Five days had passed.
Rein, sitting cross legged in the grassy ground, felt the warm energy slowly settle in his chest.
Instead of pushing that energy in the direction he wanted it to go, he firstly cleared his mind, then focused on the path that the energy was going to travel on. He visualized it multiple times, solidating the path before willing the energy to move.
Instead of pushing the spiritual energy the way he wanted it to move, he instead pulled it. Not exactly, but the action was really similar to pulling.
It was like... The intent to pull was applied instead of an actual pull, after all, for the period of time that the spiritual energy was inside his body, it was effectively a part of him.
As the warmth spreaded from his chest outwards to all directions, rein quickly abondoned every other direction and focused on getting the warmth to the palm of his left hand first.
It moved, the energy was already dissipating at a alarming rate.
"Ah—"
It dissipated completely before reaching his elbow.
'this is gonna take a while...'
During the time from the meeting and now, nothing really had happened, rein kept on practicing, though his visible growth had 'supposedly', he was still getting stronger steadily.
As dias explained, it wasn't about whose skills were at a higher level, but about who had a better understanding of their skills.
The skills like 'swordsmanship' only gave understanding at surface level, it was shallow, and while it might get him to survive for a while, he wouldn't get far with a shallow understanding in the way of the blades.
And so, rein started from the basics and worked his way forward to the essentials.
The party's scouting hadn't resulted in much either. Sure, they encountered many different monster each time. more than two each time they went out, especially mistbornes. It wasn't what they wanted to find.
Or... It wasn't what they didn't wanted to find? Since not finding cultist would be better than finding them.
Apparantly not, since ironyel had been almost entirely certain that they were here. So not finding any trace of them was concerning.
Rein stood up.
"Oh, you're done?"
There was a young man who smiled at him.
He was around 21 years old and had a broad smile. He had bright red hair and green eyes.
The man, forse, also stood up, easily being over a head taller than him, his muscular yet lean body defined under his shirt and open jacket.
"Looks like you made progress again"
Forse said as he observed the sweat drops on rein's forehead.
"Barely" rein sighed, hint of tiredness spreading across his face.
Progress was progress, regardless of size.
Forse was a unawakened resident of the city. He was one of the people being trained to Awaken under the awakening programme of ivoryhold.
He had originally been a resident of a city far to the east of monolithos called mortua but had migrated alongside a hundred or so people about 6 years ago when mortua had been decimated by monsters.
Forse entire family was killed in the destruction of mortua alongside many who came to monolithos. But, instead of wallowing in despair or being entrenched in the sweetness of the possibility of revenge, forse had chosen to be enlisted in the programme to stand up for the people of monolithos. So that the date that occured mortua may not occur to monolithos.
Rein somewhat respected forse, but couldn't bring himself to wholly respect the man. Mostly due to the difference in their views and core beings.
Rein could never bring himself to dedicate his life to the good of somebody else, simply for the sake of the higher good. It wasn't that rein was a fully selfish person with no regard to anybody else, simply that he found the very idea of doing so much and expecting nothing in return...dumb. naive, even.
Just then, rein turned when he heard a few people coming towards them.
It was, once again, deski, shionelle and seriché.
After catching up and confirming that there were no irregularities except an increasing number of mistbornes. Shionelle turned to dias who had stopped sharpening his spear and said.
"Say...old man, is it really that bad of an idea, assimilating into ivoryhold I mean"
deski placed a mat on the grassy ground and took out multiple wooden containers filled with different type of wood. These were containers made from woods around the city, reinforcing and cladding it with hardened clay.
Dias started at shionelle for a few moments before sitting down.
"Assimilation ain't the most difficult part, y'know. To be totally 'onest, it's the easiest part."
He said, eating his meal.
"It's just that is we ain't gonna be able to get this many people to all the way there without a hassle. Ya gotta think about it"
Shionelle started at him with a akward expression.
"Is it? I get that the path itself is riddled with dengers like monsters and the terrain is incredibly difficult. But don't you think it wouldn't be that hard with a handful of sigils and a few dozen knights?"
".... You'd be overestimatin' the power of the human domain of you think we'd be capable of mobilizing that many high rank awakeners for a mesely fourteen thousand people"
Shionelle hesitated. Rein could tell that she was anxious. It was obvious without his high level of perception.
Of course she'd be nervous. Monolithos was a small town surrounded by dense and dengerous forest, it's practically the a miracle that they survived this far and weren't wiped out, like many others.
But now, with the blade of cultists maybe hanging over their head, increasing number of monsters, and the expectations of a ....'storm' happening soon, there was a air of anxiety that was almost palpable in the town.
'a... Storm'
A storm... It was perhaps among the most feared cataclysm among the dangers imposed by this cursed world.
A Storm was the remnant of the great old war that happened decades ago, one between the gods. It was a storm that distorted the laws of physics, diluted ideas and changed what humans cannot even perceive.
The last storm appeared a year ago, during the winter. It was the storm of 'age'. It turned multiple small cities to dust, leaving behind nothing but ruins and bones.
And now that winter was approaching again, the people were terrified of what could happen.
"We'll be fine"
Seriché said in a soft but steady voice. His eyes lingering over shionelle's for a moment.
Shionelle laughed, hoping to sound confident, perhaps smug. But her laugh sounded akward.
Suddenly, she paused. Her eyes dark.
"Hey guys... Party four is supposed to be 2 hundred meter that way right?"
She said, turned her head south.
"That is what was planned, no?"
Rein replied to her question, suddenly realising that dias, deski and seriché were already standing up, their weapons somehow appearing in their grasps.
'uh... Uh—oh'
It took multiple moment for rein to realise what was happening, but when he did, he too, stood up with haste.
"Someone's approaching?"
Forse said with a forced expression.
"Yeah, five people... No wait, it's seven"
Rein took a breath in, glancing at a severer, he held its handle tightly in his grip, composing himself.
rein turned to stare at the food behind him, it was food that deski had made herself, with sufficient spices and tastefully beautiful. Rein was incredibly excited to eat something that wasn't so bland as to be considered water... Made according to the taste of a certain someone.
'its gonna get cold'
Rein thought, dejectingly.
"Here" deski said in a calm voice, undertones of malice already seen in her tone.
Out there, there were vague silhouettes approaching them at a casual, almost unbothered pace.
As the party stood, tense but confident... somewhat.
As the figures materialized and became perceivable, rein noticed that there were, infact, seven of them.
All of them were wearing casual clothing, not anything that suggested they were dengerous.... Except of course, weapons...that suggested they were dengerous.
"Five Awakeners, two unawakened"
Deski waited for a moment, observing them closely.
"From the cult of abjuration"
The person at the very front of the cultist group, one with a placid expression on his face, spoke.
"Hello there... Friends... Oh well, I suppose you already know who we are, so not friend?"
"Cut the crap, bastards" deski's voice was filled with a... Almost innate hatred.
Perhaps it was the effect of the way she grew up, or maybe something that happened along her life, but deski had a string sense of hatred for cultists.
"My, oh my... What a foul mouth"
A women said, her brown hair falling in locks all the way to her waist.
"Apologies, why exactly are you here?"
Seriché said, giving a look to deski who backed off with a hesitant expression. Irritation clear on her face.
"If you were simply passing by.... We'd be more than glad to not have any problems"