The two unicorns rode through the night, their destination insight. The floating city of Lux Fos, the capital of the Luminescence Kingdom.

While it looked amazing from afar, only one of the riders eyes were filled with awe. The younger one of the two riders stopped their unicorn to take in the sight.

But the older man tapped his head, "You've already seen all this before, stop getting held up."

"Sorry, by the way, do you have any idea why they would send for you?" The younger man asked.

The older man shrugged, but said nothing, only urging his unicorn forward.

"Holy Knight Aaron, so charismatic, and kind, looked up to by the masses." Ash muttered with a mocking tone while shaking his head, "Never meet your heroes."

His unicorn made a noise as if it was agreeing with him.

After his mutterings were over, he followed behind Aaron, this was his final stretch of his journey, and then he would be allowed to go home for a few days.

The circles under his eyes were darker than when he first met Aaron by the border, he just wanted to rest, and go back to his family.

They rode on until they entered a metallic platform, where they dismounted. For a few seconds a strange force enveloped the two of them, while Aaron was completely fine under this force, Ash wasn't, and the face he was making did nothing to hide that fact.

Once the force finished its inspection, the platform lifted up, there was a beige colored crystal under the platform releasing the air element.

The platform took several minutes to reach the capital, and like their masters, the unicorns had different reactions regarding their way up.

The unicorn belonging to Aaron was calm, and collected, while the unicorn belonging to Ash was unsettled, it wasn't comfortable being so high up.

The moment they stepped off the platform and onto the city grounds where there was a lot more space, it showed obvious relief.

There was another check up at the gate of the city involving guards at the Magical Being stage, but they didn't stop the two of them, and let them through.

Ash still felt intimidated by the city guards, since he was still only in the Star Core Magician stage, he wasn't the only one, his unicorn also showed signs of fear.

Aaron and his unicorn were completely calm, if anything, it was their presence that intimidated the guards. Ash slowly walked behind Aaron, his unicorn following next to him.

Once they were at the main road of the city, they remounted, and rode the rest of the way to the one of the biggest buildings in the capital.

The headquarters of the holy knights looked like a government building, with white concrete creating much of its exterior, and white columns holding up the roof of the three floor building.

Its size created a slight intimidating effect, as it stood there grand and magnificent, however there was something off with the entire atmosphere of the area.

While this building was located at the very center of the capital, its surroundings were dead quiet, and empty, there weren't even buildings around, only the cold, stone concrete floor.

But the silence was broken by the sounds of hoofs, and the two unicorns rode their way inside. Both Ash and Aaron dismounted when they reached the entrance.

Ash looked at his unicorn right in the face, while stroking its mane, he softly said, "You know where to go, don't start causing trouble, I'll only be inside for a little while, I just need to pack a few things."

The unicorn snorted in obvious displeasure resulting in its receival of a look by Ash.

Aaron on the other hand had a lot less trouble with his companion, no words needed to be exchanged for his unicorn to know what it needed to do.

After managing to finally convince it, Ash's unicorn followed behind Aaron's.

Looking back to the entrance Ash's eyes were met with Aaron's. Aaron's left hand was extended, in it was a bottle with black liquid, "Here's my gift to you as an apology."

"Apology?" Ash mumbled, his eyebrows slightly tilted.

Aaron sighed, then clarified, "I know I was a pain in the ass this entire trip, and you've been trying to track my location for quite some time, so this is my gift for your troubles."

"Oh," Ash's eyes brightened up as he took the bottle, "What's this for?"

"It's for the condensing period, it'll improve your rate, and awareness during the trial."

Ash's eyes only gotten brighter after hearing Aaron's explanation,

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

This could help me tremendously, and if I save some for Riley when he reaches this stage, he could also benefit.

"Apology accepted, but I still have to go report to the grandmaster." Ash said with a smile.

Aaron nodded, and the two entered the building.

The interior of the building was the opposite of the outside, inside had a more bustling atmosphere, but it wasn't cheerful.

Inside the building there were two kinds of people, one with white cloaks with black and golden emblems on the back, and the other were the servants doing all the manual labor needed to keep this place running.

Aaron didn't pay any particular attention to either of the two parties, he wasn't here for any of them. Ash gave the servants a look of pity before following Aaron to the hallway leading to the grandmaster's office.

The hallway led to more rooms and at its very end led to another part of the building. Along the walls next to the doors were huge windows, and below them were benches, serving as a little waiting area.

In one of these rooms, laid the grandmaster's office.

Aaron's eyebrows drew together to form a frown,

Why would Erica and Aster call...

"Uncle Aaron!" A voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts.

The two holy knights stopped in their tracks, Aaron smiled, he already sensed the Core Creation young women sitting on the bench under the grandmaster's window.

Aaron's niece was fifteen years old, almost sixteen, with eyes gold like Aarons, but hair a shiny silver color. However her most eye-catching features were behind her, or more specifically a part of her back.

Snow white, feathery wings protruded from her back, Aaron's entire body froze, but it was only for a moment, when he saw her wings, they reminded him of a boy he met a few weeks back.

There was excitement in his niece's bright eyes, but deeper inside, Aaron could see a slight feeling of confusion and a bit of fear.

However she was very good at hiding it, and it vanished as soon as he noticed, but her aura couldn't keep it hidden like her eyes could.

"Oh, Lenore you are getting prettier every passing day, sir Ash, don't you agree?" Aaron looked back at Ash.

When Ash looked at Aaron, his heart couldn't help but race. The look in Aaron's eyes was so soft when looking at his niece, but when he looked at Ash, it was the complete opposite.

While Aaron's mouth didn't move, his eyes did all the talking needed. If Ash didn't agree, it would be a miracle if he came out of this with an inch of his life.

Thankfully Ash didn't have to lie, but he was never good with flattery, so he had to remember what a certain badger demi-human once said as a joke back home, of course he tweaked the words a bit.

Ash slowly began to speak with a little bit of sweat on his back, "Certainly, if one day our sun were to go out, all we need is the princess's smile to brighten our day."

Lenore's lip twitched when she heard what Ash said, but she didn't say anything, and Aaron didn't pay too much attention to it, much to Ash's relief.

"Uncle Aaron, could you tell me what's happening?" Lenore asked, "No one's telling me anything." Her voice held a small amount of expectation.

Aaron's eyes began to narrow, "First let me find out what's happening."

While the office window blinds may have been shut, Aaron still felt two pairs of eyes on him.

"Ash, let's go."

Lenore waited outside, while the two knights went inside. The moment Ash entered the room with Aaron, he immediately felt a mountain of pressure on his back.

This wasn't intentionally caused by the two inside the office, but a side effect of them not fully keeping their power contained.

"Aaron, you sure took your time." The one who said this was a man sitting on a chair in front of the desk, his attire was simple, but everything else about him wasn't.

His long silver hair matched his daughter's, and his purple eyes complimented his handsome face.

The snow white wings on his back made him appear like an angel coming from above, and on his right ring finger was a ring with an infinity sign and a tree behind it, his other ring finger held a marriage ring.

A sharp look instantly appeared in Aaron's eyes as he said, "This better be important Aster, or I swear I'm going to..."

"Enough!" A soft voice interrupted the both of them, "Aaron, if you don't think Lenore is important enough to be here, then you can leave."

The words of the soft voice instantly caused Aaron to freeze, and he looked at the speaker, with evident traces of worry.

The one who spoke was the woman sitting behind the desk, and the owner of this office. Just her mere presence caused the light elements to go crazy, like they were worshiping a divine entity, in her ring finger was also a ring with the infinity symbol and tree.

"Oh, you're almost in the material phase, congrats Erica, you'll be the first of us to pass the Soul Forming stage." Aster congratulated with a bright smile.

His congratulations earned him a stern look from Erica telling him to shut up.

"How is Lenore in trouble?" Aaron finally managed to ask.

"We'll get to that, but first," Erica shifted her attention to Ash, "Ash, you can go now, but there's been a slight change, you can't go home."

"But grandmaster you've already approved it, why was it changed!" Ash's words left his mouth before he could stop himself.

Right now the environment couldn't have been worse, not only was he in the presence of the Holy Knight's Grandmaster, but he was also in the presence of the king, and this wasn't even mentioning the difference in levels of how far they were in the magic path.

But thankfully, the king didn't seem to care, and Erica only gave Ash a cold look, yet just this look made Ash feel like gravity had increased by more than a hundred fold.

Aaron also frowned, but this was for different reasons. Being with Ash for a few days he naturally found out about his desire, almost desperation, to go back home.

Yet seeing it being denied in Ash's face, Aaron couldn't help but feel for him.

"Ash, you can take your leave." Erica coldly said.

Ash didn't linger any longer, when he closed the door, Aster sighed and closed his eyes, "You should've told him."

"We need all of our knights level headed, he can't be stuck with grief right now." Erica calmingly said.

Aster shook his head, "He's going to find out some other way, and when he does, he's going to hate us, maybe more than he already does right now."

Aaron's eyebrows were raised as he asked, "Something happened to the Ayuna's?"

"The Ayuna's are a mess right now, but we can deal with that later, there are more pressing matters to deal with." Erica didn't want to even begin explaining how messy the Ayuna's were at the moment.

"Okay, so are you finally going to explain why Lenore is in trouble?"

"Well, Aaron I'm going to say this sweet and simple, The Quintessence Invaders are back, and Uvira is no doubt going to be one of their first targets." The one who spoke was Aster, and despite what his laid back attitude implied, deep inside his eyes was a potent hatred.

Aaron was silent, while there was no change in his facial features, a pressure that made everyone else's blood boil was being emitted by him, as his urge to kill grew.

"Anyways, as we were saying, since the invaders are back, Aaron we're assigning you a task. You're going to train Lenore into becoming a Holy..."

"No." Aaron flat out refused, not even giving Erica time to finish her sentence.