Koren left Chief Ipnak’s tent together with Enri and Haruki, after Sappa walked in.

Haruki was in a particularly sour mood. “Big brother fatty is jealous of Uncle Sappa, he’s always like this when they meet” Enri whispered in Koren’s ear.

“I can hear you, you little pipsqueak. I’m surprised how kaph lets you walk all over him” said Haruki as he glared at Enri.

“Enri, you shouldn’t say that about senior brother.” Said Koren with a tone of disapproval.

“Yeh, she should call him chubs, I came up with that nickname, haha haha” said Hope as she liked to see Haruki get mad.

“Big sis!!.” Yelled Koren at Hope who was laughing, as she hovered over his head.

“ah come on Koren they can’t hear me anyways.” Said Hope trying to defend herself.

“but I can hear you” said Koren disapprovingly.

“You know Koren, I always forget how young and innocent you are. Fine, I will try my best to be nice” said Hope, finally giving in to Koren.

Haruki looked over at Koren who had just reprimanded Enri. “Good job kid, you know what. How about I treat you to some food. Let’s go to Sumi’s inn, they have the best food in the desert.” Said Haruki as he started to rub his belly.

“What about me?” asked Enri in her pixie voice.

Haruki looked at Enri who was looking at him with her eyes wide open. “You’re not invited” he said strictly.

“Ok, I suppose I will tell sister Sumi you were mean to me” Said Enri in a nonchalant tone.

“You little… ok, fine. You can come, but not a word from your mouth.” Said Haruki as he finally fell for Enri’s trick.

************

The sun set and the moon rose in its place, its light reflecting of the sandy grains. Uther, was sitting in a pit surrounded by dark flames. His draconian scales were shimmering with excitement, and his breath was getting more and more heavy. He stayed in that state for hours, the dark fire had a hint of green in it now.

“That’s enough for tonight” muttered Uther as his breathing slowed and the dark flames retreated back into his body.

Uther walked back to the camp, and as he approached the gate he could see Andre standing next to the guards station waiting for him.

“Sir, the Prince will be arriving tomorrow. What are your orders” Asked Andre with his head down in respect.

“I am no longer your commander, the prince will take over the battalion, I am a lieutenant now, the same as you.” Said Uther as he walked towards his tent

“Sir, with all due respect, the 4th prince has no military experience, his strength is also only subpar, he is not qualified to take ‘Your’ position of commander.” Said Andre, as he quietly followed behind Uther.

Uther stopped in his footsteps and without turning around said “Andre, who are you working for.”

Andre was surprised, he looked up at Uther. “It’s like the princess said, you are quite perceptive Sir. What gave me away.” Asked Andre.

“I’ve been testing your loyalty since the moment you were assigned, needless to say, you failed every time. I’ve known you to be a spy, just not whose. However, now it seems Princess Elena is the one who won you over.” Said Uther as he turned around to look at Andre.

“Sir, I have always had the highest respect for you, and so does the princess. The 4th prince doesn’t deserve your loyalty. If you support the 3rd Princess, she will support your appointment to the vacant position in generals Council.” Said Andre as he reached into his robe and took out a sealed letter.

Uther took the letter from Andre, looked at the seal, turned and continued to walk towards his tent.

************

“Ahhh, they’re finally asleep, get up Koren, we need to go” said Hope as Kaph and Torp finally started to snore.

Koren had already prepared to sneak out at night, and was just waiting for Kaph and Torp to stop bickering and start snoring.

“I Know” said Koren as he got up, took his bag that he prepared, and walked out.

Koren slowly made his way to the village wall. The village wall was made from solid soil rock, it was made using earth elemental spiritualist abilities, hence it was very strong.

As Koren reached the wall, he changed his points to wind, and concentrated the wind power below him. He jumped over the wall silently, without alerting the village guards on night duty. As he reached the other side he looked at Hope at his side and asked “Now, where do we go big sis.”

“Head east, I have an idea” Said Hope with a lively smile.

“OK, but how are we going to find spiritual Beasts, we don’t know the regions where they usually appear.” Said Koren as he started to sprint east.

“That’s where I come in, don’t worry as soon as we are far enough from the village, we’ll find the spirit beasts.” Said Hope.

Koren kept running till he couldn’t see the village anymore.

“This should be far enough big sis.” Said Koren as he came to a stop. “Yep, now let me work my magic” said Hope as she smiled.

Koren felt it, the feeling of losing control, liquid metal creeping out from his body. He started to get taller, the metal was all the way up to his neck now.

The metal started to solidify, and the Armor was finally complete. “Koren, you look so handsome, I can see lots of pretty ladies chasing after you when you grow up.” Said Hope as she brought out a hologram of Koren in the Armor for him to see.

Koren was shocked, for a moment he thought he saw his father ‘Ken’. However, the grown up version of him looked much taller than his father, he had his mother’s dark eyes, and he kept his sharp brows.

Koren looked at Hope and smiled. “Big sis we need to stop playing around, I can’t be gone all night or someone will know I left” said Koren in a serious tone.

“OK, ok, fine. Geez, I’m supposed to be the elder in this situation” said Hope.

“Koren, I need you to calm down, I’m going to use an ultrasonic radar to search for any underground cavities, we are going to find out where the sand beasts live. If we can find them, then there will probably be some Spiritual beasts among them, like their leaders.” Said Hope as metal started to creep up on Koren’s face and solidified as his helmet.

The display turned on, and numbers started to pop up.

‘…beep…loading core AI…Command accepted…HOPE…beep…’

‘…power reserves sufficient… loading utilities menu…beep…’

Koren saw a menu pop up with a whole range of images, information kept being pumped into his head from the network and soon he knew what each one was and how they worked.

“Will the ultrasonic radar work, the Armor can activate it, but with its low reserves its range will be affected” said Koren in an inquisitive tone.

“Don’t worry, I made some modifications for efficiency, it’ll work” said Hope as she closed her eyes.

Koren raised his right arm at the same time as Hope raised hers, an instrument appeared. It looked like a glowing ring, to others it would look strange, but Koren was connected to the network, and he already knew what he had to do.

“Now Koren activate it, I’m done with the modifications, so the range should be around 20.7 kilometre’s, but just to be safe, keep the range to 20, we only need to find the caverns.” Said Hope.

Koren, looked at the display and willed the control sequence to appear, and it did. He set the range, and activated the device.

Koren heard a ‘ting’ sound, and the sand under his feat moved just a tiny bit, and then a second later he heard the sound again.

“Ahh, there’s nothing here” said Hope in a clearly disappointed tone.

“Keep activating it intermittently as you move, I’m sure we will find something.” Said Hope.

“OK Big sis.” said Koren as he started to run.

The rush he felt while running in the Armor was immense, he couldn’t help but scream out. “Woohoo” yelled Koren as the scenery in front of him kept changing.

“Easy there Koren, use wind to run, we don’t want the Armor to lose any more power.” Said Hope as she noticed the energy usage.

Koren stopped immediately and just as he was about to apologise to Hope, he paused. Koren turned to Hope and said “Big sis I have an idea.”

“Oh, do tell. I like that my genius is beginning to rub off on you Koren.” Said Hope excitedly.

“Big sis what if I use my elemental sense, in conjunction with the ultrasonic radar” said Koren with excitement.

“Koren, the Armor can’t use your elemental power, it runs on electrical power, electrons flowing through a closed circuit.” Said Hope with obvious disappointment.

“But big sis, I’m not saying it has to use my elemental power, the ultrasonic radar uses sound to pierce through the ground and gives us an image of the condition down there using the echo. The sound needs to cross a layer of earth to reach down there, so if I use my power to reduce the friction it will face when going down, won’t that increase its range even with the low power usage.” said Koren in a single breath, making sure he didn’t miss anything.

“Whoa, that’s genius, and it just might work. Actually if I’m right, with the talent you showed during that sparring session, we can triple the range.” Said Hope with obvious excitement.