The room they were in gave off a homely feel, a lot of paintings of snowy mountains and peaceful valleys lined the walls. The sun sinking into the horizon outside the window combined with the fireplace added to the feeling of comfort. Raavar relaxed into a wooden chair to the side of the group, closing his eyes, it seemed he had been quite busy before he had found them. He had taken off his mask so Sevyn was able to study his face, he had a small vertical cuit on the left side of his mouth and a birthmark spot on the same side under his lips. Raavar felt her gaze opening his eyes and smiling wryly.

“Got cut by a traitor when adventuring, his blade had special abilities so my healing was able to deal with it, any closer and he would have torn my face open.”

“You were on an adventure?” She questioned in interest.

“Oh yeah I am a C rank adventurer, same with Ariel, typically we work together in a group of about four people.” He explained.

“What do adventurers do?”

“Well as the name goes, we go on adventures, really we are just sell swords of a sort that are paid by others to deal with various issues.”

“Hmm.” She uttered in a lilting tone matching the tilt of her head. “That sounds like fun.”

“It can be, yes and you get to see some incredible sights.”

Angelo was leaning forwards in anticipation now.

“Do you get to see snowy mountains like those in the paintings?” He asked excitedly.

“You can see those anytime soon, in fact we are very close to a mountain range.” Raavar laughed. “And you would surely get tired of them, too damn many in this world.”

“Why do people hire you? Are they incapable of doing these missions they send you in themselves?” Sevyn again.

“Well, that is one of the main reasons, simply put most people are not strong enough to do these missions themselves. Or some are to busy with other important work, especially if they are more than powerful enough.”

“Not strong enough?” She mused. “Like those in this village, I had meant to ask why their Ehror felt so…faint. Are they…defective?”

Raavar studied her, based on the pause she had tried to put it in a more polite way. Again based on what they had told him they have no clue about how the people in this world live.

“Sevyn.” He started seriously. “They are all…or mostly regular people.”

She tilted her head again, clear confused.

“What does my Ehror feel like to you?”

“It is clearly subdued like our wardens in the facility, but I can still tell that what I see is far beyond what I can actually sense the same with Ariel, but this is different to everyone else here.”

“I am impressed, with the little you know you are still able to discern that much.” He nodded amusedly. “But as I was saying, they are regular people. It seems that your circumstances have given you a wholly different impression of what the average in this world is.”

“We are what is known as Xerani, people that have broken past the chains of humanity. While every person is capable of using Ehror, at the same time every person is capped at what their body is able to handle. Ninety-six percent of the entire worlds population would be stuck at a ‘human’ level.” He continued.

“The rest are able to climb through various level to reach powers far beyond what any person should be capable of.”

“Is that what the Soldier class refers to?” Gael questioned.

“That is exactly right, the Soldier class is directly above that of what is deemed human class. The reason it is called Soldier class is due to the fact that armies consist mainly of people at that level so it is seen as a requirement of a sort to have that level in your army as an average amongst the individuals.”

“What are the other levels?”

“In order from weakest to strongest, Human class, Soldier class, Artillery class and Catastrophe class.” He hesitated.

“Is there another?” Sevyn urged upon noticing.

“Well, there is, known as Royal class. It is the highest level discovered.” He hesitated once more.

“So, people at the Royal class are very powerful then.” She stated the obvious out loud more to herself.

“That is the case, in fact they are practically godlike in power, even artillery classes can feel godlike. Being capable of tearing down entire mountains at the highest level.”

Sevyn was reminded of the fight she witnessed between the director and his opponent, she could not see much but the description of the Artillery class seemed to match what she could remember.

She could feel her excitement rising.

“So based on that you can imagine what the Catastrophe class at the top level can be, even more so the Royal class.”

“Are people designated each level based on combat ability then?”

“Pretty much yes however at each level there is a certain quality to a person’s Ehror at each threshold, after all not everyone has a high level destructibility depending on their fighting style and their abilities.”

“And you figured that we should be at Soldier class?”

“Not just Soldier class, decently high into it, I am considered somewhere around the middle.”

“And I assume people climb through these levels to eventually reach Royal class.”

Raavar stared for a moment.

“Remember what I said about Ninety-six percent of humanity not even reaching the Soldier class?” He asked.

She nodded in response.

“This is the same for every level just because you reached Soldier class does not mean you have the ability to reach Artillery class and this goes for each level. This means that for each level there are less people than in the last. There are likely hundreds of millions of Soldier class Xerani in the world, most being at its lower level.”

She was engrossed now.

“But then there are a few thousand Artillery classes, a regular person would see like one in their life and at most there are a hundred Catastrophe class Xerani.” He paused again.

“The Royal class was made up of five people and all five of them have been around for a couple thousand years.”

“Only five for the last two thousand years?”

“That is right.” A voice she did not recognize.

Turning to the stairs she saw a short old man dressed in a white robe followed by Ariel.

“And you are?”

“Amuro, the Chief of this village Diar, nice to meet you.” He bowed respectfully.

She did not bow but nodded in greeting before beginning to introduce the others.

“You are Sevyn and the other two are Gael and Angelo.” He said before she could speak.

“How did you know? We have not told Ariel our names yet.”

“I have a blessing from Royal Maeve.”

“And who would that be?”

“One of said Royals I was talking about, one thing that we know separates Royals from the rest of us at a different level than that which separates Xerani and humans is their ability to gives blessings.” Raavar answered. “Certainly adds to their god-like status right?”

“And this…Maeve gave you the ability to see our names.”

Amuro chuckled.

“Well on occasion I am able to see parts of the future, so I expected Raavar to bring you here.”

“Does that mean we are meant to do something if you got a revelation about our appearances?”

“Not necessarily, I just see things on occasion they can be incredibly important or completely inconsequential.”

“That does not seem particularly useful.” She mused.

“Not always.” He said amusedly. “But it never fails for particularly important events.”

“Do the Royals always give out blessings like this?” And did they give them to just about anyone? She wanted to say but did not. This bald old man in front of her was nothing special at least when it came to Ehror. But she realised that Ehror was far from everything in this world, if most people, if most creatures were not even on the level of a Soldier class then the world could not revolve around it, that was her hunch.

“Not at all, in fact a blessing is extremely rare, even more so than Artillery class Xerani.”

“But this is not why you called me down is it Raavar? I may know their names and appearance but I do not know much more than that about them. The fact that they are always showing signs of Mystification despite being only at the Soldier level tells me there is more to our guests.”

“You are exactly right, our guests are…quite peculiar and I want your thought on this, with your blessing from Maeve you should be able to give us a few clues.”

“What about that meal you promised us?” Sevyn had not forgotten and wanted to eat something after so long.

“Don’t worry it is already being prepared.”