Rein re-entered the alleyway filled with blood, corpses and severed limbs. The air was completely filled with a suffocating smoke and reeked of iron, nearly causing Rein to vomit. Rein focused his mind on the fury within his heart in order to resist this sensation.
He noticed that he had lost his cloth dabbed with water, likely in his struggle against the bandit earlier on. However, the smoke did not feel overly suffocating. His guess was that his body strengthening had increased its resistance to many elements.
His body was in the mid-range progress of the inner advancer realm, and had been further improved with the assimilation of the draconic metamorphose bead. Blacksmith Tiehr never specifically mentioned it, but Rein felt his body sturdier after the bead had combined with his body. Supposedly, dragons had bodies as tough as steel. Perhaps a bit of that had influenced his body, Rein reasoned.
He turned his thoughts to escape, and surveyed his surroundings, trying to identify the best method to leave.
Since time was of the essence, Rein figured that with his improved resistance against the smoke, the best way to rapidly leave the town would be to use his newly acquired skill across rooftops. He needed to avoid conflict with the imperial soldiers that were supposedly returning to town. Who knew if these imperial soldiers were here to clean out citizens that they believe to be devils?!
He quickly formed a circle with his hands again, before pointing it at the roof of the forge and activating his aurae, causing his forehead veins to have a slight blackish-purple tinge.
Once again, his instincts guided him as, with a swirl, his body entered the black sphere formed at the center between his hands, before his body spun out of another black sphere that appeared above the roof.
However, Rein found only air to step on, and he crashed down onto the roof, rolling a few times before managing to spread his limbs and clutch with his hands to stop himself from rolling off the roof of the forge.
A few roof tiles got dislodged and slid off the roof while emitting a high pitch porcelain sound, before falling off the edge and breaking into pieces upon contact with the ground.
Rein inwardly cursed. He must have aimed his teleportation location too high. That must have been why his feet found only air and so he fell a few feet onto the roof and lost his balance. Blacksmith Tiehr words were proven true-- he needed to be careful as he was only beginning to use this origin skill.
Rein groaned, resting for a breath of time, looking through a thin film of black smoke, up at the cloudy night sky in which there was no moon, not to mention, the occasional flash of lightning and rumble of thunder.
How odd. Rein had initially expected there to be rain tonight, but even now, none had fallen. That was just a momentary observation and Rein refocused his mind. He knew that he needed to practice and focus on aiming the skill properly if he wanted to use it accurately. Instincts from some acquired knowledge or memory were unreliable.
He stood up again, and climbed onto the top of the roof, taking a quick look at his hometown, the Golden Desert Town, that he would soon be leaving.
He could not see particularly far, especially because the smoke was much thicker down low. But of what he could see, the town was a complete fiery hell. Many, if not most of the surrounding buildings were on fire, and this was likely the same for the whole town.
Even if the imperial forces reoccupied the town again, Rein doubted they would stay for long. The infrastructure was completely gone, and those bandits and mercenaries probably killed most of the townsfolk… Many of these townsfolk were people he interacted with daily before today’s disaster...
Rein hardened his face. This was but another reminder of why he needed to bury his hesitation, and follow his fury to its end!
He stood straight again, and focused his gaze at a point above a roof, the farthest he could see through the black smoke. This time, he narrowed his eyes and made a concerted effort to pinpoint a spot of the right height by his estimation of where the circle formed by his hands would be if he was standing on that roof.
Rein appeared as his body spun out of a small black sphere on another roof, with his eyes looking downwards and his knees slightly bent, to land properly in case he teleported too high again.
His body was once again a tad bit too high above the roof, but comparatively less high than his previous teleportation, and he was ready for the short drop onto the roof.
Rein shook his head, somewhat impatient and angered at himself for not learning fast enough. He needed to master activating and directing this skill quicker. He needed to reach a level of expertise necessary to rescue Jein!
He had really only performed this origin skill three times.
Once again, Rein prepared himself. He would definitely try to improve his control as he leaves this town. Rein aimed at another far off roof through the black smoke, intentionally aiming lower.
Rein’s vision turned completely dark for a breath of time, and next, he found a force slamming into the bottom of his feet, causing his bent knees to crash into his own chest as he fell backward onto his bum.
He had aimed too low… When he spun out of the black sphere, his feet contacted the solid roof first. Because he aimed too low, his knees were pushed by the ground into a bent position and into my chest.
At this point, Rein was starting to have a proper understanding on how this origin skill worked.
He activated the skill a number of times before arriving at the southern edge of the town, where he could see a large tree with a strong supportive branch that he could teleport to and leave.
During the process, every single use of the skill became increasingly refined. In the end, it was not a huge difficulty to aim his own sight and his circle hands accurately.
Rein decided that since he was nearly out of the dangerous town, he might as well test whether this origin skill could be used to damage objects. There was no knowledge in his mind that indicated this was possible, but he wondered if he could use the skill to directly attack a target… surely that will be an effective way to kill a target, with this skill that is supposedly ‘heaven defying’!
He now aimed his skill directly at a thin and weak branch of the tree, focusing his gaze as if wanting to teleport to a point on the trunk.
As he channeled his aurae through his body to activate the skill… nothing happened. The aurae kept flowing on the edge of the circle formed by his hands, but the skill could not be activated.
Rein felt disappointed. Why wasn’t the skill activating? Some might think Rein reckless with this attempt, but he had thought it through. In theory, his strengthened body was tougher than a flimsy tree branch, so if he activated the teleportation skill, his body would pop over and snap apart the branch.
That did not happen. That fact made Rein realize that magic had rules. He didn’t understand the rules. It must be like how fire magic can generate heat, but if one tried using water elemental magic to generate heat… it would be hopeless, was his understanding. Regardless, Rein now understood that this origin skill of his could not be used as an attack.
He quickly moved on, adjusted his aim to a point above a thick supportive branch and teleported to it, landing on the branch before turning back to look at the Golden Desert Town.
Rein’s eyes had a hint of melancholy, before they quickly regained a slight red tinge again as his mind refocused on the fury in his heart. He had burned the image of the town’s destruction into his mind.
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Even though he was only an inner advancer, his few uses of the teleportation skill barely used any of his aurae. In fact, he felt he could currently perform this skill at least a few hundred times, of a similar distance he traveled through the black smoke from roof to roof.
To his estimation, this distance was around a few kilofeet. That being the case, he could rapidly travel over a thousand kilofeet in a short period of time, quite an amazing feat for an inner advancer. As his aurae reserves increase in the future, this distance would as well. Who knows how far he would be able to travel once he became a shell advancer?
Rein bowed his head in contemplation. He finally had a slight inkling as to why Blacksmith Tiehr had such a large reaction when first seeing him activate his origin skill. He only had superficial knowledge of advancers and their world, but he knew that this odd ability of his was rather exceptional, to put it mildly. Then, there were also the existence of innumerable other origin skills… It would be a mistake to think he was alone.
He faced the forest again. The Black Wolf Forest was regarded as only slightly dangerous to mortals because of the low level of demon beasts living within it. Demon beasts referred to the animals in the forest that had gained intelligence and spirituality, and along with that, magical abilities.
For the most part, inner advancers such as Rein would not travel alone through this forest, but rather, with at least another similarly leveled companion.
It was called the Black Wolf Forest, because a long time ago, there was an extremely powerful black wolf demon in the forest that required cooperation of multiple high ranked advancers to slay. No one truly remembers details of the tale anymore, since it was too long ago and the forest has had minimal threats since then.
These days, merchants often hired bottom tier of mortal fighters, a group of mid-ranged inner advancer mercenaries to protect their wares, and frankly, the low leveled demon beasts that still exist in the Black Wolf Forest would be too intimidated to even attack such a group.
Rein was told by his father that any demon beasts that were stronger had long been hunted down by proper advancers for resources, and these low level demon beasts were left to live just to occasionally provide some game for shell advancers.
Although Rein was only a mid-ranged inner advancer-- a baby spout that had just peeked its tip out of the soil, Rein knew that with his origin skill, he would be able to escape any group of demons.
Thus, with a swirl, Rein entered a black sphere that shrunk into nothingness and vanished into the forest. As he left, he could hear the faint sound of battle and Blacksmith Tiehr’s final defiant bellows….
In the darkness of the forest, a mature looking teen soundlessly popped out of nowhere, dropping down half a foot before landing onto a tree branch. This was, of course, none other than Rein.
The foliage of the forest was not particularly thick, and streams of dim light leaked through the canopy to provide minor illumination to the forest ground. However, it was still quite dark, and Rein could only see the outline of his hand in front of his face unless he intentionally moved into the path of the canopy opening.
A strong breeze rustled the green leaves that had a tinge of red and yellow under the dim light, dislodging quite a few to drift lazily onto the ground. Judging by the color of the leaves, Rein could tell that the season was late summer moving into autumn.
Rein had already continuously teleported for some time. He plopped down on the tree branch with his back against the tree trunk to take a rest, while remaining vigilant of any sounds in his surroundings.
Even if he could teleport away quickly, that did not mean he was completely safe. A low level demon beast might not catch up with his travel speed, but it was entirely possible for one to ambush him now that he was resting.
Rein took out a piece of travel ration from his travel sack. He had no idea what exactly this was, but it was lying inside the travel sack when he picked it up to carry all the items Blacksmith Tiehr had passed down to him.
He unwrapped the unique wrapping leaves to reveal a squarish bun with rounded edges that looked like it had been deep fried from its golden brown surface. He quickly took a bite, only to find that this bun was hard and crunchy, with his teeth barely managing to bite through.
He could not help but frown, taking a sniff of this odd bun to ascertain whether it had gone bad. It did not smell funny in any way, thus Rein figured it was some sort of magical food of the advancer world, and so continued chomping down to replenish himself.
It was not as if he’d be able to procure any other food as of now. Could he escape the low level demon beasts? Yes, but killing them for consumption while avoiding injuries was totally another question.
Thinking of his current situation, Rein could not help but thank his deceased father. His education gave him a decent understanding of the geography of the area close to Golden Desert Town, and even a superficial geographical knowledge of the rest of the Minhr Nation.
He was currently traveling towards a town on the southern edge of the Black Wolf Forest, called Wolf Syrup Town. The town specialized in selling syrup manufactured from the trees of the Black Wolf Forest.
Wolf Syrup Town should be a place where he could procure some food. The crunchy squarish bun didn’t have any flavor at all, and he would very much prefer to survive on ‘proper’ foods.
In addition, he needed to figure out how to truly enter the advancer world. He might be able to find some method through a recruiter in Wolf Syrup Town that administered entrance tests. The issue was that this age was a bit high-- Most advancers would consider him, only a mid-ranged inner advancer at age sixteen, to be well… a worthless pile of shit. And, he was not about to use the origin skill and attract unwanted attention. Still, Rein knew he needed guidance in advancer arts and insights.
He needed to reach an advancer realm strong enough to rescue Jein. Blacksmith Tiehr was supposedly an outer advancer, so at the very least, he needed to reach such a realm to rescue Jein-- probably.
He was hopeful about Wolf Syrup Town, but only slightly. Wolf Syrup Town was a modest town. It was unlikely there would be any advancer inheritance schools, or sects operating close to it. Sects were the primary recruiters. They were large-scaled organizations that inducted new members with a code of belief that guided their magics. Inheritance schools only focused on passing on a style or line of advancer arts.
As he ate, Rein’s mind drifted to the topic of Meynan.
He could just put all this behind him, find and marry Meynan and live a mortal life. But that would be abandoning his younger brother to a fate worse than death in the hands of the fallen.
If he were to do so, would Meynan even respect him? No, how could she respect him if he became a man that abandoned a younger brother for a peaceful life.?
If his younger brother continuously suffers at the hands of the devilish woman, would his deceased parents be happy with him just living a blissful life, not to mention ignoring those that had done harm to them?
Rein felt that at this very moment, that if he wanted even an ounce of self-respect and pride, he had no choice but to take action. He had to enter the advancer world.
Perhaps, he could find Meynan after rescuing his little brother and seeking revenge against these bandits, mercenaries and the fallen…
Then, he remembered Blacksmith Tiehr’s words regarding how as an advancer, if he were to take such action, he would be ostracized.
As his mind examined all his options, he finally came to terms with his reality. Returning to a mortal blissful life was already nothing but a dream, even if a small part of him yearned for the possibility of such a life.
There was also the fact that Meynan’s marriage to him was linked to House Hehr’s unique position. That was all gone-- that devil beauty had stolen the more important pouch with family deeds. Perhaps Meynan would accept him, but she had Sir Jeihr behind her… then there was the whole House Jeihr and their internal mechanisms.
As much as he still treasured Meynan in his heart, Rein felt that It would be idiotic for him to get mired in such mud while he could be strengthening himself to save his younger brother and find those responsible for the Golden Desert Town’s massacre.
Rein’s determined expression, barely visible in the dim forest, communicated his decision.
At this point, Rein suddenly exclaimed and stared at the nearly-finished bun in his hands. The hard bun had sped up his aurae recovery! He could feel his body’s strength and energy recovering slightly faster than normal!
This confirmed that the bun must be some kind of advancer food that Blacksmith Tiehr had kept around for escape. This kind of provision was probably some kind of basic travel ration used by advancers.
He no longer found this odd type of bun as distasteful as before, and rapidly consumed it. Perhaps if he had some honeyed milk to sweeten his taste buds, it would be even easier to stomach this tough-on-the-teeth food. Regardless, this type of aurae recovery food was highly beneficial to him in his current situation.
Before long, Rein abruptly frowned. This had nothing to do with the odd bun he had just eaten. He cocked his head and listened carefully. Soon, a hint of light hoof sounds could be heard. Turning his head to his left, he saw in the far distance, a group of horses and human shapes passing through a stream of dim light.
Carefully, Rein gathered his sack and teleported to a tree branch that was closer to the group, yet far enough that it would be near impossible for the group to notice him as long as he stayed in the shadows of the trees.
As Rein observed the group, he noticed that they were covered in blood streaks and dust. In theory, their blood should have attracted the demon beasts, but the low level demon beasts of the Black Wolf Forest were so weak that they avoided the large group of mercenaries-- probably somewhere in the inner advancer realm.
The group of mercenaries was slowly traveling on their meandering horses through the night toward Wolf Syrup Town, from the direction of the Golden Desert Town. Somehow, Rein had overtaken them during the night.
Mercenaries! Rein could feel the fire in his belly burning bright and fierce as he wriggled his fingers, already itching to pounce. He hadn’t expected his chance to come so soon!