Acres of countryside stretched across the distance as we rode in a beast that was twice the size of a normal house and as wide as a ferry. It had a back decorated generously for travel purposes, with tables and couches fixed tightly with ropes. Nothing, however, felt as alien as the sight of the blond woman sitting beside me.

  She was my mother.

  We were out for a little holiday in the countryside.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at the other pair present on the beast’s wide back. Two old guys, too busy arguing with each other to enjoy the pastoral scenery.

  There was no one else.

  This was a close family trip.

  Sort of.

  “Taking a world is not a simple thing,” Mother said as curls of her blond hair fluttered gently in the wind. In everyday clothes, she did look like a compassionate woman, perhaps too good-looking to belong to a normal household. “It often involves a great amount of preparation.”

  Once over the hilltop, we began our descent toward a little town barely visible in the distance. The trees rose tall around us, the peaceful silence broken only by the occasional flight of birds chirping in the sky. There was a certain peace to it, a sense of calmness to sit here, beside the people I know, and simply enjoy the outside.

  “You have to be careful about the players present in the field.”

  The streets were populated by small cottages and wooden houses, often giving way to circular squares wide enough to allow us passage. Each one of them hosted a singular statue of a man whose nearly angelic features were caught in quality marble, looming higher than every single building in the town, glaring down upon the place with a fierce gaze.

  The famous ruler of the Palark Kingdom, the Lord Master.

  “You have to ensure that the world is worth changing.”

  It wasn’t until we were deep in the town that a strangeness settled over me.

  We were four people dining and drinking like royalty.

  We didn’t do anything to hide our presence.

  If those weren’t enough, we rode a giant beast that looked like an ungodly mix between a rhino and a horse.

  Then why in the world couldn’t I see a single soul across the streets?

  “Good thing there’s so much about this Planar System that needs changing.”

  Mother placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, then gestured with her chin to Radek, who instantly rose and gave her a dutiful nod.

  I watched with no little amount of confusion as the Heart Mage pulled a purple cloth wrapped around something. It turned out to be a dark sphere when he unfolded it, gleaming with inner light. A single glance was enough to prick my skin.

  Curious, I used soul vision, but couldn’t see anything different. Strange. That thing gave me the creeps.

  Soon enough, I was proven right. There was something weird with that thing.

  It changed the whole world before my very eyes.

  It was as though an invisible streak tore a giant square out of the sky right above us, cleaving the air and revealing what appeared to be a whole another layer.

  I blinked.

  My breath got stuck in my chest.

  I didn’t know what Radek did, but we now had a square screen before us. It was like a dimensional TV hanging in the air, close enough that I could almost touch it. Mother stopped me from doing that when I tried.

  There were people inside the screen.

  “This is one of Palark’s planes,” Mother explained shortly after my shock receded. “Right now, we’re at one of the rare coordinates where the plane and the world align in perfect symmetry. Radek’s Dimensional Sphere gives us a clear, but distant view of the place.”

  “Are those people?” I muttered as I stared at the people struggling against what looked like a wall of granite. They hacked at it in groups of five, most of them half-bare and clothed with rags, their bodies covered in bloody gashes.

  “Yes. They’re the residents of this town, handpicked to work on the plane’s mines for the next few years. They don’t get to eat if they can’t fill the daily quotas.”

  There was another gesture from Mother, after which Radek tapped a finger to the black sphere.

  The screen changed.

  We could now see a lush forest.

  People crept silently from between the long stalks of grass-like plants, picking palm-sized fruits from the ground, looking greatly distressed as their eyes searched around with panic.

  A sudden shriek exploded right above them. They paused. A middle-aged man signaled for the group to sush, then glanced up at the thick canopy, his scowl deepening. He waited for a few seconds before pushing them to continue, probably thinking the danger was gone.

  He was wrong.

  My soul vision was still active. Therefore I could see the yellow outline of a tiger-like creature between the branches.

  I tried to warn the man, but before the words left my mouth the creature pounced with incredible speed. It swept that middle-aged man’s legs off the ground with one of its claws, tore his head out from his body, and dragged the rest into the shadows while the villagers scrambled away in cold fear.

  Radek’s hand moved.

  The screen changed again.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  It was one horrifying abuse of slavery after another, and people died in each one of them.

  “This… It’s disgusting,” I muttered once I managed to pull myself out of my stupor. “Those people didn’t even look like Knights. They’re just normal. Why would the Kingdom send them to a dangerous plane?”

  “A good question.” Radek’s voice had a sharp quality to it. “It’s the same reason why they have slaves. It’s just easy and, frankly, cost efficient. Not to mention certain planes have different rules. This one’s a bit tricky to deal with. It can pose a threat to a Diamond Knight if things go wrong.”

  “How?” I asked.

  A Diamond Knight was a force to reckon with. He could, without any Runes, sweep the floor with dozens of Runed Golden Knights and that was a fact. A Grade D plane shouldn’t pose a threat to anyone above Golden rank.

  “The local wildlife’s united by an intricate natural circuit,” Radek explained. “They share a common distaste against the intruders, stemming from the local laws of the plane, which I have to admit is rather unique.”

  Oh…

  So it was one of those.

  Then it made sense.

  Every plane in existence had its own set of laws. These could be different from the rules with which the worlds across the Planar System were governed by nature. To give an example, a plane could lack gravity, or in rare cases, even air. There were some planes where the ambient mana was inherently violent against any Mages who dabbled in fire-based spells, and there were others where steel weighed nothing more than a simple leaf.

  Thus, the discovery of a new plane was often followed by a long string of research missions to understand the local laws. Then, the nation that was the rightful owner of the plane would adjust its plans as to how it would approach and take advantage of the local resources.

  “This doesn’t look like anything you’ve taught me,” I said after a beat, glancing toward Belfray. “They don’t seem to have secured a safe foothold, or even cared to establish clear borders for their operations. They’re just… sending people to their deaths. How does that make sense?”

  “It was too big an investment for the Lord Master.” It was my Mother who answered the question. “Not everyone takes the diligent route when dealing with low-grade planes, Leo, especially when other parties are taking a share from the pie.”

  “The Dominion,” I said.

  Mother nodded. “Calanth Dominion takes the lion’s share from all the planes across this world. Certain Dominions use the local authorities rather than personally managing every part of their territories. These are mostly—“

  “Random gatherings of different powers,” I finished her words.

  Creating a long-lasting legacy, aka a dynasty, demanded more than strength. A family or a collection of families would need a solid doctrine, or philosophy, to establish an empire that could last for thousands of years.

  I knew there were five families behind the Calanth Dominion from the lessons I got from Belfray, but none of them were particularly famous for their bloodlines. They just happened to be at the right place at the right time and decided to close ranks with each other.

  It was like how little nations tried to gather around each other to fight against the big, bad enemies.

  “We’re going to change that,” Mother said.

  I glanced up at her.

  So, we were really going to do this? Take this whole world as a price to be paid to a teacher who was supposed to be the best Runemaster that had ever existed.

  “Do we have no other choice?” I couldn’t help but ask. “I mean, isn’t this too unreasonable?”

  “It is,” she said, peering out into the distance, taking in the nightmarish events still happening in the dimensional square without a change in her expression. “But being unreasonable is a trait shared by many a great power. You should know that already.”

  “I…”

  I blushed a little.

  My Mother was a great power, and she’d been a touch unreasonable against me for the longest time.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “This isn’t just about his demands, however,” Mother said. “The Creator’s Academy is not a place that accepts every promising talent in the Planar System. They only select students from scions of royalty to further fuel the competition between the next generations. If we are to make you that man’s disciple, you have to first become a student. To do that, your name has to be worth something.”

  “Vorath’s a cool surname—“

  “No,” Mother’s face tightened, which promptly shut my mouth. “It’s not.”

  Yeah, a dark past and all that.

  I forgot.

  So, there’d be a school.

  Uh.

  It was painful that even in this second life I couldn’t escape the inevitable torture that was school life. I tried not to think much about it, but everything wrong about my first life more or less had to do with school.

  Then it hit me.

  “Wait. I have to become royalty? What, like we’re going to be the royal family of this world or something?”

  “What do you think?” Mother smiled as she gestured with a hand to the dimensional square in which people still struggled against the local horrors of the plane. “We can’t leave these people alone with their cruel rulers, right?”

  “Right.”

  “We have to save them, and earn ourselves a title while at it.”

  “Great.”

  “Radek, manage a portal from here,” she said after a beat. “I’ve decided to show Leo around before I send him off to the woods.”

  “Right away, my Lady.”

  “You’re coming, too.”

  “What?” I looked back and forth between them, but couldn’t understand what was going on. “You’re going to send me off to the woods? Why?”

  “It’s tradition,” Mother patted me on the head, then violet lights sparkled from Radek’s sphere and formed a circular gate right before us.

  The giant beast trudged dutifully into it, taking everyone on board to the plane that waited beyond.

  ……

  Inside the plane, the air was fresh, and the clouds didn’t seem particularly different. They were fluffy and white, scattered across the sky like cottonballs. I could feel the morning breeze in my face, and the floral scents it likely carried from the forest in the distance.

  Of course, it was real.

  This was just a different world.

  “What tradition?” I asked after I was done admiring the scenery. The change in weather and sight was good and all, but I was ultimately taken by the sudden drop of information that I’d be subject to a… What, exactly, I didn’t know.

  “Now that you’ve become a Bronze Knight, you have to undertake the Trial of the Wild to prove yourself. You will spend a week in the woods. Alone,” Mother said. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fun. You’re going to hunt, and see new places, and apply everything you’ve been taught in the training to real life.”

  “And why am I learning this right now?” I asked with a fast-growing horror prickling my skin. “I thought this was supposed to be a family trip?”

  “It is!” Mother smiled. “As I’ve said, I’ll show you around before actually letting you go. Radek even prepared a special set of tools for you."

  I glanced at Radek. "Special set of tools?"

  He gave me a wink, and that was it.

  “You should know that this would’ve been a revolutionary change back in the Empire, Young Master,” Belfray chimed in. “The common practice was such that children would be dropped into the woods right after they took their first step in the Path of Glory without prior guidance. There’d be no word given to them however young they were. Only a weapon of their choice, and nothing else.”

  “How does that make sense?” I muttered, confused. “What if something happens—“

  “I wouldn’t have brought you here had I thought you couldn’t handle it,” Mother said with a slight frown. “Don’t underestimate yourself. Age doesn’t mean anything in the Planar System. There are centuries-old fools out there who couldn’t hold a sword, and geniuses who could carve out pieces from a world by the young age of thirty. You’re more than ready. Trust your training.”

  My hands instinctively reached for my sword, strapped to my belt and hanging calmly down my side. I wasn’t at the point in my blacksmith training where I could carve runes on my weapon yet, but the fact that she was here gave me strength.

  It was true that I’d been undergoing an insane amount of training for years. There were some parts of me that would react without a second thought at any sign of danger. My internal energy, boosted by the Grade 2 Internal Energy Rune, waited at the ready for a word from my Core.

  I was, by all means, raised to become a monster.

  It was just that I wasn’t sure if I could actually take on real monsters.

  The Planar System was full of scary things.

  “Come on.” Mother rose from her chair. I searched Radek’s eyes for comfort, and got in return a strong nod.

  He thought I could do this.

  Even Belfray, who was like the ever-worried grandpa of the family, seemed perfectly confident in my abilities.

  I was the only one who had certain doubts about the matter, but in the end, I pulled myself together and balled a fist. I'd promised myself I wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes in this life, and I meant that.

  Yes.

  This time, I wouldn’t chicken out of facing my inner fears. If that meant spending a week out in the woods, then so be it.

  I could do that.

  I could survive a week.

  Right?

  ……

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