Within the confines of the library, there were only two people present in a rather compromising position which would send even a nun’s mind to the gutter except for the unlucky lad below the ravishing young lady had a knife held to his throat. Samuel, the lucky or unlucky bugger depending on how you interpret the situation, was panicking but he didn't let it show on his face, a real man never exposes his inner feelings, right? He had to be smart about this as he knew Helen was a decisive person and wouldn’t hesitate to put him down. ‘Empty your mind, be clear and concise. Ok, showtime.”

"I think it’s cute the way your nose scrunches up when you sleep" What the hell was that? Idiot. Idiot. Tentatively Samuel looked towards Helen and saw that her eyes still had a hard expression except it had some traces of disgust as well. Samuel put up a warm smile as if he had the noblest intention despite what he said moments completely contradict it. Helen stared at him for a couple of moments before sheathing her dagger and standing up to her feet.

Relief flooded through Samuels system as he thought he was a real goner there. Before he could get himself up a foot slammed into his chest and Helen spoke out threateningly,

"If you try something, anything, I will kill you. Understood?" Samuel quickly nodded as the strength in her kick was by no means weak especially considering she was a mage. Helen then briskly left the library leaving Samuel flopped on the floor. After a couple minutes after Helen left only then did Samuel relax, taking in deep breathes he calmed himself down. He resolved to lock this moment of his life into the mental vault and to be remembered again. Samuel also decided to avoid Helen for the duration of mission lest she gets cold feet and kills him just to be safe.

After brushing himself off he got up and out of curiosity, he looked at the books that Helen was looking at. It was an encyclopedia on rare herbs and plants. The page she opened to was an entry about a plant called 'Luna Daisy'. A bit of a dumb name but ok, Samuel continued to skim through and it read that the flower had miraculous antidotal properties and could even potentially lift curses due to a slight holy attribute it has due it being bathed in moonlit essence. As amazing as this sounds this plant is probably impossible to get ahold of due to it being the possession of the Moonlit Fae. The majority of Fae races don't take kindly to outsiders, especially to ones that aren't of their own race which is why they never show themselves ever.

After scanning through the page Samuel shrugged to himself and exited the library, it wasn't his business and he was in dangerous enough water with Helen so he won't pry about it. The sun was beginning to make its descent towards the horizon, deciding that today was exciting enough Samuel thought to look for an inn to rest for the night. After a short while of aimless meandering, he found a decent looking one. Walking inside he saw it had a pretty jolly atmosphere as small groups of people enjoyed some evening drinks. Samuel was greeted by a middle-aged man,

"Evening son, you looking to stay the night or you wanna sit in and eat?"

"Just a room for the night," Sam replied.

"Alright, one night costs 80 copper," Nodding at the acceptable price Samuel paid and followed the man to his room for the night. Crashing down into the bed as all of the stress from today was immediately released and he snuggled into the padded bedding. After a couple moments, he sat up crossed leg. Remembering about his circle problem he began to meditate and saturate his soul with mana. As his circles span and turned the mana from the environment into his personal mana his capacity slowly increased. Progress was slow but the Great Tree didn't grow in a day so he kept at it. After an hour of meditation Samuel inspecting himself for changes, first of all, his capacity increased by a minuscule amount, probably less than 2% but what he also noticed was that the runes on his null magic circle were glowing as some more runes appeared and the circle grew ever so slightly bigger. Excited at the prospect of making some headway in solving this problem Samuel proceeded to empty his entire reserves into his circle and had his dimension circle spinning to create more mana. All this multi-tasking put some strain on Samuel mind but it was bearable. After he emptied himself, the null magic circle generated about two more rune characters and grew ever so slightly bigger but it was still about half the size of the dimension circle. After all this concentration and exertion Samuel was well and truly pooped, however, this lead him to remember something about his awakening. When he awakened he finished well before anyone else by a pretty large margin, he remembered how when the massive amounts of mana pumped into him he felt like he was about to burst it but that feeling faded in seconds. He figured that there wasn't mana allocated to him to fully awaken his abilities so he has to now finish the job himself, which could also explain why his null magic circle is so small.

With a solution now at hand, Samuel was content and all that was left to do was good old fashioned hard work. Seeing that his dimensional circle was still spinning by itself and generating mana he focused to send the small stream of mana into the null magic rather than his mana storage. After redirecting it, mana continued to flow from one circle to the other while his body will naturally absorb mana into his reserve despite its speed being insignificant compared to what his circle could achieve

With that sorted, Samuel went straight to sleep.

Waking up to the sound of the bustle outside Sam woke up went to the washroom to take care of his bodily needs. Feeling refreshed he walked into the dining room and sat himself down. After a few moments, a young boy a bit younger came to him,

"Good morning what could I get you," He spoke with a smile. After telling the boy his order he looked into himself and checked the progress with his circles. He saw that the circle grew slightly and that it went from less than half the size of his dimensional circle to about above half, this may seem like a small amount but it felt like a stark difference to what it was before. Samuel figured that after a week or two of constantly supplying mana from his dimensional circle to his null circle will his circle finish forming.

After a short while, his meal arrived and Samuel basically inhaled hit by finishing it in a matter of moments. Afterwards finishing his business with the inn he made his way outside and walked aimlessly down the street. He looked at the clocktower and saw that he still had time until he needed to meet up with the rest of the caravan. Seeing that he had nothing urgent to do he decided to just walk aimlessly and see if anything interests him.

Walking around he somehow made his way to the outskirts of the town where it was a bit less savoury for most people. Seeing as he shouldn't be here, Samuel turned around and began making his way back to the main part of town but as he was walking back he saw the adventurer who punched him in the face and his partner. While watching them he saw that they were on high alert, seeing their suspicious behaviour Samuel decided to tail them and see what they're up to.

He followed them further into the slum area, this place no longer had an inviting atmosphere with poverty around each corner. Scenes like this could be seen just about everywhere and Samuel was used to this sight as he used to be a character of such a hopeless scene when he was younger before he was befriended by Cassie. Not wanting to open old wounds Sam focuses on not being seen while tailing the duo. He saw that they entered a warehouse that was well guarded. Cursing to himself Sam looked around and decided to flank round to the back of the building, remembering some of the climbing techniques from 'The comprehensive Guide to Street Fighting and Fleeing' he had to climb over several shacks and buildings, he was a bit clumsy but he had to do this in order to remain inconspicuous until he reached the warehouse, Samuel reached the building in question and he saw he could jump onto the roof.

After leaping onto the roof, he found a loose section of tiles so Sam summoned his knife to pry apart some of the roof tiles. Sam had a bad feeling about those two and not because one of them punched him in the face. Sam made enough progress so that some of their conversations could be heard by him.

"Have you two done it?" A voice that Samuel couldn't recognise spoke out.

"Yep, the merchant has taken the 'bribe' and has willingly decided to transport our 'goods'" The guy who punched Samuel spoke this time.

"Good the boss will be happy, alright continue as normal until you reach the last town before Hemelith then we'll dispose of the extras,"

'Shit he's not talking about me is he?' Sam thought to himself.

"Don't worry they should be easy pickings also I found out something interesting,"

"Ooh what could it be," The unknown voice asked inquisitively,

"Yesterday I saw the cloaked one in the library and get this, she's a drow," A shocked silence lasted for a second or two before the unknown voice burst out in laughter,

"This is great news, drows are high-value merchandise and any noble would pay a pretty penny for one as a slave." Sam drew in a cold breath, they were talking about Helen. This revelation lead to Samuel feeling colder and colder, he wanted to warn Helen but he can't be sure that she'll believe him because she has no reason to, moreover he doesn't know who else is in on the plot so he doesn't know who else he could tell. Sam was panicking, this was definitely above the grade of the mission. Sam got up to leave but he slipped on some tiles that he just uprooted. Shit, without waiting for anyone's reaction Sam rushed off as fast as he could. He leapt from the roof and continued on this rooftop pathway, he could hear shouts behind him so he quickly increased his speed to the maximum.

'I guess instructions from the guide would become useful earlier than I thought it would' Samuel mused to himself as he leapt from rooftop to rooftop, climbing up and over each obstacle in a bid to lose any potential pursuers. Sam made some headway and he saw the wall of a dilapidated building in his way so Samuel summoned the hammer and then he spun two times before launching it at the wall. Obvious the wall crumbled down but the loud crash that accompanied it alerted the pursuers of his location. Rookie mistake, not stopping to think mull about it, Sam ran through the newly paved exit and leapt to another building. He could hear some hustle and bustle behind him accompanied by rough and aggressive voices screaming at his back. Throwing the hammer was a mistake but there's no point in dwelling on mistakes when your life is still on the line, so Samuel de-summoned his hammer while running and increased his speed.

After running for a minute with a group of assailants still on his tail Samuel decided to make his way to higher ground so he changed his direction towards the centre of town where the buildings were a lot taller and it was more densely packed. Samuel's lungs were burning at this point, his muscles are used to such high demands from when he used to run away from shopkeepers when he was younger but the parkour added extra toll onto his body. Furthermore, if Samuel looked inside his dimensional circle was spinning at unprecedented speeds and was rapidly creating mana and sending it into his null circle which was then forming at an increased rate as well and runic character steadily appeared.

Samuel arrived at atop a building that faced the middle section of the clocktower, he saw that some men were still following him and he also saw the adventurer duo who looked furious as well as bloodthirsty, luckily Samuel put on a different cloak so they couldn't recognise him. Sam jumped into an open window within the tower and he could hear shouts from below as his chasers entered the tower as well. Running up the stairs Samuel bounded his way up the tower but he knew the situation was beginning to get grim for him as if he keeps going up he'll eventually get cornered, also he was beginning to slow down as going up steps was a massive stamina drain on his already depleted reserves. He could hear them catching up so Samuel decided he should fight back a bit so he summoned the deck of cards and rained them down onto the unsuspecting men below. Samuel grinned as he heard some of them cry out as the cards either slashed them or embedded themselves in their bodies.

``I need to get Annie a present after this' Despite slowing them down slightly the cards couldn't afflict fatal damage as these types of weapons are designed to be used in conjunction with poisons. While running up the stairs he saw out of a window a thick wire leading from the clock tower to the buildings below, Samuel figured that they were the wires attached to the lightning rods. These were common in all towns and cities as by absorbing lighting from storms you can store it as lightning mana which can be sold as batteries or ingredients for consumables and weapons if lighting essence was created as well.

Seeing a chance to escape Samuel decided to go all in, but Sam remembered he was terrible at poker as Annie kindly demonstrated to him by relieving him of his underwear. Hopefully, some metaphysical being would take pity on him and increase his chances of survival. Needing to go all out Samuel summoned his hammer again and threw it down the winding staircase and a group of goons which caused them to cry out,

"Where the fuck did he get a hammer?"

"Is he fucking insane?"

Samuel continued to summon his weapons, his axe, his scythe and even his shield, he threw them down and caused the goons to slow down as well as wonder where the hell is he pulling all this equipment from. Samuel reached a window that was below the thick cable and decided that this was all or nothing. De-summoning all his equipment and summoning his buckler he crashed out of the window.

This feeling of weightlessness, time seemed to slow down for Samuel as his consciousness began to catch up with his actions. He saw the shattered pieces glass around him, the ground below with people moving at a snail's pace, he could see some of the reflections of his pursuer in the fragments of glass, their shocked faces as they witnessed Samuel seemingly leap to his death. His slowed-down perception began to catch up with real-time and he felt himself fall toward mother earth.

"AAAAAAAAHHH" Samuel cried out to the top of his lungs as he started to doubt his sanity as to why he would make such a suicidal decision. He quickly snapped out of it and his eyes locked onto the thick cable above, he tried to grasp it but he only managed to caress it with his fingertips before he began to fall down.

'NOOOO' A cry of defiance cried out in Samuels mind, he was not going to die like this. His mind went blank as all he focused on was surviving, he suddenly felt a pulse of mana flow through his body and a vague red shadow materialised around his neck. He was ambushed by a familiar feeling of weightlessness as he felt like he stepped on clouds, he leapt off the ghostly platform and found himself moving back towards the cable while the phantom shadow disappeared. Samuel's eyes were bloodshot as a second chance appeared before him. Briskly he summoned the scythe and hooked it around the cable. Gravity once again took ahold of Samuel and he almost lost his grip of the handle. He lurched up and down the cable but the scythe remained hooked on and Samuel began sliding away from the tower and his would-be killers.

Samuel didn't relax yet as he still wasn't in the clear, he would only relax when his feet touch the solid hard ground. He didn't notice while running but his body was soaked in sweat and his muscles were crying out in protest however he still held fast to the scythe. Looking around he could see the town around him, and looking forward he could see the caravan which put a sinking feeling in Samuel's gut as he realised that he only just escaped the pan and that he was still falling towards the fire.

Eventually, he got close enough to the rooftops to land, seeing as his body couldn't take much more he jumped as soon as he could. Samuel landed with a tumble but he tumbled one too many times as he found himself falling off the side of the rooftop. While falling he hit obstacles such as washing lines and open windows, all of which broke under his body. Samuel finally landed in what seemed to be a pile of hay where a bunch of animals were feeding.

'I guess my luck is turning around after all' Samuel joked to himself.

As much as he wanted to lay there he knew he couldn't stay for much longer. After a brief moment of respite, he got up and changed his cloaks and began walking in the direction of the caravan. He was limping slightly as he might've sprained his ankle during the fall which is lucky considering the punishment he just put himself through. Samuel trudged his way to the caravan while picking up a recovery potion on the way, it was quite expensive and burned through about 60% of his funds but it was necessary as he doesn't want to draw attention to himself from the criminal duo lest they recognise him as the escapist.

The potion worked wonders as he could feel his body heal at a rapid pace, he felt is arms heal, his back strain disappear and his limp go away. Eventually, he arrived at the caravan where he knew that unfortunately, the action has only just begun.