Horo was currently heading back to a marked spot, which allowed him to use a special effect imbued within his cloud that granted him permission to teleport directly into the palace once in range.
Horo's cloud isn't the only one with this imbued effect. Upon the birth of every palace member's cloud, three things were imbued within them: the marking ability, the homing ability, and most importantly, the inheritance feature. All clouds will eventually return to the palace when their user dies, but there are some exceptions.
The user of the cloud could make their own inheritance for a chosen one or a secret realm. Most times, the secret realms still become part of the palace for later generations of palace members.
Back to Horo, he was currently completing a mission assigned by the palace. It had been a year and nine months since his and Elder May's disciple acceptance ceremony, and the preliminaries for the tournament were nearing.
The kingdom had to host its own home tournament in order to determine who would be their ten participants.
This is the process of most superpowers, with the exception of some that aren't kingdoms and empires. They may do things slightly differently.
Horo had completed many assignments and missions for the palace over this period of time. Some involved sparring matches with other powers within the kingdom, some top-secret missions that were dangerous or very important, and then there were simple tasks like this one.
He was returning from completing an errand for the palace. He had to meet a royal envoy to deliver the list of their participants for the kingdom's tournament.
It was supposed to be a simple errand, but he didn't know that every other power would be sending their envoys as well. On top of that, the envoys were people just like him, combatants who would be participating in the tournament.
This was an established tradition. All of the powers in the kingdom would send one of their strongest combatants as the envoy who would deliver the list in order to gauge the strength of the current generation's combatants.
Horo was probably the only one who didn't know about this, and it was his master's fault. She had played a joke on him, knowing what was going to happen.
....
Five days ago…..
Horo had arrived at the moonlit city, better known as the royal capital. When he laid eyes on the city from the distance, he was dumbfounded.
He had never seen a city so massive that it resembled a small country. That wasn't the most surprising aspect of the city.
The architecture and colors of the city were the epitome of beauty. The entire city seemed to be made of special materials such as glass, crystals, and special ores, which were all in different shades of blue.
And lastly, the main characteristic of the city is what gave its name, the soft azure moonlight coming directly from the largest moon of this world, covering the entire city and even its outskirts slightly.
This moonlight shines on the city day and night. There are two reasons for this phenomena. For one, the azure moon is so humongous and much closer to its home world than the other two moons, which makes it visible at all times from any side of the world.
Secondly, this spot was blessed along with the founder of Azure moon kingdom, by the azure moon millennia ago.
This blessing is much different from the ones granted by deities or world wills, being from a celestial body with sentience it had its own special characteristics.
It blessed his entire bloodline, as well as the spot the blessing was received. The moon based powers he practiced brought him to the attention of that sentient celestial body, and it used its connected to the world to communicate with him. In exchange for this blessing, he was to create a nation where all of its citizens worshipped the Azure Moon in particular.
In fact all three of the of the nations on Gaia were created under very unique circumstances.
Horo learned all about them when he was younger.
The continent of the Gaia had many major powers, but there was only three nations.
There is the Azure Moon Kingdom and its blessed lineage.
Then theres the Kingdom of Regalia. Its Founding Ancestor was so obsessed with forging he became a wondering blacksmith to find anything he could use for forging.
He was said to have forged nearly every kind of material and even ethereal phenomena. He created many things and authored many books related to materials, treasures, travel maps and crafting. Yet, what he considered his greatest creation is the Primordial Forging Method.
One Day he Found a gigantic bolder in a barren land east near the Edge of the Gaia, The human continent. The Boulder had the profound concept of gravity leaking from it, and he saw it as a priceless material to be used for forging.
As he struggled day and night resisting the increasing weight of gravitational field as he got closer. He used the incomplete version of his primordial forging method to temper his very flesh and bones until the concept of gravity was ingrained in his very cells.
By the time he had reached the bolder he had achieved enlightenment and Finished the creation of the primordial forging method.
He forged the bolder into a Divine treasure dubbed the Ancestral Stele and later made that the foundation of his kingdom's ancestral land. He then used his ridiculous fortune to create his kingdom.
Lastly there is the nation that changed the entire dynamic of the continent. The Empire of the Beast, Aureum.
Its founder discovered the secret realm of one of the mythical beast from the grotto, the Golden Roc. He was able to receive its inheritance due to having the extreme metal physique, which aligned with its powers. He became the First golden emperor as he began his conquest.
He annexed all of the small colonies, cities, villages, and nations south of Gaia. His conquest only ended when he reached Gaia's Halo, the barbarian plains, the ocean and Regalia's Borders.
The first golden emperor was extremely powerful, but he alone wasn't enough to go against the super powers in the Halo, the barbarian tribes, or Regalia Kingdom, especially while he had to suppress uprisings. He would hate for centuries of hard work and conquering to go to waste.
He ended his conquest and reinforced the foundation of his empire. He established an aristocracy, gave proper titles and created the golden knights and the golden hand.
The golden hand is the reason his empire thrived even in the present day. It's a secret organization that only the emperors are allowed to know about, and of course there always only one emperor.
He didn't only learn about the nations he learned about the barbarian plains which covered the west of Gaia, and the other powers on the continent.
Gaia's Halo is a Circular region surrounding the central region that houses Neutral Organization's headquarters like Guild's Association, Merchant Union, The Creed, and the Lake of The White One.
The central region used to be the forest of witches, but after being branded heretics by the monastery a war was waged against the witches. This war was dubbed the holy war and the monastery which used to be where the Lake of the white one now is, took over the crater left behind.
The Witch Queen from that time had used a forbidden spell that was also tainted with black magic in order to save her witches as she looked at as her daughters, every single one of them.
That spell turned the entire forest black before removing the entire thing and turning it into a floating landmass that she stationed many kilometers west of Gaia, above the ocean.
Lastly there's the almighty and truly righteous power, The Mageía Academy. It's another floating landmass that's stationed about the west side of the halo.
The academy is said to be the strongest force in the world, and holds the best and most unique magic users in Azure Moon world.