As Kai entered the wagon, he was greeted by four familiar faces that smiled upon seeing him.
Suddenly, he was abruptly tackled to the floor.
"Kai!"
Feeling the 2 soft mounds glued to his chest, Kai looked up and saw a beautiful girl around 17 years old. She had long scarlet hair, light blue eyes and a voluptuous figure which can only be described as amazing. This was his closest friend after Lyon, Elsie Scarlett.
"Good to see you Kai, I missed you so much!" Elsie said with a smile.
Kai was already used to her behavior though, so he just took her off of him and stood up while offering her a hand. "Good to see you too, Elsie."
And just like always, she pretended like nothing happened and took his hand to stand up.
"Yo Kai, you're still looking lively as ever." A young man spoke out with a playful voice. Kai picked up Elsie and looked at the person who spoke out. He saw a young man holding a Scythe on the right side inside the wagon.
Taking a closer look at him, he seemed like the energetic, talkative type. He was a 18 year old young man with fairly good looks, jet black hair and his eyes were bright and always seemed to be laughing.
The most noticeable about him, though, was the scar between his two eyes. Kai immediately recognized this man as Kevin Grayman. Kevin was one who specializes in wind magic.
"Yeah right." Kai said while rolling his eyes. After have idle chatter with Kevin, he greeted the other party members, Jason walker and Luna flameheart.
Jason was a tall young man with a height of six feet and he's the same age as kelvin. He had black hair, matching eyes and a very defined, heavy muscular build. He specializes in earth magic.
While Luna was only one among the group who was the same age as him. She had long black hair which she tied tightly back, red eyes and a curvature figure. She was a woman of few words but it only added to her charm.
After they finished loading their supplies into the carriages they were taking, they were ready to strap in the horses. But to Kai's surprise, the stable brought out a pair of giant lizards, which were called skitters.
Domesticated magic beasts used for transportation, with spikes across their backs and powerful claws, these E-rank creatures were much more efficient than horses for transportation.
The journey would be three weeks long to travel through the grand mountains to reach the dungeon which reside near the border between the Fiora and Heart Kingdom.
They would have to enter a teleportation gate in the grand mountains otherwise it would easily take months before they reach their destination.
While the mountain range didn't have any magic beasts, there were still the potential threat of bandits and wild animals.
Even so, Kai leaned to look out the window as the skitters began to pull them along.
The Journey begins
As they travelled along, the once distant mountain range seemed to have doubles in size. Kai wondered how big the grand mountain would be when they reached the foothill.
Kai spent a few hours sleeping because of waking up early for the journey. They eventually stopped to make camp near a small cluster of boulders.
It was an ideal spot to shelter, with the rocks blocking nearly all the wind and plenty of fallen branches to use for the campfire.
The group began to converse about old times when Elsie sat down next to Lyon.
"I heard that you reached B rank Lyon, is that true?" Elsie said so nonchalantly.
"Yeah, I reached it last week while you were away." Lyon replied to her question.
"If that's the case, how about a little spar." Elsie said with a smirk.
Upon hearing her words, Lyon's face immediately turned pale. He remembered all the times when he would challenge her to a fight, just to get beat up the moment after. Needless to say, he was traumatized.
He hesitated a bit before agreeing to her request. Kai was excited to see how it plays out. Both Elsie and Lyon were B ranked adventurers and were powerful in their own right.
Kai recalled that Elsie was a swordsman who wielded the sacred magic, a magic attribute that combines the strength of healing magic which have the power to heal with holy magic which have the power to counter the undead curse and detoxify. It's a powerful magic which buffs party members and herself.
In short, She had sacred magic, swordsmanship and insane physical abilities. This made her known by the masses as the War priestess.
On the other hand, Lyon had the "Ice magic" a magic attribute that allows the user to generate and manipulate ice at will. It is an extremely versatile form of magic, coming in useful both in battle, for offensive and defensive purposes. But it is weak against Fire Magic.
Lyon and Elsie stood up from their makeshift log seat and made way to a safe distance.
"Today's the day I finally beat your ass, Elsie." Lyon said with a look of confidence as he got into a battle stance.
"Show what you got tough stuff." She said with a smug grin as she got into a battle stance.
Seeing Elsie's smug smile, Lyon slightly frowned. He remembered all those times he got beat up from their previous fights but now things have changed.
After staring at each other for some time, Lyon made the first move. He extends his arms forward and created several ice lances around him before shooting them towards Elsie.
The lances travelled towards Elsie at high speeds but she remained calm. She responded by slashing all the lances before sending a white slash towards Lyon's direction.
Upon that, Lyon uses one of his hands to create a large wall of ice in front of him, blocking the attack completely before breaking.
Afterwards, Elsie kicked the floor for a forward leap and appeared in front of Lyon almost instantly while performing a horizontal slash with her sword.
Lyon calmly responded by creating a sword made of ice, prepared to block the horizontal swing, but the attack was a feint. She paused her attack and swiftly shifted to his right side and swinged her sword towards his open ribcage.
Lyon quickly reacted by freezing the soles of his feet and slide backwards, dodging the Elsie's attack. But Elsie didn't give him time to rest and dashed forward.
Lyon placed his right hand on the ground and created a ice wall Infront of him to block Elsie. Elsie didn't stop her advance and slashed through the ice wall. But the ice wall wasn't to stop her advance, it was used to block her line of vision.
She immediately looked towards her left and spotted Lyon holding his hands together. Suddenly series of giant spikes made of ice that thrust up from the ground and headed towards her.
She responded by moving towards left, completely dodging the ice attack. But Lyon was already waiting for there. Apparently he predicted her evasion and rushed ahead in anticipation of her movements at the same time as he performed a over head swing with his ice sword.
Elsie immediately twisted her body and thrusted her sword towards the arc of Lyon's ice sword. The result was grave.
Newton's Third law of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The impact of their collision sent both of them flying backwards. Thankfully, their bodies were reinforced with mana, otherwise, they would have been seriously injured.
Both of them slowly stood up from the ground but Elsie was the first to speak.
"I see, you truly have gotten stronger. Don't tell me, you were holding back on me."
"Holding back my ass, I thought I was going to die, You monster." Upon Lyon's words, everyone started laughing.
After healing the little injuries that she had, Elsie made way to Lyon to heal his words.
"So tell me, what were you doing while we were gone. A secret training section, Perhaps?" Elsie asked with a smile
"Well, it's kind of a long story." Lyon replied shortly.
The five of them spent most of the night engaged in idle chatter while Kai slept in the tent.
Days passed before they finally reached the grand mountains which certainly lived up to its name.
They arrived at the foot of the grand mountains and the next step of the journey was the ascent up the mountains.
Luckily, there was a path, wide enough for the carriages, that circled around the mountain, eventually leading to the teleportation gate at the top.
Jason held the reins of the carriage in the front, while kelvin was currently seated on top the carriage, scouting for anything out of the ordinary.
Elsie sat inside the carriage with Kai and Lyon, while Luna steered the carriage. Fortunately, the journey up the mountain was uneventful.
Kai spent a lot of his time practicing mana rotation, a technique that spends mana through out the body to amplify physical abilities and defense. But he was having a hard time, of course, it was because of his faulty core. Even so, he kept practicing.
But suddenly, Kelvin's alarmed voice rang in everybody's ears.
"Bandits!" He shouted as a fumble of footsteps came from their right rear.
Immediately Lyon formed an ice barrier around him, Elsie and Kai inside the carriage. Arrows constantly bombarded it only to be deflected as soon as they struck.
In a matter of seconds, the tarp covering the carriage roof was torn to shreds and they had a better view of the situation at hand. Needless to say, their situation was quite bad.
They were completely surrounded.