Chapter 8

'GO!' Boren shouts,

I had already crouched into a position from which it was easy to start running and as I heard the 'GO' I started running as fast as I could staying close to the ground. I heard the turrets shooting so I changed direction and rolled over the ground as a flurry of mana shot all around me. I kept running till I reached the cave that went up but no further mana was shot at me.

As I looked back I saw that Boren was still lying on the ground behind the bit of cover. Then I realized that I had been used. Boren just wanted to check if I could make it before he would try it out.

'What are you doing!?' I yelled to Boren.

'I don't think I can make it, I can't run that fast!' Boren yelled.

'Go get Mys Tara and ask her to turn these turrets off! She knows how to stealth, should be no problem. I'll just wait here.'

'I'll be right back' I yelled.

I guess due to his entire body being made of metal he lacks the speed to go over rough terrain fast enough. Maybe that is why they almost never leave their tower. Its not safe for them to be anywhere else. Is what I thought as I went up the cave into the bathroom.

I then walked straight to the contact room and contacted Mys Tara.

'Hi, busy day it seems. So what did you break this time?'

As I was about to give an honest answer I figured I'd make a joke; 'Boren'.

'What about Boren?' she asked.

I wanted to joke about Boren being the one I broke but I figured that it is a joke not to be made in a serious situation like this. Or its more like I got kinda scared by the fury with which Mys Tara said 'what about Boren'. Instead I said; 'Boren is in trouble and he asked me to contact you.'

'WHAT! I'll be on my way, don't you move!' she said as she broke off the connection.

Seeing her reaction I wondered if Mys Tara and Boren were more than just colleagues. But imagining a Tamarin and a metal man together made that idea go away quite quickly. Though, Mys Tara was originally also a metal woman. I should ask them what I should call their species, it just sounds strange to call 'm by the stuff they're made of.

I exited the contact room and saw that the elevator was already on its way down by the sounds I heard coming for the elevator. This sure had turned into one very very long day. Once we get that database thing figured out I wanna get good food and a good night sleep. Hopefully training will be easier tomorrow.

'Where is he?' Mys asked with a stern look as she stepped out of the elevator.

'He's in a cave below us.' I answered leaving out the important bits just to see the confused face she'd make. Boren is safe as long as he doesn't try anything strange.

Her face went from a stern look to a confused look almost instantly.

'We found a cave when a wall in the bathroom broke due to the water pressure of the toilet that didn't flush. Also, how do you call your race? I was just wondering.'

'You may call us the Ancients. So he's down in a cave and can't get out or something?' Mys Tara said having calmed down a bit she continued; 'please focus on the problem at hand.'

'Why should I do that? It helped you calm down did it not? I heard that you need to be calm and composed if you want to stealth. Which is also why I was asked to call you here. We stumbled upon the database of the golden tower but upon approaching it we were detected and its defensive mana turrets started shooting at us. If it weren't for my mana shield we wouldn't have had enough time to jump for cover. But from where we took cover it was too far for Boren to run to safety due to his heavy body.'

'I see' said Mys Tara.

Then she turned and walked through the hall into the kitchen; upon entering she couldn't help but say 'Whoa! It stinks in here; what did you do?' as she held her nose.

Then when she took her first step into the bathroom she said 'Ah! Gross, its so bad here that I can even taste it!' After which she also covered up her mouth.

Then she went into the cave as I followed her. Its a good thing that I was covering up my mouth and nose because the grin I had because of Mys Tara's funny responses would've ticked her off for sure. I don't think she likes me very much.

As the end of the cave came into sight Mys Tara stealthed. I stopped quite surprised as she had literally and completely disappeared. Then I walked a bit further and as Boren saw me standing there he yelled

'Hey I though you were going to get Mys Tara! Where is she!?'

'I brought her, she's going to try and take out the turrets.' I yelled back.

'Hey, don't yell' said Mys Tara who reappeared right in front of me. It seems like I sorta yelled into her ear without noticing it. 'Sorry, didn't see you there.'

'Good' said Mys Tara. 'Test-run is complete, now for the real deal.' She disappeared again.

It was silent in the cave. Nothing could be heard and nobody moved. Well Mys Tara was probably moving but I couldn't see nor hear her. I so want to learn how to stealth. It'd make so many things so much easier. I could effectively hide away from my duties as a member of the royal family, I could stealth and get in and out of school without anyone noticing. Of course there are a ton of bad things I could do... Not like that ever crossed my mind. No I am not like that. Definitely not like that. I thought to myself as I shook my head.

'What is wrong?' Boren yelled. 'Why are you shaking your head?'

'Hey I said not to yell!' Mys Tara replied as she reappeared right next to him.

'I'm sorry, didn't expect you to be so fast.'

'What do you mean so fast?' I yelled'

'You could understand what we were saying?' Boren said.

'Yes loud and clear.'

'Ah right I forgot, that's another specialty of the Druid. Excellent hearing. I guess I didn't need to yell after all.' Boren replied.

'Should've realized that before' Boren said as he turned to Mys Tara. But she had already stealthed and moved forward.

'What do you mean by so fast?' I repeated

'I mean that maintaining stealth is already really hard. Moving while concentrating on your stealth is even harder. Only the true masters are able to freely run around while stealthed.'

'Oh I see, so its just like how you need to concentrate when you use mana.'

'Yes exactly like that.'

We then heard Mys Tara yelling 'I did it, you can come out now.'

'YAY!' Boren said as he jumped up from his crouching position.

We then walked to where Mys Tara was, at the base of the golden tower.

'It seems you need to activate it since it requires the mind of an Ancient to open it.'

'Why that?' I asked.

'Well you see that hole over there? Its a head-scanner that scans what is in your head and if you aren't an ancient in a metal body your head will get stuck automatically and the council will be notified of the security breach. In other words its not something you would want to happen to you.'

Boren then stuck his head in and within seconds the golden wall dissipated revealing the control panel. There were a lot of buttons and screens and lights and more holes like the one Boren stuck his head in.

'Oh wow, this is gonna take a while to decipher. Its all in the Ancient language and not in the general one. I'll have to look up how to read that language in the database. I guess we won't be getting what we want for free.' Boren said.

'Well at least nobody got hurt by the mana turrets.' Mys Tara said.

'So, what should I do?' I asked.

'You'll have to start training again just in case. Also, I read from the database that changing races too often will lead you to slowly lose your memory due to your brain structure changing all the time. So don't change until we've uploaded your mind and memories to our special section of the database. We don't want other ancients to be prying in your brain now do we?'

'They can do that!? Wait, you mean you two can do that too?' I asked kinda worried since I didn't like people knowing what I thought.

'We could but we have no idea how to do it plus it is quite dangerous to do so we refrain from it.' Boren answered as he turned and while looking at the database being displayed on his wrist he tried to decipher what everything meant.

'I guess I should go back to training then. That stealthing looked like a very handy skill.' I said as I turned around somewhat waiting for an answer but both Boren and Mys Tara were totally engrossed by the prospect of entering the hidden files of the database. Thus I just went back up the cave and to the training room.

Once at the training room I browsed through the list of available training till I found the stealth-training. 'Necessary level: 10'

The room stayed the same so I guess I'll have to complete a couple other training schedules. Would be nice if I finished up the training before they figured out the database. It just didn't seem like a good idea to download my brain to a machine no matter how intriguing it may seem. Maybe I'm just being childish.

I then picked a running training, I turned around and Tamarin reappeared. On the ground I could see the track that was to be run. 'Sprint or marathon?' Tamarin asked.

'What is marathon?' I asked.

Then the tracks changed from a straight line into a track that went around the edges of the training room.

'Stand in the yellow circle to begin'.

So I went into the circle and a countdown started. Right when the countdown reached 0 Tamarin started running so I started running too. But there was no way for me in my untrained body to effectively keep up with Tamarin.

Much training would be needed I guess. But I kept going regardless. After a 5 rounds I got a notification:

'You've gained a level, you gained 5 points to put in either endurance or agility. Do you want to do this training again?'

Seemed to be easy enough to gain a level. Mys Tara had done this type of training before, I wonder what level she is at. Maybe she can give me some tips. So I went out the training room again and went to look for Mys Tara in the cave below ground.

'Mys Tara, I just gained a level by doing the marathon training, what level are you now?'

'I'm currently level 100 but its not your level but your stats that matter. Your stats actually show your true ability. So if you raise your true ability through training your stats will go up accordingly and by doing a training you'll gain a level. Also, something you should know. You can ask Tamarin the trainer how he does what he does by saying

“help me sensei” ;okay?'

'Its in the manual but I guess you hadn't found that yet' she continued with a smile;

'Though I should've told you about it if I had then all of this wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't have found this cave. So I guess we should thank you.'

'Thank me? For what?' I replied; quite confused for being thanked since all I had done so far was break things.

'Thank you for throwing up in the toilet and thus breaking the bathroom wall.' She said with a big smile.

'Seeing as it was quite a long day we better go sleep. Boren doesn't need to sleep so he'll just continue to work here.'

We then said goodbye to Boren and went up the cave to the training facility's kitchen for dinner. We had a proper meal this time which was nice, filled up my belly nicely. Turns out they had the juicer function on just to tease me.

As we were eating I asked;

'So why are you two working around the system? It almost seems as though you are enemies of the council of the Ancients.'

'I guess we owe you a full explanation. Our race is here to learn how to build peace as I think I told you before; sorry a lot has happened today so I may be repeating some things.'

'that's okay' I replied.

'Well in our race there are several factions that have different beliefs of how lasting peace can be achieved and each faction tries to guide the races of these lands to follow that way to peace that they believe will bring lasting peace.

The faction that me and Boren are in used to be the major faction that believed that dividing up the continent and splitting it up into small harmless nations was the way to go but ever since the endless war of the humans started we have booked very little to no success and our faction has lost members. Now its just me and Boren, everyone else is in the unity faction that believes that to achieve lasting peace all must be under one rule.

We did however book one victory 20 years ago by training the great sage and sending him out to achieve peace. But eventually due to Joren the only peaceful country producing weapons that success was thwarted very fast. That is how we lost our last bit of influence we had on the council.

There are still other small factions but the faction that wants to achieve unity is by far the most prominent one and their most recent work has affected you and your family. I have no hard evidence but it could be that the assassins that were sent to kill you and your family were payed to do so by the council. That is why we're doing our best to keep you hidden from the others and that is also why we use old facility's like this training center and that transformer that you broke. Besides that we only still have our old house.'

'Wow, that is quite a history. So all major geopolitical happenings were ya'lls doings?'

'Yeah pretty much all of it was planned by Boren.'

'How come you're not sure if the council sent assassins? Do you know of anybody else who could've done it?'

'Could've been the people that produce those weapons that your father forbade. Or Jin, or Jagun. It could've also been an attempt to capture you.'

'No, if that were so then why did they also kill the ambassadors in Jagun if they wanted to capture me.'

'It could've been a cover-up that whether they failed or succeeded they wouldn't be blamed for it.'

I still couldn't believe it but I understood what she meant and I did consider it as a remote possibility.

'But in the end you're not sure.' I asked.

'Nope, but I'm sure that if the council has investigated the incident which I am sure they have we will find information about it in the secret files that Boren is trying to decipher downstairs.

Its gotten quite late; we better go sleep, you'll have to pick your pace with your training tomorrow so I'll be assisting you in the mornings and don't you dare slack off.'

We had then finished our dinner and after cleaning up we said goodnight and she went to their house through the elevator and I went to bed after a long adventurous day.