After Leon stepped through the portal, it promptly closed behind the two of them. After looking around amidst the lush forest that they found themselves in, they quickly realized that they were in unfamiliar territory.

“Where in the world are we?” Leon asked as he looked around at the great trees that surrounded them.

“Good question…” Seth said and squinted as he tried to look through the trees.

“Maybe Elijah packed a map in one of these bags,” Leon suggested as he slung his expanse bag from his shoulder onto the ground and knelt down in front of it as he began to rummage through it. “Wow!”

Seth raised an eyebrow as he looked down at his peer, “what is it?”

“This thing has like an endless space for storage. Look!” Leon gaped and held the bag open for Seth to see.

Seth walked over slowly and crouched next to Leon and peered into the bag, his mind having trouble making sense of what he was seeing. “I can see all of the items in there, yet… the bag itself is only so big.”

“Maybe it’s like a mini-pocket dimension?” Leon mused, equally awestruck by the sight.

“Probably…” Seth nodded slowly and then reached into the bag for a rolled-up piece of paper. “Maybe this is a map.”

“Open it up!” Leon said eagerly, staring inside the expanse bag just a little more before closing it up to look at the paper with Seth.

“Looks like it,” Seth said as he unrolled what appeared to be a map of a country called “Tsenmai”.

“Tsenmai? Never heard of it,” Leon narrowed his eyes at the map.

“I have a feeling that we’re not on Earth anymore, Leon,” Seth suggested as he read over the various names of the villages and cities.

“What?” Leon blinked and studied the map, totally unfamiliar with everything that he was seeing. “Do we even know where we’re supposed to go or who we should be working for? That was real brilliant of Elijah to just send us to some foreign world without any direction.”

“I mean, he did say that everything we would need would be in our expanse bags… let me check mine,” Seth set his bag on the ground and opened it up. It was similar to Leon’s only there were a couple of different items inside of his than what Leon had. After scanning the inside of the bag, he spotted a folded piece of paper and retrieved from the bag and unfolded it. “Ah, here we go!”

“It looks like a list,” Leon smiled with satisfaction. “What does it say?”

Seth read aloud:

Nagaboro Village – Onko

Shisang – Thrua

Zoawara – Ryujeth

“Huh. Whaddya think?” Leon scratched his head.

“It appears to be a list of locations with who we’re supposed to try and recruit for each one. See, there’s Nagaboro Village on the map,” Seth said, pointing to a basic picture of a few huts that said “Nagaboro Village” below it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Great, now all we need to figure out is where we are and then we should have no problem figuring out how to get to these places. It’s times like this that I wish we could still use our cellphones. Then I could just use the GPS,” Leon rolled his eyes.

“You know the reason why Elijah made us get rid of our phones. They’re mind-control devices,” Seth reasoned.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure if I believe in all of Elijah’s little conspiracies,” Leon folded his arms across his chest.

“Conspiracies? I would think that by now you would realize that there are greater forces at work here than we could have ever possibly imagined. Especially given how powerful you’ve become in less than a year,” Seth chastised his fellow Guardian.

“Whatever,” Leon snorted and turned away from Seth.

Seth looked up from the map and pointed in the distance towards what seemed to be a small clearing. “Why don’t we see if we can find a road or something that way?“It’s not like we have many other options, let’s just- Seth, watch out!” Leon started to say, but then pointed and shouted as a giant beast, nearly four times the size of them, with green skin, sharp horns all over its body, and glowing-red eyes came barreling towards the young Cultivator.

Seth swiftly dodged to the side, causing the beast to skid past him and crash into a nearby tree.

“Run!” Leon cried out and slung his expanse bag back over his shoulder and began to run towards the clearing that Seth had pointed out.

Seth followed suit, leaving his expanse bag and the map behind as he chased after Leon through the trees, the large beast hotly pursuing them.

“We’re so screwed!” Leon yelled as they rushed past the last row of trees and into what appeared to be a country-side area, reminiscent to a cattle ranch back on Earth.

Seth looked over his shoulder and shuddered as he saw how fast the beast was gaining on them. “We’re gonna have to turn and fight. We can’t out run it!”

“Use your Spirit Essence to give yourself a little boost!” Leon suggested.

“I already have… I’m running out,” Seth panted.

“Darn it. Me too,” Leon swallowed and then abruptly stopped. “I’m tired of running anyway!”

Seth halted right after Leon did came by his side, prepared to take the beast head on as the gap swiftly closed between them.

Out of no-where a warrior clad in leather armor, wielding a gigantic kanabō, riding a huge boar which was also clad in armor, charged into the unknown beast. The giant boar’s tusks piercing the flesh of the beast and pushing it away. Victory cheers were heard as about five more warriors wielding kanabō and riding boars strode up and took turns beating the beast to death with their massive clubs.

Leon and Seth stood speechless as the great warrior finished off the beast.

The first boar-rider who attacked the beast dismounted from his animal and set his kanabō down before kneeling next to the fallen beast. He placed a hand on the beast’s body and closed his eyes as its body transformed from matter to pure Spirit Essence and was absorbed into the boar-rider’s body. After the beast had completely been consumed, the rider turned and approached the two Cultivators.

“Who are you and why are you trespassing on Nagaboro territory?” the one who absorbed the beast asked.

Seth guessed that the one who spoke was their leader and addressed him, “sir, we are travelers from another world looking for one named ‘Onko’. Do you know him?”

The boar-riders all murmured amongst themselves before simultaneously raising their weapons and closing in on Leon and Seth.

“Great job, moron! Now they want to kill us,” Leon signed and raised his hands.

“You want my son, Raijin assassin?” the man scowled at Seth.

“Assassin? Wait, I think there’s a-,” Seth started to say but was quickly seized by two of the other riders.

“Take them back to the village!” the man ordered.

“Hey, wait! Get your grubby hands off of me!” Leon struggled, pushing the boar-riders who came to seize him away from himself.

“This one had a mouth on him, chief,” said one of the riders.

“Hmph,” the chieftain smirked before picking his kanabō up from the ground and dashing swiftly at Leon, using the but of the large club to hit the young Cultivator under the chin, knocking him out instantly. He then turned to Seth and held the club out directly in front of his face, “do you need the same treatment as well? Or can you keep your mouth shut?”

Seth swallowed and looked at Leon to make sure that he was still alive. “I won’t give you any trouble. I just want a chance to explain myself.”

“You will have the opportunity to answer for yourself. For now, you are my prisoner,” the chieftain said as his men began to tie Seth up.

“May I ask who you are?” Seth’s voice cracked slightly as he asked.

“I am Ikoga. Chieftain of the Nagaboro Clan. That is all you need to know for now,” he said and turned to mount his giant boar. “Let’s ride, men!”

And with that, the boar-riders all followed their chieftain with Leon and Seth bound up and taken with them.