On a late afternoon, the last yellow paper with a little stain of grease flipped leftward with the help of Kaz's hand. It was the same book where he read about the sycophants, but what made it different among the other books was that each page had an entry date. It was actually more of a journal or a diary, and what was written at the back of the last paper proved his thoughts correct.
'Explorer G. Silveryll.'
"'Explorer G. Silveryll?' What is he? Is he some adventurer or some sort?" Kaz pondered while sliding his hand through the old, rough surface of the paper.
After some short thinking, Kaz decided to shut the book and went straight to Lance's room.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Kaz lightly tapped the door three times when a voice answered inside, "Yes?"
"I have a question regarding the book I just read."
A light rustling sound came from the room, and after a few seconds, the door opened, and Lance's bright face looked at Kaz.
"Proceed."
"It's this book," Kaz lifted his hand and presented an old book, "I just wonder what this 'Explorer' meant."
"I see," Lance smiled and slightly nodded. "You see, that book, no, rather, that journal was personally given to me by Explorer Silveryll himself. For some reason, he wanted me to keep his exploration on the sycophant's land a secret from the others. So, I may say the same to you too."
"I understand. I won't say it to others, I swear," Kaz promised. "If I may ask, where is this Explorer now?"
For a second, Kaz noticed the light in Lance's azure eyes slightly dimmed. "Let's just say he died protecting the Fallen Kingdom."
"Oh. Okay." Kaz lowered his gaze and was about to leave when Lance's mellow voice resounded in the house.
"Do you want to know about the history of the Silveryll Family?"
"Family? Yes!" Kaz happily exclaimed. The one thing that he liked the most was listening to someone teaching him about new things, whether it may be something that he can learn from or not.
Lance nodded and gestured his hand towards the table, "Let's have a seat, shall we?"
The two made their way toward the table and each of them grabbed a chair to sat on. The sunlight that penetrated through the window glass warmly illuminated inside the house, making it look like a place that came out of a painting.
"Before the Ancient Kingdom was built, various races from faraway lands decided to build a stronghold for all races to share their resources. There were over ten people that found the region 'Lifarne', and one of them was named Silveryll.
"Fate blessed the ten people with special abilities, but what were those abilities? No one knows. Records were destroyed when monsters attacked the Ancient Kingdom, and along with the records were the founding people. Luckily, their descendants escaped the destruction, and their bloodline continued for hundreds of years. After the fall of the Ancient Kingdom, only one in every five generations of each family inherited the ability, but every time it appeared, the ability became less and less powerful than the original." By then, the light that the sunset brought in the room was nearing to its end. Lance stood and went to the fireplace to lit it up, then, next, he went to every lamp in the room and started to do the same.
Kaz placed his arms on the table while his lips pursed as he probed, "How do you know about these 'abilities' and stuff? And what happened to the ten families?"
Lance sighed, his face revealed a saddened look as if he was reliving a painful memory. "When the Fallen Kingdom fell, eight of those families were completely annihilated, including the Silveryll. The remaining two are living in the castle, and information about their personal identity is prohibited to be disclosed to the public for safety measures.
"Everyone knows that these families have a special ability, and each family have their own unique ability. From what I know, they send high-ranking knights to privately tutor them."
"Aren't you a high-ranking Knight?" Kaz casually asked. He noticed that Lance didn't carry a torch or a lighter when lighting the lamps.
"I am. But there are Knights that are more powerful than I am, and much younger and knowledgeable." Lance chuckled as he went back to the table.
"I see," Kaz nodded. "Anyway, do you have any books about Elemental Powers?"
"You're not on the level yet to learn about it," Lance raised his right hand, and emerging from his palm was a small yellowish-white flame that slowly engulfed his hand until it completely coated like a thin layer of gloves.
"Until then, you will need to master everything about this world, understand?"
His loud voice made Kaz tense as he quickly responded:
"Yes!"
.....
A month quickly passed.
Lev could feel the improvement in his body and his movements. They were not stiff as they previously were, but now, they were more flexible and quick. Every time he picked up a herb while running, he didn't need to slow down any more because his body was now familiar and used to the motions.
He noticed that, before, his body made a lot of unnecessary movement that resulted in him to slow down and trip, so he focused on practicing until his body made fewer mistakes.
But even then, he couldn't outrun the Jäger. No matter how hard he focused on exercising his calves, still, he couldn't shake off the Jäger.
"This stupid wolf is much more intelligent than I thought," Lev silently muttered as he threw a pebble on the river.
There was less than a month left on his time, and if he failed to accomplish this task, then that meant that Ezio wouldn't teach him on how to avoid monsters. This was an important thing to Lev because avoiding monsters meant avoiding death.
Plop!
Another pebble was thrown in the river. Lev helplessly sighed. The side jumps that he was using against the Jäger only created a small window for him to rest up a bit but it was not the strategy that he had needed to outrun it.
Lev carried another pebble and swung his arms to throw the pebble but he stopped midway. In the river, Lev silently observed a small fish that was being chased by a bigger one. It did a U-turn, the very same thing that Lev was doing against the Jäger, but the bigger fish quickly recovered. And then, the small fish did the very same movement, but this time, the bigger fish almost caught up to it.
It read the small fish's movement. Lev inwardly thought as he continued to observe what would be the next strategy of the prey.
The chase continued, the bigger fish was slowly catching up, and the smaller fish was inches away from his demise.
But what the smaller fish did made Lev dumbfounded. This time, the hunter and the hunted was now swimming in opposite directions.