An expedition was a yearly event in which the Protectors Academy would send students off to far away islands where they would study the island and the beasts within it.
They may have to do battle on the island when they became a protector, after all.
The more thorough the report a group brings back, the more contribution points they would obtain.
This in turn meant a higher score for such groups than for other groups.
Tai had been grouped in together with Nikolah, the most famous student in the entire academy well known for her stupendous ice abilities and ridiculous strength.
Her presence alone had made the group one of the strongest ones for the year, and along with the speech impaired girl, Claire with an affinity for revelations, their group was almost foolproof.
However, people like Hal Burnne who was a monster both in his power and character, were still out there in their own groups.
Nikolah really wanted to pass with the highest score possible, so Tai would make sure to try really hard.
In the large hall, Sir Carnuni smiled down at the students.
His long white beard swaying in the gentle breeze coming in through the window.
"Welcome, future protectors of the Floating Isles. It is in profound joy that I announce our upcoming expedition..."
***
A few hours later, Tai was in his room packing up for the expedition.
Sir Carnuni had explained the basics of expeditions, the beast level rankings, and other miscellaneous information that they would need to survive.
A full time Protector was always living on the edge, after all.
They had to face the Mutated and other beasts on a daily basis, the Collosal Titans every week, a Flashback every single month, and a Time Storm once a year.
Each of these situations could kill even the strongest of soldiers in seconds.
Zipping up the small duffel bag that held a few clothes, one or two textbooks on sorcery, and a bunch of pencils for him to practice on, the red haired teenager went to the docks to meet up with Nikolah and Claire.
The place known as the Floating Isles was an extremely mysterious place.
It was made up of hundreds of islands varying in weight, size or length.
However, the odd thing was that there wasn't any water.
Instead, the islands literally floated in the skies.
The place was once a majestic kingdom belonging to Dawn, the goddess of Time.
But when the wars first began, the kingdom crumbled into nothingness.
A few hundred years later, when the Titans had joined in the war between gods and daemons, a devastating burst of energy broke the land up into gargantuan holes and hills.
When the war had been halted and peace reigned for three hundred years, Tempest, the goddess of Winds raised the remains of the land as a monument to Dawn who had long perished.
Blah blah blah, and now, the floating Isles was home to millions of people.
After waiting for a while, the red haired teenager spotted two figures in the distance.
Nikki and Claire had packed up quite the heavy load, and were already going over to the ship that would take them to Black Nest Island.
Tai rubbed his temples in disappointment.
"Why hadn't I thought of waiting on the ship?"
Then with a sigh, he sprinted towards the floating ship.
Transportation in the Floating Isles was almost as strange as the place itself.
There was no links between the islands except for the magnetic and gravitational pull exerted by them on each other.
The bigger the island, the stronger it's pull.
Isle of Reflection was the biggest island in the whole of the Floating Isles, thus, it held a majority of all the islands in place.
The island usually had hundreds of kilometers of clear sky between them, so to travel, the inhabitants had invented ships.
However, these weren't your traditional boats.
Heck, there was no water for a boat in the Floating Isles to begin with.
Instead, they were made to fly through sorcerery.
By combining the enchanting runes of Air and the runes of gravity, one could achieve flight.
The ancient sorcerers engraved these enchantments onto every ship they built, it was hard at first, but as time passed, the sorcerers became more potent and the ships became better.
However, in a few thousand years, the sorcerers had succumbed to death and there was no one left to build more ships.
Thus, the main form of travel in the Floating Isles, was simply by air.
On an enchanted flying ship.
Tai was currently standing on the deck of one of these ancient, flying enchanted ships, looking forward at the expanse of the Floating Isles.