Chapter 3

As Zephyr was walking down the streets of Nan he took his time to gaze at the magnificence of the city. This was a thing he loved to do since he came here ten years ago. The buildings that surrounded one of the main streets were majestic structures with four or five floors each, build of greasy gray stone or shining white marble. Some of them were made out of timber and clay but none the less were just as marvelous. Along the stone build road, there were lanterns inscribed with runes atop of tall poles which kept the city lighted at night. No wonder this was considered the greatest and wealthiest city in the world.

The entire street was bursting with people that were headed in different directions. Some were hurried, some were doing business and some were just admiring the city akin to Zephyr. This atmosphere relaxed him as he just came from a tough negotiation.

Over the past few weeks, he meet with different nobles in order to convince them to vote in the next election according to his group decision. Some nobles accepted some rejected, but at the end of the day, things were still going in a good direction. The plans for the trade route were already in place and after the election, if everything went well, the first ships would depart for the southern islands.

According to his friend, Count Vallen, Duke Gales was more than welcomed to hear that not only would Vallen, but Gerver and Tallon would also vote in his favor, they even would help him convince a few other nobles. The duke was very pleased and promised that he would be more than happy to allow them to sell large quantities of runic equipment once he was at the head of the federation.

This was an important point in their plan. Usually, the federation would not permit large quantities of runic equipment to be sold to foreign nations as this was akin to selling power to a possible enemy. Of course, small scale transactions would be permitted, but not in the quantities that their group intended to. So convincing a future head of the federation to allow them to officially sell was a big push for them.

'That cunning fox really knows his game' thought Zephyr. And who could deny that?

Count Vallen was a versed politician that learn his game over the years. He was the one that brought Zephyr to the group five years ago, of course, at that time, there wasn't really a group. It was only Vallen and Cellir that knew each other and sometimes acted towards the common benefit. Vallen recognized Zephyr talent when it came to cultivation and even thought that his cunning would be beneficial at some point, so he introduced him to Cellir and the three of them started to collaborate often.

Soon after, Gerver and Severs joined them and at last, Tallon. While they were not some kind of organization, they were a bunch that acted in the interest of the group. This was not uncommon in Nan, as nobility and other people with some kind influence would often join or form such groups in order to gain more influence and power within the city.

Being able to reach in areas in which one would not be able to touch by himself was a must in this city. While Nan was a beautiful city it was at the same time a hostile environment in which the weak or the lonely would often be destroyed or cast away.

While being lost in his thoughts, Zephyr didn't even realize that he reached his destination. In front of him was a five-story building made out of polished red marble with a glowing sign hanging above the double doors on which it wrote SCARLET HALL. This was a place where wealthy persons would come in order to cultivate and improve their power using rune formations.

Zephyr entered the building and went straight to the counter where a lovely young lady was currently waiting. As soon she saw Zephyr a smile bloomed on her face.

"Lord Zephyr. It's been a while since you visited us."

Zephyr's eyes gazed at the redhaired girl in front of him and blushed slightly. " I was away from the city for some time." Said him while avoiding the eyes of the girl. He didn't know why, but for whatever reason, every time he saw this girl he couldn't stop smiling and would blush instantly.

"Oh! Where you on some kind of adventure." Asked her curiously while giving him a green-plated token.

"Something like that." Responded him while grabbing the token and giving her a few gold coins in exchange.

"You must tell me about it sometime."

Hearing her words Zephyr's face becomes redder than a tomato. He just nodded his head and bolted towards the staircase.

'Every time...' thought him. Every time he saw this girl he simply forgot how to talk. It wasn't like he never talked to women or had a relationship before, but when it came to this girl he simply was acting like a half-whit.

Looking at the token in his hand his heart started to pump like crazy as he thought that the girl remembered him from his last visits and directly gave him the usual token, but as he realized how stupid he acted he just sighed and headed towards the fifth floor.

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Once he reached the fifth floor he gave his token to the dressed servant and asked him to lead him to a room.

After entering the designed room, Zephyr closed the door and looked around. The room was small, around 10 square meters and the only thing inside was a green rune pattern engraved on the floor.

These were runes used for speeding up the process of absorbing source power into the body. There were four types of runes in the world. Red runes were the lowest grade than there were green runes which were middle grade, yellow runes were high grade and blue runes were legendary grade.

The red and green runes were available to anyone in Nan as long as one had enough money. Yellow runes were very rare and only used by governments or high-level nobility while blue runes were something that Zephyr never even saw before and only knew about them from stories. Runic equipment was the same. Red and green were still available for the right price but yellow ones would never be for sale. As for blue ones... those were considered artifacts and would be treasured more than any worldly possession.

The SCARLET HALL was a high-level training hall that had green runes on the fifth and fourth floors and red runes on the first, second and third floors. The cost of using them wasn't small either. The red ones would cost around 1 silver crown for one hour and the green ones would cost 10 silver crowns or one gold crown for one hour. This was a huge sum for a working-class person and one could afford an hour in the red room only after one or two months of work.

Luckily for Zephyr, he was quite well when it came to founds so he didn't need to worry about his training cost, otherwise, his cultivation speed would be considerably slower.

He sat down a took out a few nail-sized blue stones which he put in the center of the room. Soon the runes lighted up and Zephyr felted a breeze of hot air entering his body.

The small stone was called a power stone and was needed in order to power any kind of runes. These stones could be considered expensive for the average person, but not to a middle or high-class citizen.

Soon after Zephyr started to cultivate, a golden glow began to surround his body. Sometimes the glow would turn white after a few seconds before turning back golden. This was a sign that Zephyr was close to becoming a platinum warrior.

The path of cultivation was divided into a few layers. The low layers were cooper and iron, then the middle layers were silver, gold, and platinum, and the higher levels were master and grandmaster. All the layers were divided into three ranks and right now Zephyr was a rank 3 gold warrior, on the verge of becoming a rank 1 platinum warrior. This was a big event as while platinum warriors couldn't be considered rare, they were the limits that one could reach without much talent in cultivation. People could spend their entire lives without entering this layer.

Zephyr could be considered very talented as he, at only 28 years old was already on the verge of entering the Platinum realm. While he wasn't the only one in history to achieve this speed of cultivation, there were not a lot of people in the world that could match him as even the talented people could only enter before fifty years of age. For example, Count Vallen was a rank 1 platinum warrior that entered this realm at fifty-two. While he couldn't be considered a prodigy, It was still considered a very good result. High-priest Cellir was a little more talented than Vallen, as he entered the platinum layer at only forty-five years old, and now, at seventy-five, he was a rank 3 platinum warrior on the verge of entering the master layer.

Of course, one's speed of cultivation wasn't dependent only on talent alone. Insight and comprehension played a big role as well. If one could not comprehend the flow of source power he could not absorb it to hone his body. Resources were just as important because having a good runic formation that would improve the process of absorption and power stones to fuel the said formation was something that could speed the cultivation by a lot.

Right now, Zephyr's body was glowing more golden than white, but in time the white glow would become more frequent until one day when Zephyr's body glow would only be white. That would be the day he becomes a rank 1 platinum warrior.

The difference between the first two layers, copper and iron, were just in the physical aspect of the body. The next three layers, silver, gold and platinum, would give a person an ability called the glow which Zephyr was experiencing right know. This ability would give one person a sturdier body and if applied on a weapon or armor it would increase either the sharpness of the weapon or the defense of the armor. This ability would give one a certain advantage over someone at the cooper or iron layers and the higher layer one is, the stronger the glow.

Regarding the Master and GrandMaster layers... Zephyr didn't know much about them except that someone that reached one of those layers would be considered an expert and be treated as nobility wherever he went.

Zephyr continued his training for the next few hours. He was cultivating more intense than ever since he observed that he was close to a breakthrough.

Soon, the glow around him started to fade, meaning that his body reached its limit for today.He got up and picked the rest of the stones from the middle of the room before going down.

Just as he was preparing to bolt out of the building hoping the redhaired girl wasn't paying attention, he heard his name called.

"Oh, Lord Zephyr. Did you finished your training?" Asked her with her usual smile.

As her words were heard by him, Zephyr's ears started to redden and he turned around giving her a hasty yes before leaving the hall in a hurry.

After he closed the door behind him, in his hurry state he didn't notice that someone was coming towards the and he bumped into the other person.

"What the fuck... " Said the man. "Watch where you're going."

Hearing the men's voice, Zephyr's brain stopped for a second as he was looking for something, before looking at the man and giving a devilish smile.

He recognized this man.

"Baron Belick, Long time no see." Said Zephyr.

The man in front of him turned around and seeing that he literally bumped into Zephyr, he's body froze.

'Shit', thought him.

"Lord Zephyr, Indeed, indeed. It's been some time," added him while trying to mimic a smile.

"Baron Belick, I have been looking for you for the past week, but I couldn't find you anywhere."

"I've been away for a while, my dear friend. Many businesses required my attention back home so I had to interrupt my time here in the Capital." Added him

"Really. Well, It's good that you are personally taking care of your businesses. " Continued Zephyr in a mocking tone.

Belick's face became green after hearing those words. 'Was he insinuating something, here in the middle of the street?' though him.

"Wouldn't we better go somewhere more private? To catch up...? " Said Bellick clearly panicked.

"Are you sure Baron? Maybe you have some business to take care of and I bother you."

"How could you ever bother me, my friend," said him with trembling words.

"Fine then. Lead the way."