Help Text: The Holy Citadel is the capital of the North Trail Region, and is the home of the North Tome Temple. The city was originally the home village of Shimon Ken, an orphan that would later join the Heroes' on their travels. The village served as a facility for magical experimentation on animals and humans for the Middle Kingdom. Once the Two Tomes empire had gained its independence, the people were freed and the dead were buried, and Shimon personally destroyed all of the laboratories, then declared it a holy site to venerate the Heroes who had freed them.

After a night's rest, Setsuo and I gathered our belongings and headed to the east road of the village. Waiting for us were Chief Toro and Ray. Toro said that if I ever wanted training he would do so personally, and Ray said we were welcome to stay at her inn any time. Once we had said our goodbyes, we started down the road to the Holy Citadel.

Setsuo warned me that the trip would take another two days, and that this particular region was where many of the animals for the bouts were captured. Our first day of travel we encountered several of them. Harebits were the first ones we encountered, they seemed to be horned bipedal rabbit creatures that were very territorial, and bred like crazy. Using the Manipulate Plants and Jolt spells allowed me to capture and kill them fairly easily.

Further down the road we encountered an entire flock of the Crow creatures I encountered at the Heroes' Tree. Their name turned out to be Leavens, and Setsuo said we could ignore them as long as we didn't make our camp nearby. Apparently they are aggressive towards people who use fire, which explained what happened to me at the Tree.

Finally, as we finished setting up our camp for the night, a Bearlish came looking to take our food. Using Manipulate plants I grabbed ahold of it with a tree, then used the Acid Splash spell repeatedly until it died. At the end of the day, I had gained 800 XP, and the menu said I was at "1800/2400 XP." While I was In the menu, I spent a few moments "Feeding" the creature to my Rod. When I went to check the forms it created, they seemed to have a loading symbol over them.

All of this raised the concern that the menu might cause issues with my perception of time. I could spend hours, days, or even weeks in there, and time would just stand still. However, I was unable to sleep with it open, and even if I could I'm not sure my body would be rested. It was incredibly useful for dangerous situations, but I decided to spend as little time in it as possible.

Once I was done with that, Setsuo and I discussed what I could do at the Holy Citadel, and the North Tome Temple.

"You could always join the temple, Mark. But there are many things you can do to improve your abilities."

"Like what exactly?"

"The monks could train you in our form of Martial Arts, or you could join the priests and pursue academic ventures."

"What kind of academic ventures?"

"Well, the main focuses are on mathematics, alchemy, rituals and history. Personally I majored in history, and as a minor I took on rituals, that's why I have the ability to cast protection spells whenever we set up camp."

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"Rituals sound interesting, are they anything like a wizard's spells?"

"Rituals are magic that anyone can cast, or even large groups in cooperation, at the temple we mainly use them for defensive barriers to keep dangerous animals and attackers at bay."

"Hmm, I might study those then."

After our discussion was done, we went to bed for the night. When we awoke, we packed up our camp, and followed the road, heading north east. Surprisingly we didn't have any more issues with animals as we continued on. Later on I would find out that it was because we had entered the territory of the Holy Citadel, which regularly patrolled the area to take care of dangerous animals.

We continued for several hours until we approached a large walled city. The walls were made of white stone bricks, and they stood at least 100 feet high. We approached the gate, and were greeted by guards in red colored metal armor. Once inside, the city was full of humans, all of which were in different types of uniforms. It was then that I realized that the Holy Citadel was more of a college city than a holy site.

We made our way to a large stone building, and entered. People of all ages were moving around in the building, from small children to old men. The younger ones wore black uniforms, and I assumed that they were the students. While the older people either wore white robes like Setsuo, or brown uniforms.

Setsuo explained that the White Robes meant that they were a member of the North Tome Temple, while the brown uniforms meant that they were just a teacher. The building we had entered was in fact the temple, but it also served as the school for the entire region. It provided shelter and food for students that hadn't reached adulthood, which was apparently age 15 for Humans, and served as a place of higher education and employment for those that wanted to become teachers or otherwise. During the day, younger students would attend class to learn reading, writing and math, as well as participate in physical education, while in the evenings the adult students would make use of the facilities to perform experiments and further their own knowledge. On the weekends, they would all come together and work on raising domesticated animals and tending to fields and orchards for food.

After giving me a short tour, Setsuo took me to an office on the first floor. There, a woman asked us to wait a moment while she informed the head priest that we had arrived. I couldn't help but feel like I was sitting in the principal's office when I was in school. It had the uncomfortable chairs, the uncomfortable white painted room, and the uncomfortable silence. Eventually we were let in, and inside was a jolly looking old man. If he had been wearing a red suit, I would've had no choice but to call him Santa Claus.

"Welcome back Setsuo, sorry for having to send you on such a dangerous assignment!"

"It was no problem, Head Priest. This is Mark Harris, the new hero that has appeared."

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Mark. My name is Alexander Ken, I am the head priest of the North Tome Temple."

As it turned out, Alexander was a descendant of the founder Shinmon and one of the heroes. Though, it wasn't Sara or Brad. After a long discussion between the three of us, it was decided that I would give them the items from the Heroes' Tree, and they would be studied, then put on display in the local museum. He also offered me a teaching job, but I turned it down in favor of studying rituals here, and practicing martial arts with the monks. I also managed to sort out the matter of the money I had been carrying with him, he offered to have someone trustworthy take it to the Capital for me and exchange it, though he did ask for one of each to place in his own collection, and even paid me for some of the other currencies to put them on display in the museum.

Once we had finished everything, and delivered the items to the appropriate people, I was shown to the room I would be staying in. It was also decided that Setsuo would be my assistant from now on, since we both worked together well. Once the day was finally done, I settled in for the night. This was the place that I would spend the next year of my life, studying, growing, learning, and occasionally even teaching. Little did I know what awaited me at the end of this year.