"Then leave Reghia, but know that the moment you step outside the city, its doors will remain closed even if you change your mind. Here you have a house, food, and protection whereas outside you'll have only the clothes you wear.

"I bet that even if you don't meet any monster, you'll die in less than a week." Phloria said.

The man stepped forward, looking around to see who was willing to share his destiny, finding himself alone. All those in their right mind knew that without the proper tools or training, life in the wilds was akin to a death sentence.

"Until this moment, you have wasted so much time crying over what you have lost that you have become reliant on another race for everything. Food, shelter, protection, and even the education of your children.

"I can't force you to get along, but if you keep acting like pets rather than humans, I'll make sure you are treated as such." Phloria said.

***

Being Awakened for only four years and lacking any formal military training, Tista was aware of being the weakest in the group, even below Quylla who despite her almost as poor physical prowess at least had a violet core.

All Tista had learned about fencing and self-defense as a self-taught had allowed her to survive during her travels throughout the Griffon Kingdom, but only because she had faced non-Awakened opponents.

Only after joining Lith in his apprenticeship under Faluel, did Tista receive all the lessons that she needed. Even though she was shorter and lighter than her little brother, hand-to-hand combat was the discipline Tista was the most proficient with.

Just like Quylla, she didn't train long enough to find a weapon that suited her talent and build whereas even non-Awakened mages had to be proficient in martial arts. Otherwise all the magic and all the artifact on Mogar wouldn't save them from any thug with a decent weapon that managed to get close to them.

Between Professor Ironhelm's lessons during her two years at the White Griffon academy and Lith's self-defense lessons, Tista's skill in close combat surpassed that of most soldiers in the Kingdom.

Alas, such training gave her an edge only against non-Awakened human opponents without powerful enchanted weapons. Beasts had fusion magic as well and a physical prowess greater than most humans while a skilled opponent with a weapon capable of piercing her armor would have an easy time keeping Tista at bay.

It was the reason why both Faluel and Lith had given her a vast assortment of weapons, hoping that among them she would find something that suited her. The only problem with that was finding a real combat situation where she could employ them.

No matter how seriously she took it, sparring always felt fake and every weapon gave her more or less the same feeling. Hence Tista had chosen to perform several missions, each one of them with a limited number of enemies.

Olua the Roc and Bodya the Nidhogg fought with her, being careful to leave enough opponents to make the fight dangerous but not so many that the chaos of the battle would keep them from noticing if she needed help.

During each mission, Tista used a different weapon, yet even after slaughtering several tribes of monsters, she didn't feel like she had made any progress.

"Don't worry too much about it. You are still very young and you have already achieved a cyan core." Bodya said while coiling his snake-like body around his companions to protect them from sneak attacks while they rested.

"It took me decades to reach the bright blue core and even longer to learn how to shapeshift into a hybrid form after being humbled one time too many only because my opponent had an opposable thumb.

"Don't get me started about how difficult it was for me getting used to arms."

"Same here." Olua turned into her human form, looking like a woman in her early thirties, around 1.76 meters (5'9") tall with wheat-blond hair and eyes. Her skin was of a tinge of bronze so light that it looked golden under the sunlight.

"At first, Emperor Beasts rely on their powerful bodies for both protection and attack, but that only works with dumb enemies who remain in open spaces. Our size is nothing but a hassle when the fight moves inside a city or underground.

"Not to mention how our forms are unsuited to practice any kind of craftmanship or Forgemastering. For all of us, it comes a moment when we have to practice shapeshifting first and then get used to a puny body.

"Thirty years from now you'll be an amazing fighter, I'm sure of it."

Those words half flattered and half scared Tista.

"Thanks, I guess. You know, I still have trouble accepting the fact that I'm an Awakened. For humans, being 21 years old means being of marriage age, starting searching for a spouse, and maybe having kids. For Awakened, instead, I'm barely a child.

"You speak of thirty years as if they are a couple of months whereas I don't even know if my parents will still be alive by then." Tista sighed at the idea that her family might die before she could have the time to prove her worth to them.

"I know it's hard for humans. One of my friends once told me that the members of your race understand what being an Awakened means only after you lose everyone who knows you as a human rather than an Awakened. Until that moment, you are shackled by the illusion of having a normal life."

Tista pondered those words and understood their truth. She also got her stomach twisted into a knot.

"Is it me, or there aren't many mana geysers around here?" Tista had searched far and wide the areas of their missions, but she had yet to find one.

She was pleasantly surprised to discover that the words for mana geyser existed in other languages as well, wondering if they had the same meaning and what Awakened thought of them.

"They are rare by nature. Why do you need one?" Bodya and Olua didn't fail to notice Tista's desperate attempt to change the subject, but they decided to not push it.

"My little brother has already reached a bright blue core. By practicing Acc.u.mulation on a mana geyser, I can hasten my development and become stronger." She lied through her teeth.

"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard." Olua said. "Nothing good comes from rushing things and I'm pretty sure you know it as well. What is your true goal?"

"What do you mean?" Tista looked honestly confused, not because she didn't have a hidden agenda so much as because she was certain that no one would suspect that she had a mage tower from such a simple question.

"Don't play coy with us, child." Bodya snorted and his huge nostrils emitted a fine mist that quickly dissipated under the sun's heat. "All Awakened know the value of mana geysers. Do you think we are so stupid that we didn't map them?"

"Why would you do that? It's a waste of time. I mean, sure if a mana geyser it's really strong it might produce mana crystals, but most of them are useless except that as training tools." Tista's honest surprise left the Emperor Beasts flabbergasted.