The sound of birds tweeting could be heard throughout the entire forest with the occasional rustling from the bushes. The collection of wagons, the type of ones that have roofs, made their way down the trail. The group consisted of Zalroth, Sophia, Lola, Akari, Scarlett, Snow, a female angel, a male angel child and Rokai who was driving the wagon.

Zalroth, on the verge of being half asleep, led his head against the wooden part of the wagon's wall. Lola, with Scarlett and Snow sitting next to her, was inspecting Charlotte's sword although that mainly consisted of the three of them poking the sword, Snow took particular interest in the handguard that had the appearance of a black flower with eight petals. The sword had a single piece of black fabric wrapped around the handle and the entire sword was made out of a single type of silvery metal, aside from the black metal V marks on the blade that showed where it separated when it changes into its whip mode.

"It looks really cool but why does the metal look so shiny?" Scarlett asked. Lola looked intently at the metal but couldn't figure out why. She quickly rummaged through her backpack and tossed random items out of it, as she looked for something. Scarlett caught a pair of gauntlets before Lola pulled a book out from her backpack. Lola frantically flicked through the pages of the book trying to find a certain page. She slowly looked over at Zalroth and tugged on his sleeve. Zalroth opened one of his eyes and looked at the book.

"It's on page three hundred and thirty-four.". Zalroth let out a yawn and closed his eye again. Lola flicked to the page Zalroth mentioned and was delighted as she read the page's contents. Scarlett and Snow huddled up next to Lola. They each wrapped one of Lola's tails around their necks like a scarf and read the contents of the book with her.

The contents of the book stated that the metal was called Dawnite. It's a shiny silvery metal that can only be found in the country of luvemorn, along with its sister material Duskstone, located on the floating continent of Kalikost. The three of them became extremely interested in the mentioned floating continent. The trio simultaneously looked over at Zalroth.

"It's on the four hundred and first page in the book with the bird, fox and wolf on the cover.". Without hesitation, Lola raced over to her backpack and started to search for the book. After a few seconds of searching, she couldn't find the book and let out a disappointed sigh, causing both her ears and tails to slump downwards.

Lola sombrely made her way over to Zalroth and placed her head against his arm. She pressed her head against his arm multiple times, to try and get his attention. However, after a few attempts to get his attention, she realised Zalroth had fallen asleep.

Lola defeatedly climbed up Zalroths arm before smothering her face in his hair. Scarlett and Snow seemed perplexed at Lola's abrupt shift in demeanour. Scarlett scooted over to Akari.

"Mama, what's Lola doing?".

"Well... I've heard that young kitsunes will bury themselves in their parent's tail whenever they're upset or get scared, although since he doesn't have his tails out she's decided to use his hair.". Scarlett nodded her head to show she understood. However, after a few seconds, her expression suddenly shifted to a confused one.

"Wait... does that mean he's a kitsune as well?". Akari nodded her head in response to Scarlett's question.

"But how can you tell?". Akari pointed at her hair.

"A signature trait of the kitsune race is that their hair matches the colours on their tails, causing them to have multiple hair colours.".

"Is that true?". Scarlett quickly looked over at Lola and noticed that the ends of her green hair were the same metalically silver as her tails and ears. Scarlett proceeded to look at Zalroth was surprised that the ends of his hair were a pale cyan.

Scarlett started to envision what Zalroth would look like with kitsune ears and three tails. However, her envisionment of kitsune Zalroth shifted when Sophia mentioned that it's a good thing he has his tails concealed, otherwise there would be barely enough space in the wagon for just himself.

Scarlett scratched her head as the kitsune Zalroth she was envisioning went through multiple revisions, starting with the original to one with three super long tails but she thought that looked weird and finally she visualised a Zalroth with nearly a hundred kitsune tails.

Scarlett started to imagine herself laying on top of all Zalroth's tails, remembering what Lola's tail felt like and remembering her mother telling her that adult kitsune fur is a lot softer than child kitsune fur. Sadly for her, Scarlett's daydream was cut short by the wagon abruptly stopping. Scarlett angerly ran over to the front of the wagon.

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"What's the big idea?!". Scarlet continued to complain while waving her arms sporadically. Rokai awkwardly rubbed his orange and black hair.

"Sorry about that, Scarlet. A tree suddenly fell in front of the wagon but I'll have it out of the way in no time.". Rokai hopped off the wagon and hurried over to the fallen tree. He effortlessly lifted the tree and placed it out of the way of the road; shortly followed by him getting back on the wagon and continuing.

Meanwhile, Charlotte and the others arrived at a clearing in the forest, aside from a lot of rubble. The group explored the area and inspected the rubble.

"Seems like there was a camp here," Luna mentioned.

"And given the direction, the mana traces are heading they must be heading west," Heather added. Charlotte, Heather, Luna, Alex and Elizabeth gathered together while Ruby and Star continued to investigate some of the rubble.

"Do you think there's a chance the Phantom and their allies are with this group of people?" Alex asked. Charlotte and the others considered it.

"It's a possibility and I do remember there was someone else present when we were fighting the Phantom but without any evidence, we can't jump to any conclusi-". Charlotte paused for a second when she noticed Star was running over to her while carrying a piece of cloth. Star stopped next to Charlotte and handed her a piece of burnt black cloth. Charlotte looked at the cloth and called Ruby over. She handed the cloth to Ruby.

Ruby closed her eyes and a thin veil of red mana. After a few seconds, the red mana disappeared.

"What's the verdict?" Charlotte asked.

"I'll need more time to make out all the different mana traces but I definitely sensed mana from your sword, Charlotte.". Charlotte nodded and looked at Alex.

"It seems your hunch might be right but we should look for more clues while Ruby analyses the cloth.". The others nodded before everyone, aside for Ruby, split up again and continued to search the area. While she was in the middle of searching, Charlotte sensed her sensei was trying to telepathically contact her.

"Yes, Sensei?".

"I'm calling to inform you I am currently returning to the capital. I've sent my Lumos Clone to bring you some extra supplies, so it should be with you shortly.".

"I appreciate your concern, Sensei, but don't you think that's a bit much?". Right at that moment, Charlotte noticed that Star was playfully waving in her direction, which she found odd.

"So you don't want the supplies, captain?" The Zulcrestus clone, that was standing right behind Charlotte, asked. Charlotte was caught off guard and instantly tried to turn to face the clone, but tripped on some of the rubble. Charlotte proceeded to fall backwards and land on top of the rubble. Heather looked up and rolled her eyes.

"Sensei's trolling-, I mean, testing Charlotte again." Heather thought while worrying that he was listening to her thoughts. Star hurried over to Charlotte as the clone lifted Charlotte with telekinesis and placed her on her feet.

"Sensei, could you please stop scaring Charlotte." Star requested. The clone simply handed Charlotte the bag of supplies.

"As long as she's incapable of grasping the concepts of mana sense, not only is she at a disadvantage in a fight but also puts the group, as a whole, in danger." The clone explained.

"But Charlotte's the strongest member of the group," Star mentioned.

Before anyone could say anything else, a large bear suddenly raced out from the trees behind the clone and raced for him. Star tried to warn him about the bear but stopped midsentence when the bear was instantly launched into the air while being covered in a cyan glow. The clone lifted some of the rubble and shaped it into spearheads with his telekinesis. He snapped his fingers to get Charlotte and Star's attention.

"Do you see now why having mana sense is so essential for a ninja? Without it you can be easily ambushed and have a hard time tracking your target by yourself." the clone explained. Charlotte itched her neck.

"Yes Sensei but I have made progress, I'm a least able to sense mana a little now".

"That's good to hear, maybe the next time I check up on you you'll be able to sense me arriving.".

"I dought that, Sensei," Charlotte replied.

"We'll see.". The clone waved at the two before disappearing. Charlotte let out an exhausted sigh.

"He just as bad as my mother..." Charlotte remarked.

"I'm just like what now?" Ruby asked in the deepest voice she could muster. Charlotte twitched and swiftly turned around.

"Knock it off,". Charlotte straightened her hair.

"I assume you're done with your examination of the burnt cloth?". Ruby gave a cheeky grin, due to both finishing the examination but mostly because she managed to scare Charlotte, and nodded.

"Sure have, It's just like Alex suggested. All the mana traces, including your sword's, are all heading west". Ruby also mentioned she sensed fire magic traces from members of their group on the cloth and figured it must be a part of the Phantom's uniform that got burned by them. Charlotte nodded and called the others over before telling them what Ruby had told her. After everyone was on the same page, they all hurried off westwards.

Right as the group left, the effect of Zulcrestus' Lumos clone's telekinesis and the bear plummeted onto the rubble that used to be the spearheads before panicky running away in the opposite direction of the kunoichi.