Someone had finally notified Nate’s parents, and by the time they reached Angie’s house, they were there waiting. They weren’t exactly happy about being the last to know, but also seemed to understand the other parents didn’t know them. If it had been them in their position with their resources, they wouldn’t have been eager to call in some unknowns either.

Nina swept Nate into a hug as soon as he stepped out of the SUV, with his father Niall only a moment behind her. “Are you alright? They said you had to form your core using a monster’s energy core. Did anything happen?” He asked in a rush, patting his son’s shoulders and arms as though looking for any obvious changes.

Nates rolled his eyes. “No, we got lucky. Outside of being stuck with a trash core of the lowest quality, nothing happened.”

His parent’s eyebrows shot up at that. “You’re saying you actually managed to form your core without any side effects?”

It was an incredibly rare occurrence.

“Yeah, all three of us did.” He told them quietly, not wanting to make a big scene out of it. There were too many people around that he didn’t know.

“Would everyone like to come inside?” Aden asked as the group finished disembarking. “I believe that there is much we need to discuss, along with some introductions that need to be made.”

Since he was familiar with most of the people there, Nate initiated the introductions with his parents. Lindsay’s parents were next, finally giving him the option to hear their names.

“We are Lindsay’s parents. My name is James Travers, and this is my wife, Lisa.”

Angie’s parents took over from there and after finishing the introductions, they continued the discussion from earlier. He waited for each of them to find a seat and then pinned the three teens with his gaze. “Now what were you saying earlier about the energy cores? Tell us everything that happened.”

Nate swallowed and cursed inside his mind. He should have known that they weren’t going to let it go without pursuing the oddity more.

Angie’s eyes teared up as she remembered what had happened to her driver. “They killed John.” She sniffled. “Jace had a group of cultivators with him that were all used to working together. They destroyed the front of the car and ganged up on John. We didn’t have a chance to escape. They shoved his body in the trunk with Nate, while Lindsay and I rode with Jace.” By this point in her tale, she was pale, and her hands were clenched tight.

“During the entire drive to the warehouse, Jace kept talking about the things he was going to do to us,” Lindsay told them, continuing when she saw Angie was struggling to speak. “His targets had been the both of us and with the four cultivators there backing him up, there was nothing we could even think of doing. All we could do was ignore what he was saying and stare out the windows.”

She paused, and it was Nate’s turn to start speaking.

“Then when we arrived, he pulled out a bunch of energy cores and revealed why he had captured the girls. It was because he had heard they were going to create their cores next week. So, instead, he decided that he would force them to create their core on his own terms and then duel them directly afterward. He wanted to make them his, I guess, through the duel contract.”

“That isn’t the way the duel contracts are meant to be used at all. They are there to settle disputes, not to enslave someone. No one would let that contract stand in this city.” James told them confidently.

“He knew that it’s why he planned on taking them to a more open-minded city.” Nate waved his hand tiredly through the air. “I don’t remember exactly how he phrased it, just that he was going to bring them to a different place afterward.”

“If he was to do that, then that might have been possible,” Lisa said in a soft, weak voice.

The parents were all silent for several long moments as they thought about how close they had come to losing their kids.

“How did you get away, then? What changed?” Niall asked after regaining control of himself.

“Your son fought Jace after we each created our cores. It was such a one-sided fight that it destroyed any confidence Jace had. He realized that he never would have stood a chance against me or Lindsay, even if we had just formed our cores. He was losing against someone who had supposedly forgotten most of their training and has the lowest grade of core.”

Nate winced when she casually announced the pitiful state of his core to everyone present.

“And a simple fight was enough to convince him to let you all go?” Her mother, Trissa, wondered.

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“It was enough to tell him that his plan never had a chance of working in the first place. More than that, though, Jace had a weak mind. He wasn’t used to suffering defeat like that. He couldn’t handle it mentally at the time.” Nate replied for them.

“Let’s go back a step,” His mother forced out through gritted teeth. “He forced you to create your core with an energy core? Are you alright?” She was in disbelief that someone would be stupid enough to force another person to use such archaic and dangerous methods. “I didn’t even realize you had managed to gather enough qi to reach that point again.”

“I had only just managed it,” He replied with a shrug. “I hadn’t planned on saying anything because I wasn’t going to create my core at this stage. Having it be this weak was never in my plans…” He trailed off to recenter himself and shook his head. “Anyway, yes, he had us use energy cores to create our cores. The core I chose was dark. I’m not sure what element it was yet, but I don’t seem to have mutated or changed in any way.”

The parents turned to the girls.

“Um, I have the wind attribute, and Lindsay has metal. We both managed to get lucky with the energy core we chose as well and had reactions to them raising our own cores a level.” Angie told them without giving anything additional away.

“All three of you got lucky choosing your energy cores?” Aden questioned.

Each of the three nodded silently, doing their best to keep all other expressions from showing on their faces or in their eyes.

He sighed. “That’s fine, but I suggest keeping that part of the story to yourself from now on. Having a talent of that nature is fine, as long as no one else knows you have it.” He looked directly at Nate as he spoke. He had known his daughter and Lindsay long enough to understand this wasn’t one of their many talents.

Nate gave a minute jerk of his head but didn’t say anything.

“Good, now moving on. What are we going to do about Jace and his parents?” Aden asked everyone.

“I got the feeling that his parents weren’t involved in what he was doing or attempting to do,” Nate told them, not wanting to add any more trouble for Jace’s parents. With a son like that, they already had too much on their plate.

“Hmm, did you also get that feeling?” James asked his daughter.

“Yeah,” She replied without even needing to think about it. “He even said as much to us at one point.”

Trissa checked her phone and frowned. “The team we sent on to the warehouse has reported back. It was empty when they arrived. There was no sign of Jace or the cultivators he had hired. They were gone.”

Her husband laughed hollowly, bringing a hand to his face. “Great, we were too slow, and he got away.”

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Lisa growled, pulling out her own phone and rapid firing some instructions into it while her husband tapped away at his own screen. “Don’t forget, our family monitors each of the gates for our own purposes. As long as that brat tries to exit through one of them, then we can still grab him.”

Nate glanced at Lindsay, suddenly wondering what it was her parents did exactly. He already knew what Angie’s family did, but he didn’t think he had ever heard what the other girl’s family was involved in.

“Good. Let us know if you catch him. I would love to be involved in some personal questioning of the little maggot.” Aden told them in a calm tone.

James hesitated for a moment before nodding once. “Lindsay, let’s head home. I want to hear more about this encounter on the way.”

Nina and Niall motioned to Nate, taking the hint. It was time for them to leave as well.

Everyone said a few final words along with their goodbyes and then the Travers and Holmes families left the Chrighton estate.

“Are you sure you are actually doing alright?” Nina asked her son as they drove away from the large house.

“I’m… annoyed that I was forced to create my core so early, but that is really it. Outside of a couple of brief fights, they didn’t really have a chance to do anything to us.” Nate felt at the side of his face gingerly.

His bracelet had already healed much of the damage to his face. There was a slight redness still there, but that was all.

He didn’t want to dwell on the state of his core, but he had just managed to overcome one major issue a few days before. There wasn’t a person out there who was capable of dealing with one life-changing problem after another. People needed time to breathe and relax, it was a mental readjustment period.

Which is exactly what he was missing at the moment.

It felt like he was going from one life-altering item to another, and it was all-consuming. As a result, his ability to cope was at an all-time low. He just needed a night or two to sleep on it, do some research on everything, and find his bearings. It was only once he knew where he stood that he would know how screwed he really was.

Right now, all he had to go on were the horror stories everyone had been feeding him.

Once he had a chance to learn the truth for himself, things would inevitably be better.

“How’s the new business going?” Nate asked after a few minutes of staring out the car window, watching the city roads go by.

“It’s a struggle,” His father replied honestly. “There is a lot that goes into running our own group that we never had to think about before. The change in mindset is a big one and I’m not sure how well-equipped we are to handle it all.”

“What are you going to do, then? Go back to working for another company?”

“No, never that.” His mother replied emphatically. “All we are doing is accepting our faults. People can’t be great at everything, and your father and I never trained to run a business is all. Instead, we are going to hire someone to do it for us. After we finished going through the paperwork, it had begun to dawn on us that wasn’t the sort of work we enjoyed doing.”

Nate made a grunt of affirmation as he understood what they were saying. In his past life, people had the luxury of learning to overcome certain deficiencies like that. Whether or not they were ever any good at it was another matter.

In this world, people didn’t have quite the same amount of freedom. If you were a cultivator, then you were expected to fight. Plain and simple.

Those like Angie’s family who were merchants had been raised that way and could be considered as dual-specced in a way.

He was gradually coming to understand how tough the road ahead of his parents truly was. Despite that, he was glad to see they weren’t letting it bring them down in any way and were still actively working to overcome the difficulties they faced.

“Well, I don’t know what I could do to help, but I do have a core now. So, sign me up as an employee. I’m pretty sure I have to start going on expeditions each weekend now.”