"Bromine!" Kyle said with a smile.
"Bormine," the man corrected. "So, can I join?"
"Sure!" Kyle answered before turning to the group. "This is Bromine-"
"Bormine."
"-And he is also part of Gill's course. He has an Ice Affinity and uses two rapiers. He can be our Assassin."
Bormine was one of Kyle's main opponents in Gill's course. The two of them had fought almost a hundred times by now.
The teammates all introduced themselves to each other and shared their abilities.
"Who's the squad leader?" Falk asked.
Silence.
Then, everyone looked at Kyle.
"Dude, I'm not a leader," he quickly answered. "I swing my hammer. That's all I do."
"Fine," Bormine said. "Then, who do you think is most suitable? You are the only one who knows all of us."
"Ehm," Kyle said, scratching his head.
First, he looked at Bromine.
'Nah, he's like super introverted.'
Then, he looked at Falk. 'I barely know him.'
"What about you, Horatio?" Kyle asked.
"If you believe I am the right fit, I will take on the position, but if you have any doubts, ask someone else," he answered calmly.
Kyle furrowed his brows before looking at Tracy, who shook her head covertly.
"Falk, what about you? You think you can lead us?" Kyle asked.
"I would love to," Falk said, "but I only just met all of you. I don't know anything about you guys, and I don't feel comfortable leading a team I know nothing about."
"Sure," Kyle said, shrugging.
Then, he looked at Horatio. "Congratulations, you got the position."
"Are you sure?" Horatio asked with a smile.
For some reason, Kyle felt like he was making a mistake when Horatio said that.
'This guy is kind of unnerving. He smiles and is all nice all the time, but for some reason, he just feels like a smiling snake.'
"Yep, you're the leader," Kyle said.
"Alright," Horatio said. "Then, first order of business, let's register the mission."
Everyone nodded and walked over to the cafeteria.
Horatio registered them for the mission, and moments later, they walked out of the Guild.
"Kyle, what would you do if you were the leader?" Horatio asked Kyle.
"Investigate," Kyle answered. "We have to find them first."
"And then?" Horatio asked.
"Learn about their schedule and watch," Kyle said. "We can't assault them inside a city. While the mission was given by a member of the royal army, we are technically not allowed to just kill religious groups. This all has to happen hush-hush."
"The mission said that they were spotted in Grounding."
Tracy furrowed her brows. "Grounding is not in our territory."
"Yeah, and that's why we got the mission," Kyle said. "Since this has to be kept secret, they are asking a Fighter Guild from a different territory to take care of it."
"Oh, that makes sense," Tracy said.
Horatio nodded. "Then, let's do as you suggested."
The group left Starkhold and traveled to the east.
After traveling for a couple of minutes, everyone grew annoyed by Kyle's slow speed.
To speed up the journey, every member took a part of Kyle's armor and carried it in their hands, allowing Kyle to run faster.
Some minutes later, they reached Gelden.
Kyle just waved at the Beast Master on top of the tower, who just glanced at him.
The group didn't stop in Gelding and immediately continued towards the east.
After traveling for 30 minutes, they reached a town built in front of a huge wall of sand.
Well, it looked like a wall of sand, but it was actually a stream of sand.
This was one of the Skysand streams that stretched across the mainland.
The Skysand moved at over 300 kilometers per hour, making it look like a huge wall.
The group went to the east of the town, paid someone a couple of Ether Pebbles, and stepped into a hole.
The hole led almost 300 meters underground before it transformed into a tunnel.
Naturally, the tunnel led to the other side of the Skysand Stream, and when they came out of the tunnel, they found themselves in a different town.
This town was Grounding.
'Alright, gotta be careful now,' Kyle thought. 'This is the territory of the Sandsuns, another Three-Weapons Guild. They won't appreciate us showing up here.'
As soon as the group reached the other side of the Skysand Stream, they also noticed that the environment was different.
In order to create resource diversity, the Skysand Kingdom used different Ether Springs to fill the environment with different kinds of Ether.
The Skysand Streams were generally used as dividing lines since Skysand was great at isolating Ether.
The environment on this side of the Skysand Stream was filled with Fire Ether.
The ground was mostly black, and it was quite hot.
Small volcanoes were basically everywhere, and there were a lot of black spires.
These black spires were around ten meters wide and 50 meters high.
On their tips were small ponds of lava, which occasionally flowed down one of their sides, creating small streams of lava that combined with other small streams of lava.
Most of the streams were only a couple of centimeters wide, but there were also a couple of genuine lava rivers.
The terrain was very uneven due to the constant lava flow and seismic activity.
'Looks a bit like the wilderness of the peninsula, just with more fire.'
The team of Fighters quickly left the town to hide in the wilderness.
The fewer people saw them, the better.
"You are doing the scouting, right?" Horatio asked Kyle.
"Yep, give me a couple of hours."
Kyle left the group and found an isolated location.
He touched the black clothing he had received in Theodor's Trials and infused them with Fire Ether.
In the next moment, the colors of the robes changed color from black to red.
Apparently, this function had been present all along. Theodor just hadn't told him until a couple of months ago since it hadn't been relevant until then.
Next, Kyle took out a big piece of meat from his sack and put it beside him.
After that, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He grimaced and looked like he was trying to push something out with a lot of force.
Kyle's head was filled with Fire Ether and turned redder.
And then, moments later, his hair started to grow.
His black hair was pushed out, and the new hair was fiery red in color.
Some minutes of pressing later, Kyle had a long mane of black and red hair.
Finally, he took out a knife and cut off all the black hair, leaving him with red hair.
Lastly, he took out a cheap and short scepter he carried with him at all times.
After dealing with all of that, Kyle buried his hammer in the black ground and stood up.
At this moment, he no longer looked like Kyle.
Instead, he looked like a powerful Fire Apprentice or Sorcerer.
'Time to search for information.'
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