During his time recalling the events outside of this dream, new memories had invaded his mind. His name was Rudy Alder, and he had narrowly escaped the monstrous beasts which had attacked his city. He had been wandering the wastelands in search of civilization for the past few weeks and had taken a nasty fall evading those horrid creatures. Initially, he wanted to keep moving thinking those creatures might have still been after him, but it turned out staying where he was had been the right thing to do. He was beginning to think the entire world had become corrupted by those things. No matter where he walked, or for how long, he only saw ghost town after ghost town. His magic was ineffective against the monsters for the most part, too. They seemed to absorb it-

Dreiki snapped himself away from the memories. He could not afford to indulge too much. He needed to maintain his sense of self. As he crept towards the light, He ran through the other things he had learned outside the dream.

The Xirxus children. Their eldest, whom Dreiki had met only a few days ago, was a lightning user by the name of Amaro. He had not seen him fight much, but it was easy to assume he was comparable to Deka and his siblings. The dangerous aura he exuded alone was enough to put Dreiki on edge whenever he was in close proximity.

Anitus was the true threat. Utilizing a hyper aggressive style of fire magic. There was not a single spell he casted which did not sport a blue flame. He also loved to leave traps behind. Any hit he landed was comboed with an explosive spell which lingered on the opponent’s body until activated. The simple answer to defeating him was just to not get hit, but with how fast and aggressive he was that was impossible. It was only a matter of time before his momentum snowballed into a victory. Something he had proved by defeating Rorik.

Then there was Raktus. Despite being younger, he was as large as Gornax who shared lineage with giants. Just like Gornax, he was an earth magic user, but his earth magic seemed to be inspired by his older brother’s aggressive fighting style. There was one key difference, though. Where Anitus spelled death by a thousand cuts with hundreds of accurate strikes, Raktus preferred to only need one or two good hits. Every punch he threw was a sledgehammer loaded with his full weight behind it. According to what Tulos had told Rixam one day, he was also the child of a former Ventator Knight. That fact did not sit right in Dreiki’s stomach.

Thinking of which, Tulos and Sancta had joined their side of the war games. He had not seen either of them fight, but they were incredibly good in their support roles. Sancta had taken a bit of work, but after a brawl with Kaara, Dreiki had managed to convince her. It was all about making it her idea, not his.

The one unifying trait they all had was their Ux. Aside from Deka, they all had a partially awakened version of Ux. Thanks to the small Ux scroll Savekio had given him, Dreiki now understood what to look for. Those who were not aware of their Ux could not hide it, and those who were could see the signs. Because of this, Dreiki had made sure to keep his own well hidden. He also knew the main difference between partially awakened Ux and fully awakened Ux was the amount of techniques which could be used at once. Someone with partial Ux could only use three to five at a time, whereas someone who had fully awakened their Ux could theoretically use all of them at once.

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The difference in power between the two types is marginal, however. At least for beginners like himself. Unlike his magic, Dreiki’s Ux had some sort of limit that was used up. It got fatigued like any other muscle in his body. The more abilities he used at a time, the quicker he exhausted himself. After which he needed some time to recover. Mediation sped that process up, though.

Someone like Deka had the benefit of a soul mark which bolstered his Ux and allowed him to do a lot more with it than Dreiki ever could have. However, Tadios did not have a soul mark, which made Dreiki wonder how he had achieved a similar level of power without it. It was likely some sort of great tragedy. Tadios had mentioned his parents had been killed by Malaki at some point. Although, he had about three years on Deka when it came to age, so it was not too surprising he was equal to him in terms of Ux.

Ux was apparently something which got more powerful with age regardless of training, or the user’s awareness of it.

Dreiki refocused on the dream as he snuck towards the light. It was a campfire, but something was off about it. There was a faint smell of burnt hair. Three figures sat around a campfire, their faces obscured by hoods.

Upon closer inspection, they were not burning wood. It was likely a dryad of some sort. Dreiki recalled stories about the forest spirits his mother had told him, but it was difficult to remember if that mother had been Zesa Iriik or Eliza Alder. To see them being used as fire wood was a cruel perversion of their purpose as protectors of the forest.

What sat around the campfire was merely a lure for the hopeful and the desperate. He slipped past them and moved on his way. He could not defeat these monsters. Dreiki knew why Rudy was so confused. All his life, anything he had called a ‘monster’ was a simple Magakos. And so, when he came face to face with a Malaki, he attempted to treat them in the same way. Malaki could not be killed by normal means because they were not alive in the first place. They could be temporarily stopped, but if they were not eaten they would come back. If Dreiki could not find an Ingen tree somewhere and eat its fruit, then he could not make a Malaki's death permanent. Unless he wanted to risk getting infested by the Malaki’s corruption. It was a last resort to eat them without an Ingen fruit’s resistance, and not a very good one.

He thanked Gornax for that information. Working with the other cooks in the Tibur camp had yielded quite a bit of useful information about Malaki.

An Ingen tree was not the only method of resisting a Malaki’s corruption, but it was one of the most effective and easily accessible methods to the xiozians of Itaro. Their seeds could be spread on infested corpses or soil to absorb its corruption. The weapons made of Ingen wood like bows, spears, and arrows were also particularly effective tools for killing them. Or in some cases, they settled for merely harming the Malaki and making it more difficult for them to regenerate.

Unfortunately for both Dreiki and Rudy, Ingen trees did not exist in this world. More frightening to Dreiki, the world which Rudy remembered was neither called Itaro, nor Lithiria. It was something different. But even if he knew what it wasn’t called, Rudy did not remember what it was called.

He noticed there were also other portions which seemed to have been redacted from his memory. Rudy felt like he should have known these things. Dreiki felt like Rudy did know these things at some point. It was such a strange feeling, possessing the consciousness and memories of two completely different people in the same body. Dreiki had to wonder if Rudy ever existed in the first place, and if he did, if he had ever made it past that campfire.