Shane just stared at Jack, while Kylia got up hurriedly.

This allowed Shane to stand up too, but before he could enquire further into their situation three years ago that seemed similar to his, some members of the Starlight guild that had just left the water pond exclaimed in astonishment.

They had just seen Umbra, whose head lay flat on the ground next to Shane and were about to unsheath their weapons until they sensed that the 50-meter-long snake with blue-dark shining horns on its head was docile.

It didn't take them long to remember that Shane had tamed a small fox with a spatial affinity, and the only logical explanation was that the snake was another tamed beast of Shane!

As such, they calmed down and didn't ask any questions, despite their curiosity.

When everything had finally calmed down, Shane looked at Jack, who smiled slyly and Kylia, who had a completely red head couldn't meet his eyes for some time as he asked.

"Did you guys also leave your home, because you would have to marry after the system-awakening?"

'Is that something common?'

This question attracted Jack's interest as he asked,

"'Also'? Does that mean you did the same? Well, our case is not even something special among mankind's big families. Every family wants to foster firm ties with other powerful families and increase their influence, and the most obvious way to do so was to marry their children off!

Both I and my little sister were bound to marry after our system awakening, but I was able to postpone it for almost a year until my little sister had undergone the system awakening.

At that time, both she and I would have to marry someone from other big families. However, instead of doing so, we ran away.

How about you, was it the same reasoning?"

Jack seemed to be less problematic to talk to than Shane had expected him to be. As such, he simply smiled as he answered.

"It's similar, yet, a little bit different. I'm the only descendant of my family and I think that's the reason why my father, uncles, and aunts, who wanted me to be perfect. In my opinion, it escalated a little bit and my life was devoid of freetime, the possibility to make my own decisions, and lots of other things.

In the end, I just ran away from everything, but, I feel like it's much better for me and my family because I've already met everyone from my family except my father after running away!"

Shane didn't like talking about his past or anything about his non-existent personal life because he felt that it might create many misunderstandings.

His childhood might have been devoid of freetime, a little bit brutal and violent, but Shane had liked every single moment of the time he had spent with his aunts and uncles.

At the same time, learning how to survive inside the Primordial Dimensions and being taught how to fight was equally important, while the same applied to every little piece of information he had to memorize.

Whether it was about blacksmithing, all types of dimensions, plants, how to concoct, what kinds of beast one should avoid, and many more subjects, every piece of information was vital to survive.

As such, Shane had endured everything in his childhood, and the only thing he didn't want to accept was his father forcing things on him without his consent.

Shane was sure that his father was not a bad person, but his attitude and behavior towards his one and only son astonished even Aunt Kia and the others sometimes.

John Stella was an ill-tempered person and more often than not, someone would have to intervene in order to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control and a worse scenario from occurring.

Shane and the others believed that this cold attitude had stemmed from the fact that he had survived his birth while Sarah, his mother, had died.

However, at the same time, this didn't seem to be the reason because after Shane had escaped his father's clutches, everything seemed to have become much better between them.

This was confusing and not even Aunt Kia, with who he had shared his doubts, was able to give him a satisfying answer.

Jack just nodded his head, while Kylia, who had listened to him, took care of different matters.

While Shane had been answering Jack's question, Kylia had taken out a small changing room from her spatial ring.

The said changing room was just curtains hanging on the bar on all four sides, but it was enough to cover Kylia, who quickly changed her wet clothes!

When Shane saw the changing room, he couldn't help but think that he should change his clothes too.

However, instead of using the changing room, he just took off his wet clothes before Umbra had enveloped him with his huge body.

Shane wouldn't have minded anyone seeing his bare body because that had never been a problem when he was younger.

There was nothing he was ashamed of, but only when he recalled how Aimy and Olivia had acted when he had taken his clothes off, except his underwear, when he was about to enter the refinement capsule inside the Shirai academy, Shane began to think that he might be too open-minded about stuff like that.

To Shane, it was ridiculous to see that Umbra seemed to have acquired more common sense than he had, which caused him to wonder whether Talia or the others inside the Hidden Paradise had taught him a few things.

After he transmitted this thought to Umbra, Shane figured out that his assumption was partially true, however, Umbra also transmitted to him that he was able to learn everything by seeing and observing through Shane's eyes.

It looked like he had learned common sense by perceiving how others reacted to questions, how they behaved normally, and what kinds of different attitudes mankind had.

Umbra had been with Shane for a long time and it had almost been a whole year, which was much shorter than it felt to both Umbra and Shane.

One would think that they had known each other for decades and Shane was glad to have abducted Umbra when he had been a shadow-snake youngling.

It might have been a little bit cruel and rough when he had done so, but in the end, both of them were happy to have each other as companions, and it was the only thing that mattered!

After Shane and everyone else had changed into a dry set of clothes, they started to investigate the small cavern hall they had emerged in.

The cave was slightly illuminated from the several different kinds of lighting in the surrounding area.

Those lightings were mostly low-graded prismarine-luminous crystals and not something valuable enough to collect.

At least not, if the consequence would be to walk around in utter darkness.

They could purchase nightsight potions but that would be more expensive than the gains they would obtain from mining prismarine-luminous crystals!

As such, nobody paid attention to the prismarine-luminous crystals.

Instead, everyone was fully focused, with one hand on their weapons in order to be prepared for any kind of ambush that could occur.

They were in an entirely new region that was a huge, cavern hall that had the size of several football fields and the height of more than 20 meters.

A hostile beast could be lurking anywhere, and it was too dangerous to run around without paying attention to one's surroundings.

Umbra had entered the Hidden Paradise and Shane found that this was the best they could do in order to be guarded against ambushes.

Umbra could see everything from the Hidden Paradise and he would be able to emerge in a split second if the need arises.

This gave them a vast number of possibilities to defend themselves or attack their opponents.

Meanwhile, Cosmo had left the Hidden Paradise, where he had been for the last few days, in order to lay down on his shoulder.

With Cosmo's spatial affinity and [Space jump] ability, they would be able to flee extremely fast if necessary!

In the end, Shane's strength was among the weakest of everyone present, and that was if he were to include the youths belonging to support occupations too!

This was frustrating, but his preparations and tamed beasts made up for all of that.

It didn't even matter, because everyone listened to him despite his weak strength and Shane believed that it wouldn't be the case if they had found him to be unreliable!

Suddenly, they heard the flapping of wings from above, and everyone understood that they were about to face an aerial attack. Sensing the danger, Shane quickly unsheathed his curved longsword and shouted as a warning,

"Ambush from above!"

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