A mesmerizing sun had risen from over the horizon, scattering its rays all over the land filled with mud and grass.
The wind was playing alongside the bushes and trees, captivating any viewer's vision for hours on end.
Inside of the Kingdom of Ol' Karna, also known as the kingdom of hierarchy, a small village with the population below a hundred lived in peace.
Everyone knew each other due to the lack of the population, making it a peaceful environment and a perfect place to restart your life from zero.
The village included a couple of houses alongside a crop field made of mostly wheat.
Inside one of the houses, a family of 3 lived in peace, a courageous and caring mother and her baby son alongside her 17 year old son Flugel.
"Kids! Lunch is ready!" The mother shouted from the first floor of the house.
The mother spent the next 3 minutes waiting for her children to arrive in the kitchen only to find her baby son crawling on the floor.
"Where's the other?" She thought in her head.
She stood up and walked up the staircase until she finally arrived at the doorstep of her son's room. She slowly opened the door.
"What the-! Mom, wait!" A male voice shouted as he heard the door opening.
-THUD-
A fall could be heard from all the corners of the house, making the mother horrified.
The mother rushed on her knees to pick up her son.
"Ugh- it's okay, it's okay!" Flugel said, trying to relieve his worried mother.
"What were you doing?!" The mother exclaimed in both confusion and terror.
"I was um.. I was decorating my room! Yeah!" Flugel answered.
"Decorating?.. but there's nothing on the walls or roof?" The mother asked, still in deep confusion.
"Never mind that, are you hurt?!" The mother replied, not caring about anything but the safety of her dear son.
"It's okay. I can stand see?" The son replied as he slowly stood up, which relieved his mother.
The mother stood up, getting ready to finally have some lunch with her dear family.
"The food is getting colder by the minute. Come on!" The mother told her son before leaving his room.
The two of them head into the kitchen and find the baby crawling and playing on the floor, the mother praying he didn't do anything stupid while she was gone. The three of them have a nice lunch over a warm chat between family members. When they finally finished their food, the son immediately went to his room to finish "decorating".
"She almost caught me." Flugel thought to himself as he closed the door to his room behind him.
"But... it's gone."
He looked at his hand front and back, just to find the rock from earlier missing only, leaving a scar on his palm.
He sat down on a chair, trying to remember what happened during that one day.
"If I'm not mistaken.. the incident happened around three days ago. The last thing I remember was that I passed out after I used this. But somehow I woke up here in my room.."
"That man. He has to be the one who got me here. Maybe, maybe I should look for him- I need to know what the hell is this."
Flugel stood up, walked out of his room, and down the stairs approaching the exit door.
"Where are you going?" His mother asked.
"I'm just going on a walk, just around here, you know?"
"Alright, sweetie, just take care!"
He slowly opened the door.
"Yo."
"Huh?"
A tall man wearing a purple cloak was in front of him, staring into his eyes. But he seemed familiar.
"Do.. I know you?"
"Forgot me already?"
"... oh-"
Willinham was able to see worry in Flugel's eyes, as his family was inside the house.
"I fear we should take this somewhere else more private?"
"Y-yeah."
Flugel closed the door behind him, following Willinham steps into some woods near the village.
When they finally found a spot with fallen logs to sit on, they sat down.
"So, how's your hand?"
Flugel sighed.
"How should i say this.."
Willinham got suspicious.
"What? Did something happen? Did you lose it?"
"Look, I don't know! After the incident, that thing just kind of disappeared! Here, look!"
Willinham took a look at Flugel's hand, trying to sense the energy coming from the rock.
Willinham seemed confused and added:
"It's not here. But.. I can still sense it."
Willinham tried to follow the source of the energy, his hand following its flow.
His hand goes from Flugel's hand to his elbow, then to his shoulder, then to his chest, then to..
"It's here."
"Huh?"
Willinham put his hand on the left side of his chest.
"I'm not so sure myself, but it has to be here.. your heart."
"My heart?.. You're telling me that rock just melted into my heart?! That's absurd!"
"Don't blame me! The same energy from the rock is manifesting right inside your left chest or heart!"
"How do you want me to believe such a stupid thing?! And what do you mean you can "sense" it?!"
"Oh, right."
"What?"
"..Try to do that technique from that time overrrr- there!"
Willinham pointed at a nearby boulder
"Technique?.."
Flugel remembered what he did back in the dungeon and tried doing actually like back then.
He opened his hand and clenched his hand. But..
"I.. I don't know."
Willinham looked confused and questioned:
"What?"
Flugel seemed passed off at Willinham's absurd expectations and added:
"I said I don't know!"
"What do you mean you don't know?! You literally casted a high-level technique like it was nothing!"
"I don't know, man, it just kind of happened!"
"Alright, alright, let me.."
Willinham put his hand on Flugel's chest and closed his eyes.
"..Weird.."
"What's wrong?"
"Althought the rock energy flows through your body, your body's VLV isn't flowing at all, your control is horrendous."
"What the hell is VLV?"
"So basically, every human alive has VLV flowing throughout their body, but the smoothness of that flowing depends on the person's control of it. There isn't anyone who doesn't have VLV in their body except the dead. You could say VLV is your blood, and without it, you're dead."
"So how do I control that?"
"It's.. complicated."
Willinham sat Flugel down and started explaining step by step the structure and control of VLV.
"Get your hands together."
"..."
"And clear your mind from any thought."
"Uhuh.."
"Now put your hands against each other and leave a small gap inside. Clench your hand muscles tightly but harmlessly. You need to control it as if you're breathing."
"Mhm.."
Flugel did as Willinham said, and after a few seconds, a dim and kind of transparent yellow sphere formed between his hands.
"I-I did it,"
"Focus!"
As Flugel tried to make the sphere more stable, it quickly shattered, making him fall on all fours, ready to throw up.
"Don't force it, or else you'll puke your intestines out."
"HUH?!"
Flugel got back to work as he tried to concentrate and form his VLV between his hands again.
Seconds and minutes pass by as Flugel keeps concerning and trying over and over again desperately just to control the hidden power within him.
The afternoon passed, leaving a bright yellow color in the sky, and so did the evening, leaving a beautiful dim orange color on the clouds around it.
"Ugh-" Flugel sighed as he fell down to the ground from deep exhaustion due to the extreme training.
"You need me to pick you up?" Willinham laughed at Flugel's face as he was quite literally fighting death on the ground because of the severe exhaustion.
Willinham kneeled down to pick Flugel's helpless body up like a broken doll.
He laid him on his back and started walking back to his home safely, not encountering any problems on the way. When he knocked on the door, Flugel's mother opened it and instantly got suspicious. Willinham didn't want to waste any time by explaining and only handed her son's body to her. Flugel's mother did not want to wake up her son or any problems. She thanked the man and closed the door.
Willinham looked at the door, then looked at the orange and red sky caused by the sun setting over the horizon, contemplating and drowning in his thoughts.
He started walking away from Flugel's house and through the village. Children played on all the sides of the road but quickly went home due to the sky getting darker by the minute.
On his way, he saw a boulder that looked comfortable to sit at, so he just sat down and watched the sun set and the sky get dark.
Suddenly, a crying voice could be heard from his right, a crying baby voice. A strange feeling could be felt from his heart. It told him to go there.
Walking through the dirt and grass, he finally reached the source of the sound. He saw a young boy grabbing onto the hand of an old man, crying helplessly and miserably watching a man and a woman on a cart getting ready.
The boy looked around 5 years old. It was clearly obvious what was happening, and Willinham knew it.
The woman got off the carriage and kneeled down to meet the boy's eyes.
"Come on, sweetie, don't cry."
She said as she kissed the forehead of the boy.
"I promised you haven't I? We're going to come back sooner or later. It's just a work trip to the biiiggg castle!"
"B-but it's v-far!"
"Oh trust me sweetie, you won't feel the time pass, and we'll bring a loooot of gifts for you only!"
-sniff- -sniff-
"Okay..."
"And remember you'll be with grandpa! You love Grandpa, right?"
"Y-yeah.."
His grandpa looked at him and patted his head and went on to add:
"Don't worry, Young Niel, your parents aren't going anywhere."
Seeing the mother and grandpa comfort the boy, his father came and kneeled down as well and started talking to his son.
"Niel, you're my only son, and I want you to make me proud. Keep Grandpa safe, alright?"
"Y-yeah."
The father rubbed his son's hair to make him feel better. The boy quickly stopped crying after hearing all those words of comfort.
The father and mother got back up on the carriage and signaled the coachman to get the horses moving.
Willinham watched everything happen, the scene felt.. weird. Althought for most people, this is a normal occurrence, parents abandoning their kids, leaving their responsibility to their grandparents, and running after a better life in another more advanced city.
He felt shocked and.. angry, as if he wanted to force those parents to go back to their helpless son.
He felt a hand touch his right shoulder.
"Ah yes.. Another child to take care of. You saw them, right? This event occurs a lot over here in villages like ours. His parents must have found a working opportunity in the Palace."
Willinham turned around to see who the voice was coming from, only to find a tall man who looked like he was in his thirties with almost completely gray hair. Willinham immediately relaxed after seeing the man was just a villager.
"But it's horrible. Why does the Palace reject children?" Willinham asked.
"The Palace's rules are strict, immigrants can't take their children with them due to the Palace's citizens believing that every child born in this area is filthy and impure, only adults get the chance to pure themselves and move there."
"---"
"This is the 7th kid this year, but most of the time, the parents don't even make it to the Palace because of multiple threats in the way."
"Yeah. Ambushes, thieves, raiders, and all of those."
"No, no, even though these are common, most the time the people behind the government in the advanced world, The Palace, hire guardians to stop immigrants, villagers and overall peasants from entering, only a few make it there."
"So if you people know about that, why don't the villagers just unite and declare a revelation?"
"Nice joke, son, you think us, villagers with our axes and hoes, can defeat them with all their machines and weapons?"
"Ah.. I get it."
The two men watched as the grandpa from earlier took the child home while the child kept sniffing and frowning.
"Thanks for telling me, sir."
"No problem, son, you should definitely go home. It's already nighttime, and the torches are going to turn off soon."
"I know, have a good night, sir."
Willinham walked away from the man, his direction pointed into the dark forest. He closed his hands together and closed his eyes to concentrate. After a few seconds, he slowly opened his hands, and a small particle of light formed. He then put it on his chest so his hands were free.
He finally reached the trees, where he kept going forward, forward and forward. Until..
"Good as always."
In front of Willinham was a survival camp deep into the woods, made up of a turned off fire and a piece of cloth for a bed.
He turned off the particle of light he had on and laid down on the bed, and just stared at the night sky, stars lit up one by one making different types of shapes, he even started trying to observe and find specific constellations but he quickly gave up..
"Hmm.."
He started mumbling to himself as he went deep into thought, so deep it actually made him slowly fall asleep.
"Going to sleep so defenseless could get you killed, Master."
The moment Willinham heard that voice, he quickly stood up and infused his hands with VLV, making them glow and take the shape of claws.
A figure walked out of the shadow, revealing an average height man with short white hair and an unsettling smile on his face.
"It's you again, Ley"
"It's been a while, Master."
"I told you for the thousandth time already, I am not your Master AND tell Mr. Vahara, I am not coming back!"
"My my, why the sudden anger Ma-"
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT!"
"What should I call you then Master? I am merely doing my job as a servant of the Vahara clan."
"Just Willinham is enough."
"Alright, Mr. Willinham, Mr. Vahara has said that you have a month before you come back, and if you don't, you have two choices."
"And they are?"
"You either come back and do your duties as a member of the clan, or you shall abandon your techniques and art of light."
"Ha! That old man sure knows how to crack some laughs."
"-"
"Look here, I want you to tell that old geezer that Willinham is not coming back and doing your cheap old dirty little work. I've had enough of everyone in that clan."
"I shall pass your message, Mr. Willinham, but.."
"Hm?"
"You have another message from-"
"Karg, isn't it?"
"Yes, but he only gave me a letter and told me that no one in this world shall read it except you."
"Give me that."
Ley handed Willinham the letter, Willinham turned around to face his bed once again. And the moment he did, Ley jumped back to the woods and went on his way back to the clan.
Willinham laid down on his bed and started reading the letter.
"Hey, young Will, by the time you're reading this, I would've already left the kingdom-"
"Huh?!"
"-and traveled to our neighboring kingdom Flewarna. But that came at a price."
"Don't tell me.."
"I have lost my authority of lux. So please Willinham, run. Run far away and never return to that damn clan. Change your name, your identity, and just run far away. And most likely, without my authority, I'd be dead now. Goodbye, my child."
Willinham was speechless, the so called "Karg" seemed to be of great importance to him, the importance of a friend, a brother, a teacher. He scrubbed a hand across his face and closed his eyes as he went into a deep slumber.
The night sky was breath taking, humans and animals took comfort sleeping in the absolute silence of the world after the setting of the sun, as if the world was inhabited and abandoned.
Flugel was deep asleep in his room, and so was his family, a moment of clarity washed everyone.
And by that, they waited for a tomorrow if there was even one.