"Little Mei, Little Arion, good morning! Where do you guys want to go today?" A middle-aged man with a grey beard asked with a polite smile. He was the one who transported people to and fro between wards and was quite familiar with everyone in the Fok Grove ward since he had been living here for a long time.
He seemed a bit surprised to see Mei and Arion setting off together since the only times Arion ever traveled out was whenever he wanted to go to Central Ward and that too, all by himself.
Mei smiled as she said, "Good morning, Uncle Kisho. We two want to go to the Central Ward."
"Oh, to use the Golden Monolith, I assume?" Kisho asked with an understanding tone as he gave a quick glance at Arion.
"Yes, Arion was finally able to connect with Prana. He even completed the Purification Stage," Mei said with a proud smile, making Arion beam.
Kisho's eyes widened, "Really?"
Recovering from his astonishment, he ruffled Arion's hair as he said in a spirited tone, "Arion, my boy, you finally did it! And you even completed the Purification Stage. This is a matter to celebrate, haha."
Mei gave a beatific smile as she said, "Indeed, I will take you all for a treat at Central Ward later. Today would be the first day, Arion would be undergoing the Prana Binding stage."
"Aha, good luck, boy. I can't wait to see you stand on your feet and become a great Dreadslayer. You might even be the new face of our small ward," Kisho said in an enthusiastic tone.
Arion felt warm and said, "Thank you, Uncle Kisho. I will do my best."
"Haha, good," He moved towards the side and gestured, "Please get on. We will be setting out soon."
Mei gave a slight nod and gracefully entered the long carriage in which two men and two women were already seated.
Kisho lifted Arion and let Mei carry him inside to put him on a seat. He then folded the wheelchair and kept it in the luggage section.
The passengers seated inside smiled at Mei and Arion and readily gave space for them to sit.
Arion felt strange being carried like this since he never experienced before how it feels like to be a disabled person first-hand.
He realized how weak and dependent he was. Without at least one person to look after him, just like Mei said, it would be really dangerous for him to go anywhere alone.
In this state, how could he hope to look after Mei in the future?
How could he hope to fight against Dreadlings that had cast an ominous gloom over all living beings, including his and Mei's?
How could he even protect himself?
This feeling only fueled his thirst for power and his determination to complete the next stage as fast as possible. But, of course, he knew he had to at least stand on his own feet first.
Mei and the other passengers exchanged some small talk since everyone in the Fok Grove Ward was familiar with each other since the overall population here only amounted to less than a thousand.
Arion was lost in his thoughts, thinking about his future and his reincarnation, trying to make sense of everything that happened to him so far.
From yesterday onwards, he hardly got time to settle down his thoughts properly. The only reason he was able to adapt to his new life and world was only because of his memories.
Otherwise, he was sure that he would have acted like a country bumpkin and might make Mei think that something was wrong with him.
He might have had to take the cliche route of having a memory loss to pretend, and that would have been a pain in the neck for him. Such things would only come to bite him back, creating possible complications in the future...at least that's what he learned from reading novels.
The carriage soon set off with Kisho driving it by steering the horses using the reins. Arion was surprised by the speed at which the carriage was moving and felt that the horses weren't ordinary at all since they seemed even faster than ordinary horses.
'They surely are top-notch horses. I wonder how it would feel to ride one,' Arion also wondered how many Pranars it would cost.
Pranar was the name of the most basic currency system in this world.
A Pranar was a small disc-shaped coin made out of metal-containing pranic properties. In fact, every living and non-living thing contained prana, no matter how minute.
That was why everyone considered Prana as the powerful and mysterious energy that permeated through the whole universe. If it wasn't powerful and profound, how could it be omnipresent?
The metal of a Pranar coin were special metals that were mined and then converted into currencies by shaping them into disc-shaped metals and then adding special markings over them to prevent counterfeiting.
Commoners could easily spot the genuine and the counterfeit ones by spotting the markings since these markings could only be made using a special quill whose tip was made out of a very precious gem that was very rare and was only in the hands of the Watcher of the Ingerna Island!
The Watcher was the one who acted as the ruling leader of an island and protected the island from all harm that might cause disasters on the island, especially by killing very powerful monsters that emerge from the Abysmal Sea or from anywhere else.
All Dreadslayers report to the subordinates who directly report to the Watcher. These people together act as guardians who protect the people from the threat of Dreadlings who threaten the lives of all island dwellers.
All of these people were powerful Defiers who enjoyed the utmost respect and fame from the common people.
But deaths among the Defiers who fought on the frontlines were common, and Healifers were in high demand due to how frequently these Defiers got injured severely.
That's why, even though Mei wasn't a Defier who fought monsters, she was still equally respected as one would respect a Dreadslayer.
If it were not for the Healifiers, the number of deaths among Deadslayers would be unimaginable.
"We are almost there, Miss Mei," Kisho called out from the front of the carriage, and Arion also came out from his thoughts, looking forward to using the Golden Monolith again.