Rel yawned and passed out asleep on the horse quite a ways back. It was just Zephise and Aren talking amongst themselves.

"I know you were part of the recon division along with Alel, but how far did you all venture to, did you guys ever visit Luxe?"

"Hmm..." Aren put a hand to his chin. "I don't believe so. We never stopped by there anyway because there wouldn't be any plague children."

"Ah I see.. that would make sense. I'm personally curious as to how Luxe-Sei'O looks. The place where all the nobles reside- they say the streets are lined with gold and the houses are made of coated steel." They were buildings that could not rust so they always looked in pristine condition."

"Tch. And everyone else is living in the dark ages, huh."

"Seems so. Did you know they have vehicles that move on their own?"

"you mean like a bike?"

"Noooo no no. According to some of the books I'd been reading, I believe they're calling it cars or something along those lines."

"So...The Silver Knight?"

"Cars, Aren, not Kars. They're created using the same process as golem creation. Basically, placing complex inscriptions on an inanimate object so it acts a certain way when magic is put into it. They've taken to putting cores into these objects so they could move on their own."

"So like having the inscription on a bike for moveable wheels, and then having the core activate that inscription?"

"I'm not too certain of the process, but its something like that, aye." Zephise pushed his glasses up, happy to have spread some knowledge around.

"That's impressive!"

"Aye, apparently its commonplace in the other countries. Maybe in Luxe-Sei'O we'll be able to see some."

"I doubt it, the king tends to travel on horseback, so they most likely do not have such machines."

"I suppose you're right about that."

"How far would you say we are currently?"

"Ehh..." Aren pulled out his map. "We're still about a good 2 hours away."

"Alright. Tell me about some of the places you've been to. What were they like, and what was your reception there?"

They continued the hours with leisure talk. Aren shared stories of his various travels with Alel. According to his exploits...Alel could be extremely frightening.

It wasn't long before they found themselves in the city of Luxe-Sei'O. Surprisingly, as expected there were 2 giant statues at the gate. These statues were eery and gave off the vibe of living creatures.

He could see one giant orb pulsating within the bellies of these stone mechanisms. Suddenly, the spears the golems held crossed in front of them, blocking them from the entrance.

"Oi...Rel, we're here."

Rel woke up from his slumber and yawned to see two giant statues moving and almost swallowed his own tongue. "What in the world are those?!"

Zephise snickered. "It appears that we do have golems at the least."

Luxe-Sei'O was roughly half the size of Essen-Sei'O. The walls were much shorter and it had several golems surrounding the city itself.

Two Knights bearing the sigil of Sei'O walked from behind the stone statues. "Who goes there?"

Rel, Aren and Zephise removed their hoods. The Knights looked perplexed to see plague children traveling this far outwards. They were also visibly disgusted by their appearance.

Rel glared at the duo. "We're here to see the King on his behest."

One of the Knights took off his helmet and rested his hand very lightly on his blade. "And what was his command?"

"He wanted the help of the plague child, Ora. In eradicating the current group of magicians."

"If you would let us inside and grant us an audience it would be nice." Zephise did most of the talking. "You are not Ora. Reports say he has white hair."

"You are correct, but we're serving as his envoys."

"According to reports, the king was met at the gates. I'll prefer you guys wait for him here while we grant you your audience."

One of the knights dispatched and went to alert the king of his new visitors. They waited in silence with the other more apprehensive knight for more than 15 minutes before the king himself came speeding down on his horse. He had no security with him which was odd. Perhaps it was because he was within his own city.

Several of the surrounding knights looked perturbed that the king would come of his own accord. His horse came to a sudden halt just before the knight. "Release." He commanded. And the giant stone golems removed their staffs from blocking the gates.

He dismounted his horse and gave a courteous bow to the trio. "My apologies for my Guards' rude behavior. You all may follow me."

"My king! you needn't apologize to scum like this-" The king swiftly backhanded the helmetless knight. "You needn't give orders to your king. I am talking with the future of Sei'O"

The knight looked perplexed and clearly flustered. He lowered his head and bowed. "Your Highness." When he rose, Rel grinned hard. He tried to avoid making eye contact with anyone around him. He already suffered enough embarrassment.

As they walked through the cities, they were not disappointed. The city held very much true to the stories. The city of Luxe was indeed vibrant and rich. All of the buildings were intricately lined with gold in various parts of their structures.

The steel walls and roofs seemed to shine with an untouched gleam. The cobblestoned roads were laced with silver on the outlines of the city. It was clear that Sei'O had a tremendous economical fortune. This was probably due to their mine reserves.

Furthermore, for whatever reason, the city was full of golems. Many of them lay dormant, but more than a majority of them walked about the streets, performing manual labor. The cost to even create this amount of golems was insane. The capital city was indeed flourishing.

Several of the golems were seen enforcing rules within the city, guarding certain households, and even crafting equipment. It was odd to see such a thing. How could Sei'O obtain this many cores? It also looked like many of the golems were mining, and due to them not having fatigue, they could work continuously.

Of course, the cores would run out of the necessary energy eventually, which was even more expensive. The king noticed how in awe they seemed about the golems. "Is this your first time seeing them?"

A question with an obvious answer. These golems did not exist anywhere outside of Luxe. "Umu...How did you guys manage to get together these many golems? The fortune must have costed quite a ton."

"These golems are as old as Sei'O itself. Many years in the past, we had a general affectionately called the Golem Lord. He was a mage that produced entire platoons of golems."

"Of course, most of the world did not consider golems as an effective manner of combat. During those times cores did not exist. They'd expend energy rapidly to operate and would not do much. Nonetheless, however, he persisted in creating golems."

"But, look at them, 300 years had passed since then, and they are still completely operational!" The King seemed almost excited to present this fact to him. He was clearly a fan of golems.

"These golems are created in such a way that they expend much less energy, and we've only recently implemented cores into them, but they last longer than your typical Core operated machinery. We use them for all manners of labor, and it has greatly increased the national currency."

"Eh...you mean there has been golem trading occurring?"

"Why of course. Naturally, many different countries had sought us out to purchase these golems. We'd been doing business very very sparingly. We did not want to alert Baerim and have them exploit these resources. However...after Ora's victory on the battlefield, everything is tying together. It's marvelous!"

The way the king talked about this was so grandiose. It was as if he was a showman at a circus. They finally reached the palace where the king rested. It was much larger than most of the other buildings they had ever seen. Even in the city of Essen.

The palace had 5 segments to it on the outside. Each of them filled with pointed arc roofs. As they walked inside, they realized just how intricately designed the palace walls were.

In the interior, they had come to discover the dome in the middle of the palace was made of opalescent glass. The sun that reflected through it dazzled the room below in a variety of colors. Every time the clouds shifted overhead, the colors shifted like kaleidoscopes.

The walls were decorated with several intricate embossed sculptures, painting pictures of the history of Sei'O. The depictions told tales of gods blessing the children of the earth. The god Aleirun, crafted for them the mountains, the seas, and the oceans within Sei'O.

As Zephise let his eyes explore, he kept on noticing one important thing. That when the gods gifted the blessings to the children of Sei'O, it was an orb the size of a bowling ball with an upside down v, the symbol for mana.

The king must have noticed the question his eyes asked, for he began to elaborate. "Do you know the story of Aleirun and the goddess Vixail?"

Zephise shook his head. "I can't say I've read that one."

"It was said, when the goddess could not conceive children, the God Aleirun created Seiens for her. As a gift, he embued much of his god energy (Mana) into the land that they lived."

"Hm? what do you mean could not conceive children? Is she not a god?" zephise wondered.

"Haha, of course. You see, in Seien belief, there is an absolute limit to the number of times a God can procreate. These children they conceive take up energy from them. The more they do, the more energy is taken until eventually, there is nothing left of that old god."

"A-ah...I see." It was a strange concept. He didn't know how much he believed in all that, but he did believe in the existence of the gods.

"Do you know why Baerim chose us to Annex?"

"There are plenty of reasons why one might choose to invade a vibrant country like ours. But if I had to guess, it would be because they discovered the potency of our mana."

"Huh? Do you mean each of us should be very high in mana?"

"No no no...the potency of our country's mana. Everything in this country is vibrant with Mana. Even more so than other countries."

"It wasn't until recently, that I discovered this to be fact myself. We have an abundance of cores. However...in comparison to most of the other nations...our cores several times are more potent."

"Oh?"

"Vastly so."

The king arrived at his throne and sat down. As always, his elite mages rested on either side of them. Next, to his throne, his wife sat patiently awaiting his return.

Rel yawned. "Enough with the boring lectures. We came to ask about additional support. You did say you'd send some personnel with us, no?"

"Well, that is actually a great question."

The king snapped his fingers and the doors that rested on both sides of the throne opened up. From the entrance, a short girl about the age of 18 stepped through. She looked very timid and refused to make eye contact with anyone in the room. Her long black hair even seemed to shiver.

Her purple eyes scanned the room nervously and she greeted Rel's group with a bow. "I- Ineiru at your service." She remained clutching on her staff as if she'd fall if it wasn't with her.

"huh...she looks kind of adorable actually. There's no way she could be of use in combat.." Rel thought

As if to stave off the bad impression she made, the king yet again introduced her. "Ineiru here is one our top prodigious magicians. She could probably defeat Galtz if she tried hard enough." A bald-faced lie.

The next person to come through the door was another woman, much taller and much more fierce looking than the magician. She wore armor similar to what Galtz wore when they initially saw him. Her single left shoulder was covered by a steel plate.

Aside from a breastplate, she wore her armor in small increments. A tiny for arm guard, some knee plates, and shin guards. Her shoes were much more suited for lighter styled, highspeed combat. Though, it was very apparent from her bod that she trained rigorously. Almost every muscle on her arm could be seen in acute detail.

"Tch...what a showoff. It definitely doesn't mean you're stronger than me." Rel and her locked gazes and she smirked at his assessment of her.

"Oreilia here. Galtz's top pupil." The king added. "Oreilia here has trained with Galtz since she was 6 years old. She's perhaps the most experienced and youngest fighter to date."

"Now...I might add, there was one more fellow that was supposed to join you all, but he opted to venture alone. He's a stubborn one. I would like you all to please work well with him should you run into him. I fear he's not of the level yet to fend off against some of the magicians."

Rel nodded. Zephise went to introduce himself to the duo and ask questions about their fighting style, strengths, weaknesses. He was building a repertoire.

"Very well. I trust that everyone is adequately prepared?" Aren spoke for the first time during this endeavor. The two girls nodded and prepared themselves for departure.

"You all have my permission to leave. With the grace of Aleirun, I bid you all farewell on the god's behalf." Such a grandiose way to say please leave my court.

The group headed off with the horses that awaited them. "So listen up, Oreilia, Ineiru, we'll be heading to various villages beforehand. While the King's objective is to defeat the magicians, our objective slightly differs."

"So you mean to tell me this is merely joint cooperation? Then you are not in charge."

"Heh. Unfortunately, you guys need our help."  Rel pointed out. "As envoys of Ora, this mission may very well fall apart should we decide not to assist."

"You think you're hot shit don't ya?" Oreilia sneered. "Just don't get in our way."

"Tch. I was about to say the same thing."

The group of plague children sped ahead, while the other two tailed further behind them.  This was the beginning of a tense relationship.