Peter Boyd.

***

“For the rest of you, this marks the start of your most grueling exam.”

Because of the light and mana oppressing me from all directions, the Arcane Mage’s words were but a whisper in the back of my mind while I backpedaled from the sphere of light growing to swallow us all. At that moment, the summit and all of Maru faded into a distant point on the horizon behind us. It was just us in our ball of light, streaking through the vastness of the World Sea in mere moments. Trapped in a state of silence I’ve never before heard. An inner peace mixed with an overbearing sense of insignificance as I felt the vastness of the realms for the first time in my life.

I was lost in awe for that endless moment. Then, that awe turned into anxiousness once a streak of land appeared at the end of our road. Though it disappeared as quickly as I saw it, for a flash of light signaled our abrupt halt inside a platform similar to the one at Rook Island. Once I was sure the light faded, I cautiously opened my eyes and began to take a look around before I felt my mouth and nose be blocked by… something. I tried to gasp and only choked and thrashed about as fire being to spread across my skin, granting me the sight of Mary and Rommy looking to be no more than annoyed or slightly pained by the environment. Obviously, the foreigners weren’t bothered in the slightest. And the same went for Winston and his asses. Leaving me to be the only only one struggling. Suffering from both this mana and the Arcane Mage’s words rang through my mind like a bell.

It took a few moments, but I was finally able to squeeze air into my lungs and regain some focus. While it was still ridiculously painful, I was sure I would survive so long as I wasn’t met with any distractions.

For whatever reason, there was no one here from the academy to shepherd us across the grounds. There was only a row of cocoon-like lanterns that hung above the fenced-off road we stood on.

“Welcome to Nonus.” A welcoming but sourceless voice echoed from all around us. “I am aware that this environment may be… stimulating, for some of you. But do your best to continue along the road to the grounds.”

I both shook my head and felt relieved when Winston and his asses strutted forward to grasp at the coattails of whoever just spoke, then decided to wait a few moments before starting after them.

Whoever the voice was seemed relaxed in terms of security. So I felt calm about turning my attention away from any would-be hazards and instead focused on regulating my breath. After nearly ten minutes of walking, it became more bearable and so I began thinking of other ways to distract myself- mostly daydreaming about bashing, cutting, burning, and drowning the sad excuses for rulers skipping along ahead. Such ways of thinking always got me through the worst of things and it’d get me through this. Still, though, every time one scene ended and another began, I could see the increased distance between me and them. I cared not, though. The Deapouans were even farther behind than me and the Phaegratheans were even further behind them. And all of them were admiring the environment with not a care in the realms.

Besides, the further I got from the Prince, the better.

After another fifteen minutes, my imagination began to run dry. And so, I too took to looking at the environment to distract myself. Though it soon proved pointless as I could hardly see beyond the lights above our path. Only the outlines and deep shadows belonging to what could only be described as an ancient forest peered through the fog to meet my gaze. Another half an hour passed and I was bored to the bone. With our pace, I’d grown somewhat acclimatized to the environment in terms of breathing. Yet the pain was still there and becoming harder to ignore with my increasing boredom. Forcing my mind to repeatedly ask itself a single question.

‘How much further?’

Frustrated, I let out a sigh. And soon heard a voice behind me that sounded curiously close to my ear.

“You’re not going to fall over, are you?”

Being both too tired and too focused to be thoroughly surprised, I slowly turned to see a dark-skinned kid wearing strange clothes. Well, they all wore strange clothes. But he wore a long-sleeved black shirt and black pants in the rainforest and had a golden-yellow sash tied around his waist like a belt. From what I could remember, he was the one the other Deapouan and Odissians crowded around. The absent-minded chain smoker. If he noticed the rags I was wearing, he seemed not to care. Making me a little optimistic that these royals were at least different from Epethians. But I stayed on guard all the same. “I’ll be fine,” I grunted before increasing my pace to match theirs.

“Okay.” He shrugged as if he were fully satisfied with my answer, then turned his attention back to our surroundings as if he’d never even spoken. And more so, his friends did much the same.

“What’s your name?” he eventually asked after ten or so minutes of silence.

“Peter,” I hesitantly yet confidently. “Peter Boyd.”

I saw his hardly illuminated head nod as I said my name, then he bowed politely before replying. “My name is Amun.”

My brows wrinkled almost instantly. “Just Amun?”

“Yes.” He replied without even a glance my way. “Just Amun.”

“Uh-huh,” I commented to myself before shrugging. “Strange.”

“Perhaps.” He- Amun commented to himself while nodding, yet still looked to the trees before another interrupted.

“I am Roheisa… er.” The barbaric girl hesitantly paused to avert her gaze before immediately bringing it back to me. “Roheisa Deapou.”

“The Royal Princess??” I recoiled way more than I should’ve. ‘Of course, she’d be here. Why wouldn’t she be here?’ I began to calm myself and prepare to act more formally before she suddenly replied.

“Yes.” She reluctantly nodded before gesturing around us. “Though, such titles don’t mean much here. You can just call me Roheisa.”

‘Yeah.’ I nodded to myself while looking forward to Winston and his groupies.

“I’m Ed.” A boy around my stature said next. He wore a strange one-piece tunic and had a head of short locks like the head of a mop.

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The one closest to Amun bowed next. The sides of his head were shaved and he seemed angry as he grunted. “Toril.” Then looked up into the skies as he was doing before.

The last one was dressed in formal wear, unlike the others. “My name is Jaimess. It’s a pleasure, Peter.”

Shocked by their friendliness, I remained silent and simply kept walking alongside them. They were acting in a way that was completely contradictory to what I’d heard about Deapou and Odissi. So much so that it made me hard to trust them. Perhaps I was simply being paranoid, but those of us who were thrown in the gutter by the very society that birthed them had to rely on such ways of thinking for survival. But now that I was beyond that society; and more, a Page of the Bodhi Tree, my ways of survival were bound to change for the better.

***

Amun.

***

I was surprised the Guild Association didn’t accompany us to this land. Then found myself shocked to find no one here to greet us. Only a disembodied voice that seemed to come from the trees themselves gave us any guidance. A subtle method to gauge our integrity, I presumed. Or to see how well we would survive in this much mana.

While I personally felt it’d be faster to simply fly there, I didn’t complain in the face of a new environment. That, and I didn’t want to show off. But I digress. This land was… vast, to say the least. Even the smallest trees dwarfed the mightiest of their cousins back home. Mere plants were the size of houses, and some grasses rose to half my height and width. Nonus was truly magnificent. A realm of power itself. What I saw made me liken it to the Earth if she hadn’t faced multiple mass extinctions across her 4.5 billion-year history. If the Earth retained its high concentration of oxygen whilst having no ice ages, asteroid impacts, and; most of all, humans ruining its surface, Nonus is what I assumed it’d be like. It was a goldmine to not only my eyes but the rest of us and those behind us as well. Those ahead of me, however, were much unhappier with the situation. While they were eagerly powering ahead, I could hear them whispering amongst themselves about how hungry they were or how hot it was. About how they’ve seen no one from the academy. About the length of the road. The lack of a method of travel other than walking. And on and on. No inconvenience was spared from the seven of their lips.

Among those seven were four who acted independently enough to make me think two of them were nobles in their own right, each with their own vassals. Though, the taller one was clearly the highest of them, seeing as he had two at his sides. The Prince of Epethia. Besides them, there was a couple that walked a fair distance behind them. A plain-looking girl and a guy who appeared to be sick with the mask over his nose. Commoners, I assumed, that wanted nothing to do with Peter or the spoiled kids ahead of them. On the contrary, the Phaegratheans behind us were an odd mix. I’ve heard of Silver City, but I knew nothing about it other than its name. Grandpa Lich nor anyone else ever mentioned any current-day kingdoms in Phaegrath. Yet one of the Association members mentioned the dwarf being a surviving member of the Bonju Tribes. A destroyer for the God of War. Who called out the Grandmaster’s favoritism towards the three Amazonians. Warriors, she called them with much emphasis. And then there was the giant among them. Zeke Silva. While I could feel no magic coming from him, I could tell he was not only powerful but built different. He felt… beastly, if not monstrous. Not only due to his size and the tone of his voice but in the aura he gave off just before he landed. It was similar to the aura of fear that exuded from me when I used my sorcery.

Out of them all, he was by far the most interesting. But I found Peter to be tremendously interesting as well. Albeit in another way. He was clearly struggling under the ambient energy. Compared to Maru’s gaseous-liquid mana, the mana here was around a couple of levels above the ice threshold. It both looked and felt like a fragile solid permeating space. Breaking apart only as we moved within it. Outside of that, Peter seemed kind of… timid. Though, I felt that wasn’t the right word to describe him. It was more as if he was constantly on guard. From that and his repeated scowls at the seven individuals ahead, it was easy to guess his mental state. The kid was clearly traumatized, resentful, and thus volatile. His being granted new power only increased his instability. He was a ticking bomb, and I didn’t want to be around to see it blow.

That said, there was an opportunity to be found. Making him stronger would be easy. Increasing his intellect, however, would prove to be far more productive. In doing so, a foundation of trust would be laid. And with that, comes an ally on my part. And on his part, subtle guidance away from the more irrational choices he was likely to make in the future. Even then, though, increasing his strength depended on his aptitude. If he proved to have potential, then he’d eventually become another cog in the machine. For now, at least, I decided to leave him until he warmed up and turned my attention back to the greatest thing to happen thus far in this life.

I was finally walking on Nonus. And it wasn’t disappointing in the slightest.

Most notable was the extensive flora surrounding us in all directions. While the strange cocoons only provided the humans with enough light to see the road. The shadows and dark fog beyond contained a vast arrangement of flowering plants or trees bearing exotic fruits. Fruits that the overgrown fauna unhurriedly foraged for while we walked. The strangest thing of all, though, was the surface on which we walked. Only a few of us seemed to notice; not surprising, considering the conditions. But our path was devoid of any plant life. Not even the smallest patch of moss blemished the glossy, grained surface that shined under the gentle light from above. We were walking on a surface root of the Bodhi Tree, I believed. And strongly, for nothing but such a tree would siphon a stream of mana from my foot- from all of our feet. It was subtle, but there. A small trickle of energy from my Well went into the roots to be whisked away up the small hill further up our path.

After cresting it, we descended into a clearing that gave unimpeded views of our destination. Views that I stared at wide-eyed in dumbfounded awe. About three hundred meters ahead, the path went on a gentle slope upward to merge with similar paths that came from the flanks to create village-sized pockets in between. Meadows, quayed lakes, stone platforms, recreation courts, and a number of other facilities filled them. Regardless of what they held, though, many of them were walled on most sides by the towering roots. Mini-mall-sized roots. They continued ahead even after that, aggregating and rising to a near-vertical incline as they met the mountainous trunk of what appeared to be a monstrously large fig tree. Its blooming branches stretched well above the clouds and its roots, I assumed, possibly dug the impossible distance to the Darkworld.

It was undoubtedly smaller than the Marulean Tree of Life, though. Not only that, but they seemed to be entirely different species of tree altogether. Beneath the mountain that formed around it, the Marulean Tree was a solid trunk like a birch. This one, on the other hand, had an uneven surface that appeared like arterial veins were bulging forth from the bark. It was undoubtedly a fruit tree. Which made my mind start spinning with hypotheses.

It first made me think of the many mythological trees from human history. The Tree of Life and Death. Known as the World Tree in just one of many languages, cultures, religions, and mythologies of Earth. But also known as Etz Hayim. Jianmu. The Oak. Yggdrasil. Irminsul- all names to describe the same thing; one of the most ancient of all living creatures- Trees. One that grew so large that its roots stretched to the underworld and its canopy brushed the heavens. A tree that, in some cultures, not only created life but granted immortality; or caused mortals to ascend to godhood.

As the legends of this universe stated, such a thing existed. But there was one for each of the realms. All on the same Mortal Plane. Separated from one another by interplanetary distances. And then there was the other tree from terrestrial mythology. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Interpretations and my opinions aside, it was agreed that eating its fruit is what brought humanity to its current state of suffering. We were banned from the Garden of Eden and denied access to the Tree of Life. Or something like that. It was clear to me that what sat before us now was this universe's version of such a tree. A Tree of Knowledge. Only, we’d receive knowledge of Class Evolution. Not that such a distinction made it any different than the legends of Earth, I soon realized, as the knowledge we’d gain here at the Bodhi Tree would give us the choice to venture down paths others would deem good or evil.

Or rather, good and evil.