“Hey wait! Let me come with you guys,” Kaleb shouted from far away and ran toward Ning and Tenn, quickly leaving the arena.

They stopped and turned around. “You want to come with us?” Ning asked.

“Yeah, why? Are you going to refuse?” Kaleb asked.

“No, I’m not,” Ning said. “But I thought you didn’t meddle with people that were weak.”

“Hey, you can’t call yourself weak now. I only called you that because you were just a 5 Sense Improvement realm Essence user back then,” Kaleb said while dismissing the claims. “Now that you are in the Essence Manifestation realm, you are more than allowed to be my friend.”

Ning wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Alright then, let’s go together,” he said.

“Actually no,” Tenn said. “I heard you say something about your aunt being in the city. If you’re going to meet her, you can’t come with us.”

“Huh? Why not?” Kaleb asked.

“We’re actually going to the city a little later, so you will be late,” Tenn said. “You should go on ahead without us.”

Ning frowned a bit. ‘Is he trying to get rid of him?’ he wondered.

“Oh,” Kaleb spoke and looked around to see if anyone was there. “Actually, I don’t have any aunt. I was just tired of staying with the group and wanted to go visit the city. So I’m fine if we’re going to be late.”

“Really?” Tenn looked surprised. “Then awesome, you can come with us.”

With that, Kaleb joined them as well. Ning was a little confused as to what had just happened. He walked by Tenn and asked, “did you not say we’re going to the city later because you wanted not to let him join the team?”

“Huh? No, I was telling the truth,” Tenn said. “We’re only going to go to the city something around evening, right after the sun goes down but before the security gets too tight.”

“Huh? Why?” Ning asked.

“If we go too early, people will recognize me and soon enough, somehow, the news will get to my parents. At that point, I will most likely die,” Tenn said. “So we have to delay it for as long as we can.”

Ning was curious about what it was all about. Why would he die just because they saw him in there?

“Ok, so what do we do now?” Kaleb asked.

“Let’s just go grab some food or something. There are many towns and villages outside the main city walls too,” Tenn said and started walking away.𝑜𝒱𝐞𝐋xt.𝑐𝗈𝑚

The road that led to Whiteowl city was paved with flat stones and was very comfortable to walk on. It wasn’t uneven like a dirt road would be and neither did it kick up a lot of dust.

People walked past them because of how slow they were and at some point, they even saw the prince and princess going past them on a carriage.

Not far behind them, another carriage took away Yorsha, the girl Ning remembered as ‘talented with fire’.

They found their way to a small shop that sold hot snacks, so the group sat around talking and eating.

Kaleb was curious about the city and asked many questions to Tenn. Tenn answered all the questions and started explaining his life in the city.

While a son of the Foreman, neither of his parents had much influence in the family, so he wasn’t born with much influence either.

His father was just a cousin to the current head and was thus already considered not to be a part of the main family. His mother came from a reputable family in the Whiteowl region as well, but she could never compare to any of the Foremans at all.

Of course, being a Foreman still made them one of the most influential people in the city itself and that was enough to make Tenn quite famous throughout the entire city.

There were no important figures in the city that would at least not have heard about him. Apparently, his influence had gotten bigger after he had been accepted by the Blackhawk Academy as well.

“When I went back a week ago, it took me half an hour to get back to the house because people kept stopping to say hello,” Tenn said while sighing incessantly.

They sat around for a while before the sun started going past the horizon.

“Alright, let’s go before it’s too late,” Tenn said and the group left. Sometimes in between, Tenn changed his clothes to something darker with a hood to hide.

In the evening, it was impossible to tell who it was that was walking.

The group appeared outside Whiteowl city and the guards checked who was going into the city.

Tenn hid his face for most of it, but at one point he had to show it just to make sure he wasn’t a known criminal.

The three of them were let in without any more words and Tenn sighed in relief once he got inside. “Good, it looks like he didn’t recognize me,” he said before putting up his hood.

“Alright, let’s go,” Tenn said.

“Right, where exactly are we going?” Kaleb asked. He had just followed the two of them and hadn’t really bothered with where they were going.

“Brother Ning here wants some information on the nobles of the Whiteowl region, so I’m taking him to the best place to get the information,” Tenn said.

“Oh, an information broker?” Kaleb asked.

“Uhh… not exactly,” Tenn said and continued walking.

Ning and Kaleb curiously followed behind Tenn as he took them through the inner alleyways and minor roads of the city until he arrived in an area that did not look like one that he was supposed to come to.

“This…” Ning realized where they were.

“Are you kidding me?” even Kaleb was a little surprised and scared.

“I told you, didn’t I?” Tenn asked. “That my parents would kill me if they found out.”

“No wonder,” Ning thought. “So, the best place to get the information I want is actually the red light district?”