"Stop being impatient, Caleb," Kyron tells me as he finally rejoins me. "It's your own fault we didn't leave yesterday."

Kyron was saying goodbye to some of the camp's guards, who he's befriended during our various visits here due to hanging out with them and helping them train. It was taking longer than I wanted and I might have gotten a little bit impatient. Three mysteries can potentially be solved in the next week, and we're already a day behind the schedule I set up just two days ago.

My husband is right, though – us leaving today is my own fault. I was showing the royal mages – who are construction mages – some stuff to help with constructing buildings. Basic plans for homes and shops and how to optimize space for growing food as well. I also taught the craftsmen here how to make training golems for practicing combat on.

"I know, I know," I say. "I just like Meredith and her people, and wanted to make sure they've got plenty of stuff to help them out, in case it takes us longer than planned to return. We will come back here before heading over to Rezzy's place, but there's no telling how things will go with the Golden Knight, or what we might end up doing before returning here."

"I know, Cay," Kyron gives me a kiss. "Where's Akrazidonn? Is he not coming with us?"

"Said he'll meet us at the temple," I tell him. "Apparently, Ovrodonos is on his way to go play a prank on an entire kingdom, and Krazzy wants to help."

"You know the specifics, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not gonna share them," I grin at my husband as [Flight Wind]s wrap around us. "Time to go!"

Ovrodonos actually asked Akrazidonn for his help with the prank, and Kyron is going to want me to try and stop them if I tell him what it is. Just like a dragon can claim they didn't get asked to repay a debt if they move and the person they owe can't find them, I don't feel any reason to stop them even if I would if Kyron knew and tried convincing me to.

Our flight isn't as fast as the one from Rezovekk's domain, as the distance is significantly shorter. Despite that, the few hundred miles we cross pass by within just a few hours, the giant spear visible from miles away.

It stretches roughly forty thousand feet into the sky and is about eight hundred and fifty feet in width. The spear rests at an angle, with a few hundred feet of it set into the ground – most of the triangular head. With the head aimed eastward, the butt of the massive stone spear is aimed westward.

A waterfall flows down from it, roughly fifty feet in width. Nothing impedes the water on its way down, up until it reaches the ground far below, where it crashes against a small cliff, forming a series of smaller waterfalls that end in a lake. Some small plains surround the spear, with a river flowing out of the southern portion of the lake, flowing a little southeast. A forest surrounds the entire area, and I can see a couple of trails leading toward the spear within the forest.

All of them lead to the western side of the spear, the part beneath the angled shaft, before the waterfall meets the ground. A small town made of stone has been constructed there, a spear motif decorating the walls surrounding it, the buildings, the flags, and even the streets. At the very center of the town is a fountain that has a statue of a spirit, five stone spears in a ring around him, aimed outward with their butts on the ground close to his feet.

Water flows out of the tips of the spears, and we can see some young boys playing in the water that flows into the plaza.

"Looks like Ulzenivokos being a holy site for earth mages is the result of a spirit," Kyron tells me. "At least, if I'm right about that statue being a spirit."

We're still pretty high up, so the villagers probably haven't noticed us yet and most people don't watch the skies too much. Not unless they're expecting something from the sky, or something above manages to draw their attention.

"Definitely looks like one from here," I say. "I can make out a halo."

"Are we still going to go down there and ask questions?" Kyron asks. "Or carry on?"

"I want to go check out my garden," I tell him. "See how it's doing. We can go talk with the locals later. Most seem to be either normal people or people with a Class and an affinity for earth magics, based on the amount of brown and grey I'm seeing down there. Might be interesting to see how things developed."

There's also a decent amount of people with water affinities down there. I guess the waterfall is also viewed as something scared around here.

"You know," Kyron says as we begin to ascend, the wind around us growing warm to counter the cooler air the higher we go. "Every time I see this spear, I can't help but wonder how you managed to make so much stone at once. Or why you decided it was necessary to make one this big just to kill a titan. Also, what happened to its remains?"

"It likely decomposed," I say. "There's more of the spearhead in the ground than there was a thousand years ago, enough so that the titan could have decomposed and additional soil formed over it through the natural processes. May have been assisted by earth mages and/or spirits."

"Ah," he says. "I'm impressed it's still standing, too. Shouldn't that much weight have made it fall?"

"Probably supported by spirits," I tell him.

"And how did you make so much stone at once?" Kyron asks. "Especially since it was rather durable stone? I know you were a fairly high Level at the time, but there's no way you had enough Mana for that."

"I secretly had an amulet full of stored Mana that cheapened the cost of the creation of any stone when the spell was channeled through it."

"… dammit, Caleb," Kyron sighs. "Where's the amulet now?"

"It broke when I made the spear," I tell him. "I drew Mana out of it faster than it could handle and it kind of burst. Had to quickly use up all of the Mana that was released or it would've caused a disaster, so I decided to just make the spear a lot bigger."

In my defense, I'd expected something that could hold 1,000,000 Mana to be able to handle the drawing out of Mana at a rate of 1,000 Mana per second. Testing that theory was the whole reason I decided to use it to kill the titans, instead of just my own Mana.

As we soar higher, my [Flight Wind]s stop being able to completely shield us from the cold or the thinner air, but that's not a danger for long. Soon, we reach the top of the spear and quickly soar onto it. There's a dome of magical air over the surface of it, an exact match for the radius of the spear. A three-foot-high wall of stone glowing with magical runes actually lines the boundaries of the spear's butt, and that's what powers the barrier.

Said barrier ensures the air up here remains warmer and helps it retain the breathable air that's produced by the plants up here. The river flowing off of it stems from a spring about teo hundred feet in diameter in the center, narrowing down until it reaches the edge. It flows under the wall, in a hole I carved into the actual spear itself – which is where the channel for the stream is, too.

Fertile soil covers the surface up here, with various plants growing around. Grasses on the places that don't have some else, and flowers, bushes, and trees elsewhere. It's a beautiful, scenic garden with stone path blocks creating routes through it. A couple of small stone bridges also cross the stream, with a path made of stepping stones forming a third way across.

Instead of utilizing the barrier to create heat for up here, I made use of three things. First are the animals I brought up here, with their body heat. Second are some plants that produce heat, like the lava-apple trees or the flamesight flowers. Third – and most importantly – are braziers of ever-burning fire.

With the barrier keeping the heat in, those three things combined kept it warm up here a thousand years ago. Today, the temperature is still pleasant, and I'm pleased to see that the wolves I brought up here are still around. Well, them and the flame-horn rabbits I brought up here.

I set things up well enough that the wolves should be able to have food, and the rabbits be able to survive and repopulate as needed. There's a warren underneath us just for the rabbits to live, and the wolves have the small woods that take up a portion of the garden.

The angle of the spear doesn't create too extreme of a slope, but I did do some leveling work up here when I turned the surface into a garden. It's divided into four "layers", with steps leading up into each layer. With the pond, it sets in two layers, and has a small waterfall into the lowest layer of the spear.

This leveling allows us to walk mostly-fine, with just a need to walk up some steps when going into another section. However, I kept the forest on an incline, just not as a severe of one. That way, the wolves have an easier time navigating it.

While the wolves are curious about the guests, they watch us from the forest. A few of the rabbits hop away as we walk toward the middle levels, to the spring. One of the birds that made its home up here chirps at us from the bush it's standing on, and I give Kyron's hand a light squeeze so he can look at it.

The bird has silver features with reddish-orange patterns. A bird with metal as its primary element, and fire as a secondary.

It's pretty.

Though the garden has mostly been allowed to grow and live as it would on its own, there are some obvious signs of care. The grass it shorter than it should be, the bushes were trimmed a few months ago, and the forest hasn't expanded much. Spirits don't ordinarily do that kind of thing unless they have claimed it as their personal lair or view it as something extra-special to them.

I give Kyron's hand another squeeze, and he squeezes it back. He knows what I'm thinking.

Either someone has actually been taking care of things up here, or we're in a spirit's sacred lair.

"The waters are still warm," I tell Kyron after I dip a finger into the pond. Though of course, it likely chills the moment it falls. The magic in the water keeps it from freezing on the way down, but it's probably still frigid."

"What are you thinking?" Kyron asks. "A spirit?"

"Maybe," I answer. "Someone altered the enchantments a long time ago, and there's some sort of power source I don't know keeping things running. When we converted this into a garden, I'd expected to have to fix the enchantments every few years, maybe every decade or so. The changes are old, at least a century in the past. There are no signs of a person living up here, so they've probably passed on."

Whoever it was, they possessed immense skill in spellsmithing. It's not easy to alter another person's work, especially when that person is as good as I am. They didn't just alter it – they improved it. The flow of Mana is more efficient, and the source of Mana is far more capable than mine. I'm guessing that they actually set something up going all the way down to the ground."

"Down the shaft of the spear?" Kyron asks. "Why?"

"To absorb Mana from the town below," I answer. "When a monster dies, it releases Mana. The same goes for magical animals. They may have even connected it to a shrine below, where magic crystals or other such things are placed as offering."

"And the 'disappearances' of such things," Kyron says. "Aren't a spirit taking them, but them being depleted of power."

"Yeah," I say. "However, I don't think there's enough here to keep things this warm."

"What do you mean?"

"Even considering most of the heat has been trapped," I say. "And the continual source of it from the pond, animals, plants, and braziers, the air's too warm. I didn't see any changes to the enchantments on the wall that would explain it. They were bolstered and improved, yes, but they weren't changed to make the barrier produce heat."

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"What do you think the cause is, then?" Kyron asks.

"Probably him," I point to my left, right before spirit motes of fire, water, earth, and air all begin to glow.

They begin to swarm together, swirling around for about a minute as more and more appear. Either he's a very young one, or he's not used to taking on a form outside of his motes. Even an old, powerful spirit who's never taken a visible form before could do it in moments.

The spirit takes the form of a young man our age, as spirits tend to do. He's slender in build, with blue-green eyes that have reddish-orange spikes around his pupils. Even four-elemental spirits don't have heterochromia often, so he's definitely a special one. Brown and white streaks run through his straight, dark grey hair.

A single bracelet is around each wrist, a single anklet around each ankle. They appear to be made of pure-white metal with a black band around the center, a crystal for each of the four elements in them. Floating above his head is a halo that's pretty much a large version of the bracelets and anklets, except with one change – there's also a purple crystal set into it, straight-forward. The magic crystals in his halo are still spaced evenly, so I suppose that's another difference over the bracelets and anklets.

Hanging around the spirit's neck is a black cord with a white star hanging from it, a purple crystal set into the center of it.

He's not a four-elemental spirit. He's a spirit that all seven gods contributed to the elevation of. Very rarely do the three non-elemental gods give enough essence to a spirit that it actually manifests something noticeable for them. Even more rare are the times all seven gods create a higher spirit together.

There's a playful smile on the spirit's face, and he's leaning forward just a little, his ankles crossed and feet back a little. The spirit moves his hands behind his back after he's formed, in the same movement he uses to lean forward a little.

"How old are you?" I ask.

"It's rude to ask a guy his age," he grins at me. "But for the Saint of Magic, I'll tell you! I ascended to being a higher spirit about fifty years ago!"

"So you are extremely young," I say.

Now that I think about it, this is the second odd young higher spirit we've come across recently. It usually takes centuries for one to manifest a human form. Until then, it's usually just a smaller, animal form. They transition to a bigger animal form, then a humanoid form.

Perhaps a spirit with one of the other three gods contributing to them can manifest the bigger and humanoid forms faster? Kizarvinat might have one of them in him, just not manifested in his appearance.

"I am," he nods. "I don't take on human form very often. The only other visitor I've had is a catkin, so I usually take on that form. Shifting them isn't easy for me."

"A catkin?" I ask. "Here? The Golden Knight comes here?"

"Yup!" He leans back some, moving his hands behind his head. "The gods made me so that his garden can be cared for better! I don't know much about him, if that's what you're here for. Some of the other spirits mentioned you're looking for answers on him. I just know that he comes up here to relax when he's not taking care of issues elsewhere."

So the Golden Knight uses this as his base. Since he's traveling to the Temple of Forgotten Hopes to meet up with us, I can assume that he doesn't think we'd stop by here. Honestly, if I hadn't known this place had become a sacred place, then I wouldn't have even bothered to check it out. The chances of the garden still functioning today would be next-to-none unless someone knew it was here and was maintaining it.

"The gods actually made me just to take care of this place," he says. "Some of the other spirits around here were helping out if they were bored. I can leave if I want to, but for now, I like it. The wolves are nice, too. We sometimes chase each other around. If I get really bored, I'll go down to the town and start messing with things just to see their reactions. Just a month or so ago, one of the smiths got really confused by all of his swords coming out with fire enchantments instead of the earth enchantments he was putting into them. He even had people come to watch to make sure he was actually using the right materials, and they were confused, too! The Golden Knight was passing through at the time, and asked me to stop that because it was messing with their resources. So I made the water in the fall green for a week instead."

I'm not surprised to hear the gods made a higher spirit for a specific purpose, it's not uncommon for them to do that. Even if the purpose might fade within a few decades, the gods might do it just because. This one was made for a purpose that's existed for over a thousand years, but only recently.

That, more than anything, surprises me about his existence.

"So you know the Golden Knight pretty well?" Kyron asks.

"Not as well as one might think," the spirit shrugs. "He usually just relaxes up here for awhile, sometimes plays games with me and the wolves. We don't talk about him very much. Oh! I do know he's not very old, though – he doesn't look very much older than either of you. While I am a very young spirit, I do know enough to know that. Also that I would probably be pregnant if I were mortal."

So the spirit has actually seen the Golden Knight out of his armor? I'm a little jealous, even if it's a different one. We worked with the original Golden Knight as close partners and never got to see his face. Though I guess spirits probably saw it all the time, since we knew he took off his armor when he wasn't around people.

Which is more than likely because he was a catkin. I'm leaning more and more toward the current one being a direct descendant of the original. There's so much curiosity in me, though, since I don't know and don't have answers yet.

"Probably not, considering how powerful each generation of Golden Knight is," I say. "So it's been the same one for the last fifty years?"

"Yeah," he nods. "He's a pretty awesome dude. A few years ago, I dared him to jump off the waterfall and he did! Kind of scared the town, but he knows the air magic trick to turn himself invisible, so they never actually saw him – just the sudden, massive splash in the lake. Then the even bigger one a couple of seconds later, when I landed."

He giggles.

"I was in wolf form at the time, so all they saw was a massive spirit wolf landing in the water, let out a cheerful howl, and then vanish. That has resulted in some pretty funny superstitions around here, and the spirits down there haven't bothered dispelling them because they find it funny. Now, on the fourth-to-last day of every year, all of the boys who turned twelve since the last event take a plunge into the icy waters of the lake, and then are dressed in ceremonial garb with wolf headpieces as they warm up. I think there's more to the event than that, but I haven't looked too closely."

"It's not all of the boys," a voice echoes through the air. "Just the ones that are going to try to gain a Class that year who don't already have one. They don't know who the strange wolf spirit was, but they do believe that if a worthy child manages to earn a Class, he might return and grant the town a blessing for meeting his requirements. They believe the mysterious plunge followed by the wolf's was his way of telling them to do so, and the village was already having children take the plunge when they turned twelve. It was just moved to the anniversary, with a new 'purpose' behind it. People are weird."

"I can agree with that," Kyron says. "Mysterious spirit who isn't showing himself. With Caleb around, that's an unusual one."

"Hi, Biakxidas!" I wave to the air. "Still not showing yourself to me anymore? It's been a thousand years!"

"You kept making rocks and throwing them at me!"

"They kept vanishing when they entered him," I tell Kyron. "I was trying to see how long it would take for them to stop, but I ran out of Mana first. I think he's got a giant cave full of rocks now."

"…I do not."

"You hesitated."

"I did not."

"You totally do."

"I totally do not."

"He totally does!" The garden's spirit tells me. "I like to take a rest on the pile of rocks. Was wondering what his fascination with those specific rocks was, because he used to tell me off for taking the rest there but eventually gave up. Something about 'being too much like the imp to bother anymore'."

"Caleb isn't a little imp, he's a big one."

"You like my big one."

"So!" Kyron exclaims. "What's your name? I know the other one is Biakxidas, since Caleb mentioned it, but you didn't mention yours yet, and since Caleb doesn't know you…"

"Oh!" The garden's spirit exclaims. "I didn't introduce myself. My name is Ulzaviann, and I am a spirit born by the seven gods!"

He gestures with his hands, and the crest of each element forms out of that element, with the crest for air being a shimmer in their through a manipulation of air to bend light.

"The power to command all four elements."

He gestures to the garden.

"The power to help nurture things further.

He gestures to the woods.

"The power to ensure a safe return to the soil to that which has passed."

He gestures all around.

"And the power to see all that could be for what is my own!"

"You're not that omniscient," Biakxidas says. "Tyzlevir's essence in you really just made you a little bit stronger. Now, I'm going to head back down to the town. Be careful with Caleb, he's liable to try to throw you off the spear."

"The fun part was it actually worked," I tell Kyron. "Xidas was so surprised by it that he nearly landed on the titan's corpse before catching himself."

"You cheated!"

"You're the one who let me touch him!"

"You promised me a massage!"

"I gave you one after!"

"Before you go," Kyron interrupts. "Would you be willing to tell us what's going on down there? Why is the spear now considered a holy site? Considering the statue of an earth spirit-"

"That's Xidas," I tell Kyron. "He's a pure earth spirit who lived in this area when I did that, now that I think about it. Explains why he was up here all the time when I showed up to work on the garden."

"You're wondering if I'm the reason for the odd religion," Biakxidas says. "The answer is 'no', and nor is any god. Among mortals, only Caleb knew I was around here at the time. I was… more of an unseen spirit, a spirit who acted from out sight to have my fun.

"After the calamity sometime back," Biakxidas continues. "When most of mankind was wiped out due to the universe purging many dragons from the world, this spear was forgotten. Seen from a distance, but not known. About four hundred years ago, people finally returned to this area and began calling it Nizkovi's Spear at first. They believed that the God of Earth may have one struck down a powerful beast that threatened to destroy the world, and that was the cause of the spear. Not some dumbass accidentally breaking an item with an immense amount of Mana stored up and then hastily trying to use it all up before it manifested in a Mana storm.

"Anyway," the earth spirit says. "That sort of caused a religion, and I was semi-napping at the time and didn't feel like waking up to correct things. Nizkovi would have either made an appearance to stop them or woken me up if it was really needed. Instead, the brat went and caused the elevation of another higher earth spirit around here. I decided to switch domains and let him have the area and claimed the spear for myself. You only noticed the main statue, the one of me in my humanoid form after I made my first appearance before them. There are a few smaller statues that have the various spirits here, including one that has all of us main ones the locals know of."

"So it was just a superstition caused by the very existence of the spear?" I ask. "Nothing special?"

"Nothing special, indeed," Biakxidas huffs. "I've had to influence a few things to make their weird religion a little more interesting. Then thirty years ago, this dork challenged the Golden Knight to jump off the spear and into the lake, and that made things far more interesting than what I'd spent two centuries trying to change! It's not fair, and you still owe me for that!"

"Do you know the Golden Knight's name?" I ask.

"No," they answer in unison.

"Darn," I say. "Do you know what type he was?"

"Type?" Biakxidas asks. "The friendly kind. And sexy. His aura was similar to yours – someone we spirits are drawn to. Like you, he's probably descended of a Spirit Lineage."

"A what?" Kyron asks.

"We already talked about that," I tell him. "It's just another term for the lineages that have a greater resonance with spirits than others. Xidas, I'm meaning what type of cat catkin he was. Was he a black catkin? Grey catkin? White catkin? Orange catkin? Tabby catkin? The type of hair, ears, and tail is what beastkin are classified as, both for color and animal."

"Oh!" Biakxidas exclaims. "He had black hair, sort of like you and everyone in the Fire Plains."

"Black-haired catkin were the most common of all catkin," I tell him. "So I'm not too surprised by that."

"Also had green eyes," Ulzaviann says.

"All catkin had green eyes," I tell him.

"So basically," Kyron says. "Where you grew up was that continent's equivalent of the Fire Plains? Black hair and green eyes for most?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Though with the earth affinity being more common, rather than fire. Got a question for you guys?"

"What's up?" The spirits ask.

"Though I really am shifting my focus shortly," Biakxidas says. "I want to do something and have a limited time-frame to mess with them, but also takes a lot of focus, even for a spirit as old as I am."

Something tells me that if I ask him what it is, Kyron is going to spend the next half-hour trying to convince me not to participate. While that only makes me want to ask the spirit what it is more, I control myself. There are other things that are more important, and playing pranks with spirits can wait.

"Can you guys try to get the word down the Golden Knight that we'll be at the Temple of Forgotten Hopes in the next few days? There's not much for us to do here that would give me good reason to delay going down there. Because of that, Kyron and I are going to leave here after we eat lunch. We'll stop by Gubam first and check it out, and depending on if there's anything to do there or not, continue down to the Temple of Forgotten Hopes in the next day or two. The trip will be extremely short. He doesn't need to rush to meet us, but Sozrevin told us that he'd estimated how long it would be before we'd arrive and was timing things to meet us around when we would."

"We can do that," Biakxidas says.

"Awesome!" I say. "We'll stop back up here on our way back through. Might spend a little time talking with you guys and checking out the village and the weird religion that's formed around the spear."

"But talking with the Golden Knight is more important for us," Kyron says. "We have some questions about their duties and goals, and why they continue the line like this. Also what they know about us, among other things."

"Plus," I say. "We want to retrieve Durazmakis, the best shield I ever forged, to make things even safer for us when we run Dungeons. Kyron's had to sit back out of fights because he didn't have a good-quality shield. I mean, I could have made some, but they wouldn't have been to their absolute best for the Dungeons we were running."

"There's also that," Kyron adds. "But mostly, we want to talk with the Golden Knight."

"I'm currently talking with spirits at the edge of my range!" Ulzaviann says. "All have agreed to pass on the message, and two of them are currently wanting to wrestle! We've agreed to meet up where my domain crosses over into another spirit's to do some wrestling, but that can wait until after you eat."

"Thanks," Kyron chuckles.

"Bye," Biakxidas says.

"See ya!" I wave to the air. "Alright! Let's get something cooking, because I really am hungry!"