I learned that the Aethrus Desert was quite a bit further than I thought. Seriously, just how far is it? We traveled for over a week passed the Kniclad Mountains and were still in grassy plains. Well, somewhat grassy plains. What was the word? Savanna? At least the dirt was starting to resemble sand, or some odd dirt sand hybrid. The temperature was also steadily increasing the further we traveled, which I thought was a good sign. Deserts are hot, right? Maybe we should make a good push today to try and see if we could reach the Aethrus Desert; the only issue with that idea was the fact that I had no idea how much further we needed to go. It is hard to say dig in deep and push when there easily could be another week of travel needed.

  My best guess was to simply keep a solid pace for now. Now that I was thinking about it, once we hit desert, there still could be even further before we reached Elijiah. It took some willpower not to sigh in annoyance now that I realized it. Forling Lords above there is so much traveling in the . Duh, that’s what the name implies, Lux. Obviously we were going to cover a lot of ground in an event known as a . The good news was I had plenty of time to practice maintaining my halos as we walked forward, and my time of being able to maintain them was slightly longer than when I started. Two whole seconds longer.

  Eventually, the minor increases in each aspect would add up and make substantially better. Next time I rematch Nil, I am using that from the start. I knew he’d have some answer for it, the only question was what. His was cheating when it came to trying to overwhelm him with speed; he’d either move out of the way or slow down what was around him so that he could perceive what was coming. His deals with mine so efficiently it’s grating. I needed to crush Ufr so I knew I was on pace for dueling Nil once I got back. My hope was was fast enough to overcome that blasted ability of his to slow time; it let me run several laps around a mountain range before a stone fell. King Ilrymax did demonstrate there are methods for dealing with that level of speed even if you can’t move that fast yourself; I need to keep refining and perfecting the I have.

  “Uh, Lux, is everything okay?” Onilin inquired, jarring me from my thoughts.

  “Why are you asking?” I probed because I didn’t get what her concern was.

  “You are emitting an intense aura right now.” Onilin answered. I noticed Vndrglz and Zagzin subtly hiding behind her.

  “I was thinking of the future.” I informed her.

  “And that got you annoyed?” Onilin pressed in a skeptical tone.

  “There are a few duels in my future that I want to go my way. I was simply thinking what I needed to do between now and each of them to maximize the chance of me winning.” I explained. Ufr needs to learn his place, and then I need to prove I am not weaker than Nil.

  “Duels? Who is the other besides Ufr?” Zagzin noticed. What a surprisingly attentive point of his.

  “Nil. If I can’t crush Ufr, I might as well not even bother with the second one.” I grumbled. I want to beat Nil so badly.

  “Just how strong is this Nil? Who is Nil?” Vndrglz probed. Did I ever explain that to the bug? He seemed a mix of stunned and concerned with the thought the benchmark was crushing Ufr.

  “Immensely. Somewhere quite above Ufr but nowhere near as strong as a King. I do not have a lot of reference points to narrow it down more.” I explained. The three of them shifted as they thought it over.

  “He also has tasty tree juice.” Ikol added enthusiastically, acting like that was helpful information.

  “Tree juice?” the three asked in unison. I let out a small sigh.

  “It is called sap, and it is made into syrup. You harvest that sticky stuff on trees and refine it into syrup, which is a tasty sauce.” I lectured. I might as well have sprouted two additional heads for how baffled the three of them looked.

  “But they taste close. You can lick the trees for a sample.” Ikol pointed out, excited to share his tree juice knowledge.

  “Where did anyone learn that?! Why?! Who looked at trees and thought they could make a sauce out of it?!” Vndrglz demanded in an incredulous tone.

  “I don’t forling know. It’s tasty and goes well on pancakes.” I shot back. Ikol did a happy little hop.

  “Can we get pancakes again?! Those were so good!” Ikol requested as he drooled a bit thinking about eating them.

  “What in the name of the Lords are pancakes?” Onilin checked, sounding so confused.

  “Some breakfast food on Tenebrae.” Ikol shot out joyfully. I swat him for that one, and Ikol gave me giant pouting eyes in response.

  “Tenebrae?” Vndrglz asked while I stared into Ikol’s soul. Onilin looked stunned at me as she seemed to realize something.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “You’re from a different place other than Phestia” Onilin deduced, so I turned to glare at her as all three looked at me in amazement.

  “What if I am?” I challenged them. Onilin let out a massive sigh of relief. What?

  “That explains so much. Oh, thank the forling Lords I was questioning reality there for a bit.” Onilin answered sounding greatly relieved. That was not the reaction I was expecting.

  “How did you get here? How do you travel from one, what would the word be, world?, to another?” Vndrglz inquired. I could tell his curiosity was barely being kept in check.

  “Krahinn, the most obnoxious being to ever live; he can open doors between worlds. Krahinn is friends with Sovereign Hoggdin who let me stay here to learn. Nil to a lesser extent can do it as well, but he struggles with it. Also, I believe the term they use is Realm.” I lectured as we kept walking.

  “Krahinn is nice.” Ikol stated. It took every fiber of my being not to start attacking Ikol for that comment.

  “No, he is not! Krahinn is a massive jerk who knows no one can beat him! It’s entirely his fault Nil has gotten so obnoxiously strong!” I snarled at him which made him cower a bit.

  “What do you mean no one can beat him? Sovereign Hoggdin is the strongest.” Zagzin retorted, which made Ikol shrink a bit more.

  “One, Miril has already earned the position of Sovereign. Two, neither of them are a match for Krahinn. Believe me or not, but that blasted bird is so forling strong it is not even fair. The only competition for him is the being that wants to murder Nil.” I informed them. All three looked at me like I had lost my mind.

  “How come he doesn’t have a title then?” Vndrglz shot back. What kind of nonsense point was that?

  “He is from a Realm known as Ygdazi, and his proper name is King Krahinn. Sovereign Hoggdin borrowed the name idea of King from Ygdazi from what I can tell, or maybe someone before Sovereign Hoggin did as live incredibly long lives. King is the equivalent of Sovereign there.” I clarified for him, trying not to feel too annoyed.

  “You seem immensely annoyed by his existence.” Onilin pointed out to me.

  “Because everything changed once he arrived! And Nil went from kind of strong to uncatchable!” I roared at her. The four of them seemed kind of concerned by my outburst.

  “Who cares if someone is stronger than you? You both are still growing.” Zagzin checked. I fought the instinct to start attacking him.

  “I care; I hate feeling weak.” I snarled at him.

  “Just how badly did Nil win last time you two dueled?” Onilin probed, sounding almost nervous of the answer.

  “Irrelevant.” I deflected, trying not to feel too angry.

  “Maybe don’t measure yourself by his success.” Onilin suggested to me.

  “That is ridiculous.” I snapped. How else was I going to eliminate and overcome the gap between us?

  “But it is clearly making you miserable.” Onilin pointed out. I let out a long, frustrated sigh.

  “I used to be stronger than him, but at some point, my training became insufficient and now I am playing catch-up. I do not want that to happen ever again.” I sighed while shaking my head a bit.

  “Have you not caught up substantially? You have gotten much, much stronger since I’ve met you. Plus, that frightening new of yours, there’s no way he can just adapt to it in an instant.” Onilin tried. I wished that were true.

  “Unfortunately, and might just level the playing field with him. Why do you care about this so much?” I shot back, trying to gauge what she was after.

  “It irritates you and then becomes our problem. Your obsession with being stronger than him seems to often cause you to become immensely irritable. You have some idea you still haven’t caught up to him despite how much you’ve already improved.” Onilin explained to me.

  “Because that nerd endlessly innovates and grows; you do not understand who you are talking about. Now I would like to stop discussing this because he is not here.” I told Onilin.

  “You say that, but your desire to duel and beat him seems to be living for free in your mind.” Onilin pointed out. Ikol shot between us when I glared at Onilin who was putting on her bravest face.

  “What?!” I spat at her, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Uda uda.” Ikol told me as he looked at me concerned.

  “I will not uda uda when she has no idea just how unfair his is!” I growled at him. Ikol stood firm as we stopped moving.

  “Uda uda.” Ikol insisted. To my surprise, he actually looked like he was standing up to me. Am I that upset by this?

  “You never told us. We imagine it is strong, but how can it be unfair?” Vndrglz replied, sounding skeptical.

  “Nil can manipulate time itself. Now, drop it.” I conceded, taking composing breaths while Ikol pulled out some fish he stored for me.

  “WHAT?!” the other three cried in unison. It was obvious by their faces none of them believed that statement.

  “You heard me; when this is over you can test it out for yourselves because he’d gladly agree to a duel.” I told them. Ikol was still standing firm in front of me, looking at me concerned.

  “Uda uda.” Ikol pouted at me.

  “I will work on calming down more Ikol, it is fine.” I sighed, starting to walk again. I was taking deep breaths to settle my heart down.

  “Uda uda?” Zagzin inquired. I took a particularly deep breath when he asked me that.

  “It means roughly, you are getting too angry and need to take a moment.” I informed them all.

  “In just two words?” Vndrglz checked, sounding baffled Ikol conveyed that in those words.

  “It is Ikolese. I speak it quite well.” I taunted them. Ikol looked so proud of himself as he trotted next to me.

  “You can communicate with your loyal musclehead.” Onilin sighed as she rejoined the travel pace.

  “Of course. Now we need to keep moving.” I ordered them as we picked up our pace.

  I mulled over Onilin’s points. I am not miserable, I am focused. What if she was right though? I was too obsessive with closing the gap to the point I wasn’t letting myself enjoy this as much as I could? It’s like half the reason I am improving my though. Maybe I did tend to get a bit too angry at those thoughts. Would it be better to just go at my pace knowing I’d eventually get close again? Not worry about where I was relative to him? I’ve been trying these last few years with that focus; it leaves an unpleasant taste in my mouth. What about crushing Ufr? Quite obtainable and happening soon. I should just focus on that for now until I had a solid idea of what I should think moving forward. Sovereign Hoggdin hinted that my mindset might be a problem, and I think King Ilrymax may have told me that indirectly but was too polite to tell me to my face. It might have been time to focus on just me, getting stronger because it made me happy. It might be worth considering. I kept taking some composing breaths as we moved towards Elijiah. I just want to see the blasted desert already.