"I can ask our leader but I can't promise you anything. I don't know how others will react to a Hero in their team, they might be happy and enthusiastic but you never know. Especially this year, your friends are a huge pain in the ass, they cause problems wherever they go and have no respect for normal people." Arath answered with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I can even dress as one of you and pretend to be normal." Ben was willing to try every option possible.

"That won't work. Many people saw your face in the cave with that Giant Cave Spider so there is no point in trying to hide your identity." Arath shook his head.

"Please do everything you can. I don't want to just sit here and watch you work hard everyday to bring her back." Beniamin started to beg.

"Don't worry I will do my best." He tried to cheer up his companion.

"By the way, I kind of escaped from other Heroes, is there any free room where I could sleep? It's really cold outside."

"Sure, I can prepare few blankets for you and you can sleep in my room. It's not going to be as comfy as in your previous room but you won't freeze to death."

The two prepared something that resembled a sleeping bag and sat in the living room talking about the second floor until they were hit by waves of sleepines. Arath started to treat the Hero like a true friend, they had an infinite number of topics to talk about and never got bored in the conversation. It was as if they were made to become brothers in the next life. Despite Arath's reserved attitude towards most strangers Ben emanated a strange aura of trust which allowed the boy to feel comfortable.

The next day was, theoretically speaking, a free day but since the moment he woke up he wasted no time and started cultivating. He had a fixed goal - spine. If he could achieve it in the near future many new options would present themselves to him. With a quick way to transport his magical energy from one part of his body to another without losing big part of it on the way, only his imagination would be a limit. He could start preparing for awakening his hands and slowly walk towards achieving his dream which undoubtedly was manifesting his element outside of his body. But before this moment came he had to make preparations. Breaking through wasn't always nice and pretty, many side effects could take place and he wasn't ready to face them just yet. But, even though he knew that, it wasn't easy to just abandon hopes for amazing things that waited for him after the basic level.

One of the most known and basic abilites, for elementalists of his kind, was bending space inside bags in order to fit in as many items inside as possible. Having that ability would make one of the bigger problems of adventuring dissapear. With almost unlitimited inventory space, travelling deep into the dungeon would become a much smaller of an issue. But dreams would stay just dreams if one didn't put enough effort to make them come true.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

When evening slowly creeped around the corner and a rumble with the strengh of an earthquake shook Arath's room he finally decided to leave the smelly room. Stench of sweat and unwashed bodies irritated his nostrils to the point where Arath had to rush out of the room in order not to faint.

"So. Hungry. Need. Food." Zombie-like man pushed his body to the limit to get to kitchen.

Ben and Anga who were cooking at the moment noticed this humanoid creature approaching them and had to chase him away so as not to die of breathing in his odor.

"No entrance to the kitchen until you bathe properly." Anga ordered and shooshed Arath away.

During the hours of focus and cultivation he managed to awaken most of the remaining bones in spine and only one session like this was needed to finish the process. Arath was left speechless at the speed of his improvement, normally to achieve what he achieved today, weeks, if not months were neccessary, but since his second awakening this was not the case for him anymore.

The man followed orders of the little girl and took a long bath before sprinting back to the kitchen. He wolfed down everything in his line of sight and didn't spare even poor blestol milk. With a madman's smile he rushed to the nearest shop and bought so much food he could feed a whole army and still have enough for dinner. With that done, he went to the living room and just fell on one of the couches without strength to even raise a finger. On the other side of the room were Anga and Ben who chatted casually, and not payed any attention to their weird friend. Arath listened to their conversation with one ear and found out the two hit it off quite quickly.

'This man is such a social beast, does anybody hate him in the entire world? He just has great vibes surrounding him, I can't imagine not liking him.' Arath commented in his mind.

The rest of the day passed by rather quickly, after Arath recovered his strength he opened windows in his room to make sure they wouldn't suffocate at night and prepared his gear for the next day. Ben, trying to make a good impression on the leader of Leafers, polished his armor and weapons and trained his speech before a mirror. He even wrote it on the inner part of his hand to make sure he wouldn't forget it.

As soon as morning arrived the two ate as much food as they could stock in their bellies and set out. It was rather obvious that Ben was extremely nervous about the whole thing and Arath found it rather comical. Just on the other side of the entrance to the Tower was standing a group of about twenty battlehardened men and women.

"Hi Arath, who is that boy? A new recruit?" Elizabeth approached the incoming two.

"Yeah, his name is Beniamin and is one of the Heroes you rescued in that cave. He wants to join."

"Sure, why not? As long as he listens to my orders and stays in line there should be no problem." She answered and turned around to join the group again.

Beniamin's face reddened from anger as he threw his hands up in the air.

"I practiced my speech for two long hours, plucked up my courage since the moment I opened my eyes today and you just say 'sure, why not'? Are you kidding me? No interview, no suspicious looks, nothing? Oh fuck my life." He couldn't hold back his emotions.

"Who needs an interview? You will be cannon fodder, if you are bad or weak you will die, if you are worthy of becoming a Leafer then you will survive, it's that simple. By the way, Arath explain what it means to be the new squire to your friend." She just said and left.