It was a special day today, the usually empty clearing of the Zaputa tribe was boisterous as a marketplace. Small tents were put up in a systematic order to welcome their guests.
Some elderly villagers even put up a few stalls for food and small games to boost the festive and welcoming spirit of the tribe.
One thing that stood out amidst all this was two bodies hanging upside down from a long tree at a solitary corner, wearing just a loincloth and groaning every few seconds.
One of these bodies gritted its teeth and said in a heaving voice, "Raphael, you bastard, everything was going well for, my mistress from the Conta tribe had already sneaked out to meet me, we would've been able to spend some more time together, but y-you just had to go ahead and provoke that ghoul."
Swinging his body like a dying fish, Rohilo tried to headbutt him as he said his piece, but being a skilled warrior, Raphael still managed to avoid it.
A few giggles sounded nearby as two little kids stood some distance away, pointing their fingers at the two swinging creatures.
Raphael's face turned even more miserable and red but he couldn't refute Rohilo nor turn back time.
Still swinging, he turned towards Rohilo and moved his mouth to mutter,
"..sorry."
....
While the main area of the tribe was as lively as it could be, in a wooden cottage not far away from the village, Golver sat in front of his disciple with a cheerful smile on his face.
'It was truly a blessing in disguise, it seems, Ryne is finally a Grade-1 warrior.'
"How much of your strength can you use now? How long do you think it would take you to become a middle Grade-1 warrior?"
"With my increased perception, I can easily deal with any Grade-1 warrior or mage without using much of my mana, and if I do use my mana, my body would be able to follow my perception a little more fluidly," Ryne responded with a smile.
"Good kid, now we can celebrate this achievement of yours later. Right now, you need to listen carefully to the information I'm about to tell you, the schemes that run behind the scenes." Golver controlled his smile and said while peering straight into Ryne's eyes.
Ryne also nodded heavily as Golver began to tell him a much more detailed version of the history of the Rohanic tribes that Danulo had informed him of.
Golver began telling him in a low voice while Ryne occasionally uttered a hum or nodded lightly. Like this, half an hour passed by in the natural silence of their cottage.
'This Ro-han had quite some far-reaching plans huh?'
Ryne digested the information in silence.
It turned out that as Ro-han was about to die, he used a skill from his divine manual and managed to shake the warrior chasing him, Kang, off for half a week or so.
But since he was already injured and knew that his end was near, he used all of his energy to create a secret cave where he hid his obscure treasures and the famed 'Divine Manual'.
According to what he told his people at that time, his secret cave would only open up when 7 tokens were gathered under the light of the afternoon sun. He gave his disciples, the Zaputas, 2 tokens, and his followers the Haritas, 2 more.
The rest of the three tokens were hidden by him throughout the forest, of which 1 was found by an ancestor of the Zaputa tribe later on.
It was as if Ro-han himself didn't want his people to have his legacy for some reason but he had no choice.
According to what Hans assumed, the Conta had acquired one more token later on, which would make it 6 discovered tokens and the letter that map that Danulo and Hans had in their hand, which detailed the eastern region where they scheduled the tournament to be, was most probably the location of the last token.
"Master... there's one thing I still don't understand. What was that parchment I found and what are chief and Danulo planning?"
"Haha that would be two questions, wouldn't it, little Ryne?"
"Uh.."
"Don't mind, don't mind, I'm just in a good mood today, I thought you would never break through."
"Uh.."
Golver coughed lightly when he saw Ryne getting increasingly perplexed and answered,
"So about the parchment... if it's really what I think it is, we should really just let it be hidden there."
"Um.. but what IS it?" Ryne was curious.
"It's most likely something indispensable to opening the secret cave of our bandit ancestor, mostly like a page of that divine manual. I don't know why it was torn up like that, but only 'Divine Manuals' match the respect to be carved in ancient runes."
Ryne's confusion only grew with this answer,
"What sort of indecision is this? You either leave behind a legacy or not. Was Ro-han somewhat broken in the head?"
'Good for you kid that I was brought to this tribe by my master and don't belong here, if it was any other elder, there would've been a harsh punishment waiting. But... I like this trust.'
Golver's grin widened as he said,
"Well, what do you expect from a rogue bandit?"
Upon looking at his disciple's confused face, Golver answered the second question with a question of his own,
"Little Ryne, do you want to be a hero, or do you plan on saving the world?"
"Umm.. can I do that when I'm sixteen? I just want to go home for now.."
"Hahaha yes kid, that's good. I don't know the exact plan, but driven by their ambitions, Chief and Danulo are definitely planning something that would endanger the tribe and put our tribesmen in harm's way. I'll give it anything it requires, to repay my lifelong debt, and this coincidentally also happens to be the mission Chief gave me.."
Pausing a little Danulo peered into Ryne's eyes to make sure he was understanding,
"You, on the other hand, just need to make sure you stay away from the roiling waves of storms for your master, and for your dream of going back. Keep it in mind Ryne, you, are destined for places much brighter and better than this, and nothing is worth more than your own life. Do you understand?"
After a moment of silence, the hesitant bubbly voice of a slightly over 4ft Ryne rang in the background of the wooden cottage,
"Yes..master."