Chapter 22: The Wall

Due to Trip and Alex’s extra safe plan they did not have any bad encounters. They managed to travel across the beautiful land at a fairly quick pace while still developing their skills. Everyday their muscles would ache. Every morning they struggled to get up to train another day. And yet they kept going. They always had a smile on their face. The entire experience of being in captivity for even a couple of days was enough to make them grateful just for being alive, and it motivated them to make sure it never happens again. How could they prevent such an occurrence from happening again? By becoming stronger of course.

Alex had made a large amount of progress with fire magic. He had gotten to a fairly high level of mastery over the elementary level fire magic. His current level of skill allowed him to control fire magic at a much higher level than he could before. He could now shoot anywhere perfectly accurately within a radius of 5 metres. This made him have much more control over his nearby surroundings which was incredibly important for a mage. Mages always tended to have trouble defending at a close range so to have control over the direct area around you could be considered as an invaluable skill. Alex’s understanding of fire had also reached another level. With constant practice he learned that fire particles almost had a personality of their own. He seemed to understand that it was almost as if fire seemed to like him much more now than months prior.

While Alex had made nearly unimaginable progress for a 9 year old child, Trip was truly incomparably fast when it came to understanding and training. His water magic had taken another step forward. The hidden particles seemed to trust him almost completely now, so all Trip had to work on was actually pulling off the intermediate level water magic. It took a lot more stamina and effort in order to even pull off the simplest of moves, but Trip had felt that his control over ice magic had also increased and even the simplest of elementary level water magic had become much more powerful than it was before.

What Trip had also come to realise was the true profoundness and strength of light magic. A couple of months ago he had not even scratched the surface of light magic, and even now he could not dare say that he even had any understanding over the true strength of light magic. What he did know was that it was unlike any other type of magic. Light magic came from the soul. In every spiritual and non-physical connection there was light. It was everywhere and it did not follow any of the laws one would expect light magic to follow.

At this point Trip felt as if he could feel the world around him in a way he had been unable to ever before. When walking through a forest he could not only feel the very life force or soul of the tree, but he could feel how all the trees were connected by a non-physical bond. It was as if it was one collective specimen. It was similar to how a population was one, but it was made up of individuals. This fact caused Trip to understand the way the world worked in a way that he was unable to before. Trip had started to understand how one could fight using light magic, but it terrified him and he was afraid to use it. It was so terrifying because the way that one could fight using light magic would be to directly attack the soul, or sever the relationships between two souls. This terrified Trip, because he thought of what could happen if his relationship with Alex was severed. He could not bear to think of what would happen then. This thought deterred him from severing any other relationships. Trip decided that he would only ever use this method if someone was threatening him or Alex.

Having attained this new level of strength both Alex and Trip generally felt more confident that they would have no problems surviving if anything ever happened to them. At this point they were very close to the border to get to West Hrior. Trip and Alex did not feel that scared that they would be unable to get into the country, because from what they knew the border was mainly an open border so they could illegally sneak into the country without having anyone notice. Once they passed the border they assumed that there would be no more problems.

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However Trip and Alex did not believe that they might not make it to the other side of the border, according to them that should be the easiest part of it all. It was really just stepping over an imaginary line anyway. Borders were only man made constructs in order to bring order to something that was chaotic. Trip actually did not really believe in borders. After spending so long in the nature he never felt as if all the beauty he saw was exclusive to the country of East Hrior, but instead he felt that it belonged to no one and everyone. He believed that everyone should have access to anywhere as long as they did not disrupt or hurt the natural environment. Trip’s thought that since water in the ocean surrounding the continent did not contain borders then why should the land?

Alex did not have this sort of belief about borders. In fire magic it was important to set borders for chaos, this was in order to ensure that there could be control. Alex had always been raised as a rich person, and in that sense he knew better than any one of the importance of borders in a political and economic perspective. He was also sceptical of Trip’s belief that they could easily cross the border. In a war borders tended to be strengthened and more heavily controlled, especially with the country on the winning side.

Even though Alex was sceptical of how easy it would be to pass the border he was shocked by what measures West Hrior had taken in order to keep out the Eastern Hriorians. When Trip and Alex made it to the border they did not encounter a couple of guards, but instead there was a massive wall. They were unable to see how thick it was, but it was a gargantuan 15 metres tall.

“How did they get the money to do this?” Alex asked himself in disbelief.

West Hrior was a small country so they must have gotten a bunch of money from Urvallay in order to build this wall. It was crazy, with the mountains in the north and this wall in the west all the East Hrior citizens were trapped in their own country. ‘There must be something larger going on.’ Alex thought. There was no way that West Hrior and Urvallay would take such actions to keep the East Hriorians trapped in unless if there was a reason for it. This thought terrified Alex. He was very smart when it came to political matters and he realised that there must be something very important going on.

Trip was in even more disbelief than Alex at this point. He was shocked that people would take such actions to trap the people of a country. He was filled with rage. Trip was about to attack the wall before Alex stopped him.

“Trip! Don’t attack! There are a lot of guards on there so it would be bad to even attempt to break through with force!” Alex said

“Well then what can we do? We’ve been walking for months and when we arrive to the border we are greeted with this!? How else are we going to get into West Hrior?” Trip was completely distraught by what had happened.

Alex though for a bit until he came up with an idea. Normally in these situations there were camps of people that were already developing a plan to escape the country. If they could find one of these camps then they could hopefully sneak in with them. Alex knew that this plan was slightly farfetched, but he had a bad feeling that something might happen to them if they stayed in the country.

Alex told Trip of the plan and they decided to scout for a camp. It wouldn’t be difficult because Trip could use his light magic to pretty much feel where people were, so if he found a large collection of people just within the border then it would probably be a camp of people planning to escape.

They walked along the border for several days. They were getting slightly worried as the border was very long and it would be difficult to find a place where there could be a camp. Suddenly Trip’s eyes flashed.

“I found a camp.” He said