My New Life in TBATE

Mysteries Brought to Light

With a couple months now having passed it was time for me to finish off my journey. I had spent these last couple months enjoying the time with my family, and attending another auction with them. This was only a small one so the whole of the royal family didn't attend, but Kathyln did with a small retinue of guards.

We were able to put her masks to good use as the guards dressed like adventurers and she gave me a matching mask to hers that was light blue as well. We toured the downtown and the markets, and the various stalls and shops. The guards were surprised in the Princess's actions as they are used to her being similar to a statue or a doll. However now she was leading me by the hand around the city of Xyrus with laughs, oohs and ahhs.

When it was over, we parted at the gate where she headed back to the castle and i to the manor. It was nice to hear Kathyln laughing and having fun just because she got to be a normal person for the day, and I'm sure there will be many similar moments in the future.

Shaking my head of the thoughts with a slight smile I approached the gate with my Rez outfit on. The rumors didn't spread as heavily as the first ones did, but people knew that I was an S rank adventurer now. Young adventurers now had sparkling looks in their eyes as I passed them, as they to dreamed of being a fabled S rank adventurer.

Flashing my new white card the guard saluted me as if I was royalty, I guess even guards dreamed of being adventurers at one point. The familiar feeling of gate travel flowed through as I landed at the edge of the vast expanse of untamed land that was the Beast Glades. Tuk hated the feeling of the gate so he always just flew down from Xyrus, and landed atop a branch next to me.

'Where to now, hatchling?' He used the mental connection as he stared at me. I returned his look before looking at the uncut underbrush of the trees.

'I want to go as deep as possible. We stopped at A zone last time for the dungeon but I want to explore the AA and S rank zones. There's bound to multiple spots of dense mana that will be good for refining my core even more in hopes of breaking through to white.' Tuk shots up into the air after a nod, and I take off using wind mana to propel me through the forest, much like the first time I came here.

Like this 3 months passed as I honed my skills and adventured deeper into the Beast Glades. Coming across various types of mana beasts and even a shadow panther like Virion had the beast will for. It was truly a ferocious foe with its speed and nearly soundless movements. I was using this journey to work on the power and accuracy of my conjurer style abilities.

My sword fighting was reaching a point of almost stagnation as I only gained new insights when Xaxses instructed me. He still wouldn't answer my questions, but his training left little time to ask anyways. I was rocked from my meditation by a powerful burst of mana some distance away from me. Xaxses made the sword vibrate in my hand as if wanting me to go investigate, I turned to Tuk who was perched in a tree and he had a confused face.

"What is it Tuk?" I asked aloud.

"It's... it has the same familiar energy as you." I looked at him in confusion before feeling the sword vibrate once more. Deciding on trusting Xaxses I hop up, and store my belongings into my ring. Rushing off into the direction of the burst of mana. As I grew closer I passed more and more mana beasts who fled the area, and my heart beat a little faster in anticipation.

Breaking through the tree line we came across a small brook with slowly trickling water, and a massive bird easily twice the size of a Flare Hawk was splayed on the ground with wounds littering its body. It weakly rasped and croaked as it tried to inch toward the water. The massive bird had red feathers spattered with a vibrant gold, it had a plume of feathers shooting off from the top of its head, as well as tail feathers that had several almost ribbon like feathers that were thrice as long.