Reaching the Frozen Tundra

Lucon had been traveling on the ocean for at least a day or close to one. During the trip he saw some different types of sea creatures. Some were majestic and beautiful, and some were gruesome to the others. But, in all honesty, the ocean was still beautiful to look at. But the more Lucon stared at the ocean, the more confused he was. He was confused as to why he found the ocean beautiful. In his past life he would just say it was blue and that was it, but now? Now, he found the glimmer on its surface beautiful, the cold ice air brushing past his face, calming, the sound of the waves rising and crashing down. He found it all beautiful, but confusing.

"Is it because of those memories" Lucon thought as he looked back at the memories from the body he inhabited. He stared at his hand as he recounted the past experiences. When he met Vallen after waking up, he felt a sense of rage and priority. He recounted how he tried to attack Vallen for killing his parents and his crush, even though they weren't his in the first place. In his past life, he would never experience such things before or do such things and would just observe and put up a mask of sadness. 

"But it felt so natural," Lucon thought as he closed and opened his fist several times, "I think, I think I might need to have some time for myself to figure out how I should act from now on."

Lucon got up from his seat and walked towards Vallen. As he walked he noticed the gazes from the men who stood around him and worked. They looked at him with a gaze of curiosity and he didn't blame them. He was also curious as to how he survived. After he had awakened and had the talk with Vallen about joining his family did he realize what happened to his body. His skin was all burnt as black as charcoal and was rough as it as well. All the hair on his body was gone and his internal organs felt so messed up. Yet, he was still alive?! Weirdly enough, Lucon didn't feel weak or in pain, in fact he didn't feel anything physical.

The cold breeze he felt while sailing over the ocean was something his body made him think. It was weird, he couldn't feel physical pain for some odd reason, but his body would make him feel simple things such as a gentle cold splash of water or a nice cold breeze. Anything greater than that was just gone. Lucon believed that the fire might have pushed his brain to process the pain he felt in the moment of his suffering. That it just naturally turned off the sense of pain but allowed him to feel subtle things like discomfort or small pleasures.

The inability to feel pain was a blessing and a curse in his eyes. Yes, in a world where fighting was the usual, the inability to feel pain is a blessing since he wouldn't have the distraction of it. But at the same time, it was a curse since he couldn't feel it, making him unable to sense if he had pushed himself to the point where he was killing himself involuntarily.

"Doesn't matter, I just need to focus on the now" Lucon muttered as he stopped walking as he stood behind the person he needed to talk to. Vallen was currently talking to one of the men on the ship who was holding a net filled with fish. Guess they had caught too much and were deciding on to either release the excess catch or to keep it and use it for a feast.

"Vallen" Lucon said, Vallen turned around and faced Lucon with a shocked face for a second before smiling.

"You need something Lucon" Vallen said as he waved the other man away, of course not before telling the man to just keep the fish in storage just in case they needed it.

"Yes, I was wondering how the Frozen Tundra is," Lucon said as he looked at Vallens eye. There was one thing he learned from someone in his past life, if you wish to speak with someone as an equal, you must always look them in the eyes. Supposedly it lets them know that you have your full attention on said person.

"... alright, take a seat" Vallen said as he sat down on one of the ship's seats. Lucon looked at the seat before sitting. To be honest, the ship looked like a ship that you would see in ancient times. It was made out of wood and had a mast. It had about three floors, the top deck where most of the crew worked at, the middle deck where they keep canons and such stored in, and the bottom deck, or the storage room, where they store food and barrels of water at. But enough of that, time to focus back on the conversation.

"Alright, so the Frozen Tundra is a primarily flat land with very little trees or mountain ranges unlike the rest of the Southern Lands. Of course with the flat lands, there are some pros and cons. The Cons are that there are not many resources for us to gather and we have to manage each source we have sparingly. The Pros of having such a flat land is that not many predators live there, or at least that many big predators such as the Blizzard Maws. Only beasts like our Dire Wolves or herbivores the same size as our wagons roam our land. Because of this single pro, we were able to tame the Dire Wolves to become our mounts, the great Snow Bellies as our cattle, and the strong eyed Floetics as our eyes in the sky as well as scouts. But that probably is not what you wanted me to talk about, you probably wanted me to talk about the geography of our land. Well to keep it simple to the south are a small mountain range, in the center of our land is a great field that spans for miles and has forests so small that it doesn't sound right to call them forests at all, and to the north is just more flat land and trees. The most significant thing about our land is the mountain ranges since it is the only part of our land that has not been fully discovered."

Lucon nodded his head and made note of whatever he found useful.

"So" Vallen spoke up, a smirk on his face "why did you ask this question? Are you perhaps thinking about exploring the land before meeting with those back at my, no, our city?"

Lucon looks at Vallen's eyes for a bit. Upon seeing Lucon's gaze, Vallen already knew Lucon's answer, "alright, I'll tell some men to pack you a bag filled with food and water to last you a week as well as provide you a map and a Prana Center."

"Prana Center?" Lucon said, confused.

"Prana Center's are devices that use Prana as a sort of check point and have a Prana arrow that will always point to the spot in which you activated the device's checkpoint. To activate it the check regularly you would push either Prana into the device to activate it or just click a button on the side of it to use the internal Prana it has to activate its checkpoint function. And every time you take out the device and turn it on an arrow will appear and will always point in the direction that the device's checkpoint function was activated. Of course the device I'm giving you already has a checkpoint function leading back to my city, so all you gotta do is just turn it on and follow the arrow until you reach the city" Vallen said as he got up from his seat and patted his legs. He stretched for a bit before speaking up, "by the way, do you have a weapon on you?"

Lucon looked at Vallen confused at first before looking at him as if he was an idiot. Seeing the gaze Vallen was confused as well, before realizing what he just said "ah right, forgot you were a kid and the attack on your village. So, you would most likely not have a weapon."

Vallen sighed before walking towards the entrance that led to the lower parts of the ship. After a couple minutes he quickly came back up with something in his left hand. He held a sword held inside a scabbard, or a sheath. Vallen tossed the sword sealed scabbard to Lucon, who caught it in his hands. Lucon looked at the sword in his hand and gripped the handle of the blade.

A rush soon surged through Lucon's mind, as a wave of dopamine suddenly decided to awaken. The wave only increased as Lucon slowly unsheathed the sword from his scabbard. What laid beneath was a double edged sword that was at least 17 inches long. There were some dents and chips on the surface on the sword, but it seemed to only make the blade more impressive. Its blade was sleek, but sharp, its guard only extended one way as if it was only intended to protect the fingers, and its pommel was a sharp diamond that seemed to shine brightly.

"That blade was a blade I used when I was first trying to unite the people of my land" Vallen said as he took out his leather flash, "it's old and a bit beaten up, but it can still hold its own against a wild Dire Wolf."

As Vallen continued to speak he did not notice the gaze that was lingering in the eyes of Lucon. Lucon was just staring at the blade, imagining the story that was held right in the palm of his hand. How many things it cut down throughout its time and what part of history it played a part in. Lucon's gaze stared intently at the blade, not noticing that Vallen stopped speaking. In fact everyone around him stopped talking and working and was just looking at him, all wide eyes. Reason for this was because of one simple thing.

"Prana" Vallen muttered as he stared at Lucon. Unknown to Lucon, there were small sparks of purple flames igniting on his body before dissipating and then reigniting. Of course these flames were real as they didn't burn Lucon's body or burn the wooden ships deck. But the fact that these flames were appearing right now, on Lucon's body of all places was what astonished everyone who had awakened their Prana.

"To awaken one's Prana at the age of twenty is the norm for everyone, heck, even the geniuses of the Northern Lands are around the ages of fifteen before they awaken their Prana. But for one to awaken Prana at, what looks like, the age of ten maybe twelve. It's unheard of" Vallen thought as he stared at Lucon, a grin slowly growing on his face. Sure, he had taken Lucon for not only the insane bloodlust he had unleashed on him, but because of the fact that he had survived a situation that many his age would either die instantly from or would give up. But, that was it, he had never thought that Lucon, a child of a village he had attacked to spite the elder and the family they were affiliated with, would be able to unleash and awaken their Prana at such a young age.

"I wonder, if the Elder acted nicely to us and didn't brag about the family, what would have happened to this boy? Would he have still awakened his Prana at a young age, or would he have awakened it like the rest of us?" Vallen thought such thoughts for a while, but decided to stop when one of his men walked to him and whispered in his ear.

"Lucon, stop staring at your sword" Vallen shouted, his shout waking up the crew from their shock as they all began to work once again. Lucon looked at Vallen confused before realizing the reason for Vallen's shout.

They had arrived at the Frozen Tundra.