The world was a vast, silent tapestry of silver and shadow beneath me. The wind, once a hostile force, was now a familiar companion, rushing past my face with a cold, clean bite that was more invigorating than chilling. Each powerful downstroke of my four wings—the alabaster white and the deep, arterial crimson—propelled me further north, away from the hill, the shack, and the ghost of the boy named Elian.
Beneath the exhaustion of my months of brutal training, a profound, humming energy thrummed in my chest. The solid red core, my hard-won foundation, pulsed with a steady rhythm, a constant, reassuring reminder of the power I had carved from my own desperation. The hunger that had once been a clawing, animal thing in my gut was now a distant memory, sated by sunlight and mana. It had been replaced by a new, vast hunger—a yawning chasm of desire for more. More power, more understanding, more of this world that stretched out infinitely in every direction.
I flew for hours, the moon my only witness. The ragged, needled forest gave way to rolling, sleeping farmland, the fields lying fallow under the frosty night. Thin ribbons of smoke curled from the chimneys of isolated farmsteads, and the pale road I had seen from the hill thickened, becoming a proper thoroughfare, though empty at this late hour.
As the first hints of dawn began to bleed into the eastern sky, washing the stars away with a pale, watery light, I saw it. A town, nestled in the crook of a wide, slow-moving river. It was larger than Stonehaven, surrounded by a wooden palisade rather than a simple fence. Lights—real, magical lights, not just torchlight—glowed from within, casting a soft, yellow haze into the pre-dawn gloom. This was civilization. My first true step into the wider world.
Discretion, honed by months of survival, dictated my approach. I angled my wings, descending in a wide, spiraling arc away from the main road, landing softly in a copse of trees a half-mile from the town's eastern gate. The sensation of my wings retracting—that strange, seamless folding of flesh and energy back into the nodules between my shoulder blades—was still unnerving, a full-body shiver that left me feeling momentarily incomplete. I flexed my shoulders, the familiar ache a comforting anchor.
I pulled the rough-spun hood of my tunic up, shadowing my face. My clothes, Elian's clothes, were worn thin and patched in places, marking me as either a pauper or a woodsman. Neither would attract undue attention at a distance. I walked the remaining distance to the gate with a measured, confident stride that belied my age. The guards—two men in worn leather jerkins leaning on spears—gave me a cursory glance as I approached. One yawned widely.
"Business in Westhaven, lad?" the other asked, his breath misting in the cold air.
"Passing through to the gate," I replied, my voice lower, steadier than it had been months ago. It was the voice of someone who expected to be answered, not questioned.
The guard grunted, waving me through without a second look. "Gate's in the main square. Can't miss it."
And just like that, I was inside. Westhaven was waking up. The smell of baking bread and woodsmoke filled the air, mingling with the less pleasant odor of waste and unwashed bodies. Merchants were unlocking their shutters, setting out wares on rickety tables. The clang of a blacksmith's hammer rang out from a side street. It was all so… normal. So mundane. After the profound solitude of the shack and the raw, elemental power I had been wrestling with, the sheer domesticity of it was jarring.
My goal was clear. I needed information, supplies, and transit. And I needed to obscure my identity. My unique abilities—my wings, my vibrational power—were assets, but they were also liabilities if tied to a face that could be easily remembered. I was a child with the power of a novice mage and the knowledge of something else entirely. Anonymity was my armor.
My first stop was a cramped, cluttered general store that smelled of dried herbs, leather, and dust. An old woman with spectacles perched on the end of her nose looked up from behind a counter.
"I need a mask," I said, my voice flat. "Metal. And armguards. Something sturdy."
She eyed me, her gaze lingering on my patched tunic before flicking to my eyes. Something she saw there—the cold focus, the absence of a child's uncertainty—made her hesitate for only a second before nodding. "Back wall. Third shelf down. Bins of bracers below."
I found what I was looking for. The mask was simple, hammered gold-colored alloy, not true gold, but it had a decent heft. It covered the upper half of the face, with two stylized, downward-sloping teardrops etched under the eye holes. It was mournful, theatrical. A jester's symbol, or a tragic hero's. It suited my mood perfectly. The armbands were made of a strange, woody metal the color of aged moss—Verdant Ironwood, according to a small tag. They were lightweight but felt incredibly dense, and I could sense a faint, reinforcing enchantment woven into the material. A slight boost to ones personal strength and item durability. Perfect.
I brought them to the counter. The old woman picked up the mask, turning it over in her hands. "An interesting choice for one so young. Playing at being a mystery, are we?"
"Something like that," I said, placing the two armbands next to it.
She tallied the cost on a scrap of parchment. "Mask is thirty-five silver. Verdant Ironwood isn't cheap. The pair will be another twenty-five. Sixty silver total."
I didn't flinch. I pulled the small, coarse burlap sack from inside my tunic and counted out six of the ten large silver coins I had gotten from changing one of my gold coins at a money-changer near the gate. The clink of them on the counter was a satisfying sound. It was the sound of progress. Investment, not expenditure.
"Pleasure doing business with you," the old woman said, her tone now decidedly more respectful. Money, it seemed, was a universal language. She handed me my purchases wrapped in a scrap of soft cloth.
I left the store and found a quiet alleyway between two taller stone buildings. I slipped the Verdant Ironwood bracers onto my forearms. They fit snugly, the cool metal seeming to almost meld to my skin, and I immediately felt a subtle firmness in my muscles, a supportive pressure that promised greater power behind a punch or block. Then, I lifted the mask. I hesitated for a single moment, staring at my reflection in a rain barrel's still water: a pale, too-thin face with eyes that had seen too much. Then I tied the leather cords behind my head.
The world narrowed through the eyeholes. My breathing echoed slightly in the small metal shell. I was no longer a boy. I was a symbol. A concept. The face that looked back from the water now was enigmatic, gold and tragic. It was a liberation.
Now, for the gate.
The main square was easy to find, and the teleportation gate was indeed impossible to miss. It was a massive ring of polished white stone, intricately carved with runes that pulsed with a soft, internal blue light. In the center of the ring was not empty space, but a shimmering, vertical pool of liquid mercury, its surface constantly rippling and swirling as if disturbed by an unseen wind. Mages in official-looking blue robes stood at lecterns around its perimeter, their hands moving in complex patterns as they channeled mana into the structure. A short queue of people—merchants with carts, a few adventurers in gear, a wealthy-looking family—waited their turn.
My heart beat a little faster. This was technology, magic, on a scale I had only read about. A network connecting continents. This was the true artery of this world.
I joined the line, my mask drawing a few curious glances but no overt suspicion. When my turn came, a tired-looking mage glanced down at me from his lectern.
"Destination and fee," he stated, his voice bored.
"Xyrus City," I said. "One passenger."
"Four silver."
I passed the coins over. He made a note in a large ledger and gestured to the gate. "Step through the membrane. Do not stop. Do not deviate. The disorientation is temporary. Next!"
I approached the shimmering, mercury-like surface. It hummed with immense power, the hair on my arms standing on end. Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward.
It was like pushing through a wall of thick, static jelly. There was a moment of profound pressure on every inch of my skin, a deafening roar in my ears, and a nauseating sense of being pulled in every direction at once. My vision filled with blinding white light. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
The pressure vanished. The roar subsided into a mundane city hum. The white light resolved into a bright, sunlit sky.
I stumbled forward a step, catching myself on a nearby railing. My stomach lurched, and I fought down a wave of vertigo. I was standing on an identical white stone platform, but the city that sprawled before me was unlike anything I had ever imagined.
Xyrus City. The floating jewel of Sapin.
The air was different here—thinner, cleaner, crisper. I was on a massive floating island, the edges of which dropped away into a breathtaking vista of endless clouds below. The architecture was a marvel of white stone, gleaming marble, and sparkling glass spires that pierced the sky. Mana-powered streetlamps lined immaculately clean cobblestone streets, even though it was daytime. Airships, graceful wooden vessels with glowing elemental engines, drifted between the towers like giant, lazy birds. The mana in the air was thick, rich, and vibrant, a constant, buzzing presence that made the core in my chest hum in response. It was a city built on and powered by magic. After the grim, earthy reality of Stonehaven and Westhaven, it was like stepping into a dream.
But dreams cost money.
Shaking off the last of the teleportation sickness, I moved away from the gate platform, blending into the well-dressed crowds. My patched clothes and new mask made me an oddity, drawing looks ranging from curiosity to mild disdain. The priority was shelter. I found a decent, middle-tier inn in a quieter district, not too close to the opulent noble quarters nor the presumably rougher lower levels. "The Grinning Gryphon" had a warm, wooden interior and a no-nonsense owner.
"A room. For four months," I stated, my voice muffled slightly by the mask.
The innkeeper, a broad woman with her hair in a tight bun, looked me up and down. "That's a long stay. Paying upfront? It's four silver a month. Sixteen silver total."
I laid the coins on the counter. She scooped them up without another word and handed me a heavy iron key. "Room seven. Top of the stairs, left. No trouble, understand?"
Room seven was small but clean: a narrow bed with a real mattress in one corner, a small stove and washbasin in another, and a partitioned area with a simple shower rune that needed a trickle of mana to activate. It was a palace compared to the shack. It was a base of operations.
I had one gold coin left from my original two. It was time to spend it. I ventured back out, finding a used-clothing store where I bought two sets of sturdy, practical trousers, simple tunics, and a hooded cloak of dark grey wool. It wasn't fashionable, but it was anonymous and durable. It cost me the remaining forty silver I had from my second gold coin. My funds were now precisely one gold coin. The need for income was becoming urgent.
With my new clothes acquired, I spent the rest of the day walking. I traversed the wide boulevards and narrow alleys of Xyrus, not as a awestruck tourist, but as a strategist. My mind, enhanced by my cultivation, charted the city, noting the locations of markets, smithies, libraries, and most importantly, the headquarters of the various guilds. The most prominent, of course, was the Adventurers Guild.
The guild hall was a massive structure of stone and timber, buzzing with activity. I stood across the street for a long time, watching figures clad in armor and robes come and go, their bearing confident, their auras—to my heightened senses—ranging from faint flickers to solid, pulsing wells of power. This was the path. This was how I would turn my power into currency, into influence, into the means to sate my hunger.
The next morning, dressed in my new clothes with the gold mask firmly in place and the Verdant Ironwood bracers on my arms, I walked into the Adventurers Guild hall.
The interior was even larger than it appeared from outside, a vast hall with a high, vaulted ceiling. A massive board on one wall was covered in hundreds of posted notices—quests. The air smelled of ale, sweat, leather, and the ozone tang of spent mana. The din of conversation was a constant roar.
I made my way to the registration desk, where a young woman with tired eyes and her hair in a practical braid was sorting through a stack of papers. She looked up as I approached, her expression neutral, though her eyes flickered with curiosity at the mask.
"I need to register," I said, my voice flat.
"Of course," she said, her tone professionally pleasant. She pulled a sheet of parchment from a drawer and slid it across the counter to me, along with a quill and a small pot of ink. "Please fill this out to the best of your ability. Codename, core level, elemental affinities, preferred combat role. This information will be used to assign you appropriate preliminary quests once you're ranked."
I looked down at the form. It was a test of its own.
Codename: My eyes scanned the hall, taking in the grand, self-important names. I looked down at the teardrops on my mask. A symbol of tragedy, of a jest played by fate. The word came to me, perfect and ironic. I wrote: Joker.
Core Stage: I was Solid Red. A stable, foundational stage. But stability was not what would get me noticed, nor would it grant me access to the more lucrative, challenging quests I needed. I needed to project just enough strength to be taken seriously, to be pushed. I wrote: Red Light Stage. It was a bluff, a stage beyond my own, where the core's glow was bright and luminous, not just solid. A goal to reach within the three-month window.
Elemental Affinities: This was straightforward. I wrote: Wind, Fire.
Combat Role: I was a weapon. I was designed to break things. I ticked the box: Striker/Attacker.
I slid the paper back to her. She picked it up, her eyes scanning the information.
"Joker, is it?" she said, a faint smile touching her lips. "Red Light Stage. Ambitious for a new registration. You understand that a rank assessment will be required to confirm your stage and assign your official guild rank? You can't take any quests until then."
"I understand. When will the assessment be?"
She sighed, a sound of genuine weariness, and pulled out a large ledger bound in thick leather. "That's the issue. We have a backlog. Master Orlon, our primary assessment mage, he's… well, he's the only one certified for ranks past Initiate, and he's been called away on guild business more often than not." She flipped through the pages, her finger tracing down a long list of names. "The next available slot…" She looked up, her expression apologetic. "…is in four months. I'm sorry. It's a long wait, I know."
Four months. It was perfect. It aligned exactly with my own internal deadline to solidify my core advancement to the very stage I had claimed.
"That is acceptable," I said, my voice even.
She looked slightly surprised, as if she had expected an argument. "Oh. Good." She took a stamp from her desk, inked it, and slammed it onto my form with a definitive thump. "Consider yourself a provisional member of the Adventurers Guild, Joker. Now, let me explain the ranking system."
She launched into a well-rehearsed speech. "Ranks begin at E for initiates and progress through D, C, B, A, and then double and triple A tiers. Quest difficulty, rewards, and guild privileges increase with each rank. Reaching the upper echelons, however, is not just a matter of completing quests." Her voice dropped slightly, taking on a more serious tone. "To advance past AAA, you must petition the guild's high council directly. They judge not just your power, but your contributions, your allegiances… your character."
She leaned forward slightly. "And there are… other rewards. Worldly ones. It is an open secret that any adventurer who reaches S-rank and can procure letters of sponsorship from five sitting nobles of Sapin is granted a noble title themselves. Land, title, vassals… the whole arrangement. A path to power for those not born to it." She said it with a practiced air, but I caught a glimpse of something else in her eyes—a faint, cynical gloom, as if she had seen too many hopefuls dash themselves against that particular rock.
"It seems a long way off," I commented, fishing for more.
"It is for most," she said, her gaze drifting to the crowd of adventurers in the hall. "Many are content to remain in the B and A ranks. Good money, decent respect. Few have the stomach—or the power—for the AA missions, which often involve delving into the less savoury dungeons or handling major beast tides on the outskirts. And the politics at the top…" She shook her head, seeming to remember who she was talking to. "But that's neither here nor there for you yet. First, you need your assessment."
She took a small, numbered metal token from a drawer, engraved with a date three months hence and my codename, and handed it to me. "Keep this safe. Present it on the morning of your assessment. Lose it, and you go to the back of the queue."
"I will not lose it," I said, pocketing the token. I lingered for a moment, leaning casually on the counter. "The city seems busy. Lots of activity for the guild."
She nodded, taking the bait for small talk. "Oh, always. With the Academy's term in session, we get more monster core requests from the professors, more escort missions for spoiled little lordlings wanting to 'experience the wilds'." She rolled her eyes. "And then there's the usual trouble. Rumblings of unusual beast activity in the Dungeons to the south. Trade disputes with the dwarves that sometimes require… forceful mediation. There's always work. Just need the rank to do it."
It was a wealth of information. The Academy—which should be Xyrus Academy, the premier institution for mages. A place of knowledge I might need to access one day. Dungeons with capital letters—likely mana-saturated dungeons that spawned monsters and treasures. Dwarves. The world was getting larger with every word she spoke.
"Forceful mediation. I imagine that pays well," I said, my tone lightly curious.
"For the teams that come back whole, yes," she said, her gloom returning. "Not all do. It's a good life, but it's not a game. Remember that, Joker."
"I never thought it was," I replied, my voice low and serious enough that she finally looked at me, really looked at me, as if seeing past the mask for the first time.
"Well," she said, slightly flustered. "Good luck to you. We'll see you in three months."
I gave her a slight nod and turned, melting back into the crowd of adventurers. I had what I came for: legitimacy, a timeline, and crucial intelligence.
My path was set. For the next three months, my days would be a brutal cycle of cultivation, pushing my core to the vibrant Red Light Stage I had claimed. But a core was just a source of power. I needed the skill to wield it.
On my way back to the Grinning Gryphon, I stopped at two more places. The first was a public training gym, a loud, smelly hall filled with the grunts of men and women straining against weighted equipment. I paid a few copper coins for a weekly pass. Physical reinforcement needed a strong vessel to reinforce that is knowledge even the dumbest of the curly haired baboons could understand.
The second was a smaller, quieter establishment down a side alley: a simple fencing school run by a retired adventurer with a scarred face and a limp. I inquired about lessons.
"Swordsmanship, eh?" the old man grunted, looking me over. "What's your experience? Who taught you?"
"No one," I said honestly. "I need to learn. From the beginning. One-handed and two-handed styles."
He raised an eyebrow. "Ambitious. And you can pay?"
I showed him a few silver coins. His eyes widened slightly. "That'll cover two months of daily lessons. Three hour each, first thing in the morning. We start with footwork. Don't be late."
I paid him. My funds were now nearly depleted. The pressure was immense, absolute. I had exactly what I needed: a roof, a goal, a plan, and no true safety net whatsoever the perfect push for growth.
As I walked back to my small room, the sounds of the thriving city echoed around me—a city of opportunity and hidden dangers. I unlocked the door to room seven and stepped inside, the simple space feeling like both a prison and a sanctuary.
I stood in the center of the room, removed my mask, and looked at my reflection in the small window's glass. The eyes that stared back were no longer those of a starving orphan or a grieving brother. They were the eyes of a man striving to live and enjoy life, of a weapon being sharpened. They burned with a red light that was not just a reflection of the setting sun.
The hunger was there, sharper than ever. But now, I had a way to feed it.
[END OF CHAPTER]
Comment recomendations here on character design for the main character or put a pic,if you have not noticed as of yet i have left such a description out from all chapters since i would like for the fans to come up with/vote on the mc's appearance.
To vote simply like the comment with the description or picture,the one with the most likes win(note his looks will influence the story for future development/may even become the cover page)
Voting ends in two days