Noone walked along in silence, eyes flicking back and forth taking in each new sight. The massive amounts of new information streaming into his thoughts was too much for his brain to process and forced him to close his extended vision – shortening it to only a few inches from his body.

As he walked through the town behind the group of clergymen, he caught the various gazes of townsfolk. None of these people had seen a being like Noone before. When he caught the attention of a passerby, Noone’s grey and unblinking eyes caused most people to look away, minding their own business.

To many of these common villagers, Noone was obviously some powerful adventurer. He literally radiated white light from his body, and on top of that he was with the clerics, so no one felt he would be a problem. Only a few people were unable to turn away their inquisitive glances.

Children for one, ever curious - they felt no shame in pointing at him and loudly asking their parents what race he was from. When Noone saw this, he waved a hand at them and gave a small smile. Never before had he seen so many children.

In Tapestry… young children were rare and carefully cared for. Here though, it seemed that they were allowed to run freely through the streets. One small child was carrying a basket on her head filled with large green fruits, carefully balancing it as she walked between stalls.

The other people who stared were older, Noone would return their gaze as he always does, but he couldn’t help but feel some mental pushback. Although small in number, the town was home to a few former adventurers who had settled down as far away from their pasts as they could. Being well traveled, these people were much more aware at how odd Noone’s existence was.

After a few minutes, Noone’s ears were becoming accustomed to parsing through the jumbled mess of voices and foreign words being spoken all around him. It was the first time he had ever been around such a mass of spoken language, he felt overwhelmed and was unable to describe the feelings welling up inside of him.

Everything around Noone screamed with interest. People selling wares and the smell of food’s wafted through the air, Noone’s stomach turned in curious delight.

Noone was surprised by the desire welling up inside of him. He did not feel hungry, and logically Noone knew that he should be able to go another few days without food, but it seemed that his body required more than just the nutrients. It missed the tastes of a well-cooked meal.

He suppressed this desire with a frown and continued to follow the group. While his eyes scanned the environment taking in everything of interest – which was everything; the party which he had traveled with constantly looked back, enjoying the subconscious expressions on his expression.

Jakobson cleared his throat lightly, getting Tobias’s attention.

“By the way Tobias… I see you ran into a little trouble?” His right hand clenched the air in front of his chest, letting Tobias know what he was implying. Tobias’s stump of an arm stuck closely to his torso.

“Well… yes. Sort of.” He glanced back at Noone, thoughts traveling back six months. The moment where he lost his arm had created a permanent scar in his mind.

From the outside it seemed he recovered extremely quick to the loss, but in reality, it was only because he needed to be the pillar of his party. Without that, he would have most certainly been slightly bitter about the whole thing – to say the least.

“I’ll get one of our scrolls prepared for you when we arrive back at the temple.”

“Thank you. I will make sure you are reimbursed for it.”

“Mm”

Jakobson did not miss Tobias’s glance towards Noone when he mentioned the lost arm. He chose to say nothing and instead merely kept it in mind.

Noone saw most of the small town by the time they arrived at the front door of the temple. He heard from Feylin and Sarah that their town was only around ten thousand large – The same population of Tapestry. He had assumed that Ardglass must have been a pillar to their society, a larger city… it wasn’t until today he realized how wrong he was.

“Satellite town”

“Edge of society.”

“Border village.”

These words stuck into Noone’s mind like a thorn.

Even if Tapestry were to have made a full-scale emergence from their position in the cliff at the edge of the world… They wouldn’t have even made a dent in this world.

Noone thought about how the common world treated the epoch tribes… mild trepidation… and a lusting for their power and magic.

He couldn’t help but feel fear, this world was truly terrifying and would have eaten Tapestry whole given the chance.

His only solace was his inheritance… and the fact he only needed to worry about himself now.

The temple in front of Noone was part stone block, and partly carved from the hillside bordering the town. The entire structure felt natural and calming, as though it wasn’t put on the land, but complimentary to it.

Noone was impressed by the structure. It was the first building he had seen that wasn’t some mixture of wood and clay. His hand caressed the stone block in the archway as he stepped through. The natural formation of the stone became a stream of information in his mind.

Before he could analyze it, he stepped through the stone arches to the temple. A subtle pressure covered his body – like a blanket of humidity which draped itself over his skin.

Immediately he drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with air. It was a nigh-involuntary action. His eyes widened, and he stopped walking. Noone’s heart filled with shock. The air around him was teeming with energy almost twice the density of the space outside.

Noone wasted no time expanding his external sight to its maximum length. Small threads of unrestrained energy appeared around him, like a school of fish they swam in and out of the fabric of reality, each one representing only an atomically small particle of universal power. Despite this, a frown formed on his face and his eyes narrowed as he looked around.

Right now, his sight extended out at a third the normal distance. No matter how hard he pushed, he felt that his energy was being restricted somehow.

Noone had grown used to having a three-meter 360-degree vison around his body. It had become his personal bubble of safety. Now that it was gone though, Noone felt vulnerable. He quickly suppressed the anxiety he was feeling and focused again on the threads of energy. The density of threads here was more than enough to feed his body for a long time...

By this point everyone had noticed Noone’s odd behavior. The clergymen smiled, figuring he was just taking in the atmosphere of the temple. Every temple was under the blessing of their respective gods, so naturally each temple was blessed with an impressive comforting atmosphere.

This atmosphere calmed the minds of acolytes and followers, while making it easier to study and pray under that god’s guidance.

Noone subtly waved his hand through the air, the suppressing weight he felt on his flesh seemed to be what was suppressing his ‘sight’ as well. Although the effects on his body were much less than those on his energy. There was no explanation for it. It must have to do with the temple and the gods here.

Noone shook his thoughts out of mind. Noticing that everyone was waiting for him he gave off a light-hearted smile.

“I’m sorry. The atmosphere here took me by surprise.” Every breath he took was deep and filled with energy. While he wasn’t able to harvest the energy like this, it still felt extremely comforting filling his lungs. He would need to wait till he could meditate before being able to extract the threads in the air.

“Understandable. Temples are the homes of our gods and they are blessed with their wisdom and touch, to those outside of the order it can be shocking at first. But pleasant, no?” Jakobson laughed. Noone merely nodded in response.

Jakobson enjoyed seeing Noone’s reaction, it reminded him of the comfort their god provided – reminded him why he chose to serve the gods he did.