They soon rushed at each other again, swinging their swords and using their Chaos.

The battle dragged on for another few minutes. While Jay was intelligent and skillfully utilized his Chaos to a high degree of efficiency in the spar, his uncle Jovos' years of experience proved slightly superior.

As the battle etched on, the difference between the level of Chaos between then began to widen, with Jovos taking a slight lead.

By then Jay was covered in sweat. He heaved as his body tried to extract as much oxygen in the air as possible to fuel his energy-demanding moves.

His stance and form started to loosen as he had to dedicate more energy to simply observe and track his opponent's movements.

Jovos on the other hand looked visibly calm. While sweat was still perspiring from his forehead, and his movements had slowed down significantly, he was still calm and methodical in his strikes. His form remained strong in contrast to Jays.

They clashed a few more times until Jay finally exhausted his Chaos.

Jovos swung his Chaos-infused sword from above while Jay tried to block it. Jay's sword splintered against the power of the Chaos-infused sword, leaving him defenseless.

"You lost" Jovos said as walked back to the Vault door entrance, adjusting his wooden seat before dropping the wooden sword beneath it and exhaustively slumping into it.

"Phew! This was the closest one to date!" He breathlessly sighed.

"Yeah... But it won't end like this next time" Jay tiredly remarked.

He was disappointed at the result of the fight, but he at least saw the progress he made since the previous fights.

As he began to make his way back, Jovos called out to him.

"Oh before you go, can you tell Isiah to take a break from the Forge? He's been stuck in there all month mulling over something, if no one snaps him out of his trance, he'll be stuck in it forever!"

"Sure, I'll make sure he takes a break"

Jovos' son Isiah was the same age as Jay and Zane, but barely had an ounce of Chaos, even less than Jay! It didn't matter to him, however, as everyone in the clan knew he was a sword nut. He would be holed up in the Forge, trying to radicalize the swordsmithing department into adopting new smithing methods and in some extreme cases, changing the whole essence of the sword!

Jay sighed when thinking about Isiah, whenever they would meet, Isiah would rave about abstract swordsmithing techniques that would completely go past Jay's head.

He made his way back through the long doorway into the hall. The doorway to the Vault was located at the back of the palace, and the entrance was at the front.

He approached a large silver gilded wooden door that separated the palace from the outside. Pushing it open, he was showered by the sunlight.

The palace was where the main family lived. The rest of the clan members lived on the lower plain, a large flat elevated region of the mountain. The dormant volcanic mountain the clan lived in was called Mt. Velusian, and while moderate height, its radius was gigantic. This allowed plenty of room for the clan to live in flat areas of the mountain.

Jay continued on, walking down sets of wide black stone stairs that eventually petered to flat roads.

Before him was the clan town, a collection of houses and structures sprawled across the elevated flat region. Every building was built out of black stone, indicative of its volcanic origins. But they weren't simple stone structures. The buildings were intricately designed and decorated.

On every building were etchings of circuits and decorative sharp designs, these were expressions of their deep culture passed throughout many generations.

While the black volcanic stone was used to build nearly the entire town, red fabric drapes were present nearly everywhere as decoration and cover from the sun and rain. This formed a consistent theme of black and red, a combination that was widely adopted in nearly every design aspect of the clan.

While the casual clothes they wore didn't tend to conform to this theme, the official uniforms worn by the clan member on special occasions and the official clothes worn by the main family never strayed from the combination of a slim window of black and red shades.

Jay wore the standard male main family uniform, a charcoal black sleek uniform with intricate designs all over it in a slightly lighter shade and dark red velvet outline spanning every edge of the top and pants.

Jay continued on his way, passing through the town. The entrance to the town was located opposite the palace, which was etched deep in the centre of the volcano. The Forge, however, was located to the side.

As he made his way through the town, he was greeted by the clan members.

Being a child of the main family meant he was well known throughout the clan, and the shrinking population didn't help either.

"Hello Jay! How are you sweetie?" An older lady asked. Her name was Sara and she was the wife of the head of the swordsmithing sector, Jon. She was always calm and polite, a stark contrast to her fiery husband.

"Nothing much, just gonna force Isiah to take a break" Jay replied.

"Oh dear, that boy will get sick at this rate! I'll tell Jon to keep an eye on him."

"Thanks, Sara"

"Oh by the way, have you heard from Daniel?" She worriedly asked him.

'Daniel, isn't that her nephew?' Jay remembered.

"No what happened?"

"He disappeared during the last expedition, expedition team spend 3 whole days looking for him but they couldn't find him. They just returned now to tell us the bad news. I was hoping you would know. Poor Carla, his mother is sick with worry!"

Jay frowned.

'He disappeared during an expedition? This isn't good, everyone knows the clan is not doing too well these days, and now a person has disappeared for the first time in hundreds of years! I'll have to try find out more' He thought.

"I'll make sure she's alright after I visit the forge"

"Oh thank you, dear! I know the whole mood of the town hasn't been so good recently, and I wouldn't want Carla to suffer too much more"

Jay nodded and continued on.