Relestia had a lot to catch up after years of slumber and Kairos patiently told her everything that happened since assassins attacked the Vestimore royal family. When she heard that her father is still alive, Relestia started falling nonstop with relief. Relestia had truly feared losing her father. Although she is nearly fourteen, her mentality remained at when she was ten.

She wiped them off with the back of her hands again and again, but more tears fell. Then suddenly, as if unable to hold back anymore, Relestia cried loudly, “I’m glad, I’m glad, I’m glad…”

She kept repeating the words as she sobbed.

Kairos gently wrapped his arms around her.

Suddenly, her hand turned into claws and she swiped at Kairos’ neck faster than the eye could see.

Kairos lifted a hand slowly to defend himself, it seemed he will not reach in time but in the blink of an eye he already held Relestia’s hand.

And then, countless bright light covered everything and the devil screamed and whimpered.

Looking at the shadows within Relestia becoming smaller once again, a large grin appeared on Kairos’ face.

“Heh.”

Halfway through, the devil had taken possession of Relestia. It wanted to make use of the moment to kill the unguarded Kairos, but it was naïve to try deceive him.

Kairos became even more confident in freeing Relestia from its clutches and had a wide smile on his face.

When Relestia looked over, she blushed terribly. Kairos is still holding her hand and giving her a radiant smile.

The princess didn’t even realised that she had been taken over a second before, and she only lowered her head shyly.

Kairos coughed unnaturally and quickly let go.

“Let’s bring the coach down. Maybe we can find some healing herbs if we travel over land.”

After he said this, Relestia finally realised Kairos’ condition. His pale complexion and the scars on his arms are the only things she could see, but the energy Kairos is giving off is exceptionally weak.

The princess is almost in tears again. She fought back the sobs and placed a palm on Kairos’ head, “Kai kai don’t cry. It’s not painful anymore, it’s not painful anymore.”

Kairos can only continue to reassure her.

After explaining to her everything that transpired, Relestia immediately asked for a scarf to hide her face so that no more Jarls could

Kairos was taken aback, until the princess explained that the same thing happened to her mother in the past. Because of her beauty, the queen had many unnecessary troubles. So whenever the queen went out, she would cover her face.

Kairos sighed. Everything comes with a price, and beauty is not excluded. Fortunately, Kairos had bought several scarfs for hiding Aisa. He took them out and the princess happily chose a few.

When they crossed the mountain ranges, the carriage went towards the nearest pathway. After they landed, the exterior started magically transforming into something that look less obtrusive, a fully covered dark brown wood coach pulled by six white horses.

They travelled more slowly now that they should be outside of the search area. The roads of Axis Mundi is less maintained than Gaia but the expensive suspensions installed made sure there wasn’t even a bump for the passengers inside.

The carriage started scanning the area for dangers and introduced the different plants and creatures to them.

Whenever an herb or fruit that is found to be good for healing, he piloted the coach over in hover mode.

The griffins traverse across any off-road terrain with ease and quickly helped Kairos collect his ingredients. The costly carriage worth every coin it costed.

In this way, they made countless detours while heading further away from the human kingdoms.

The things found are all non-spirit and as such have no use in helping Kairos recover his Ki. However, they still contained medical properties, and if carefully distilled it will aid in healing his wounds. The items he took are pieces of leaves, roots, and barks, but never an entire plant.

After gaining the ability to hear all living and spiritual things, Kairos understood how everything in nature is connected by a chain. If he can take what he needs without killing the herb, he will do so. Likewise, he only hunted what he can eat. With his current condition, the non-spirit herbs will not be unable to heal him without sustenance.

Other than looking for ingredients, Kairos also took out the Time-space ring he took from the Jarl’s treasury to tabulate his loot. It contained mostly gold coins but there are also plenty of strange ores and other treasures.

An item appeared in Kairos’ hand with a flash. A shimmering gem that illuminated the inner compartment.

“What is this?” Kairos asked Aisa.

The little dragon popped out from his scarf and gave the gem a lick with her pink tongue. Kairos noted that it wasn’t like a snake or a frog’s but more alike a bunny’s tongue; small and round.

It’s a magic crystal! Like talismans but spells!

Her head bobbed up and down looking at the crystal then she explained how to use it.

Each crystal consists of only one spell. The crystal’s purity and size determine the level of spell Circle that could be contained.

In the ring, Kairos discovered a small stockpile of the more common buff spells that are around Circle 3. He could guess that this is the castle guards’ supply to enhance their combat strength. He took these bean-sized gems and separated them into different pouches, each containing the same group of spell crystals: Acceleration, strength enhancement, fast recovery, clarity, mind enforcement, and blessing.

In battle he can quickly crush the gems in a pouch and activate all the buff magic at once.

Next, he turned to the largest stockpile which consists of combat spells like Greater Shield and Greater Fireball, most of them between Circle 4 to Circle 7. These crystals are the size of small nuggets. He took a couple and stuffed them into various compartments on his clothes. With these gems he will be able to sling out spells without warning.

The third pile is a small amount of crystals that contained utility spells like Water Making and Night Vision. These items are mostly Circle 1 and 2 spells and the crystals are as small as barley seeds.

“Oh, these are useful! Magic sure makes life a lot easier,” Kairos said with his eyes gleaming.

He took out the last three magic crystals containing two Circle 8 spells and one Circle 9 spell. Kairos’ eyes brightened up considerably when he saw them. Although he can cast Circle 9 Holy and Life spells, he had yet to learn the other branches of magic. Moreover, if he can bring them back home it will be worth a castle or more because even Grand Mages cannot seal a Circle 9 spell into a crystal, only Arch Mages can.

Currently there are no Arch Mage on Gaia, so the Circle 9 magic crystals are all relics and exceptionally valuable. For one Jarl out of hundreds to be in possession of such a crystal, Kairos can only guess how many Grand Mages and Arch Mages there are on Axis Mundi.

After sorting out the items, he decided to stop for lunch. He took out a magical creature he caught, the cockatrice. It had a scaly pair of legs, thin but muscled with sharp claws. Large, feathered wings, a reptilian neck and a rooster’s head.

The moment Kairos took his chef knife, his demeanour changed completely. The world seemed to slow down for him. In his mind there is only the ingredients and the dishes he will create. Every step must be perfect, because he is Laksa’s disciple. His eyes seemed to be able to look into the cockatrice’s body, to every muscle fibre, blood veins, and bones. Kairos made a small incision on a vein to drain the cockatrice without harming anything but the skin. At the same time, his chef knife shone beautifully as he took the bird dragon apart without spilling a drop of blood. Relestia was looking with her eyes glued.

In a moment, the giant chicken is prepared with wild vegetables, herbs, and spices, all locally procured. In the Axis, if you know where to look, you can find almost any kind of food source. Axis Mundi might be lacking in Heavenly Energies, but the place is teeming with life and that’s why mana is abundant in the air.

Instead of making only one dish, Kairos left some meat out to dry, spiced some parts and wrapped it up, and started roasting the rest. The Time-space ring he have is rather low-quality.

Not only is the space within so small that it can barely contain the treasures of a measly castle, the flow of time within is only slowed time down by a fraction. Food will take but a-third longer time to spoil while most Time-space rings back in Gaia can keep items from degrading five-times slower and ten-times for the better ones.

So far, only Kairos’ Thunder God’s Ring could keep time in perfect stasis, and it is unusable currently.

As fragrant smoke raised into the air, Relestia’s eyes starting shining and Aisa crawled out of Kairos’ scarf with the three dragonlings.

All the four small creatures and one girl sat side by side drooling.

In a while, there are six plates made from fire-blasted rocks with fresh roasts.

Relestia squealed when her food came.

“This this this LOOKS AMAZING!”

Aisa also screamed, although it is more like a mental shout.

BWAHAHAHA! FOOD!

The three dragonlings also did their best.

*OUUUUU*

*ROOOOOOOOO*

*GURURURURUUU*

As if pleased that they are showing appreciation at the food Kairos nodded at them to dig in.

The dragonlings were so excited they flew into their food. Aisa wasn’t much better with half her body almost swimming in chicken.

Of course, the princess kept her etiquette that had been trained into her since young and neatly pulled apart her food with wooden cutleries.

She put a morsel into her tiny mouth and her entire face turned incredulous.

“HWAAAA… This is so good. I…,” the princess seemed like she wanted to continue praising the food, but suddenly stopped.

She slowly chewed with her eyes closed to fully enjoy her food.

“Itsh sho niceee… I bit myself…” she looked at Kairos with tears in her eyes, “I didn’t want the delicious air from escaping my mouth!”

“Ah… this girl looked as if she wants to lick the air.”

As they were enjoying their food, a book appeared in Kairos’ hands. He had found a repertoire of manuals in the treasury. This one he held is about Basic usage of Aura.

He flipped through it so swiftly a small breeze is blowing on his face. With his photographic memory and mental processing speed, he is mastering the knowledge within the book at record speed.

After finishing this book, he took out another, Fundamental Lightning Magic.

Holy Magic might be potent and can attack, defend, and heal, but its specialization lies in counteracting evil, anti-curses, and the like.

He still needs another branch of magic that focuses on attack and Lightning is a good choice. Not only is it capable of smiting evil, when Lightning magic is mastered to a higher degree, he will gain the movement speed of a lightning bolt – the fastest form combat magic. His movement technique: Lightning Flicker Body, uses Ki and had to be sealed in this land, and he needs a replacement quickly.

While the others are eating and Kairos is immersed in his books, another carriage pulled up against theirs. A thin merchant stepped off the carriage, his weight is so light that the vehicle barely moved when he came out.

He looked only skin and bones but his eyes are still bright. Looking at the roast, his saliva is already dripping uncontrollably.

“Linda, Linda, come out dear!” the man said urgently, and a little girl came out from the carriage listlessly.

Her small body is just as thin as the merchant, but her eyes were dull.

When she looked at the food, and smelt the wonderful aroma in the air, those darken eyes suddenly lit up.

“Please sir,” the merchant begged, “Spare my daughter Linda some of your food. I will pay you anything!”