"What's with the face?" Cronix asked, but Cayden was too busy squinting at the paper, moving it so close to his face, his nose was touching the paper.

After a few moments, he sighed, and handed Cronix the paper with a list of items in small writing, but Cronix couldn't see anything wrong with it, he could read the paper just fine. This caused him to give Cayden a weird look.

Cayden shook his head, and said, "Can't you see it? It's in writing, small writing."

Cronix shrugged his shoulders, "And..?"

Cayden sighed and continued, "I can't read."

"Oh..." Cronix didn't know what to say for a few moments which allowed Cayden to continue complaining.

"What's worse is that the writing is so small, I can't see it properly." A small smile grew on Cronix's face when he heard this,

Who knew that someone so ready to kill me just a few minutes ago, would be so stumped by writing.

Finally Cronix decided to ease Cayden's fumings, he said, "Cayden relax, I can read this just fine."

"Really...? Thank goodness... I really don't want to lose another star." With his worries lessened, he said, "Let's go."

Cayden brought Cronix to the entrance of the property, the gate house. Scanning the place, Cronix counted twelve guards in total, most of them in the Flawless Caster Stage, but there were the occasional Core Creation.

That'll be troublesome...

Cayden glanced at him, "Even if the guards weren't here, you wouldn't be able to escape."

Turning to Cayden, Cronix asked with a slightly stressed tone, "How the heck did you know what I was thinking?"

Cayden laughed, "It was written all over your face, besides everyone counts the guards when they first arrive. But you should know, even if the guards weren't here, the slave seal stops us from escaping."

"Slave seal?" Cronix repeated.

Cayden's eyes widened, "You don't know what the slave seal is?"

Cronix shook his head.

Cayden moved his hair, and the collar of his shirt, revealing a familiar emblem of a world consuming flame on the back of his neck the size of a quarter, "This is the slave seal. You also have one on the back of your neck."

When Cronix looked at the slave seal, he noticed there was something else.

Cronix looked closer, and saw faint complex lines that not even he could understand, with an energy going through it, and he realized what it was, "A formation."

Cayden then glanced around, leaned over and whispered in his ear, "This stops us from disobeying their orders, but if there isn't anyone around, can they really do anything? The thing is there are too many Ayunas' in this area to test it out."

Cronix nodded at Cayden's words.

Cayden then led them out of the Ayuna's property, handing the guards a slip of paper that allowed them to pass. He brought them into the shopping district of Klavor, when they arrived, he said, "We only have three hours, so we better hurry."

But his words landed into empty ears, Cronix wasn't paying attention anymore. It could be said this was Cronix's first time seeing how an actual city looked.

Cronix spent most of his time in Alktarsha, but that was only a small community, so at most Alktarsha could be considered a town.

The only other place Cronix has ever been to was Varence, but he couldn't even have 20 minutes to explore before being chased out, and even if he did have the time, Varence was much like Alktarsha in size.

But Klavor was bigger than both Alktarsha and Varence combine. In Alktarsha most of the buildings were made of wood and only had one floor, but in Klavor the buildings were made of concrete, and seemed to break through the sky.

The shopping district itself also looked totally different. In Alktarsha there were stalls and it was an open market, only a few certain stores could own buildings, but here there were buildings dedicated to these stores, and everything was much neater.

The people he could see on the streets alone were at least three times the amount of people in Alktarsha.

Cayden looked at Cronix and pointed at the words at the top of the paper, "Do you know what this means?"

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At the top of the paper wasn't an item, but a name and address, "Party Mansion. Do I need to guide us there?"

"No, I know how to tell addresses, I just wanted to know what it was called." Cayden began walking towards the direction of Party Mansion.

But something suddenly hit Cronix, "Do we have money?"

Cayden only brushed the question off and said, "Don't worry about it."

It only took them a few minutes to find Party Mansion, mostly because it was the size of a mansion.

But Cronix didn't have the time to be amazed because he was still worried about the money, while Cayden told him not to worry, he didn't trust Cayden enough to be assured.

If only I had my magic bag, I would have more than a thousand lower grade magic crystals...

Cayden suddenly stopped Cronix, "Before we go any further, I need to ask you something, what's your name?"

Cronix was actually surprised by this question,

I completely forgot that he doesn't know my name...

"It's Cronix."

"Cronix... Cronix... Cronix." Cayden repeated several times before saying, "I'll remember this, it's very... unique."

The two entered the mansion sized store, "So what's on the list?" Cayden asked, while looking through the paper.

"It says..."

Cronix listed off the items they needed, while Cayden went off to collect them. Thanks to Cronix, what usually took three hours for Cayden, where he still ended up not getting everything, was only going to take one hour.

As they were collecting Cronix spotted something that made him stop in his tracks.

It was a shining formation with a familiar complex pattern, there were about fifty lines, with fifteen primary lines.

It was helping employees transport supplies throughout the store.

"That's..."

Cayden looked at Cronix's mumbling figure and frowned, "What happened?"

"It's a teleportation array... A completed teleportation array, if I could study this I may be able to finish my own teleportation array."

"Teleportation array? Are you a formation master?" Cayden's eyes widened, "Were you rich or something?"

Cronix shook his head, "No, I'm just very lucky, but..." A gleam appeared in Cronix's eyes, "If I'm able to create a teleportation array, I might be able to get us out of here."

After getting all of the supplies for Onyx's party, all that was left was to pay for the supplies, "Cayden, how are we going to pay for all of this?"

Cayden smiled at Cronix, and said, "Watch this?"

Cayden brought his hands together, and gathered the earth elements. Cronix didn't understand what happened next, but after a few minutes, a bright light appeared, and a low quality lower grade crystal appeared in Cayden's hands, but there was something special about this crystal.

The crystal wasn't clear like an ordinary magic crystal, but an orangish brown color!

"You... You've created an attribute crystal?! How the heck is that possible?" Cayden felt a bit smug seeing Cronix's amazed face.

"It's something I came up with before I went into slavery, but I got to tell you it saved me a lot of trouble with the guards. Anyways, I can make higher grade crystals if I focus on lowering the impurities, but right now it's better to focus on quantity, so just give me some time."

It ended up taking most of the remaining time they had, but Cayden was able to create enough magic crystals to pay for all of it.

"This is probably my first time buying everything on time." Cayden said with an exhausted breath, "Man, now I'm actually starting to feel guilty about earlier..."

Cayden trailed off, he noticed there was something wrong with Cronix's eyes,

Why does his eyes suddenly seem... Icier?

Cronix frowned, the way Cayden was looking at him felt weird, "What's wron..."

A freezing wave abruptly passed through his body interrupting whatever he was saying.

"What..?" His body felt weak, and his breathing became heavy; he burst into shivers.

Unfortunately that wasn't the end of it, his head suddenly felt like there was ice growing out of it, and it slowly spread to the rest of his body, as if his internals were all being frozen over.

His vision blurred, and his arms became too weak to carry the items they brought.

His arms weren't the only part of him weakening as his legs also weakened to the point of being unable to support his body, so he fell. Luckily Cayden was there, and he steadied him.

"Cronix! Cronix!" Cayden's calls landed on deaf ears, Cronix couldn't think straight at the moment. But that's when Cronix felt an energy at his chest, he couldn't see what caused it, but he knew what it was.

The pendent was finally doing something, yet he noticed something was different, usually the energy was cold and calming, but this time the energy was warm and invigorating.

It didn't take long for whatever caused the sudden cold spike to go away, gasping for air, Cronix grabbed Cayden's shoulder for further support.

Cayden looked at Cronix with a peculiar expression, "What happened?"

"I don't know... This is the first time I've ever felt like this." Cronix brought his hands to his head and massaged his temples, "Did you notice anything about me before it happened, you looked at me weird."

"I thought your eyes looked different, like more blue. Actually they still look more blue."

Cronix pondered on what Cayden said, and he suddenly remembered a specific person, "Is there anything else that's changed like my hair?"

"Your hair?" Cayden checked out Cronix's hair, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it... Wait, let me..."

Cayden grabbed Cronix's head, to steady it, and moved his fingers through his hair, that's where he saw it, at the very base of Cronix's hair, was a slight change in color, what used to be black, now had a midnight blue hue.

When Cayden told Cronix his findings, Cronix knew for sure what was happening.

So, I'm becoming just like Mr. Williams, a human icicle, this probably has something to do with the mental expanse since that's where the ice wraith method takes place, I'll deal with that later.

After reassuring Cayden that everything was fine the two quickly made their way back to the Ayuna Manor.

"You should come with me when I go shopping more often." Cayden said once they were outside the manor.

Cronix nodded.

If I want to escape from this place, I need to familiarize myself with this place.

When Cronix and Cayden first entered the Ayuna manor, they heard yelling in the distance by the fields, yet neither of the two paid any attention, in a place with so many people there were bound to be fighting.

But it was a scream that startled the two of them, it wasn't the scream itself that scared them, but the fact that they recognized who the scream belonged to.

"That's... Lapsa!" Cayden dropped all the bags he was carrying, Cronix followed his example and went with him, although not with the same urgency as Cayden.