The hall was long, something they found when the light from the torches lit it up completely.The spot where the floor fell in was at one end of the hall, and off in the distance, they saw what looked like a round table with high chairs surrounding it.Slowly, the two walked down the hall toward the round table.It was a round table that looked so ancient that it felt like it would fall apart at any moment.Surprisingly, it was clean, dust free despite the weathered look.The chairs had regal looks to them. In their time, they were crafted to be luxurious, and this fact was still evident from a single look at them.This round table had twelve chairs around it. Each had a symbol engraved on the chair."What do you think it is—""What do you think it is—"These questions were directed in the order: Princess Diane asked Aiden the question while Aiden asked Zarek the same question at that exact moment.["It's a round table"], Zarek responded after a startled pause."I know that it's a rou
"What is insight?", Aiden asked Zarek in his thoughts.["You have work to do, but thankfully, you have experienced what insight can be"]"What are you talking about?"["You told me about your experience in a chaotic space. You mentioned that at the end of the experience, you could predict things without thinking. Your ability to go through that minefield became instinctual, that was the effect of insight"]"Oh... So that's all I have to do to leave this place? I just need to get in that state again?"["Yes, but I wouldn't advise that you just brute force your way through like that"]"What do you mean?"["I mean that the feeling you experienced then is only the first step in gaining insight.Insight in itself is more of a measure of how well you understand your element. It quantifies how much control you have over it.Do you remember that stat most Arcanas forget?"]Aiden tried to think of some metric he heard of for grading Arcanas that ended up not being used for anything.As he went
"Orla... Go get them some soup", she said to her daughter."You can sit, for now, sir. The farm belongs to my daughter and me. No one will disturb you", she said to Aiden who was grimacing.Aiden listened to her and with her help, he sat on the ground.It did not take long for the girl to come out with some soup in two plates... She placed them on the ground in front of Aiden."Thank you", he said to her.He moved over to Princess Diane and raised her to a sitting position.She still couldn't move, so he had to support her in that position. He planned to feed her first before eating, however, she kept her mouth shut.The situation quickly became awkward. A situation where a woman and her child watched two strangers act like a brother and his bratty little sister.Aiden noticed this quickly, and the woman also felt the awkwardness, so she held her daughter and they walked away, heading back to the small building not too far away."Your Highness, we have no idea where we are, what day i
The prince sat back and crossed his legs. As he did this, he kept his eyes on Adrian who stood waiting for a response.He eventually nodded and Prince Adrian sat down. Princess Caitlyn was right beside him to deal with whatever he was feeling at that moment."I called you all here today to inform you that Master Harisinh will be making an appearance at The Selection"From the moment, he said Master Harisinh, murmurs had started. The reason the party was called had finally come to light."I am sure you all know Lord Ajax. He was named The Keeper of Time, the head of all keepers..."Many heads were nodding in response to this statement."I believe you also know a rumor that Lord Ajax was a student of Master Harisinh before he left on his journey?"Another round of affirmative nods appeared. However, what the Prince said next sent a wake of silence through all of them."I believed it as well... But, father told me the story of how Lord Ajax, in his younger years was corrected on a single
"What?!"She was baffled by his statement for a moment. At that moment, she was the typical example of a person who would ask for the truth with no intention to hear it."Oh my dear Princess, if only you would calm yourself down when a problem arises, like earlier today..."Her face scrunched up immediately after she heard that. Aiden paused for a moment when he saw that expression before clearing his throat and continuing his statement."...like earlier today when I invaded your privacy. I did not mean to do it and I was only here to call you. Dinner was ready and you'd been here since morning"Her expression eased up a tiny bit in that instant while Aiden drew a deep breath. "You could have hurt Mrs. Smith and her daughter. I know I made a mistake, adding it to the list of my punishment is not too hard I presume"She gave a wicked smirk before saying in a low voice, "oh, you are definitely getting punished"Aiden heard this but he wasn't bothered by it. All he did was ask the quest
"So the tunnel led out to a waterfall?" "It did... He did not warn or even catch me when I came sliding up to him" As Aiden listened, he thought the conversation was somewhat hilarious in how bizarre it was. For one, everything sounded like her fault even though she stated categorically that it was his. "Hmm" "..." "So, which of the noble families are you related to?" "The story is not finished, because we are extremely far from home. Do you know the Nation of Sur?" "Sur? In the south?" "That's how far we were carried away from home" "But there are no rivers that stretch that far between the west and the south of the empire" Andrew was a lot more knowledgeable than Aiden expected, and this gave Aiden a bit of tolerance for him. "I'm guessing that's why we have not been found", Diane responded. "Hmm... Well, I am glad that I agreed to let you ride with us. There will be no pesky stops along the way. We'll be in The Great Capital in two days at most, enough time to find your
"Insight?!!""Yes"The surprise he felt was evident on his face. He took another look at both of them and then at Andrew."I thought insights were almost impossible to learn at the apprentice level?", he asked as soon as the guard turned to look at him."That's true young master, however, in noble and royal families, it is not as impossible as one will think", he answered."Sometimes, normal people with a high enough affinity rating don't need to do anything to use insights, it usually comes naturally", the second continued."I was wondering what the affinity rating was used for", Andrew muttered to himself, while his friends spoke into his ears on both sides."They truly must be from a noble family in Sur...If the young master received the same training as they did, I believe you would do better than they doing"One after the other, the two boys tried to cheer him up but they soon stopped speaking after Andrew raised his hand to shut them up.And so, silence ensued, as they waited for
"Crack!!!"One hit was all it took to crush the already weakened and cracked space warp.Cracking the space warp revealed absolutely nothing that was hiding in the warp.The sphere got crushed to reveal the emptiness in the spot where Diane was supposed to be standing in.This made them all pause for a moment as all eyes tried to pick out anything that would indicate a reason as to why nothing was there.Up in the tree, at that exact moment, The Boss and Raven also saw the space.They fell silent for a moment before he burst out laughing... His laughter was more of a gesture than it was an audible thing, however, it said a lot to Raven who was crouched by his side and had looked at him, confused by the sight."Well done, I knew their protector was not ordinary", he muttered to himself."What did he do?", Raven asked."He...? You did see the female figure that was shown in the warp, right?""Well, he could have done that to mislead us into letting a pretty girl go"The Boss glanced at