Part one:
"The lake seems to be entirely shallow", a boy with black hair said gazing at a huge lake.
This lake was dug artificially and its size was comparable to that of a sea, the way its end could not be seen in any direction.
In the middle of the lake were concentric walls wrapped around each other.
They were so tall one could not see their end by gazing at the clear blue sky.
They were surrounding a Box of the Temper faction.
A bald man equipped with Miyalin armor walked over to the two teenagers.
"How did you even find their box?"
The black-haired boy smiled, "by accident. While traveling".
That black-haired boy was Zafer, and the others next to him were his best friend Semi and Tule, a member of the Nubis province.
"Well, that's an advantage of not using a TP".
Tule was here referring to Transport Points, an Anomaly 9 script that was capable of teleporting humans.
"So?", Semi asked.
"I called for reinforcement. We'll see how many decide to come", he sat on the grass next to a lonely tree.
They were in front of the eastern wall of the Temper's box. Despite it being in the middle of the lake, the wall's left and right ends could not be seen.
That was how huge the construction was. It sure took a lot of money and time to build this.
Nobody knew for sure what was on the inside of all the walls but it had to be valuable.
The insides of boxes usually contained a perplexed system of rooms, that were mainly used to cultivate magic plants like flame or star flowers.
This entire building possessed almost the entirety of the Temper's wealth!
Everything that the faction had of value was inside of those walls.
Not to be confused with each paladin's own vaults and grinders though.
"Hey, look!", Zafer pointed at the lake.
There was a boat with two people on it, both of which were probably paladins of the Temper province.
One of them was as big as the Priest was, while the other one was Semi's height.
"What are they doing?", he asked as he watched the smaller one steer the boat by pushing itself off of the lake's bottom with a stick.
Tule paid no attention, "they are probably transporting the Miyalin armor and weapons to the box".
"Why don't they just teleport inside?"
"Teleporting with Miyalin makes the connection unstable. They would need to teleport each piece one by one which would tear down the Transport Point faster. They are just saving money".
Every script had a limited usage depending on its nature and it was usually only one.
The only famous exceptions were artifacts like S-mails with infinite usages or TPs with a couple of them.
"But how are they going to get it inside? If there is an opening in the walls we can use it to get inside and plunder!", Semi concluded.
Tule exhaled. These two teens just got into the world of paladins and already thought it was that easy to raid a box.
The last time the Nubis faction raided Temper's, they had to summon an ancient beast and guide it to destroy the walls since even cannons were useless.
"There probably is an intricated sealed door system somewhere, but if you try to enter there as an intruder you will just get stuck and killed".
Semi drank a blue, purple, and red potion, "in that case, we will just take their loot now".
Zafer nodded, also drinking the potions.
Tule was somewhat shocked at this.
"I don't recommend that! That big guy is an Exterminator for the National Security", Tule warned but the two didn't care to listen.
A boat filled with Miyalin equipment was a jackpot for them.
It was in fact enough money for them to start their business again from scratch 10 times.
Of course, someone like Tule couldn't understand it.
The two friends rushed through the lake, splashing the water left and right, their speed only reduced by a little.
This was an artificial lake and its depth wasn't above Zafer's hips even hundreds of meters from the shore.
As soon as the water from the lake started to splash all around, the Temperans on the boat noticed Zafer and Semi.
The bigger one who was working for National Security jumped off the boat into the lake, water reaching only to his knees.
Their box was well hidden in the middle of nowhere and under Banana's guidance, not a single soul knew about it being constructed the entire time.
However, such a huge construction was bound to be found sooner or later.
Some individual freelancers were getting paid by factions or gangs to just walk around and look for other faction's hideouts.
It didn't matter anyway. The huge Temperan summoned his uncommonly large axe, preparing for battle.
Unfortunately for him, Semi and Zafer had tricks up their sleeve.
Just as they were about to clash, Semi pulled out a small stick and broke it right in front of the enormous Temperan.
That was an artifact of the A-9, The Force. An Ar-9.
The broken stick produced an invisible force that swept away some of the water, even revealing a small portion of the lake's bottom.
The force was so strong that the big Temperan got blasted away into the thick wall of the box.
Zafer and Semi didn't know it at the time, but that wasn't just any wall, but a "regen wall".
This meant that the wall could regenerate itself, possibly trapping and suffocating the adult Temperan.
Nonetheless, that won't be happening.
With the big guy gone, there was now only the younger Temperan left to defend the Miyalin goods.
Tule was watching as the other members from the Nubis province joined him. That was the reinforcement he was talking about.
The water of the lake was still unstable due to the artifact, making it hard to firmly stand on the boat.
Semi, who just climbed on top of it, almost lost his balance due to this.
This was a perfect opportunity for the young Temper paladin to strike.
He swung with his Miyalin axe directly at the left side of Semi's ribcage.
Unfortunately for him, both Zafer and Semi drank 15% solution blue potions, making them faster than the young paladin, who was only relying on his Repeater anomaly.
Zafer jumped from the water onto the boat, placing his head below Semi's armpit where the young Temperan was aiming at.
If Zafer didn't possess the euclid A-11 anomaly, this strike would have killed him.
However, his anomalous ability was activated.
It was only thanks to Zafer holding back that the young Temperan didn't die instantly.
Zafer's anomalous stamina got almost completely drained, making him bleed from his eyes so much that he could barely keep them open.
But that didn't matter. He trusted Semi enough to finish the job as quickly as possible.
This event was way before Zafer got stronger.
The explosion erupted, but this time it completely drained out all the water from the lake within a radius of 50 meters.
The boat that transported Miyalin's equipment literally stranded on the bottom of the lake!
Tule flicked in disbelief. Eyes wide open.
The young Temperan got hit by the repelling ability and fell from the boat. Completely disoriented and blinded.
He could not differentiate above from below.
Rain fell on all of them, and the surrounding water surged towards them to fill the empty hole in the lake.
This almost made the boat tip over.
Semi grabbed Zafer and pushed a wrapped bag into his hands.
It contained a full Miyalin armor set!
"Let's go!", Semi jumped from the boat holding another bag himself, but at that very moment, a large figure fell from the sky onto the boat.
This made the boat sink below water and touch the bottom of the lake.
It was the large Temperan Semi blew away.
Semi shivered in front of his sight.
The paladin summoned his large axe, gave Zafer a knockout with his elbow, and then swung at Semi with all his might.
There was no way for him to dodge this.
Another member of the Temper faction appeared at the scene in that instant, grabbing the large axe with his left hand just as it was about to smash Semi's skull.
On his right shoulder, the member also carried the younger Temperan who got hit by Zafer's A-11.
Everyone froze. Semi, the big Temperan guy, and even Tule and other Nubians who watched the whole thing happen from the shore.
Tule frowned from afar, cursing "Damn it. That's Banana!"
Indeed, that was the leader of the Temper province!
The bulky paladin also frowned, "what do you think you are doing?"
Banana smiled nervously, "I'm sorry, but please rethink this!", he removed his hands from the man's large axe, "look at him!", he pointed at Semi, "he doesn't know anything!"
The bulky paladin stared at Semi with an insanely aggressive aura.
Nobody would sue him or make a problem if he just killed both Semi and Zafer. They were within the territory of the Temper faction after all.
Still, he resisted and listened to Banana.
He picked up Zafer and threw him over his shoulder, turning towards Semi.
"You can leave".
At that instant Semi dropped the wrapped Miyalin equipment he was holding, placing the right palm of his hand in the left one.
"No! Please!", Semi dropped his head facing the water, "let him go!"
He was already scared to death and aware that his life was spared but still wasn't satisfied. He couldn't leave without Zafer, even if he was the one constantly lending him money and making sure their small business worked.
Banana stepped aside, "Alright!"
The older paladin looked at Banana, handing Zafer over to Semi and watching them leave towards the shore.
"Do you realize how much the Priest is going to scold me? They could have killed Nemo, and you are just going to let them go?"
Banana was still smiling, "Come on, you and the Priest get along pretty well! He could not have dodged that artifact either!"
The older paladin clenched his fists desperately. Even though he was a Temper paladin and worked as an apparition exterminator for National Security, he still couldn't prevent others from dying, even when they were right beside him.
Someone like Banana wouldn't understand that.
"What about them?", he gazed at the Nubians assembling to attack their box, "Simra and Uk are not here".
Banana pulled out a vial filled with a pink liquid, smiling.
"Just take Nemo inside. I'm caught by the mood".
Part two:
This was a vague memory that was still engraved in Zafer's head from a year ago.
It was one of those moments that connected him to Semi the most, even after being separated for this long.
Now that the grinder is finished, Zafer can finally see Semi again.
However, before that, he needs to complete a side quest, which will later prove to have played a major role in his life.
It was only 1 week after the incident with Hydra, and when Zafer thanked Skil and mentioned that he needed not to hold back from asking for a favor, the latter almost instantly knew what Zafer could do for him.
That favor was the same reason why Skil came to the city of Koth in the first place, which normally wouldn't happen since he mainly focused on coding and writing scripts instead of working on his fighting abilities.
That was the only way he could achieve his life goal after all. By coding, and not by fighting.
Despite being a paladin of the Temper province Skil wasn't limited to being friends with regular people, but there was a risk coming with that as well.
One of the easiest ways to crush a paladin who was a member of the enemy faction was to blackmail them by kidnapping someone they cared about.
This is why paladins often either kept their friendships and love lives a secret or avoided forming connections with regular people altogether
In Skil's case, his childhood friend with whom he was still actively in contact got kidnapped by someone from the Nubis province named Zlatko.
Zlatko kept Skil's friend in his new underground dungeon, that he was going to use as a grinder. To cultivate flame plants.
The grinder was located in a cave system not far away from the city of Koth, and the rescuers were already next to the entrance, preparing to delve inside.
The party consisted of Zafer and another two Temper paladins.
Those were Skil and the young paladin whom Zafer almost killed in the previously described flashback. Nemo.
Nemo was one of the 4 members of Dominion, which was a sub-faction of Temper that merged with Temper.
This didn't happen a lot before people started counting years on the calendar.
It was currently the second year and since there were no such thing as months, calendar dates were only approximated based on the ongoing season which currently was autumn.
The 4 members of the Dominion sub-faction were:
Nemo, who was also the youngest and the most aggressive one;
The Priest, who was the strongest of them all;
The current 1st officer of the Temper, who possessed a very unique anomalous ability;
And the current 5th officer of the Temper, who had officially become the 3rd richest person in all of Pashtrik since the beginning of last winter.
Locating Zlatko's grinder was not going to be an easy task at all, but they kept going, using the unripe flame flower fruit as a light source.
This was of course not the way Zlatko would get to his grinder, except for the first time before placing a transport point.
In simple terms, a Transport point was a complex pattern resembling a tattoo, only visible during teleportation, which could last anywhere from 10 to 3 seconds, depending on the totem that was used.
During this time the individual had to prevent as much movement as possible since it could cancel the teleportation, but still tear down the TP durability.
Another weird prerequisite to this was that the individual could not be in water or any other type of liquid, since it could also disrupt the TP.
There was no special movement that one needed to do to activate their TP.
Activating a TP was an instinct for those who possessed it.
Anyway with Skil being their guide, the party has reached Zlatko's den.
His grinder.
It was like a box made out of several walls, constructed inside of a cave chamber.
There was no opening or door and what Zafer and his party could see was only the outer side of these walls.
The only way to get inside was to teleport or make a hole through the wall.
The walls of Zlatko's grinder were constructed narrowly along the cave chamber stone walls, but there was enough space for a human to sneak sideways in between.
"Let's fucking do this", Nemo whispered grabbing a flask filled with potion.
Skil grabbed his arm aggressively, "No! We don't know who all is inside!"
Zafer also approached in order to hear them.
"We will slip in between the walls and listen. When everyone teleports out, we go in".
They all agreed.
Grinders were mainly used as a place to cultivate magic plants and rarely as a vault for valuable equipment or a place of residence.
It was hard to tell from the outside, but it seemed that this grinder consisted of 3 or 4 rooms, and the biggest one was probably the one reserved for cultivation.
Zafer's naturally small build lets him sneak in between walls with ease.
He sidewalk to the opposite side of the grinder and then listened.
"I thought that you Nubis members aren't allowed to have any private grinders or farms", a voice could be heard from the inside.
"Screw them all!", another one answered, "I'm sure that everyone has their own grinder but just can't talk about it!".
"Well, if you say so", the former one answered, "how did the other guy even escape?"
"I don't know!", he shouted but his voice was still silenced by the walls, "now I need to build another grinder".
One of the two men talking had to be Zlatko, but Zafer wasn't sure who the other one was.
Both of these men are unknown to him anyway.
He won't need to interact with them, only wait until they teleport away.
For that, someone had to have 2 TP's, one to teleport to their underground grinder, and one to exit it.
That transport point could be anywhere else. Some big cities had TP's in their middle to allow for quick travel, but these were only accessible to paladins and some merchants.
The two men kept talking for a while before they suddenly went quiet in the middle of a sentence.
Zafer couldn't see either Skil or Nemo since they were on different sides of the outside walls.
"There".
In that instant, a loud sound was heard from outside the grinder, opposite of where Zafer was.
He couldn't see what happened, but it sounded like Skil had penetrated the wall and gotten inside! And then once again, from the direction Nemo sneaked to.
"Is that all?", one of the men who were previously talking asked, and the other one took some time to respond.
"There".
At that moment Zafer's whole body got attracted towards the outside wall of the grinder, and the pulling force was getting only stronger to the point he thought his body would crush against it.
However, that didn't happen, and he penetrated the wall just like his companions did.
Dust got into his eyes and before he could even respond he hit something and fell, or to put it in a better way, someone hit him.
He then quickly opened his eyes only for a second, barely dodging a kick that was going straight for his head.
"Don't!", the other man shouted, his voice now escaping into the cave.
Zlatko's heart skipped a beat, and he was glad that Zafer dodged that, immediately figuring out why his friend warned him.
"Don't tell me…", he turned away from Zafer asking his friend if it was what he was thinking.
This was the perfect moment for Zafer to make a comeback.
He summoned his Miyalin axe that Key Em gifted him and swung with all his might Zlatko.
Unfortunately, in the blink of an eye, he found himself lying on the ground once again, with both arms broken.
Yes. It was that fast.
It made Zafer ponder who these men even were.
He was in enormous pain, but his mind was more occupied with this irritating feeling of being taken down so easily by some random Nubian he never even heard of before.
How strong were exactly these guys?
Hydra was a casual member as well and he was unbelievably capable, but now these two as well? With fluent aikido techniques and unexplainable 6th sense.
How many more people is he going to come across who are much stronger than him?
Like when does this end?
In less than 5 minutes all of them had their legs and arms cuffed and were thrown into a large trough filled with cold water.
This was done to prevent them from teleporting somewhere safe.
Zlatko then put special blindfolds over their eyes.
Those were A-11 artifacts that blocked their anomalies.
All in all, they were completely incapable of resisting now.
They got to be in the same room as Oli, Skil's friend whom they wanted to rescue, and the only one who was singled out was Zafer.
His hands and feet were also tied, but to a chair that was then put in another room behind thick metal doors.
"Are you sure you don't want to watch", Oma asked.
Oma was Zlatko's friend who felt the presence of the intruders through the walls.
He was the 1st officer of the world's 3rd strongest faction. The Numen.
That faction only had 3 active members by the way.
"I am", Zlatko responded
Zlatko was more curious about identifying who these intruders were and if they were any good for blackmailing.
Nemo was undoubtedly the most valuable one since he was part of the Dominion sub-faction, and a very close friend to both the 1st and 5th officer of the Temper province, who was, once again, the 3rd richest person in the whole nation.
There were some really good artifacts and runes that he could ask them in exchange for Nemo.
Heck if he decides to ask them for the legendary Temperan Das Luci weapon, they will probably have no option but to hand it over.
If that was a possibility, then Zlatko would not mind his friend Oma taking the Execute rune from Zafer.
That's right. They knew and still thought that the Axe 33 was in Zafer's possession, somewhere in the Void.
Now, an individual can only have a maximum of two different items made out of Miyalin in Void at the same time, and Zafer already revealed one to be an axe, but that axe didn't possess the infamous Execute rune the Axe 33 had.
The only remaining slot Zafer had in Void had to be the axe with the Execute rune, and the only way they could make him summon it was through torture.
Unluckily for Zafer, Oma was the worst person he could face.
Even worse than Hydra.
Oma was a true lunatic, and that will only get more obvious as Zafer continues his journey.
Zafer wasn't blindfolded with the artifact because Rod liked it when victims could see everything that was going to happen to them.
For the next 1 hour, Zafer was tortured in an underground enemy grinder, in a cave somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and it seemed as if there was no end to it.
The water he was put in was slowly changing its color to red.
It was obvious that Rod was experienced at this, using various methods, and not having to worry about Zafer dying because red potions existed.
The only thing he had to worry about was for Zafer to not bleed out, but that wouldn't be happening.
Oma was very accurately measuring blood with his eyes, and he had all the time in this world, meaning he could wait for the red potion to slowly replenish his blood, which took a couple of hours.
Zafer's face was all sweaty and his eyes looked twisted as if another small pair of eyes was located within his pupil, looking at Oma's every move with patience.
A whole hour passed, and Oma was starting to enjoy the hate in Zafer's eyes, however he couldn't get over something.
Something felt different from the others he tortured.
"I don't mind spending a whole day here with you, so I hope being stubborn pays out", Oma smiled, but Zafer lifted his head returning a smile himself.
He then started laughing out loud, and it didn't make sense because he was obviously feeling pain.
That was noticeable from his reactions that just could not be faked.
Nevertheless, he was laughing, and Rod figured he was just either going crazy or trying to act tough and unbothered.
However, at that moment, something appeared in front of him.
Something that would make him question this whole one hour he spent torturing him.
It was a bag made out of Miyalin links that Skil gifted to Zafer.
That was the second item Zafer had in his remaining slot in Void.
The two items were an axe and a Miyalin bag.
That's it.
That was the undying proof.
Why the heck would Zafer summon it only now? He didn't have to go through all this torture.
Is Zafer's laughter not fake? Is Oma actually being mocked right now?
Why else go this far?
Zafer's gritted his teeth and his muscles seemed as if they were about to burst.
It gave a feeling like Zafer would rip Oma apart the very second he gets uncuffed.
Oma threw his handkerchief and left the room in big strides.
The heat was starting to wash him from the inside out in waves.
"What's up?", Zlatko stopped daydreaming about blackmailing realizing something was wrong with his companion.
Oma frowned, "the fucker doesn't have it".
That was frustrating, sure, but why was Oma so off?
Zlatko quickly threw a glance behind the metal door where Zafer was before Oma slammed it shut.
The room was pitch black but something reflected the light.
Those were Zafer's wide-opened red eyes, and Zlatko felt as if he could see Zafer's facial expression based just on them.
It made him kind of creep out.
A whole hour later Zafer was still sitting alone in that dark room, spontaneously having muscle spasms and contraction.
The absence of any stimuli made him only think about escaping this chair and going all out at those two, even if he knew he was nowhere near beating them.
He fell asleep into a state of stupor, completely unaware of what was happening in the other room of the grinder.
He woke up for just a second, looking at the stars before falling asleep again.
He was out somehow.
Nevertheless, the unpleasant experience he had that night completely changed his path in life. He just didn't know it yet.