Darren smiled, “By training of course. We will train you for the next few weeks until we return to the town. After that, the Lord leader and the council will decide what to do with you.”

So, they intended to use my weakness that being not having enough information and knowledge to save myself and keep me in check. I understood their point of view but certainly, it didn’t feel so good to be held in such a tight leash.

“Will you tell me about the council of yours?” I asked.

Darren smiled back, “Sure but not now. We have to head out early tomorrow and it's quite late now.”

Having said he took out a small pouch from his bag and threw each one of us one. Octus caught him without turning back.
And I asked, “Why is he sitting there so far from the fire with his back turned?”

Darren laughed, “It’s because the fire doesn’t like him. If he looked at it, the fire would lose control and burn everything. It’s his signature ability which some mystics have. Although it's different for everyone.”

With the pouch in my hand, I opened it. Inside was some thin sliced dark-colored wood.

“Eat that. It's beef jerky.”

Taking a doubtful look at Sirius who had already started eating I put one at my mouth and tried biting it but it was so damn hard that it took me a while before I could chew it down.

Well, that's some beef jerky all right.

I woke up the next morning when the sun had just started rising in the sky, illuminating the horizon with a golden glow. The days and nights in this world were pretty similar to that of Earth.

The others only woke up half an hour later and we started packing everything. I was let to sleep with Sirius in the same tent, but it felt like he was there to guard me. But there was almost no chance of me trying to escape as I would probably die in this forest in case I did.

I’d come to learn a few interesting things about their town last night. It had me quite surprised when they revealed that their town was cursed for centuries and because of the curse they were not able to leave the forest of Zoria which surrounded their town from all sides. The forest was divided into many zones, but until now they have managed to explore only up to the third zone.

We were currently in the last part of the first zone. But the deeper into the forest it was, the stronger the monsters would be.

These monsters were creatures that had different abilities. The unnamed monsters did not have any bond or-using abilities but that wasn’t the case for the named monsters.

Either way, my appearance was nothing sort of a miracle to them as it was the first time an outsider has arrived in the last few centuries. With that knowledge, I could tell why they were so worked up to keep me alive and it added a little bit more truth to their words.

But it was still a win for me if I had a chance to be a proper mystic as it would give me abilities to protect myself in the future.

The question was how the previous owner of this body managed to get here. Did he find a way or mistakenly manage to come here? I couldn’t find any memories of that.

Putting out the fire we started our long tiring journey. Our formation was simple with Darren at the front followed by Sirius, me, and Octus. As the pathfinder, Darren was the most proficient at finding the right route and leading us toward the destination. He had a rough map in his hand which he opened and checked. The exploration team who had come before they had charted these paths to create it.

Whereas Sirius remained behind him in case anything attacked he would be in a position to both defend it and protect Darren.
According to them, they were strong enough to deal with most things in the first zone, but it will become harder and harder as we progress further. They have been to the second zone before so it was quite easier for Darren to lead us there with his experience.

The terrain turned for the worse as we entered into the Second zone which was marked by a stone plate and the amount of animals slowly also decreased. But it was only at noon when we finally reached our destination.

It was the lake of Tribosun.

My first thought was to get down into the clean water and clean myself of the sweat and grim of my body but Darren’s voice stopped my imagination.

“On our way here I saw foot marks of Onex boars. Sirius, how about having those for dinner?” Darren asked.

“Alright then. Octus and I will go for the hunt. You two set up the tents.” Sirius replied before heading off.

After finishing setting the tents Darren let me to the side of the lake and we sat down on some smooth rocks. He picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at me. Catching it I gave him a look asking why he did that. Instead of replying, he picked up another one.

Rolling the piece of stone in his hand, Darren said, “I mentioned ‘Sub-domains’ and ‘orders’ yesterday. But there is another way to use bondors. It’s called mystic arts.”

“It’s something that anyone who can sense bondor is eligible for learning. The blast that I caused during the fight with Eadric was by using my mystic arts. My rank ‘Pathfinder’ doesn’t have many attack-based abilities so I had to learn mystic arts to counter that disadvantage.”

“So you will teach me about the mystic arts?” I asked back.

“Not yet,” he smiled, “First you need to learn how to control the bondors better before thinking about learning mystic arts. So we will start with the fundamentals.”

Having said that Darren opened his palm wide, with the stone being placed in the middle. As I continued watching, it slowly shook in his hand making me think he was shaking his hand but that wasn’t the case. The stone slowly started flying up from his palm, it kept hovering in the air, a couple of inches above his hand.

I had my mouth agape and Darren smirked, “I don’t know why you are surprised over something so simple when your introduction to the world of mysticism was by watching Eadric teleport. ”

He was right but back then I had no time to marvel at that. Now, that wasn’t the case. If you could levitate an object couldn’t you also levitate yourself? Hypothetically it should be possible to fly using that.

All of a sudden I was filled with a desire to learn the trick.

“Now, try it,” Darren said.

Turning on my vision, I saw Darren’s bondor flowing through his hand and upon reaching his palm it connected with the ambient bondor around him. It was like he was using the bondor to hold the stone in its place.

Instead of keeping my leg above water, I let my feet into the cool water as it tricked my feet. Closing my eyes, I tried to remember back when I’d managed to use bondor and control it.
I felt the contraction and relaxation of my heart as it pumped my body with blood which coursed throughout my body. But unlike blood which I couldn’t control, I was able to control the bondors.

I imagined pushing the bondor that was inside me toward my hand and slowly I felt my arms turning hot and heavy. The experience was unlike any I had experienced before. It was like even the minute muscles and fibers in my arm were now working to push the bondor forward. As it slowly reached my palm, I envisioned the stone floating above my hand, connecting it with the ambient bondors around me.

But my concentration was broken hearing Darren’s surprised gape. “How?”

Opening my eyes I saw the piece of stone hovering over my palm.

“How what?” I smirked at his surprised face.

“Just how did you do it so fast? It took me an entire month before I could do this and you did it in two hours?”

“Two hours? It felt like two minutes to me,” I thought aloud.

“Well, that’s kind of natural. When you focus on something very intently you lose your sense of time as a result of it.” Darren explained.

Dropping the stone back in my palm, I threw it at the lake and stood up.

“They are here,” I said spinning on my heels as my senses picked up Sirius and Octus coming back.

A moment later they walked toward us from behind the tree.
Octus had an onex boar over his shoulder, carrying it like it wasn’t that heavy. Whereas Sirius was calmly following behind him.