Only when Lucian reached the age of fifteen was he finally old enough to look respectable and mature.
Though he still didn't have a beard, he grew taller and his voice deepened. It was enough for the people to take him more seriously.
"Heh, finally found you," Lucian muttered, looking at Jax from the top of the hill.
His binoculars were trained on the road below, where Jax walked in a group of people. They had collars around their necks and chains attached to their wrists.
Slavery wasn't tolerated by the kingdom of Diamante, but it was tolerated in the neighboring kingdoms.
Lucian traveled all the way here to get seeds that were only available in the enemy kingdom and ended up finding Jax.
'Finally, a possible employee, who will follow me through hell and back,' Lucian thought, feeling giddy, 'It's so hard to find a good worker these days...'
'You know others usually prefer to avoid trouble instead of getting themselves into it?' the voice asked.
'Troubles are just opportunities in disguise,' the young man said, a smile spreading on his lips.
He put his binoculars in the bag and slid down the hill.
His beggar rags he wore years ago were gone. The moment he learned the southern language, he stopped begging and returned to his trading roots.
It was a long and exhausting process, but his persistence had paid off. He earned enough to cross the borders and get back to the Diamante kingdom.
But it didn't end there. He continued his trading, but this time, Southern Alliance became a part of his trading route.
The southern territory that almost killed him, became the foundation of his new fortune.
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Jax's mother was a southerner, who tried to escape his father's clutches and start a new life.
The way southerners cultivated differed greatly from the northerns.
Instead of 9 ranked knights, there were 9 marked hunters.
Instead of consuming the earth's core energy, the hunters absorbed energy from the sun's rays in order to awaken their tattoo's beasts.
They were born with tattoos that couldn't be removed. The more of their tattoo they awakened, the higher their rank was.
The tattoo beast within the hunter needed to be tamed, otherwise it would go wild. Failing to gain control over the beast could turn southerner into a feral state.
Jax's father didn't turn into a feral, but the process of taming his beast was painful. Not only toward himself, but also the people around him.
More than often, the southerner's violence and sex drive would be out of control until the beast was tamed, and the pain was too much for Jax's mother to bear.
How did Jax ended up back in the Southern Alliance? His father tracked him and his mother down and brought them back.
The southerners had the ability to bind themselves to others. It allowed them to communicate telepathically across great distances.
It was an amazing pack like ability, yet it could be used in a very cruel way.
Like how Jax's father used it to find his mother's location.
While corruption were a common occurrence among northerners, where debts, bribery, or favors, were a part of their world. The southern world was much simpler and direct in comparison.
Their world was divided into contributers and non-contributors.
Those who could provide for the pack were treated well, while those who couldn't had to work harder to find their place.
Ferals (failed hunters) were treated as nothing but animals, not aggressive until someone provoked them, but still dangerous.