I practically inhale my food and finish it off with some cool fizzy drink. The Caravan group are talking among themselves so I wait till they’re before I interrupt them.

“Where are we,” I ask.

Esmar moves my drink from the table and brings out a large piece of paper from the bag at his side. He rolls it out and I read the large title at the top of the paper which says ‘World Map’.

“Have you ever seen one of these,” Esmar asks me.

I say no in response.

“The Kingdom of Eldoria is composed of a single world. We have two continents, Atria and the Glade. We currently live on Atria and our continent is further split into four regions. The kingdom’s capital is situated right in the middle of all four regions. To the north is an Ice Land made of glaciers and mountains, the east has only grassy lands, the west is Sylvia’s Forest and the south is a desert. The Glades continent is essentially a no-mans. It’s where all the portals you’ve seen are formed. The regions change and deform every couple of Kilometers and monsters of all strengths are everywhere. The whole continent can be considered an entire dungeon at this point. And at the continent’s center is the only Dungeon tower our world has,” Esmar explains, “Anyway, you’ll learn more about that at the Academy.”

He points to the small black dots and large white ones on the map, “These small black dots signify towns, while the bigger white ones are for cities. The bigger the dit, the larger the city or town is.”

“Your town was this black dot between the north and east region, and we currently are here. We’re going to meet up at Redford City with the other Caravans,” he continues.

“I guess I haven’t been unconscious for too long since we’re still pretty close to my town,” I say, “How long will it take to get to the capital from Redford City.”

“You’ve been unconscious for over a week boy,” Charlotte grunts out, “If that boy with the healing affinity didn’t heal you, you would’ve been dead from both exertion and your injuries, you fool. ”

No way it was that bad.

“Anyway, the past is the past. Once we get to Redford, they have a teleportation gate so we can teleport directly to the Capitol.” the Caravan Master says.

I look at them in confusion, “Those exist.”

“Yeah, but only in the three major cities,” he replies like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

I see all three of them give me a look.

“If you don’t know this much, you’ll be suffering at the academy trying to catch up to your peers, boy,” says Charlotte.

I sigh and shrug my shoulders. Not like I can change the past. I feel an arm slip onto my shoulder.

“Seems like the boy wonder woke up. You sure caused a ruckus,” a man in all black leather with slick black hair says in a thick accent, “Since it seems you fools are giving the kid a lesson, I assume we’re ready to depart?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

And the adventure never stops. I remove his arm from my shoulder and get up. My companions get up as well and the Caravan Master starts giving orders to his team. I let my mind wander and think about what happened to Dante. He’s probably alright.

We walk out of the Inn and I glance around the town. I stare at the variety of different people and notice that their clothes are thinner and more lightweight than my own. As we walk through the town, I can’t help but gape and the sheer variety of shops there are. This place is ages ahead compared to the town I lived in. It’s way bigger as well. I see the caravan camp in the distance, near the edge of the town, in a large clearing.

The buses along with tens of carts form a semi-circle with the town wall. As we near the camp, I start to hear the clanks of swords clashing, the pounding of feet and fierce yelling. We enter into a large area with hundreds of people running in a circle holding logs on their shoulders while chanting. In the middle of the circle lies a group of people fighting using swords and various other weapons. Outside of all that is another large group drinking dark green liquid.

What happened when I left? Did everyone decide to become disciplined or what?

“You missed a lot,” says Esmar.

The Caravan Master moves ahead of us and yells, “ATTENTION.”

I flinch from the loud noise. I look up and find everyone standing in their spot with their fists at their chest. I feel the deafening silence and grimace at everyone’s stare. I feel a tap on my shoulder and see Esmar motion for me to follow him.

What the hell is going on? Esmar and the man in black leather armour walk to one of the smaller caravans and they go in. I take one look behind me at the Caravan Master yelling at the Awakened and try to find Dante or Raven in the crowd. Failing to do so, I go into the Caravan to get an explanation.

I close the door behind me.

“So, what’s going on?” I try to ask casually.

“This year’s class has been impressive don’t you think so,” the man in black leather proclaims, “A handful of Essence and Force users, multiple healers, that dual affinity boy and girl, and to top it all off there was also the prince who is capable of using myst. Full fricking Myst. It’s unheard of even in the Capital of the Eternal Empire. Shit, at this point, I’m scared the empire might come and raid us just for the talent of our next generation.”

“They can do that,” I say in horror.

“Say what you mean Edgar,” says Esmar in an annoyed voice, “And yes they can, but it won't be happening to us.”

“Fine, Fine. You see since the Prince has the ability to use Myst at such a young age, he was recruited to go to the Empire’s Mages Academy. The problem lies in the fact that our imbecile of a Queen is a doting mother and is sending all our elite from this year with him as his entourage to make sure he has “Company”.” says the man in black leather as he looks at me expectantly.

He’s gotta either be mentally unstable if he genuinely believes that I’ll be able to understand what’s happening from that little snippet of information.

“You have to slow down. How much did you understand Elijah,” says Esmar.

I shake my head.

“Let me explain it from the beginning. All of us D-grades you’ve met in this Caravan including myself, Charlotte, Edgar, Devonte and many others are called the Hunter’s Edge. We essentially do everything in our power to serve the King and Queen. It doesn't sound very interesting, but one benefit is that we are allowed to train on The Glade whenever we need to. Our Team decided it was high time to clear the Dungeon Tower again and we had been going about it until 2 years ago when we hit a roadblock on the 18th floor. To advance farther up the tower we need to fulfill a couple of conditions,” explains Esmar.

“What are the conditions?” I ask.

“They don’t matter. What matters is that we fulfilled the conditions a couple of years back and attempted to move to the next floor. Suffice it to say it was a massacre. Half of us died within the first minute after entering the 19th floor and we had to retreat,” Esmar stops talking and takes off his monocle to wipe it.

A somber feeling descends on us and I process what they said. I assume they want all those ‘talents’ they mentioned before to help them clear the tower or to fulfill this condition of theirs. But since all of them are leaving for the Empire, they’re stuck in a difficult place.

“So how does this involve me,” I say warily.

“We’re recruiting more talented Awakened to help us clear the tower. You’d be an incredible asset. And since the crown has no idea how huge your reserves are and you still use base mana, they won’t send you to the Empire,” says Edgar.

“Don’t I gain more from going to the Empire,” I ask.

“I won’t lie to you, you would gain more Elijah. But only if you exclude the potential rewards we get from the tower. No one knows what it will be or anything significant about it. You’ll have three years to prepare for the attack. What do you think,” says Esmar.