Gracs City.
In a building somewhere near the Sygnis Tower, inside a room were four youths sitting discussing something.
"Hey, Luicia! When are you going on your mission?" A lanky young man asked. His tone was playful but his stiff facial features were as if he was suffering from facial paralysis.
The girl named Luicia remained unperturbed by his facial expressions and said in a somewhat defeated tone, "Why ask Gizel? Anyway, I have to go to the mountains even if I want to or not. If not for my necessity, I won't ever want to enter the mountains without having at least three spells and some assurance in myself... just why did I sign that contract."
"You were slowly dying Luicia, for a single spell ticket you agreed to help in an experiment and now you're paying. Remember when I cautioned you when you first arrived here, never agree to any experiment on you and if you do agree, take proper compensation!" Another young man with fiery red hair exclaimed and reminded Luicia.
"I know, Jecket. At that moment I did not expect those freaks would do something like testing their new spell on me." Luicia lamented and then said with a sinister grin, "But their spell backfired and now they are in a worse state than me!"
"It is your life Luicia you can do whatever you want but don't you dare die before repaying me!" The young girl who was silent until now finally talked. She was bald but wore blue earrings matching her eye color and whenever she spoke, she held a certain cold aura around her every time.
"I know Ursula, I will repay you in these days, don't worry." Luicia replied sighing, "Ah, these debts..."
In this cruel world finding people you can trust you back was like finding a needle in a haystack. For Ursula being cold, everyone in the room knew that in danger they could definitely trust her, so nobody minded her way of talking.
"This skirmish between Sygnis Tower and Trilek Tower is sure to give everyone a headache. Adepts of two towers have reached a consensus, they won't fight, but they would make apprentices fight for their feud!" Gizel said with the same stiff face.
"I don't know if you have heard the rumors, but Trilek Tower's owner is Master Adept Gorsad Dafin, it is assumed that he has reached a bottleneck in his research and needs those mountain specialty houndshrooms. If not for their growing conditions being tricky, I doubt Adept Gorsad would have made a resource site for growing houndshrooms artificially." Jacket said in a low tone, "I have heard Master Adept Gorsad is an exceptional genius in olfactory sense research."
"Tsk, olfactory sense specialist? What does it do? Can he kill someone just by sneezing?" Luicia sneered.
"Never look down on any path Luicia, or you would die a horrible death!" Ursula reminded Luicia in a cold tone.
"She is right, Luicia. Do you remember the legendary Adept Ghosh? It is said he would take a whiff and see what lies where, during his lifetime he unearthed numerous treasures just by enhancing his olfactory system. But that is not all, what is even more legendary was his fight with another Adept in which he took a whiff and sucked his soul, resulting in an Adept losing his life." Jecket told while remembering the details and focused every time on the word 'Adept'.
"Can't Adept Gorsad have houndshrooms delivered from somewhere else? It's not like they are available here only, right?" Gizel raised his head after contemplating for a while.
"Why are you thinking so hard? It's his headache where to find whatever he wants!" Luicia snapped at Gizel.
"Come on, stop fighting. Now the real question is, what do we do? The mission board now is giving really good rewards for exploring the mountains. Explore or not?" Asked Jecket.
"I think we should explore, it's not needed to fight other Tower's apprentices. All we need to do is harvest houndshrooms growing on Vermices. By chance, if we do come across other apprentices we can just retreat." Ursula gave her opinion.
"I agree." Gizel and Luicia voiced out at the same time in a civil manner.
While Gizel and others wanted the mission reward, Luicia, must participate in this mission once a month and three times at least in a year as per the contract with the Sygnis Tower. So it happened to be the last time for her to participate in this throat-cutting mission in the mountains.
"Remember, between two towers the mountain works as a natural barrier, as per plan, we will remain on our side of the mountain for safety. But if we find other Apprentices from Adept Gorsad's Miasma Tower, attack at first sight! It's a do or dies!" Jecket said cautiously, "As for the team's reward, it will be distributed evenly, minus Luicia."
"So, when are we doing the mission?" Asked Ursula.
"Three days later!" Jecket said raising three fingers.
After planning they talked for a bit more before finally leaving the room.
When the group of four reached out of the building, they saw a huge furry sphere floating in the horizon slowly coming near the city.
When Jecket saw the huge ball coming towards the city he exclaimed, "Be more careful in this mission, looks like after these few years Xilos Family is sending new apprentices to our tower." After waiting for a bit he added, "The last time I saw this huge furry sphere was when I came to the tower for the first time."
What was worst? You come across enemies during your escapades claiming they are from the same tower and won't attack, only to wait for the right opportunity.
Unlike people like Adrien who were family members of Xilos Family, people like Jecket also existed who did hail from any prominent family. If they have the talent they would come to the tower when they reach twelve years of age and work as apprentices, or else they would go their way back to where they came from.
None of the four were from any prominent family and struggled hard at the start to make do with whatever they got their hands on and learned on their own from the knowledge made available to them. While people like Adrien would get trained in basics from six years of age, there was some disparity. In addition, they get resources, and even though the resources aren't much but they still work like a buff for some period until they can get started on their own.
Ten energy crystals, a spell ticket, and a detailed meditation guidebook, for people like the group of four it would be big deal if they could get hands-on something like time at the very start.
Take Luicia for example, she almost lost her life just in order to get a spell ticket...