In the borders of Moonlight Kingdom, there was a huge forest popular specially for its powerful wild creatures. One of the many creatures found were juko pythons, their population was huge in these dense forests.

As the name suggested, they were man sized venomous pythons which used sneaky methods to attack exploring adventurers. For an experienced adventurer, they were not too tough to deal with, but the problem was their sneaky tactics.

It was time of afternoon, near a flowing river, shockwaves could be heard produced by the pure strength of a fighter facing these pythons. Though it wasn't hard for him to face several juko pythons at once, but numbers did make a difference.

As soon as one of the pythons initiated an attack, the adventurer jumped above its head and punched straight its head resulting in a bang knocking it out completely. He stood above the head of the python and assumed a martial arts stance, observing the environment as when they could sneak attack on him.

Suddenly, another python using its high agility tried to bite him, but his reflexes were not to be taken lightly. He slid through the python and grabbed its tail, he pulled it over to deliver a fierce punch knocking the python instantly on the ground that resulted in a gust with huge sound.

From behind, as a python spat some venomous blob at him, Charles just dodged every shot fired. And quickly like thunder, he delivered a knee to the python's mouth instantly shutting it down. The python was pushed back and struck a tree partially tearing it, as the python opened its eyes, Charles quickly dashed with superior agility and with well co-ordinated kicks knocked the python out.

"Hey Ronzo, you told me they would be tough to deal with but I totally contradicted younow ..." said the adventurer with a calm posture to the man who was resting on a branch of a tree.

"Well yeah, you are partially right but their soul orbs give decent money if you sell them," said the other.

"Well I'm not here just for soul orbs! I want to fight some more powerful ones, not sac of bones like these." said the adventurer.

"We could go to other side of the river, brazen bulls should be there... Charles," replied Ronzo.

The adventurer who just annihilated those man sized pythons was none other than Charles. Luckily Charles was alive, days ago he found himself conscious near the quiet seashore after crashing here. He was somewhat wounded but after he learnt all the special things about this special world, he became an adventurer.

He wasn't in any legion, he was just hunting down creatures and selling their soul orbs to the blacksmiths at a reasonable to price. This alone made his living quite comfortable for a quite few days. Though, he was still for possible traces of Ryan being alive but not able to do so.

"Wait, let me extract those soul orbs for a sec," said Charles. He went to the bodies of the possibly dead juko pythons, and a sudden mystical orb like substance started appearing on top of their body. It was formed of magical energy their bodies supposedly contained, as said that every living creature in this world has some sort of magic/energy in their body keeping them alive.

He took the orbs and put it inside his red bag tied to his waist, though the size of the bag was not any bigger than any ordinary bag, he was able to put all the several soul orbs he collected till now in his bag. These were bags created with magic, every adventurer was needed to carry this type of bag with them.

Being embedded with the thread of magical energy, they were used to contain the weapon owned by an adventurer and many different types of stuffs they would like to carry with them, soul orbs being an example.

"I'm done Ronzo, let's go," said Charles.

"Yo kiddo, let's go!" replied Ronzo.

"Don't call me that, you're just 4 or 5 years older than me," said Charles in an irritated tone. Ronzo laughed at the statement.

It was 3 days ago Charles met Ronzo, when he was searching for powerful creatures for their soul orbs. Ronzo was a man with friendly and funny nature, he was 24 year old. Though he was 6 years older than Charles, he never liked the idea to act mature and responsible in front of him and maintained a more than frank relationship with him.

Ronzo's role was of a 'tank', thus explaining his bulky physique and huge posture.

When Charles met Ronzo for the first time, he was very distant to other adventurers which made Charles to think of him as of an introvert but as Charles piqued his interest, the brunette started to open more. Charles wasn't a member of any legion and usually hunted alone, it made Ronzo to relate to Charles even more and thus began their friendship.

Ronzo helped Charles teaching him about the locations of specific monsters, traditions of Moonlight Kingdom and the basic information about all the '4 Empires' the world was divided into.

Whenever he asked Charles the reason of not knowing much about the info regarding legions, adventurers' roles and the other empires, Charles clearly denied giving any reply to him making Ronzo annoyed.

After collecting the orbs, they started travelling to the path to exit the forest. This area of forest was much less dense than they fought the pythons in. Now before going to hunt any further, Charles was directed to the nearest lively town where he could sell those soul orbs he collected.

"I've never sold the orbs of those creatures, what you think their price will be? The soul orbs of the goblins I've been selling make me upto 1,000 gold per each."

"Ah, you mean the pythons? Well I could say that they are for sure stronger than those weak goblins! So maybe we could earn like... you know 6,000 each?" replied Ronzo.

"Oh, I guess that 9 X 6,000 = 54,000 is enough for rent of a decent house? And I'm gonna be the one earning from those, you didn't even raise a finger to help."

"Hey hey! Don't be that cruel Mr. Anger, and that money is more than enough to afford the comfy ones in whole of the kingdom!" said Ronzo.

Besides from the income by completing the 'legion missions', the biggest source of income for any adventurer was to sell the soul orbs of the hunted creatures they have slain. The more powerful the creature, the more price for the soul orb of that creature.

The reason being as soul orbs were solely responsible in the construction of every magical object that existed. The blacksmiths and the magical items shop owners paid a good price for these soul orbs.

"Hey Charles, can I ask you something?"

Charles responded in silence, intending his reply to be affirmative.

"Did you hire some agents? I met one yesterday, though he said he searched the whole of Jayn city but unable to find that..." as soon as Ronzo was able to complete his statement, Charles interfered.

"Yeah, I did hire some of those... I don't think it has caused any sort of disturbance to you, has it?" said Charles in a bold tone.

"I mean, not to pry but who the hell is this 'Plasma' and 'Ryan' that you are so keen in finding them?"

"Idiot! They are one and same person, Ryan a.k.a Plasma," replied Charles.

"So is he your friend? I mean I've known only for several days and don't have any idea of what type of actual person are you... but"

"Yea you can say that, we were good friends in the past but somehow lost touch and now I don't even know he is alive or not!" said Charles again cutting Ronzo's statement.

Ronzo was somewhat amazed by the type of talk Charles was initiating as till now he though Charles as of someone with a loner personality, but this loner also had someone to watch his back.

"Ahh! Atleast lemme complete my words dude, but it's weird to know that even a loner like you has a friend," said Ronzo followed by a huge laugh. Charles flinched for a second, and glared at him.

"Well look who's talking, the most extroverted human on the planet who probably had hundreds of friends," said Charles with smirk on his face. Ronzo became silent for time being. As they were walking past the beautifully dense forest and nearing the city, Ronzo stopped on his track.

"Well I had friends once, it didn't work out..."

Charles didn't know what to say so he kept on moving after looking at Ronzo for some time.

* * * *

In the capital city of Moonlight Kingdom, Rastar City things were as peaceful as they can be except the ruckus created outside the legion Syrendia's main building. The highlight of the ruckus were two boys, one, the red haired being around 17 and other around 13-14.

"Hey, that's not the way to kick someone out!" shouted Ryan. After he announced to the lady at the info desk that he was an 'alpha' level adventurer, everyone got surprised as Ryan's appearance and the power level he was claiming to be never quite matched. But as his power level resulted as a mere 'gamma' level, everyone had a great burst of laughter.

But as stubborn Ryan was, he bent on proving that he was telling the truth and developed it into an argument. Then some adventurers had to escort him forcefully out of the legion.

"I am just running low on energy, that's all. Let me get charged up and then you shall see the majestic power of 'Plasma' the assassin!"

Everyone outside on the roads were holding their laughter at the supposed cringe statement made by the red haired teen. Dyrac was the most embarrassed of all as he was the supposed partner of this supposed mental teen.

Soon from the crowd, a white haired person with an appearance of a kid emerged with a bold looking man carrying a huge axe by his right hand. Everyone quickly made way for them giving a look of astonishment.

As Ryan thought that nothing could be done, he turned back and was about to leave but head patted the white haired kid and advised, "Hey kid, they are just a selfish corporate looking for only powerful idiots, I advise you to still turn around and look somewhere else."

Suddenly an axe swung and stopped a few millimetres away from Ryan's neck, the speed of the swing was insane as it made the ground beneath him crack a little. It was the bold looking guy, Jason. He gave a smirk to Ryan still putting his axe to Ryan's neck.

"So, what's wrong with that 'Kid'?"