remarked to the short cyan zombie. Tila ruffled her short scruffy dark blonde hair as she scooted her chair closer to the window. Tila greeted Kiki before turning to face Zalroth.

"I know the scanner said you were clear, and all, but is it alright if I still manually check your adventurer plate.... since you don't seem to have visited Talkia before, sir," Tila requested.

"Sure," Zalroth replied. He placed his hand into his hair and pulled out a pure white, with occasionally appearing rainbow-coloured spots, thin plate. He handed his adventurer plate to Tila who quickly inspected the plate.

"I don't think I've ever seen an adventurer plate that colour before," Kiki remarked as all the girls, excluding Lola, stared at Zalroth's adventurer plate.

"Thank you for your patience, sir," Tila said as she handed the adventurer plate back to Zalroth before he placed it back in his hair. Something suddenly clicked in Tila's head and she darted her vision at Kiki who in turn waved at her, making Tila sigh.

"I take it you're going to be looking for Kiki's mother?" Tila asked. Zalroth gave a confident nod. Tila gave Zalroth Kiki's mother's description and mentioned that she was most likely at the adventurer's guild. Zalroth thanked Tila for the info before walking off, with the girls waving goodbye to Tila.

Tila slumped back in her chair and raised her sunglasses, revealing her teal-coloured eyes, to her forehead before reaching across the room and picking up a book.

"Heh, a quintuple S rank adventurer that's pretty rare... wait..." Tila murmured to herself before frantically flicking through her book and reading a page titled Adventure Rank-Colour Meaning. She abruptly closed the book before slouching on her desk.

"That explains why the scanner didn't go off," Tila remarked as a group of adventurers stopped in front of her checkpoint.

Zalroth looked around at his surroundings and remarked that the combination of sandstone buildings and fishing village aesthetic was an interesting mix.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Say, Kiki, what's a Maxicannion Tournament anyway?" Lola asked as Zalroth walked through a marketplace.

"Well, I've overheard from my brother it's a tour-na-ment that's held all over the world, just like the O-lym-pics, to celebrate the Heavenly Hero, and supposed reincarnation of the god of death, The Righteous King," Kiki explained as she pulled a book out from her picnic basket and showed the page about the Maxicannion Tournament.

Lola, and the others, inspected the contents of the page before she quickly pulled her own book(the one with the animal faces on the cover) out of one of her tails and flicked to the page about the Heavenly Heroes.

"Woah, you've got a copy of the original Heavenly Chronicles?! I've only ever seen it in high-end stores," Kiki intriguingly said as she looked at the illustration of the six heroes each with a phrase underneath each of the depictions of the heroes; which were: The Righteous King(God of Death Reincarnation), The Unwavering Queen(God of Knowledge Reincarnation), The Veltemperous Disrupter(God of Magic Reincarnation), The Immortal Sage(Goddess of Life Reincarnation), The War Valery(Goddess of Space Reincarnation) and The Thoughtful Prayer(Goddess of Time Reincarnation).

"Yeah, papa said it was a gift from an old friend," Lola mentioned. Kiki and the others glanced over at Zalroth.

"Does that mean you knew Professor Calikorne Calloukus, Mr Zalroth?" Snow asked. Zalroth glanced backwards as he continued to walk.

"Huh? Oh, yeah..., hum... let's see, I think it was around three hundred years ago when I helped a researcher, with that name, and he gave me that book as compensation," Zalroth stated. The girls nodded their heads before looking back at the contents of the book.

"You know what I find odd, even though the Heavenly Heroes are so famous and well-known nobody knows what their names were," Iris remarked as she pointed at the illustration.

"Well... I think the reason why people think that is because back in those days names, like they are now, weren't a common thing and people were just referred to by what they were; sort of like how people might call their dog fluffy... well that's what papa's told me," Lola stated. The girls, once again, glanced over at Zalroth making him chuckle.

"Is that true?" the girls asked.

"Let's just say the Heavenly Heroes got the better end of the stick when it came to potential names," Zalroth remarked.

Meanwhile, Yokuza, Prima, Yumi and Sapphire(who was clinging to Yokuza's back and was fast asleep) stood at the centre of a sports hall-themed training room, while the army of kids and Seven was watching them from the bleachers.

"What are they doing," Lulu asked Destiny before they turned to look at the half-awake Seven. Zariah glanced to her left before tugging on Seven's sleeve to snap him awake as Five suddenly appeared in front of the elemental siblings.

"Five said she, at the request of lady Calloukus, was going to do some physical exercises with them," Seven explained. The kids accepted Seven's answer before looking back at the elemental siblings as Five started their training regiment. The kids watched with anticipation while mimicking the exercises Five was doing, as Seven recalled the events that led to him being in this situation.

Nearly half a week ago, Seven was marching through the halls of the palace when he noticed Sera handed Destiny an azure gem before Sera instructed Destiny on how to absorb it.

"So... what does it do?" Destiny asked as she absorbed the azure gem.

"Well, Lady Calloukus used her Azure Eyes azure ability and told me that it's called Code; it seems to allow the user to create magical code that can influence or control other magic," Sera explained. Destiny asked why Sera was giving it to her but Sera told Destiny that Providence wanted her to have it. Sera noticed Seven was approaching and quickly turned to face him.

"Good morning, Sera," Seven said as he gave Sera a quick wave.

"Morning~, I was planning on looking for you but here you are," Sera remarked which made Seven tilt his head.

Sera explained that Providence wanted to see him and that Seven should go as soon as he could. Seven thanked Sera before quickly marching off, whilst nervously wondering why the Emperor King wanted to see him, with Destiny following behind him.

"I appreciate your swift response, Knight Seven," Providence stated as he sat on his throne. Seven gave a nod as he bowed before Providence.

"Now let's get down to why I've summoned you," Providence added as he and, in turn, Seven glanced over at the army of children and Destiny playing on a light construct in the form of a playground.

"I'm sure you heard of the raid and rescue operation on ex-senator Fox's estate, undertaken by Magistrate Magastratous and... ... ...?" Providence said as he looked at the long name on the report. Seven raised his hand and requested if he could speak, which Providence allowed.

"Thank you, Emperor King; I assume you're confused by what or who the X-Environmental Recovery and Oblivion Prevention Unit model Magi is referring to?" Seven asked. Providence confirmed his suspicions as he made the report disappear.

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's referring to Xero, sir," Seven explained. Providence took in what Seven had said and a wave of realisation washed over Providence's face.

"Ooh, his name's an acronym but, enough of that, we need to get back on topic," Providence stated as he sat up straight.

"As you can see, these kids are the ones who were recovered from the mansion and the women who were looking after them are currently in the medical ward; so, at the recommendation of Five, I am entrusting you with looking after them and once Magistrate Calloukus returns I'll have her examine all the kids before..." Providence said before becoming slightly apprehensive and gaining an extremely serious glare, which sent a shiver down Seven, and even all the kids, his spine.

"What I'm about to tell you is not to leave this room," Providence's booming voice instructed telepathically. Seven gave a quick, yet jittery, nod.

"Good," Providence telepathically said, although a lot more calmly than his previous words.

Seven sat on the bleachers by himself, lost in thought.

"Is that really okay to do?" Seven pondered to himself. Seven felt a tug on his sleeve and he looked up to see it was Zariah the squidling.

"Come on, Mr Seven, everyone's joining in so you've gotta join too," Zariah stated as she pulled Seven to his feet. Seven sighed and quietly chuckled to himself as he let Zariah drag him to the others.