“I see, so the ruling family just died one day, huh?” Ning thought as he read the newspaper. “Then why haven’t the other families taken over?”

He wondered if there was some sort of competition between various houses in the Whiteowl region that was stopping the Foreman from becoming the official ruler of that domain.

He went through the newspaper in chronological order and read up on the rest of the news regarding that incident. There wasn’t much in the news after that and all it said was that the Foremans haven’t officially taken over the Grazer family’s place as the ruler despite already doing so unofficially.

The journalists that wrote the news wondered if there was a reason why they were doing so since the Foreman didn’t say anything themselves.

‘I’ll need to understand a bit more,’ he thought to himself. He would try and ask Tenn as well as he could, but he was sure he needed to ask someone else as well.

‘Maybe Kaleb knows,’ Ning thought. After all, he was from another one of the ruling families of the Blackhawk Dominion.

He looked at the time and realized that it was close to sundown. Tenn would probably be training right now, and despite his day off, Ning decided to go train with them.

He arrived at the furthest platform which was free for people to train on now that the classes had ended. There were about 20 people already on there, each of whom was fighting with wooden weapons.

Ning walked up and took a sword for himself before waiting for someone to leave or come so he could join in.

He looked around the platform, but he didn’t find Tenn at all. ‘Is he working?’ he wondered. They did apparently share their day off so it was possible.

As he was wondering that, he heard someone shout his name from nearby. Ning turned around and saw Tenn who had a basket full of small plants.

“Brother Ning, did you come to train? I thought you would be doing missions today,” the man said.

“I was going to, but I had to go to the library quickly, so I skipped for today,” he said. “Now I’m here to train.”

“Oh, wait for me. I will get these checked out and return after I’m credited,” Tenn said and ran off.

Ning waited 10 minutes before Tenn arrived once again. He quickly pulled out a sword from the pile and jumped into the platform.

“Let’s go!” he said and rushed toward Ning.

Ning smiled and blocked the strike with a simple parry. He moved the sword to the right and slid it down Tenn’s sword before going for the chest.

Tenn jumped back at the sudden reversal and jumped back in with a horizontal swing. Ning placed his sword vertically to the left and blocked the attack once again.

He pushed the sword and made a stabbing motion. Tenn swung his own sword and redirected the stab to not hit him. At the same time, he spun and came back with a diagonal swing.

The two fought each other for a while before they slowed down in their intensity and just attacked for the sake of it.

“What were you doing in the library? Were you studying on your day off?” Tenn asked while laughing.

“Kind of,” Ning said. “I got a letter from my father today telling me to learn as much as I could about the nobilities of this dominion, so I went over to the library to learn what I could for now.”

“Oh, and what did you learn?” Tenn asked curiously.

“Nothing,” Ning said in an annoyed manner. “There’s literally nothing in there aside from some newspapers that barely hold any information at all.”

“I’m probably better off asking a random person about it than reading about it in the library,” he said.

“Those newspapers rarely get the full picture, so you should ask people instead,” Tenn said as he swung his sword.

“Ooh, do you know much about the political structure of this world, Tenn? Can you tell me what you know?” Ning quickly asked.

“I know a few, but I don’t involve myself with such matter to be of much help to you, I’m afraid,” Tenn said.

“You should know a few stuff that doesn’t get mentioned in the newspapers, right?” Ning asked. “For example, if we were to ignore the Blackhawk region, which of the other four regions would you say is the strongest one?”

“That’s obviously the Whiteowl region that my family rules over,” Tenn said proudly. “No other region is as safe as the Whiteowl region if we don’t count the Blackhawk Dominion.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Ning asked. “Why is it the safest?”

“Because of the Blackrock mountain here. They go all the way to the east and wrap around the eastern part of the Whiteowl region, forming a natural barrier against any invasion that might happen.”

“It is also geographically the farthest region, not counting the Blackhawk region of course from either the Springwind Continent or the Blueflame continent, making it that much safer,” Tenn said.

𝑂𝓋𝓁xt.𝗇𝓔t

“Woah, I see,” Ning said. “I really should have studied the map more. So, does that give you a political edge over the other 3 regions or something?”

“It doesn’t,” the young man shook his head. “What does though are the many Essence crystal mines that can be found in the Whiteowl region.”

“What?” Ning asked rather loudly. “There are many Essence crystal mines in the Whiteowl region?”

“Hmph, where else do you think the ‘White’ comes from in the name?” Tenn asked smugly.

“I see,” Ning said. “But wait, if the Whiteowl region is that good, and your family is definitely the strongest, then why aren’t your elders officially becoming its rulers? I can’t seem to make any sense of that at all.”

“Who knows what’s going on through that old brain of theirs? I swear it must have rotted already,” Tenn said. “We all tell them to just make it official already, but they all keep saying just a few more years.”

“I swear they are scared of the ghosts of the Grazer family haunting them or something.”