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nFinding a private space within the occupied town wasn’t easy, but after about fifteen minutes of wandering, Leon and Anshu found a fairly deserted cliffside platform that gave a fantastic view of the sea. It was about as open as such a cramped town could afford, and Leon could confirm with his magic senses that there weren’t any people listening in.

nNot that he particularly cared if anyone did, he just wanted the privacy. Still, as he took a position leaning against the stone guardrail and stared out over the tops of the buildings and cliffs at the open ocean, he knew that he probably didn’t have long before the Legion moved onto this point, as well—it offered too great of a vantage point for monitoring the ocean to ignore.

nStill, Leon took a moment to get comfortable and to enjoy the ambiance of this place—few people, pleasant weather, the sun setting behind them, dying the ocean a bright, calming red-orange.

nAnshu, on the other hand, did not get all that comfortable, and after several seconds of silence following their arrival at this place, he asked, “So, what’s this offer that you thought I wanted to hear?”

n“Before I make the offer,” Leon said in a relaxed tone, his eyes slowly turning between the ocean and Anshu with no hurry at all, “how about you confirm something for me? I don’t want to get in your way if you have other plans, so can you tell me in broad details what your future plans are?”

nAnshu frowned, and for a moment, Leon thought he might refuse. However, the Indradian shook his head and said, “I’m just trying to get back to the mainland. I don’t want to be stuck here on these islands for months or years.”

n“Do you have family you’re trying to get back to? Or a Lord? Or an employer?”

n“No family worth mentioning,” Anshu said, and Leon remembered that his family had been purged by the Indra Raj’s monarch because one of his family members seduced the Rajah’s wife or something like that. Anshu didn’t say that with any audible or visible pain, though, so Leon wasn’t going to question it. “I also don’t have anyone else to answer to. My crew went down with my ship, and they were mostly new hires, anyway. I was never able to get my hands on good people who wanted to stick around on my ** ship.”

n“Why’s that?” Leon asked.

nAnshu shrugged. “Better opportunities were elsewhere. I think it’s not a surprise for you to hear that I don’t like pirates. I wasn’t a pirate, I was just one of Jormun’s allies because of our personal history. I didn’t raid civilian ships or villages, and I wasn’t a rich merchant. Neither of those lend themselves well to having a permanent crew.”

n“How long has it been since you were forced to leave the Raj?” Leon inquired.

nAnshu shrugged again, visibly losing patience with Leon’s questioning. Leon guessed if he hadn’t paid for Anshu to ride with them to Kraterok, then the man would’ve left after Leon’s first question.

n“Decades,” the Indradian said, offering no further clarification.

n“You can’t have spent all that time without making at least some friends,” Leon stated. “Do you owe any of them loyalty?”

n“I have few friends” Anshu admitted, his eyes narrowing in what Leon hoped was a realization of what this was. “Being always on the move doesn’t make it easy to make good friends. I know a great many people, though, and have some friendly acquaintances all over the plane.”

n“In the ports of the Halcyon Federation?” Leon asked.

nAnshu nodded.

n“How about in Samar?”

n“I’ve never traveled so far north before,” Anshu said, to Leon’s mild disappointment.

n“How about Eskellion, then?”

n“I know some people, but those people aren’t the friendliest, especially to wayfaring captains. I can’t say I know that many people who would be happy to see me, but I don’t have any enemies there, at least.”

nLeon nodded in acknowledgment. “How extensive are your contacts, then? I don’t want to have to ask for every damn corner of the world.”

nAnshu explained, “I can find friendly berth in just about every port from the Halcyon Federation all the way to the Pepper Islands in the far south. The Free Cities of the Tam I know well and can find a place to rest and resupply wherever I find myself. I’ve been to the Pegasi States before and know a couple people, but for the most part, they’re preoccupied with Imperial business and don’t have much time for outsiders unless they’re bearing significant amounts of Indradian spices. If need be, I could easily find my way from the Hills of Dawn in the Halcyon Federation all the way to the fortress-city of Argos, the naval gateway to the Four

nEmpires.”

nLeon smiled. “I trust you know why I’m asking you these things?”

n“This is an interview, is it not?” Anshu asked.

n“It is. I find myself in need of strong, knowledgeable, and well-traveled companions. And you fit the bill for all three. If you don’t want or can’t take to the seas again under your own banner, then I would like to offer mine—join my retinue, and I will ensure that you are well-paid for your services, and always have a place to sleep and rest within my home and camp. Is that of interest to you?”

n“It might be…” Anshu replied. “I have to say that I’m not too thrilled at the idea of giving up the freedoms I’ve enjoyed these past few decades. It’s hard to go from captaining my own ship to sailing under the wing of someone who doesn’t even look old enough to grow a proper beard.”

nAnshu stroked his spectacular black moustache as he said that, almost provoking some feelings of jealousy in Leon, but he didn’t let those feelings get out of control, for it was true, Leon’s facial hair was quite thin and atrocious. Leon often neglected his hair when out on long campaigns, but he always carried a razor to take care of his patchy facial hair whenever his patience for how it had grown ran out. Even now, as he stood speaking with Anshu, his hair was thick and overgrown, but his face was smooth and clean-shaven.

n“Hard, but not impossible?” Leon responded, outwardly unfazed by Anshu’s statement. “Young though I am, I also happen to be an eighth-tier mage. Is following one of my power shameful?”

nThat statement finally provoked a reaction—Anshu first turned from gazing out at the sea to staring at Leon in abject surprise, which morphed over the course of several seconds into one of disbelief.

n“If it’s true, no, it isn’t,” Anshu said, his tone indicating that he didn’t think it was true.

n“Believe it or not, that’s up to you,” Leon shot back. “The fact of the matter is that I’m stronger than you—enough that you couldn’t even touch me if you tried. Hells, I even invite you to try.”

nLeon backed away from the stone guardrail to the center of the overlook platform. There, he and Anshu had enough room to spar a bit, so long as neither used too much flashy magic. It didn’t seem like the buildings around were residential, either, but Leon didn’t want too much collateral damage if Anshu decided to take him up on his offer.

nWhich it seemed the Indradian intended to do. He smiled as Leon stood in the center of the platform, his arms slightly raised in obvious invitation to Anshu, but Anshu’s smile was thin and almost apprehensive. As Leon had said, even if Anshu didn’t believe that he was an eighth-tier mage, it was undeniable that he was still stronger than the Indradian.

nHowever, after a few moments of thought, Anshu seemed to commit, for his aura spiked in intensity, and his fists began to glow with silver light. He didn’t go for the saber at his waist, which Leon appreciated, but he was clearly intending to use his magic. And it seemed that Leon’s initial impression of him following Anshu’s capture was correct: he was a light mage.

nAnshu charged with terrific speed. He was a fifth-tier mage, and with light magic, he moved almost too fast for a mortal eye to track.

nBut Leon’s eyes weren’t mortal, and as his silver-blue lightning filled his body, Anshu practically moved in slow motion.

nAnshu began with a quick right hook at Leon’s face. A quick lean and turn of Leon’s head had Anshu’s fist hit nothing but air, but the Indradian was undaunted and stepped forward into a follow-up left uppercut. That, too, missed completely, and for the next few minutes, Anshu aimed punch after punch at Leon, all to no avail.

nTheir short sparing session was ended when Leon, in his only move other than to dodge, swept Anshu’s leg and sent him tumbling to the ground.

n“This doesn’t prove my claim, I know,” Leon said as he helped Anshu back to his feet, their short spar over, “but it does prove that I’m at least strong enough to be completely out of your league, doesn’t it?”

nAnshu had thrown nothing but fists, his magic never leaving his body and his sword never leaving its scabbard, but Leon thought him a fairly old man, one with enough experience to realize the truth of Leon’s words.

n“It does…” Anshu stated, though he sounded almost reluctant to do so.

nLeon nodded, a shallow smile on his face. “Take some time to think things over; I’m not the sort to demand immediate answers. Just let me know your decision by the time we reach Kraterok. And remember, you’re a fifth-tier mage, and I’ll pay handsomely for that kind of skill and talent…”

nLeon began to walk back into the town, leaving Anshu there on the overlook. As he walked, Leon kept an eye on the man for several more minutes, watching as Anshu stared first up at the sky, then returning to the guardrail where he stared out at the sea. His mouth moved slightly, but even with his magic senses, Leon couldn’t hear what he was saying, if he was saying anything at all.

n‘Perhaps a prayer?’ he wondered. But after those initial few minutes, he turned his attention away from the Indradian. He’d only gone over to Anshu during that short argument with the ship captain to make that offer to the Indradian, but during that exchange, he’d also committed to leaving the Legion here at the fifth island. Even if the Legion commanders here admitted their biases and mistakes, he was done with them. He wasn’t going to travel back on their ships unless there was no other choice.

nHe sighed as he found himself back at the docks, hoping no one would be too upset that he’d made this decision so flippantly. That ship carrying timber hardly looked that comfortable, it would likely not be the most enjoyable journey back to Kraterok that might’ve been available…

n—

nIf anyone in Leon’s retinue had expected the Legion to try and get them to stick around, they were disappointed; there wasn’t a single Legion knight that tried to stop them as they departed the dreadnought. However, to be fair, Leon knew many of them who might’ve tried, like Gaius, were still in the Earl’s manor discussing their strategic situation. As it was, it didn’t seem like the remnants of Sigebert’s fleet were going to be able to leave for home quite so easily.

nTo an extent, Leon could understand—Basina probably wanted the extra personnel to help secure this island, and since it was the last one she had to secure, it made sense to grab these extra hands and then have everyone go home together. There’d be greater security that way, too.

nBut even though he could understand her reasoning, he wasn’t going to wait around, and so it seemed that leaving on the timber transport was the fastest way back.

nHe was a little regretful that he didn’t have another chance to speak with Gaius, but he assumed that when the fleets returned, Gaius would seek him out if he decided to take Leon’s offer. So, Leon put all of that out of his mind. He’d made his offers to Gaius and Anshu, and now he just had to play the waiting game.

nTo pass the time until the morning when they could leave, Leon had his retinue head up to the small overlook a few hours after leaving Anshu there alone. Anshu wasn’t there anymore, but Leon wasn’t expecting him to be. Instead, the overlook was deserted; the perfect size for a bit of training.

nThe biggest thing Leon wanted to do was to help Alix, Marcus, and Alcander ascend. They were all three still only fourth-tier—a perfectly respectable, and even quite high, tier to have for their ages, but given how strong their enemies had been these past couple of years, fourth-tier just wasn’t sufficient. He recognized that letting them focus entirely on combat training during this expedition was likely a mistake, though not one that would’ve changed anything had it not been made—even if they’d focused on growing their raw power, the gulf between them and Jormun’s heavy hitters wasn’t something that could’ve been crossed in only a couple of months.

nSo, once they arrived at the overlook, Leon spoke with them for a while to figure out just where they were intending on going. At this point, they only had to figure out how to change their element-less magic power into elemental magic, and they’d be counted as fifth-tier mages, and their combat capabilities would skyrocket.

nAlix, perhaps unsurprisingly given how long she’d followed Leon, was interested in walking the path of a lightning mage. That brought a smile to Leon’s face, and he knew that he could definitely help her in that regard.

nAlcander, too, said that he wanted to pursue something that Leon had experience in: fire magic. Leon was easily able to give both him and Alix strong pointers for how to develop their magic further.

nMarcus’ intended path was not one that Leon had much experience in, unfortunately. He wanted to become a light mage, and not one that focused on healing. Rather, he was interested mostly in the speed and offensive benefits. Leon couldn’t speak much on practicing light magic, but he had Nestor to consult on Marcus’ behalf, along with all the books from his family’s archives. It wasn’t too much trouble to have the Librarian golem find a few books on light magic—none that were particularly dangerous to hand out, and of which he had several copies—that he could give to Marcus.

nAll of that only ate up about an hour, though. Alix and Alcander began to meditate and practice what Leon had explained to them, while Marcus sat down to study, and Anzu laid down to sleep. Maia laid down on top of Anzu, ostensibly to sleep the night away, but Leon could tell that even though she’d laid down and her eyes were closed, she was still awake and restless. He was tempted to go and ask about that restlessness, but he could also feel that she wanted to be left alone for a little while.

nHe did his best to send his own feelings through their connection, his trust and love, to make sure that she knew that whenever she was ready to talk, he’d be there to listen. For the night, however, it seemed like he was on his own.

nWith little else to do, Leon sat next to Anzu and cast his consciousness into his soul realm.

nHe exchanged a few barbs with Xaphan and Nestor, but he wasn’t there for them. Rather, he had some more important things to see to—namely, repairs to his soul realm. He’d done much to fix the foundations of the island that had been damaged by the Primal God, but that didn’t mean that his soul realm as a whole was fixed. Combined with the damage his soul realm had sustained during its uncontrolled expansion, he didn’t think he’d be able to grow it anymore for years, let alone think about ascending to the ninth-tier.

nUnfortunately, there wasn’t much more that he could do himself to help his soul realm heal. He wasn’t that debilitated by these injuries, they were mostly just hindering his growth, but it was still annoying beyond words. But those thoughts he pushed out of his head. After everything that had happened during the expedition, he supposed he was lucky to still be alive.

nSo, he flew out to a distant mountain near the edge of his island and began to pull in the Mists of Chaos, using them to grow the island and to solidify the island’s foundation. He wasn’t sure how much it would help if he had to endure such attacks again, but he made the underlying rock within the floating island much stronger and denser, hoping that the denser the rock would be, the more resistant to damage it would be in the future.

nAs he worked, he also did a bit of expanding of the island. He didn’t add mountains or anything else of the sort, just expanding the island as a flat plain out from where his mountains ended. His Mind Palace was a recreation of his childhood home, but he didn’t want his entire soul realm to consist entirely of mountains and the one forest. He wanted plains, rivers, deserts, and oceans, too. He wanted his soul realm to be a world unto itself, or at least, as much of a world as a soul realm could be.

nHe thought of Khosrow as he worked. He didn’t much care for the man as the Thunderbird and Justin Isynos had described him—a hero to the human race he may be, but he was also the man who killed the Thunderbird and, by Justin’s account at least, was the primary reason that people from the Nexus hated those with Inherited Bloodlines. His policies seemed to be the reason why his mother was attacked and his father was assassinated.

nStill, as much as Leon disliked him, he’d been struck by the idea that he’d managed to bring his soul realm out into the physical world. That was such an expression of power that Leon could barely imagine it, but there was a large part of him that wanted to see if he could pull off the same feat, and if he was ever to succeed in doing so, then he wanted his soul realm to be a place that people could actually live. A place that… maybe, just maybe, could be a home for him and his family one day.

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