"Interesting..." Divine Thread said as it looked down at the strings of fate that connected Lone and Rangah.

"They've only met each other less than a handful of times but the tigerkin has over a dozen threads linking her to the boy..." The Timbus was equal parts intrigued as it was confused. "I have never seen anything like this before in all of my years of existence... What an interesting tournament. It's been so long since I last enjoyed myself this much."

The cloud glanced past Rangah and Lone to gaze down at Lipsilk. "Old friend, I truly am indebted to you for this. I suppose it won't hurt to investigate these 'true gods' of yours. Why the boy is interested in them, only he knows, I suppose, but I don't sense any foul intent in the threads that binds him to me..."

"I missed you," Rangah suddenly said as she stood in front of Lone.

Lone chuckled softly. "I missed you too," he said jokingly. 'It's only been a little over a month since I last saw her. Kids get really attached, huh?'

His mind drifted to his Wondrous Emporium and its regular children visitors from the slums. 'I hope Annie doesn't spill any of the soup like she did last time it was her turn to feed the cute little brats.'

Rangah shook her head, making her little tiger ears flop about adorably. "I really missed you."

"I really missed you too." Lone smiled kindly at the two-tailed girl then said, "How do you want to fight? A battle with soul skills won't really be very fun to watch... Do you know how to use a weapon or some magic, maybe?"

She nodded a few times with joy. "I can use two shortswords."

She then held out her left hand in a very elegant manner, exposing the shimmering jewel which was resting atop of a golden ring.

With a flick of her finger, two simply yet dangerous-looking shortswords appeared in her hands.

Lone whistled in admiration. "A spatial ring. Spatial bags are pretty rare, but a spatial ring? It's my first time seeing one."

"... A friend made it for me," Rangah claimed as she started doing some very light stretches, though those stretches alone seemed very strenuous to the average member of the audience considering how flexible her body was, what with her being a tigerkin and all.

"Fuckin' talented friend. What kind of jewel even is that?" Lone asked. "I've read a lot of books about metals and gems and all sorts of natural resources since I'm a part-time steamforger and blacksmith but I've never seen that kind of gem before."

Lone was very tempted to use Clicker's power on the accessory but he tried his best to not do that on other people's equipment since he didn't want to get the urge to steal from them. That was also why he hadn't bothered using the ability on Hubert's red spear.

"... He called it rangahnite. Said he named it after me," Rangah mumbled with a warn expression of remembrance clouding her expression.

"That's sweet," Lone said. "Gonna use any magic, too, Rangah?"

She nodded her head softly. "Mmm. Snow magic." The girl then incanted a spell. "Snowy Cover."

Both of her shortswords then gained a pristine white sheen to them and they looked easily four or five times sharper than before.

Lone clapped. "That's pretty cool. Well, let's get started, shall we?"

"He's such a big softie when it comes to kids," Eolande said with a small pout.

Swind nodded lightly as he kept holding Rachel to make sure she didn't run off. She was very curious now that her mind partially worked, after all.

"Mr Immortus certainly is kinder when it comes to children. Why is that a bad thing?" the Lemurian asked.

Eolande shook her head. "It isn't, I'm just jealous."

"Jealous?" Swind asked.

"Yeah. Jealous. I mean, I look like a child, don't I? Why isn't he ever that kind to me?" she asked as she gestured to the man who was happily conversing with Rangah as the two sparred in a rather flashy manner, using all sorts of showy magical skills but with zero intent to kill or seriously harm the other person.

Swind gave her an odd look. "Because you do not act like one. He does not treat Miss Sophie like a child either, nor Miss Breena most of the time. He only treats Miss Soph as a child when she acts spoilt, otherwise, he treats her as the woman she is underneath her shyness."

Eolande sighed. "Why are you always so wise? You're not even an adult yet."

Swind shrugged. "Wisdom cannot be measured by one's age."

"And there you go again..." Eolande couldn't help but sigh once more as she continued to watch Lone's friendly duel with Rangah Whitestripes.

After a good ten or so minutes, Rangah finally declared her forfeiture since she had run out of SP.

Sweat trickled down her cheeks as she breathed heavily. "That was fun," she said with a refreshing smile on her slightly rounded face.

Lone wiped the light amount of sweat from his brow. "Yeah. Thanks for the new snow magic. I didn't have much of that. It's a pretty rare element."

Rangah smiled very faintly. "No problem... You'll keep your promise, right?"

During their fight and conversation, Lone had agreed to visit the Bright Tigerkin Clan at some point for a vacation.

Lone was pretty focused on his goal of mastering as much magic as possible before going on a quest to hunt for the remaining Primals, but he had so many smaller objectives now.

As an example, there was the approaching Ancient Gruluthu that threatened to destroy The Academy.

The Chruch of the Primals were out for his throat due to his close connection to the Primals and his actions at the local cathedral hadn't helped him at all. Divine Hallowed - Grand Templar Sigmund, was already on his way to kill him.

There was the nagging voice in the back of his mind always asking him why Kyuubi could transform into an actual Golden Fox. He also wanted to know where she really came from and who she really was.

The threat of the Great Barrier that held a monstrous Ancient within collapsing also weighed down on Lone's mind, as that was not an isolated problem but one for the entire continent to worry about.

Void's constant attempts to control his body forcefully and wreak havoc on top of the stress of what the other Primals might be capable of plagued his thoughts every now and then.

His promise to Eolande to help save her people from the Mad King and his supposed Earth Dragon backer remained firmly on Lone's urgent to-do-list.

Of course, there was also the matter of Sophie splitting from Soph as well as Rachel's broken soul.

Needless to say, there was the massive concern regarding Clicker, Tapper, the supposed Flicker, and potentially Snapper too. Who were they? Who were the gods that had brought him and Soph into this world? Lone didn't know, but of course, he wanted to find out.

There were far smaller issues nagging Lone's mind as well like the stranger who had stolen billions of gold from him and later attacked Swind at the Eastern World Tree. The potential for Infa's family to learn of his survival and hunt him down. The seemingly juiced-up dead statues that came from the Taslo Empire.

There was also the issue of how many kingdoms openly or secretly supported slavery which really bothered Lone.

Hell, even this tournament was arranged mostly to destroy one of Lone's growing daily concerns - the challenges that were giving him fewer and fewer skills and only helped to distract him from his magical studies.

Lone chuckled as he watched Rangah return to Zeeb's side, the two of them leaving the arena. 'I mostly enjoyed my time at the Crimson Foxkin Clan. A good holiday will be a nice change of pace. Destressing never hurt anyone. Well, I'll definitely have to take care of a lot of the bullshit on my to-do-list first though.'

He cracked his neck and watched as the eight-tailed matriarch of the Aqua Foxkin Clan, Kuu Bluetail, and the timid two-tailed fellow The Academy student, Luu Bluetail, approach him, their clan not far behind them.

"Yo," Lone greeted casually.

Kuu held the hem of her low-cut kimono-like dress and curtsied. "It's a pleasure, Loney Boy. First, I have to thank you for looking after my great-granddaughter Luu here at school."

"G-Gran!" Luu had one of her tails looped through her legs and she was squeezing it tightly. "I-I already said t-that we barely know each other!"

Kuu Bluetail wore a dismissively look on her youthful face. "Nonsense. He saw that you were being used by the two main student factions and thus decided to propose this massive event to his magical masters. Hold your head up high, Dear."

'Man, this is weird. How many hundreds of years old is she? She looks, like, eight. I really hope Breena properly grows up and doesn't stop like Rachel did. Admittedly, Rachel has the youngest body I've ever seen for a foxkin that's stopped ageing, but Kuu here is a damned close second place,' Lone thought.

"How do you guys intend to come at me?" Lone asked as he took the Eternal Mana Crystal from his belt and started juggling it to keep his hands busy, infuriating a certain Divine up in her booth.

Kuu smiled at him in a peculiar manner. "Oh, I can think of quite a few ways, Loney Boy..."

She licked her lips then chuckled. "But today? Formations. My clan specialises in such things. Essentially, what those children from the start of your segment used, only, we're more professional. I would not mind personally teaching you some of these formations... For a price..."

There was hunger in the matriarch's voice, a hunger of the sexual kind.

"What magic types do you guys specialise in, if you don't mind me asking? I'd like to counter you perfectly to train your clan more aptly," Lone said, completely ignoring her suggestive words.

Contrary to Soph's constant worries, he was not, in fact, attracted to children.

Even Eolande looked like a compressed adult since she never turned off her coyness, but a stranger who was obviously trying to bait a reaction out him? Lone was above such weak attempts to rouse his less intelligent head.

There was a flicker of disappointment in the eight-tailed girl's eyes as she answered, "Naturally, water. We also have quite some talent in healing magic, especially the less obvious forms, so please, feel free to play a bit rough. I'm personally quite a fan of such plays..."

'Jesus. How fuckin' thirsty can you get?' Lone sighed internally then beamed a smile. "Cool. So nature magic, then. Nothing really directly counters healing magic if its being used in a more utility-focused manner, but I'll see what I can come up with."

Kuu Bluetail frowned in her mind. 'Is he really monogamous? What a boring man... The things I could do with a child birthed between myself and such a powerful Golden Foxkin... With how incredible he is, I wouldn't doubt it for a second if his seed was potent enough to guarantee a Golden Foxkin as the baby's species.'

"Anyway," Lone said, interrupting the sly old woman's thoughts, "let's get this started, yeah? Don't want the crowd to get too restless. My fight with Rangah wasn't as flashy as a 1-V- what, uh, 200 or so? As a 1-V-200 could be."

"You're right." Kuu smiled sweetly. "Like I said, nice and rough, okay? Maybe you can help me break through and finally become an X-ranker. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

"Very," Lone nodded, though he didn't really care.

Luu was still firmly holding her tail, but she nodded politely towards Lone and said, "Um, g-good luck. I, uh, I hope Soph is going to be okay..."

Lone was happy to receive some genuine worry for his fiancée. "Hey, thanks. I appreciate that. Soph'll be fine, I'm sure. Sophie too."

Luu didn't know why he mentioned both Soph and Sophie. They were the same person, weren't they?

She didn't have time to answer as her grandmother had dragged her back to her clan to go stand in the formation.

The last match before the grand finale was now beginning.

The Wanderers Artwork

From left to right: Garadia | Sophie (15-yo body) | Lone | Kyuubi | Saturn | Breena | Eolande | Swind | Lipsilk | Rachel | Infa

(Right-click the image to open it in a new tab if you want to see it in its full size)