As Julius walked through the sprawling streets and high rising buildings, the mix of colors hit him in a wave, as he looked around a lanky boy ran up to him. “Mister! Mister! Do you need a guide? Only one low grade madra scale is all it costs, Mister.”

Julius waved him off as he continued forward, and as the boy was walking away Julius hesitated looking back then calling out towards the boy. “Hey, Kid, do you know where they keep public archives, or where I can find an alchemy hall?” He said all this while flipping up a scale in his hand.

The kid ran up to him trying to snatch all the scale out of his hand just as Julius caught it again dangling the scale just out of the young boys reach. “Common Mister . . . I require up front pay!”

Said the boy. “No, No, No… How about I give you this ‘ Julius pats the scale in his hand as he pulls out another scale he got from the bandit’ and give you this one when I get all my information.” Julius tossed the one up in the air again as the boy grabbed it shouting “ DEAL!” And he quickly looked around and shoved it in his pocket.

The boy ran ahead as though nothing happened and started to talk about the current surroundings telling Julius what the buildings were and where to find some of the best food to steal, he also told him which establishments would cheat him out of money which would not and this continued for awhile as they continued toward the alchemy hall, when they reached it, a long segment of walled courtyards and a big pagoda like building in the middle with sentries walking along the platforms, escorting people in and out of the building. Then they continued down a few alleyways as the sun began to set and reached some public archives.

“Where's my money sir?” The boy pleaded, just as two low grade scales were thrown at him. “Thankyou! Thankyou! THANKYOU SIRE!” he shouted as he quickly got caught up in his excitement, but it quickly boiled down as he realized that he was making a scene and he quickly ran away into the crowded streets hoping to blend in and steal more money.

Julius, however, quickly walked up to the deserted archives and opened the double doors in front of him, however as they opened he was assaulted by a stale, old stench and an ancient woman propped up on a cane stood at the entry way saying a monotonous tone “ One Silver Coin.” He handed her the coin as she said “Keep quiet”, and moved off to the side sitting down on a chair.

He moved forward looking at the myriad of books on the shelf with only a single symbol defining what each shelf held. The shelfs in the building continued on for hundreds of yards each way making the inside appear much larger than the outside. Each shelf housed hundreds of books and was double sided, 10 feet tall, and around 40 feet long.

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He wandered along the aisles looking for a section on maps and locations so he could figure out where he was.

He finally found the section with a massive map sprawled out across the wall next to the shelf with several pins marking important areas. He walked over and looked at the symbol displaying where he was, a small city in the akura clan territory. He had no idea where he was before he appeared in that forest so . . . he was still relatively clueless on how he could contact his master if he was still alive.

Still, he must move on, and now that his master wasn’t here he finally had a place to vent so he could figure out where he came from.

He quickly walked towards the lists of known citizens in the Akura Clan’s territory, and as he arrived at the lists, he was baffled. There was no way he would be able to scope out and scan the known lists of people in the akura empire at the moment. So, he decided to rule down the numbers by eliminating the known people in the area with an age older than 20 and younger than 15. However, he was still swamped with the amount of people left on the known list, so he took an alternative route and went looking for the amount of people his age who had disappeared from their family, or were known to be dead.

This thankfully lowered his list down to several tens of thousands, then he further eliminated people of other races and only included humans of his race, eliminating it down to only several thousand. Dear dreadgods, take me now. This will take absolutely forever. He thought.

. . . . .

Days later and half his money gone, he was finally finished with his search, unfortunately his research bore no fruits except for a lead on a lately destroyed kingdom, however, he would have no one to verify his origin except for his master whose whereabouts were currently unknown.

Especially given that his master was a wanderer and Julius had lived his whole life running across the continent from either an unknown enemy or to gain more experience like his master had said. However, the former was becoming more and more likely with Julius’s mysterious teleportation to the Akura’s territory from where he was before and his master unoccupied position currently near him.

Julius gave up his search after a few hours and decided to continue it another day, however now, money was a up and coming problem. He was half broke and his soul smithing skills were not the best and he only excelled at being a ruler and striker with his enforcer being half as good as the others at best.

So, he decided to do what he was best at and apply for some missions at the local small family organization they had in the city, as he walked into the building the boy had showed him days ago he was stunned by the amount of requests on the board from the smallest only offering a few coppers to kill some remnant infections and the largest offering up to a few hundred gold for scouting out the area of a dangerous part in the dragon clan.

Julius looked through the request for a few minutes deciding on a couple one to kill some higher level dreadbeast that had terrorized some people and gain a few gold. He then went looking for a relatively cheap place to stay in luckily managed to find one relatively near. He payed up some of the rest of his money and started his madra cycling technique when he reached the closed room, trying to reinforce his madra before the action in the next day.