Jazz was faster than I expected but slower than I would’ve liked. Not that the speed was unbearably slow, but it was apparent that he was a mage through and through. His intelligence and wisdom were probably through the roof, however.

He probably also had good dexterity to match. Being able to actually precisely aim your attacks was important.

It took us only a few hours to reach Lustirne, by the time we reached the city I was starting to wonder if I could convince them to let me hold them and speed the rest of the way to our destination.

The only reason I didn’t even try to suggest the idea was because I knew Jazz would not even remotely entertain the idea. His pride would not allow it.

So instead we were limited to the mediocre speeds we were traveling at instead.

We slowed down on our approach to the city. As we walked up to the gate, Lea flashed a metal symbol we had all been given upon our completion of courses, it was the symbol of the NSA with our team number on it as well.

The guard waved us through with barely a glance at us. I was fine with that, the last time I’d come through here it had been a little bit of a hassle. However, in the interest of fairness, the capital had just been attacked by what appeared to be an Alixian invasion force. So the country had kind of been on high alert at the time. Anyone doing any traveling would have been seen as suspicious like I had been.

We walked into the city and Lea turned to look at the two of us, “How are we feeling?”

I shrugged, “I guess it depends, if we want to keep going I’m fine with that. Hell, if y’all wanted to I-”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Jazz interrupted, “I know what you’re going to suggest and I’m not even remotely interested.”

Lea glanced between us a look of momentary confusion passing over her face as I shrugged in response again.

“I figured I’d at least try.”

“Hmmm… Well, how about you Jazz? We can keep going or we can stop here for lunch. I’m sure there are some good places to eat around here.”

Ooooh, yeah! I totally forgot! There was that one meat skewer guy. His stuff was really good!

“I want to change my answer!” Not even bothering to hide the excitement in my voice, “There’s a guy that sells meat skewers here, I want to buy some from him. They’re absolutely amazing!”

Lea just gave me a look of amusement, “I guess we’re stopping here for a bit,” she dug out a few silver coins for each of us, “You have an hour. We’ll meet at the east gate when we’re done and ready to leave.”

I rubbed my hands together with glee, “Excellent.” I quickly turned about and made my way to the last known position he had been selling about a year ago.

“Oh man, I hope he’s still around…” I muttered to myself.

“Oh, has it been a while since you’ve been through here?” Lea’s voice came from my side.

“Gah!” I let out a shout of surprise, not expecting her to be there eliciting a laugh from my team leader.

“You scared me,” I said, placing a hand over my chest while giving her a rueful smile, “But yeah, it’s been… about a year.”

She nodded, “Well if you don’t mind, I’ll join you. I’m interested to see what they taste like. I haven’t gotten a chance to eat a lot of what my family would refer to as… commoner food. So I’m curious as to the differences.”

I nodded, “It’s interesting seeing someone such as yourself so invested in the life of people so far below you on the ladder. I just kind of expected everyone to be more like Jazz.”

Her lips pursed and a slight frown appeared on her face, “Unfortunately, I seem to be the exception. Most of the people I’ve interacted with at my step on the ladder, as you called it, are very much like him. Maybe not all of them are quite so vindictive. But they definitely believe themselves to be superior.”

“And why are you different then?” I asked, before hurriedly adding, “If you don’t mind me asking, just kinda curious.”

She shook her head, “I don’t mind. It’s really not even anything that serious. The head of our security for the manor grounds isn’t a noble, or even anyone of noble descent. But they were strong. Tier five. I remember asking him what house he belonged to as a kid because I’d been told my entire life that nobles were the epitome of humanity. The greatest, strongest, smartest, and fastest.

“He just laughed at me and said that he wasn’t a noble, hadn’t been and likely wouldn’t ever be. That knowledge shattered everything I thought I had known,” She smiled softly at the memory, “I remember telling him he had to be lying because nobody as strong as him could be a commoner. Later I went and asked my father what house he belonged to because he obviously was hiding it for some reason and my father reaffirmed what he had told me just a few minutes before.

“It was still a few years after that point until I fully came to the idea that everything was just a matter of perspective. No one person is any greater than another, just because of the circumstances of their birth. If the system did not exist, I could believe in the idea of genetics playing a huge role in a caste system. Someone who is more athletic might have more athletic children, thus passing on a noticeable trait. But in this world? Where everyone can acquire everything with the help of the System? Personal traits such as that are irrelevant.”

I nodded, making a hum in the back of my throat. She had pretty much accurately described Earth. Genetics did play a huge role in the way people developed, in addition to their life circumstances. Someone born to a professional athlete might train harder their entire life while also having a better disposition to being athletic than someone who had been born to an accountant.

Or maybe a person with a Ph.D. would have children who would have a slightly higher capacity to ingest knowledge as they study, allowing them to go slightly further, more easily than their peers in their academics.

At the same time, they might not acquire these traits as well and instead gain something else from their family lineage. There was no easy way to determine such a thing as it happened to your children, I honestly doubt there ever would be either.

I was deep in thought as we made it to the street that housed all the vendors for food. The scents wafting over me caused me to take a deep breath as I luxuriated in the smells.

“Ah, that smells good,” I said, a content smile on my face, “Now let’s see…”

I started walking down the street, trying to find the stall that had served me that delectable goodness a year ago. It took me a few minutes, but I did eventually find the stall. The design had changed over time so I almost didn’t recognize it.

But the man running it was the same as always. I stepped up, seeing the prices and calculating how much I could buy that would be reasonable.

“I’d like 12 skewers please!” I said as I deposited a couple of the coins Lea had given me onto the counter.

“Right awa-” The man did a double take at me before his eyes widened and a grin spread across his face as he saw me.

“I remember you, coming back to make good on that promise then?”

“Of course, I only wish I could’ve come sooner.”

“Eh, as they say, ‘better late than never.’”

I just smiled as he fixed up the skewers for me before handing them to me, then turning over to Lea, “And for the pretty lady?”

Lea took the compliment with a grace that spoke of practiced experience in dealing with compliments, “The same,” She said, depositing the same amount of coins that I had.

“Right away.”

I bit into the first skewer, letting the perfectly cooked and seasoned meat melt in my mouth. An explosion of sensational taste that truly was out of this world.

I let out a shameful moan of happiness at the wonderful flavor of meat. It had been far too long since I’d eaten any, I swore at that moment that I would never again go so long without meat if I could help it.

After Alixia and now the month with the NSA. Never again. The taste was just too good to pass up on.

Lea and I walked in silence as we ate, focusing more on the food.

Before I knew it I had already eaten the last one.

“Well, we still got about…” I looked up at the sun, to try and gauge the time, “Thirty minutes to kill before we need to meet at the gate.”

Lea was still eating, taking her time to savor the flavors. She swallowed the bite she had taken before speaking, “Honestly, I don’t know if there’s much we can do in the time we have left. Most of the entertainment I’m used to is an all-evening sort of affair.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Hell, it’ll probably take us thirty minutes just to walk over to the gate.”

Lea just nodded in agreement as she took another bite.

“Enjoying them?” I asked, interested in her opinion. She’d been fairly quiet so far.

She took a moment to think about it, “Yes, I think so. I will admit it’s a bit lacking compared to the food I’m used to sampling, but considering this man had neither the funding nor the pedigree to compare against them. So considering the circumstances, he did a marvelous job with what he had.”

I just smiled, “I had figured that would be the case,” under my breath, I added, “I wonder how good Jolene would be under better circumstances…”

“Who?”

I glanced over at Lea, I hadn’t quite expected her to be able to hear me, but I was still getting used to the idea of enhanced senses. Now that I thought about it, I wondered why talking normally wasn’t like yelling in someone's ear if they could so easily hear whispers.

“A cook I know, with some of the shittiest and paltriest amount of ingredients she managed to feed hundreds of people every single day and actually create something edible. I was just curious what she would actually be capable of under better circumstances.”

Lea just nodded. We continued to walk in silence as she finished off the rest of her skewers. Eventually, the gate loomed into view. There were only fifteen minutes left until we were supposed to meet, but surprisingly Jazz was already at the gate waiting for us.

He scoffed as we approached, “Took you two long enough, decided to visit the local inn as well?” He asked snidely.

Lea’s face smile quickly turned into an impassive stare, before switching to a smirk, “Jealousy is unbecoming for someone of your stature, Jazzosaur.”

Lea’s statement surprised both of us and caused Jazz to start spluttering, “There’s no way yo-”

Lea cut him off, “Whom I sleep with is none of your concern. But yes, you are correct that we did not. We were merely enjoying each other's company. In the future, you are welcome to join us if you have a desire for companionship.”

The smirk gave way on her face to a genuine, kind smile. I hadn’t expected her to be the kind of person to joke about something like that, but I guess she just saw an easy opportunity to poke some fun.

Not that I could blame her, I would’ve done something similar and in fact, was about to. Coming from her it was way more impactful though because she so rarely poked fun at someone else’s expense.

Jazz just shook his head, “As if I would waste my time.”

Lea just shrugged, “are we ready to leave then?”

I readjusted my pack just to make sure that it was situated securely before nodding.

Jazz, as usual, didn’t say anything, just taking a disinterested face. He was really making it hard to like him as a person.

“Excellent, let’s be off.”

And with those words, we set off from Lustirne in much the same way that we left from the capital. We slowly picked up our pace until Jazz was at the limits of what he could run at. Apparently, he used a magic item to fly and it had a limited duration.

It was a pretty decent length of about thirty minutes a day, but the fact that he didn’t have his own skill for it seemed like an oversight.

I guess it opened up a skill slot for him to have something else, but I would’ve preferred just to have the ability to fly under my own power. Especially since magic items didn’t scale with your level. Or at least not usually, there have been some things we learned about in our magic course that talked about magic items that scaled.

But Tera didn’t go into a lot of detail about them so I didn’t actually know that much.

The road out to Istvel was relatively clear, we occasionally came across someone making their way to Lustirne for some reason or another. Perhaps they were a farmer going to sell produce, or perhaps they were going to pick up a needed item for their farm so they could continue their work.

But those sightings were far and few between, and we never stayed to talk with anyone. It took a week of walking to get there, and at the speed we were running, it would still take us a little over a day, especially since we still had to slow down so Jazz could recover his stamina.

So maybe two days. Which left me a lot of time to think. Except there wasn’t anything interesting to really think about. So instead, I was just left to try and entertain myself for the duration of our trip.

We kept up the pace until the sun had nearly set, at that point Lea called for us to stop and set up our camp.

We moved off the side of the path we had been traveling on. I hesitated to call it a road because it was more just a beaten pathway that people occasionally frequented. I set my pack down and started rummaging around in it.

I found the little tent structure they had given us and set about putting up mine, Lea and Jazz both did the same.

It took me about twenty minutes to figure out how to put it up the first time, and by the time I was done, I was feeling relatively frustrated.

You’d think with magic they’d find a way to make it more convenient to set up a tent, but noooooo.

I grumbled a little bit as I pulled my sleeping bag out and tossed it inside the tent.

As I did so I heard Lea calling out, “Alright, we’ll take turns on watch. I’ll go first, Alex second, Jazz you’ll have the last. Any questions?”

“Okay then, it’ll be three hours of watches, each. Gives us each six hours of sleep which should be more than enough at our level. Go ahead and get some rest, I’ll wake you when it’s your turn, Alex.”

I nodded and climbed into my tent. Hopefully, tomorrow will hold a bit more excitement.