"Ahem! My name is Ray Wefhir, the owner of this workshop, and also a blacksmith." He said proudly. The introduction was short and clean as Ray didn't want to talk much about him.

Zeris had already guessed this much already so this wasn't much of a surprise to him except for the fact that he was a blacksmith. After Ray reassured his thoughts, Zeris began to ponder if he can get Ray on his side or not.

'Having a blacksmith by my side wouldn't be too bad, after all, he also seems to be quite skilled.' Ray had never said that he'd made the twin daggers, so Zeris could only make assumptions about his skills.

After a few minutes, Ray had already written down many exotic things that Zeris had never seen before, not even in Richard's book. The list contained many ingredients that are needed to forge a weapon and many of them could only be found in certain beasts.

"Go get the things I wrote down, I also put some handicap on how to fight against some of these beasts for you," Ray said seriously as he carefully instruct Zeris on his mission. "Alright that's it you can get out of the store now." Ray handed him the twin dagger and cooly motioned him toward the exit.

Before Zeris exited the store, he decided to ask the question that had been bothering him the entire time, "Wait, why do you trust me so much? Aren't you afraid that I'll just run away or fail to fulfill the conditions?"

"Brat, how long do you think I've lived already? I can easily tell if one is capable or not, and as for trustworthy… Let's just say my instinct is telling me that you'll definitely come back." Ray casually answered and walked back to his room leaving the bewildered Zeris behind.

…

Several hours after leaving the workshop, Zeris started to head toward the plain mountain. This mountain acquired this name because of the weak beast that resides in the mountain. Common beasts like blood rabbits, red-eye hawks, and shadow leopards are normally hunted by many beginners that are trying to become one of the awakens.

Until one reaches the 10th stage and condensed their crest, they would only be considered normal citizen that poses no threat to a real powerhouse. After breaking through the beginning phase, one will need to take the most important step, stabilizing their crest in order to strengthen their soul.

If one succeeds in the final step they will be able to connect their soul and crest together, resulting in 9 cores that hold the connection tightly to each other, and they could be used to summon their crest in a solid form called Soul Crest. These 9 cores are the main focus of every awakens in the world.

At first, the cores will appear in a dull and lifeless color that would require constant nourishment from their owner. The only way to nourish is by absorbing the mana from the air with one's crest or crest energy from a beast. These cores serve as a connection between one's soul and their crest therefore the only way to grow stronger is by filling up all 9 cores.

Currently, there had only been 10 people that managed to reach this stage. You can differentiate one's power by the color of their core ranked from green, yellow, purple, and blue. Each color will take up two cores slots, and as for the meaning, there are still no answers to this day.

In legends, the 9th core contains one's crest in it and if someone manages to touch that realm, they would be able to learn a powerful secret skill that derives from the origin of their crest.

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This was precisely also Zeris's current goal. He knew that in order to find his answer, he first need to be at the top.

Soon he arrives at the top of the mountain, there were many people around his age here trying to improve their skills, while there were others forming parties to hunt stronger beasts for purer crest energy.

Zeris wanted to first watch how others fight and deal with these beasts first so he decided to look for a group. 'Sh*t where do I even start with?'

As Zeris was pondering a girl suddenly appeared behind him, "Hey! What are you doing here all alone?" The girl was the same one that dragged him back to his home last time.

"Oh, I just came here to get some experiences." Zeris was almost scared to death but quickly recomposed when he saw who it was. Through the real Zeris's notebook, he'd found that her name was Mary Zulfer, one of his childhood friends.

"It's really dangerous for some at your level to be here, how about you join my group?" Mary wasn't trying to mock him or anything but was truly worried about his safety.

Seeing how she reacted, Zeris decided that it would be safer with someone familiar.

"Alright."

Mary simply smiled and showed Zeris the way toward her group. When he arrives, the group that contains 3 boys and another girl waved at Mary. They all seemed to be the same age as him so they didn't care much about formality.

"Hey, Mary what took you so long? Also, who's this guy, your boyfriend?" Mary blushed slightly at this obvious tease and strike back at the boy that said this, "He's just my friend that I invited!"

"Alright alright, I was just kidding haha… Oh, I forgot, my name is Quinn Locker, sorry for the late introduction." The boy has a decent face with seaweed eyes that matches his hair's color.

The others also started to introduce themselves one by one. After they were finished, Zeris noticed that the two brothers Marlon Dozan and Marlen Dozan, both had their sword-shaped crest coming from their wrists to their shoulders. Zeris could tell right away that they were twins, with similar light brown hair, dark blue eyes, and a scary face that doesn't match their personality at all.

The last one to go was the quiet girl that hasn't said anything the whole time, Emma Nox. She seems to be quite timid and was stuttering in her introduction so her friends had to do it in her stead. Her blond hair covers her embarrassed face but Zeris could still feel the intense stare coming from the pair of pitch-black eyes.

Zeris nodded and introduced him to the group as well, "My name is Zeris Vagne." He'd never like long talk so his introduction was boring and bland compares to the others. Because of this, everyone thought he was timid like Emma.

"It's fine we're all friends here so just have fun!" Quinn said as he put his arm playfully around Zeris's shoulder.

Mary couldn't help but pinched his ear away from Zeris, "We're gonna go hunt beasts, what do you mean by have fun? Do you want him to die?" She scolded him in front of the whole group.

"Tsk, why are you so protective of him, is he actually your boyfriend?" Quinn smiled smugly and strikes back at Mary. This made her blush even harder than the first time.

While they were joking around with each other, Zeris had already left to observe the other groups, since Mary said they were gonna rest for a few hours before going out again.

The first group that he stumbled upon had 3 people 2 boys and a girl, they were currently surrounding a shadow leopard in a triangle formation.

Zeris could see that the three had already summoned their crest soul and surprisingly their soul crest were all sabers. One was a fiery saber with flames filled to the brim, the other holds a 5 feet long saber that was incredibly sharp, and the girl was using an ice-chilling saber that seems to be able to freeze anything it touches.

The shadow leopard was cornered and had nowhere to run to so it could only dive head-on hoping for a chance to survive but unluckily it was still too weak.

"Haha, you still haven't matured, and yet you want to face me?" The young boy's voice was filled with arrogance as he easily run his saber through the shadow leopard. Seeing the body slashed cleanly in half left him in satisfaction as they've been chasing this leopard for half a day now.

Slowly, crest energy starts to rise from the shadow leopard's body and forms many orbs that contain crest energy. The group waited excitedly seeing the big haul they've gotten this time.

When the orbs finished forming, the girl started absorbing furiously not waiting for her teammates at all. The team was only formed because they needed her help to corner the shadow leopard and now that it's dead, she wouldn't need to hold back anymore.

Zeris smirked at this when he saw how easily the bonds were broken so easily, reminding him of Lucas. Right as he was about to leave, he spotted a shiny orb right beside the leopard's head.

'An essence orb!'

The group was too busy absorbing the crest energy hence they didn't notice the essence orb by the leopard's head.

Seeing this opportunity, Zeris couldn't help but snatch it away. Luckily for him, the 3 were fiercely fighting over the crest energy enabling him to easily steal it. He slowly made his way back to Mary's group after getting out of the scene.

Mary and the others noticed Zeris walking toward them and waved at him, including the shy Emma. "Zeris, come here we were just talking about our crest compatibility with yours but they don't really get what your soul crest is, so can you show them?" The three look at Zeris eagerly, waiting for him to summon his soul crest.

Zeris was dumbfounded

How was he supposed to show it to them? He doesn't even know about the crest he was planning to take, let alone his old one!