By the last week of October, Galen relented on his work about the fairies’ super-evolution. The pharmacists’ competition had revealed a scheme from a supposed ally through Beren Yaratilis’s behavior. Since it had impacted the twins’ way of getting the ingredients needed for the fairies, Galen switched targets again. It now seemed more appropriate to search for how to distinguish the traitors from the trustworthy allies their mother told them about.

Remembering how to identify loyal members of the Triad, Galen looked for images of the Claddagh ring. It was composed of three elements, and after the complexity of the clues about the fairies’ super-evolution, Galen didn’t believe that the whole of the ring was the symbol he was looking for. However, he couldn’t determine if the ally symbol was the heart, the crown, the holding hands, or something else.

After pondering what he could do, Galen decided to find the meaning of each part of the ring. The most obvious was the crown. It stood for royalty but also for loyalty. Since the symbol’s purpose was to help identify loyalists, it was an appropriate element. The heart generally represented love. Galen couldn’t understand why it would be used for the rallying symbol. As for the holding hands, Galen found out they symbolized friendship. However, Galen felt doubtful again. Agents were colleagues, not friends. What was the link between these three elements?

Galen read basic descriptions and presentations about the ring. What he learned made him uncomfortable: the Claddagh ring was from an Old World’s sunken country. The people from this country, named Ireland at the time, had almost all been decimated in the early years after the Calamity. The few who had survived had migrated to the West, to the Baltic Cities-States region. Galen didn’t like that it was this region again. Something had to be happening there. But what?

Moreover, the Baltic Cities-States and the Mediterranean Cities-States regions weren’t on good terms. It made no sense that a symbol supposed to rally their trustful allies came from a rival region.

Unsatisfied with the answers he got, Galen dug some more. Finally, the youth found some ancient texts talking about the origin of the Claddagh ring. It had first been a plain ring called the Fede ring, only composed of holding hands. On this ring, the hands meant faith. It symbolized trust, so Galen thought it might be the true lead. Moreover, the Fede ring was from Italy. It was also a sunken country, but its survivors had migrated to the Mediterranean Cities-States region.

Nevertheless, Galen was still confused. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was stupid for spies to wear a rallying sign. Galen needed more clues or more data. To clear his mind, he shared his doubts with Lyra. Trying to be helpful, Lyra reread the messages and reminded Galen that the Claddagh ring was only mentioned as an inspiration.

So, Galen hypothesized he might need to look for a combination of three symbols like the Claddagh ring. Three like the three Cities-States forming a region. Three like the Triad. It seemed fitting. Combining the information he had gathered, Galen liked the idea that the holding hands – through the Fede ring – stood for Olympia. Indeed, it was the City-State with the most Italian descendants, such as Marcus Mazza, Cecilia Caputo, or Emilio Fava.

If it was true, Galen needed to find the symbols standing for Babylonia and Men-nefer in place of the crown and the heart. The only other information in the message was the second set of coordinates. It seemed logical that it would lead to the other two symbols. Galen first checked if they were real coordinates, but as he expected, they weren’t.

Hoping that the solution he found for the first set of coordinates would work too, Galen looked into the previous book for a garden picture with the same series of numbers without any results. After thinking about it, Galen admitted that it wasn’t surprising since these coordinates shouldn’t lead to a garden.

“Could it be possible to find a correspondence between the real coordinates and the numbers under the illustrations to decipher the coordinates for the second clue?” Lyra suggested.

“You mean I should use the pharmacist’s old diary to deduce a cipher key working with any coordinates? Yes, it’s a good idea.”

Galen got to work. After some difficulties, Galen finally discovered these coordinates lead to a ziggurat in the City-State of Babylonia. Since the Hanging Gardens and the ziggurat were both about archaic stories and myths from the Old World, Galen dug into these myths and the story of the City-State of Babylonia. Galen wanted to find out if there was a link between these two places.

Galen learned the ziggurat wasn’t a place of prayers, but an HQ for the Agency. Each City-State was built after cities from the Old World. The cities chosen held deep mystical and religious values on the chance to obtain the Old Gods’ protection. So this ziggurat was heavily decorated in honor of Marduk, an important Mesopotamian god who had been the original Babylonia’s protector. Nevertheless, since faith was prone to lead to conflicts, and humans couldn’t afford to be divided against the Abyss monsters, the Triad prohibited any official religions.

However, knowing this didn’t help Galen. The youth didn’t know in which direction to search from there. He read some more books but soon gave up. Galen finally gathered all his findings and returned to his room to share his knowledge with his brother. He hoped Artem, with his instinct, could suggest a direction.

Artem listened attentively to his brother. He stayed silent for a while until he said, “I don’t believe our parents would lead us to a place we can’t reach. They must have anticipated that we couldn’t travel to the City-State of Babylonia before the winter break.”

“So, you’re saying…?”

“These two places – the Hanging Garden and the ziggurat decorated with Marduk statues and paintings – must correspond to places here in the City-State of Olympia. Places we can access without too much trouble.”

Galen’s mind fervently went over everything he knew about these places. Confusedly, some ideas began to take form. “Marduk makes me think of Zeus. Both are masters of thunder and govern the other gods. And the original Olympia had one of the seven wonders: the Statue of Zeus.”

“But there is no temple or statue of Zeus in the City-State of Olympia.”

“No, but we have another important monument dedicated to a Family who specialized in thunder: the Apemios Family’s Memorial.”

Artem remembered what he knew about the Apemios Family. This Family had been the leader of the Balkan Families before the Kranos Family at the time of the foundation of the City-State of Olympia. These early days had been quite dangerous, and the Apemios Family had been at the front, defending against the Abyss monsters restlessly until the whole Family had died on the battlefield, sacrificing themselves for the people of Olympia.

A colossal monument had been erected in commemoration of this Family. It was in the Center and towered above the other buildings. The names of the dead from these fatal battles were engraved on its main obelisk. On the surrounding headstone, underneath the names of the Apemios Family’s members, were the names of all the beast tamers and mundanes who had died with them to push back the Abyss monsters while the City-State was built. Over the years, the names of all combatants who died fighting Abyss monsters had also been added there.

Galen was right. If the ziggurat featuring Marduk stood as a protector of Babylonia, the Apemios Family’s Memorial was its equivalent in Olympia. Moreover, it was a public place easily accessible. The tradition had died down in the past years because of the lack of attacks from the Abyss monsters, but people still came to pay their respects to the dead.

“Should we fill out a school leave permit form for this weekend?” Artem asked, already mentally adjusting their training plan to allow for a visit to the Memorial.

“Don’t you have a field trip with the professional combat elective class this weekend?” The professional combat elective class organized a field trip once a month. Galen had heard some students mentioning that their next trip to a Beast Tamer Association’s training camp was on the first Saturday of November.

Thinking of Artem’s classmates, Galen frowned. He remembered how Artem had been bullied on his first field trip.

“I used the rules you told me about to refuse to go.”

Galen glanced sharply at his brother. Artem sat quietly like it didn’t affect him at all. So, Galen changed his line of inquiry. “How did Mr Tawil react?”

“No problem. Like you said, they can’t force me. I didn’t even need to mention the Nebe law.” Artem shrugged indifferently. “So, are we going?”

“Lyra?” Galen thought to the CSI, ignoring Artem’s question for now.

“Mr Tawil just reminded Artem of the loss of credits and confirmed his decision.” Lyra easily understood what Galen wanted to know. “You know how stubborn your brother is once he makes a decision. Anyway, it’s nothing compared to what Crystal or the Jamra boys did. It’s just an extracurricular activity for an elective.”

Appeased, Galen thought over his brother’s suggestion. “I’d rather confirm some information first so that we don’t make a wasted trip.”

“If we don’t go this week, we won’t be able to go before the third week of November.”

Galen didn’t remember anything important they had to do. “What do you mean?”

Artem looked weirdly at his brother. “Did you forget about the third-year school festival? We’ll be busy with it for at least two weeks. That’s why the professional combat field trip is this weekend, whereas it hasn’t been a month yet since the last field trip.”

Galen smiled sheepishly at his brother. Dascalos High School wanted its students to have practical skills and knowledge. As such, a big event was traditionally organized for the first-year students in May once the new students were acclimated to the school, and in March for the second-year students to let them work freely on their finals afterward. The festival for third-year students was held in November because they had many exams and competitions to prepare for Uni later in the year.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“How could you forget?” Artem scolded his brother. “You’re supposed to keep yourself informed of these kinds of things! Everyone is speculating about the tasks we’ll be given.”

“I didn’t speak much with Zane this week.” Galen paused and added, a bit disgruntled. “And I don’t wish to use him like that.”

Artem didn’t say anything but somberly looked at his brother. Galen sighed. He knew his duties took precedence over his feelings. However, the twins had very few friends, and Galen didn’t want to mistreat Zane because of his Family’s problems.

The twins finally decided to go to the Memorial on Saturday, which left Galen two days to look for more information. The monument was in the Center, so the twins only requested an afternoon leave.

***

On Saturday morning, Benjiro came to find the twins at the library. Galen was brushing up his knowledge of Greek and Mesopotamian mythology. Artem saw Benjiro first and stood up to prevent the boy from interrupting Galen.

“There’s a letter for you.” Benjiro gave the letter to his Air Butterfly. The pet used his forelegs and a bit of air spiritual power to deliver the letter to Artem. Artem nodded in approval of Benjiro training his pet while doing his duty as a scholarship student. The other boy nodded back politely and left to continue his distribution.

The letter was addressed to Galen, but Artem opened it knowing his brother wouldn’t mind. Artem’s mood darkened as he read the letter.

“That’s one stubborn old man,” Lyra commented.

Artem ignored Lyra’s comment to point out his doubt. “How did he learn we asked for a leave this afternoon?”

Lyra didn’t have an answer. She hadn’t thought of the implications. Worried, she wanted to help by being more aware of her surroundings. However, she was only using the passive field of her talent. She could make herself more receptive to it but couldn’t control it. She had vowed never to use her active talent, so she didn't linger on her frustration and concentrated on what she was hearing.

Once Galen noted down some pieces of information he found valuable, he raised his head and noticed Artem’s mood. His brother passed him the letter. Galen kept silent after he read the letter, thinking of a solution.

“Let’s cancel our leave. I don’t want to risk anyone following us to the monument, and I don’t see how we’re going to shake off Elder Nicholas if we leave the school grounds.”

The Third Elder explained in the letter that he would wait for Galen at the school entrance. Seemingly considerate, he was coming over and proposing to accompany them after signing the papers since it would only take a few minutes. They could catch up on the way.

“We knew there was a risk when we filled out the form,” Artem said to remind his brother that it wasn’t unexpected.

The permit form required the students to write down a time, a purpose, and a destination. The twins had easily lied on the paper to mislead their enemies. However, it was different if someone untrustworthy came with them.

“We did, but spies would have kept their distance. Elder Nicholas won’t, and I don’t want to go head to head with him yet.”

Moreover, Galen wanted to know first how the Third Elder had learned about their outing. Did he have an informant in the school staff? Was he collaborating with the spies using the insect? Was the dean directly giving him information? There were too many possibilities, and none was good news.

“I agree with your decision.” Lyra didn’t want to feed the twins’ paranoia, but she felt it was her duty to share what she was hearing. “There’s another insect around.”

The boys tensed. However, they stayed calm and didn’t look around. “Where?”

“That’s not the problem. It sounds like a butterfly, but it’s not Benjiro’s. Moreover, it sounds muffled but more profound. It’s strange.”

Artem stretched his neck to look around casually. “Benjiro’s done with his distribution. I don’t see him in the library.”

Lyra huffed in irritation. “I told you it wasn’t Benjiro’s!”

Galen closed his eyes to regulate his breathing. Another insect meant another spy, didn’t it? It was better to consider the worst. Just how many people were watching the twins?

Lyra worried as she felt Galen’s turmoil. She believed he needed to act to keep his worries at bay. “What are going to say to the old man?”

“Nothing. I’m just going to ignore him for as long as I can,” Galen faintly whispered. The youth hid his frustration. He had a lot of other things to research and to work on. He wouldn’t waste his time on what he couldn’t control.

Artem nodded firmly. “This will give us more time to train rare skills. The more we have, the more paths will open for our fairies.”

Galen smiled at his brother’s eagerness, his optimism becoming less forced.

***

True to their words, the twins trained a lot during the weekend and the following week. Artem was seeing Marcus twice a week and was confident that Ayden would learn the rare skill “heat detection” before the festival.

Meanwhile, Galen listened to Artem’s advice and helped Lucia master her skill “light shield”. Using the tips from the encyclopedia, Galen trained her to improve with faster deployment, better coverage, and more efficient blockage.

The youth was also thinking about how to evolve the skill. Since Galen wanted Lucia to be versatile, the shield needed some offensive aspect. So he couldn’t blindly follow the encyclopedia’s instructions to evolve the “light shield” into the epic “light barrier”.

However, what Artem was teaching Galen about shields wasn’t easily applicable because Lucia’s shield was made of light and so intangible. Moreover, the damages were absorbed before they landed, so Lucia couldn’t use moves needing kinetic force and inertia, like bounce.

As Galen was brainstorming ideas, he thought back to Moses and his elemental. He excitedly talked with Lucia about how she could try to hold the adsorbed damage to reflect them at the enemies. However, they soon realized it wasn’t possible. Indeed, the “light shield” became unstable the more damage it adsorbed until it became brittle and broke.

To find a solution, Galen read as many books as Lucia. The notion of absorbing made him think about photosynthesis. He noted the idea of experimenting on how Lucia could exploit this aspect of light to reinforce her shield and keep it from shattering.

Galen wanted Lucia to develop a reflexive shield. However, was it possible? From what Lucia explained to him, dawn light was better for healing and nurturing, sunlight was better when using “glow” and overcharging it, and moonlight was best for defense. Could there be other types of light she should experiment with? Like starlight or dusk light? Unsure, Galen thought of ways to give the shield a different propriety.

As Galen was muttering about what offensive aspect of light could be used, Lucia listened to him attentively. She had experimented by herself with different types of lights. The fairy had also successfully combined two skills once. She was developing her mind and was determined to improve. So, the Light Fairy got her own idea about how to evolve her skill.

Galen was brought back from his thoughts by flashes of light. Lucia was overcharging her common skill “glow”. With a start, Galen realized the fairy was training again to get the light bomb he had described to her. The boy was mildly surprised because Lucia never gave up when working on a problem.

Lucia had been diligently training with Ayden throughout October. She felt that she was near an achievement on that front. She persevered until she managed to produce a blinding explosion of light.

“Achievement! The first evolved skill! The notable skill ‘flash’ uses sunlight to create a small blinding explosion of light. Depending on the mastery of the skill, it has a chance of blinding the target for a longer duration. As a reward, you get to choose one skill for your pet or one feature for the inner world to redeem from the pieces present in your inventory.”

“Why isn’t it a shuffle like for the ‘light shield’?”

“Ah, now you want to get more shuffle! How hypocritical of you! Who was the one complaining and dissing my shuffle as a useless thing?”

“Don’t be petty! You know Artem needs a rare or notable fire skill compatible with Ayden to redeem!”

Their last use of the shuffle was when the twins obtained the 30th entries of the encyclopedia, but their gain had been lacking: a piece of the common skill “slap” and the entry for the notable White Bat.

“You got two redeem rights. Why not use one on a feature? Your inner world is so empty!”

“Give me a piece of the fields, and I’ll redeem this feature. I might be able to grow the spirit plants we need on it.”

Galen was waiting for Lyra to pursue their banter, but she replied solemnly, “Galen, I warned you when you chose the ‘Warehouse’. The rewards you passed up won’t easily appear again.”

“Easily is a vague word.” Galen didn’t like how serious Lyra sounded. “What do you mean?”

“You have a 1% chance to draw a piece of the skills or features you didn’t choose as a reward.”

Galen couldn’t blame Lyra. She did warm them, but Galen hadn’t taken the full measure of the warning. He would have to talk about it with Artem.

Lucia noticed her tamer’s mood. She flew in front of his face to draw his attention. The Light Fairy had an idea and wanted to show it to him. Once Galen looked at her, she tried to combine the skills “flash” and “light shield”. Galen exclaimed once again at his fairy’s intelligence. This combination was an excellent idea, but it looked extremely difficult. Lucia couldn’t force the two skills to approach each other.

Galen pondered on the problem. “Could it be impossible because one uses moonlight and the other sunlight?”

Lucia thought about it too. When she had combined “glow” with “heal”, one used dawn light and the other sunlight. How was it different? She signed her question to Galen. Their communication was still basic, but the twins had found a book on sign language. All of them were learning it, and Ayden was especially enthusiastic about it.

“Ah!” Galen suddenly exclaimed. “It might be because dawn light is still sunlight.”

“Well, moonlight is sunlight too. It’s just a reflection of it.”

Galen felt that Lyra was right. It reinforced his desire to evolve the “light shield” into a reflexive shield. Using this idea as a base, he explained to Lucia why the moon shined in the night. Once she understood her tamer’s explanation, she wanted to try again to combine the two skills.

“No, Lucia, not today. Artem is right to say that you need to master a skill before trying to combine or evolve them. We shouldn’t be too hasty, or we’ll hurt your foundation.”

Though she was frustrated, Lucia understood the reasoning. She stopped trying to combine “flash” and “light shield” to train her most recent skill. She reasoned that if she knew more about each skill, it would be easier to combine them.

***

By the end of the first week of November, Ayden had learned the rare skill “heat detection” thanks to Marcus’s Magma Tortoise. Artem got three shuffles, making the twins understand it was the fixed reward for their pet learning its first rare skill.

Artem used them, hoping to obtain a skill suitable for his Fire Fairy. The twins had two redeem rights, but Artem was focused on the skill he wished for. On his first try, the young combatant got the entry for the notable Bearded Boar. On the second try, he got a second piece of the “Fountain of Fortune”.

Artem frowned at his result. “Are you trying to tell me that I should rely on luck and redeem the ‘Fountain of Fortune’?”

“It’s random! It’s not my fault if you’re unlucky!”

Artem shook his head in helplessness and used his last shuffle. He got the entry for the notable Red Thorn. “Be honest, Lyra. You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

“I’m not!” Lyra refuted him in a righteous tone. “I’m telling you you’re unlucky!”

Shoshana Linden, one of their beast-tamer classmates, had a Red Thorn. Artem was currently working on getting the pets’ entries from their classmates for the challenge of it. Thanks to that, the twins had recently obtained the fortieth entry of the encyclopedia and got two shuffles. With these, they got the entry for the notable Rumbling Pig and one piece of the “Watch Tower” feature. Artem was still missing a few pets, and among them, mostly the water and plant pets, which were often training apart. Getting the Red Thorn entry now through a shuffle felt like a waste.

Feeling challenged, Artem narrowed his eyes. He would get a fire skill suitable for Ayden out of this shuffle thing without redeeming the “Fountain of Fortune”. The first step toward his goal was to get fifty entries for the encyclopedia and obtain two more shuffles. Oozing stubbornness, Artem planned how to touch the remaining unrecorded pets from his class.

Lyra had mixed feelings. She wanted her hosts to take up the challenges and missions she gave them. Seeing Artem so serious about it was a rewarding feeling, but she had designed them as entertaining features. She doubted Artem was having fun doing her challenge.