Way of the Knights

Chapter 154 - Thorn City

---

"So Elyion, What can you tell me about this place?"

Elyion sighed before speaking. "This is the Thorn City." His voice contained melancholy and longing as he spoke.

"Humans use to always say that this is the only civilization that one could see in this vast expanse. What lies outside is nothing but an omnipresent fog that swallows everything that it touches. They say Thorn City spanned for at least a couple thousands of kilometers, surrounding it was a great wilderness which they use to go to hunt for food and necesseties, beyond this wilderness is the fog that humans talked about earlier."

"I'm not sure just how much is this were true." Elyion said with a wry smile, "I don't even dare to make as much contact with humans even though I wanted to."

"As far as I'm aware, Humans had always been the lords of the Thorn City, I could be wrong but Thorn City only allows shelter to Humans."

"It's not only humans who are present here, there's also beings like me, Shape Shifters, Demons or Abominations as they call us." Elyion wore a sad smile and explained his situation in more detail. 

"Ever since I became aware of things, humans already had a bone deep hatred to us Shape Shifters. They treated us like the plague, to be eradicated or to be avoided. On regular days, we could still shift into a human although slightly imperfect. For me, my ears won't change even if I transform into a human. This is a huge tell-tale sign that we're aren't real humans, and if we show up in the city, we'll be hunted down. Additionally, us shape shifters can tell which one is a real human from those who aren't. For this, there came an unspoken rule between us shape shifters. We aren't allowed to forsake our kind by revealing their identities."

"It's only through the Red Moon Month would we be able to Shape Shift perfectly into humans and could mingle enter the Thorn City."

Raven stayed silent all throughout Elyion's explanation and analyzed the details he said. He could tell that he hasn't told a single lie yet. 

"Red Moon Month? It lasts for that long?" He asked.

Elyion nodded to confirm his inquiry. "Yes, It lasts for a whole 30 days. This is the first night and for the rest of the month, it won't disappear. Under it's miraculous effects, we shape shifters are able to perfectly assume a human form."

"From what I heard from you so far, it seems that you shape shifters wanted to enter and reside in the city so bad. Why is that?"

"I'm not too sure either." Elyion replied which made Raven furrow his brows. "It's like an instinctual thing you know? We naturally gravitate towards the city like moths to a fire. Even though we are being mistreated by humans, majority of us can't do the same. We just wanted to co-exist with them peacefully, or at least for me that's what I wanted. I don't know about the rest since I don't have much contact with them anyway."

"You Shape Shifters don't live together in some sort of a tribe or something?" 

"No." Elyion shook his head, "We mostly mind our own business. Even us, Silver Moonwolves used to gather in packs but when we discovered that we could shape shift, we started drifting apart."

'Weird.' Raven thought inwardly, 'As the saying goes, Blood is thicker than water. One would think that shape shifters should have each other's back or at least form a tribe of some sorts and maybe they could sign a peace treaty with whoever holds power in the city so that they could live with them. Strangely, no one realized this at all and instead they decided to mind their own businesses? How peculiar.'

Having thought of this, Raven decided to not tell the young wolf about any of his thoughts just yet. 

"How many times have you been in the Thorn City?" 

"Red Moon Month happens twice each year, I learned that I'm a shape shifter last year so if I could enter this time, it would be my second time."

"I assume you stayed there for a month and then left when the Red Moon's about to end?"

"Yes."

"How do I enter the Thorn City?"

"You enter by submitting either 10 wodden logs, 15 jugs of water, or 3 beasts carcasses."

Raven raised his brow upon hearing this weird requirement. "They don't use currency?"

"They do, they use a lot of Jadestones, but they have tons of those things, what they lack is resources so they made that rule." Elyion explained which allowed Raven to understand.

"Is there anyway for us to carry that many?" Raven asked, he wanted to know if there is a way to carry all of those things without having to drag them along thier way towards the city.

"There is." Elyion nodded and handed over a single pouch that was hanging on his waist. "We have this."

"Oh, you have Storage Pouches. This should be easier then." 

Raven didn't speak and instead went towards a tree. He clenched his fists and punched hard, shaving a good chunk of timber off of the tree. With a fierce tremble, the tree feel over and Raven looked towards the dumbfounded Elyion.

"Come! Harvest this."

Elyion could only smile wryly, this guy just took down a tree using a single punch, inwardly he was starting to think that he wasn't the shape shifter here and was this guy instead.

He came towards him and placed the wooden log on the storage pouch. Elyion was about to look towards Raven but he suddenly felt his surroundings shake fiercely. He looked over and saw that Raven was nowhere to be found and at least five trees were falling down at the same time.  He looked around him and found Raven behind him. Not too far away from him, another batch of trees fell which made Elyion somewhat lightheaded.

'How in the world is this guy so freakish? He took down 10 trees under a minute! Is he really a human?'

"What are you standing around in a daze for? Go and collect the trees." Raven urged as he disappeared from his spot again.

Elyion had nothing to say, so instead of standing around and doing nothing, he went towards the fallen trees and collected them one by one.

In the end, he managed to collect at least 30 fallen trees in total. He didn't know why Raven took down so much but he isn't complaining as he was informed that 10 of those were meant for him since god knows how troublesome it would get to gather enough materials in order to enter the city. 

While he was sorting out the storage pouch, Raven's voice suddenly fell on his ears. 

"Do you any Jadestones?"

Elyion raised his head and nodded, taking out a smooth green stone on his bag, he passed it towards Raven and allowed him to inspect it.

Raven touched the smooth surface of the stone. He also ran his fingers through the ridges on the stone and it's peculiarity. At first, he thought nothing much about the stone and was about to give it back to Elyion when all of a sudden, a very vague feeling ran through his body.

His pupils contricted as he closely examined the jadestone once more. He then turned his back against Elyion and closed his eyes to inspect the jadestone even further. 

Raven's palms suddenly emitted a suction force. Raven once again felt that vague feeling on his body but this time, he was able to really follow the sensation.

His eyes flashed open, glee surfaced in his face. These Jadestones contained Vital Energy! Which means he could continue cultivating his Body Path here! What an awesome find!

Now that Raven found a way to make this challenge easier for himself, he absolutely have to take advantage of it!

Without revealing any changes on his face, Raven glanced at the Jadestone in his hand. Aside from losing some of it's luster, nothing really changed from it's apperance. But Raven was sure that he absorbed every Vital Energy contained in this Jadestone already. He felt inwardly excited, he could do so many things with this knowledge.

He then handed the Jadestone back to Elyion, who had no clue about his findings. Raven then asked him a question.

"You said that Thorn City lacks raw materials, correct?"

Elyion tilted his head when he heard his question but he nodded. "Yes, that's correct."

"Why don't we gather some more materials before we enter the city. We could use some jadestones inside the city anyway and it shouldn't take us long before we gathered enough materials."

"Not a bad idea." Elyion nodded in agreement, "10 wooden logs, 15 jugs of water or 3 beast carcasses are all roughly equal to 50 Jadestones. With that amount, securing a place to stay for at least a week should be enough."

'Yeah, for you that would be enough. But for me, it's not..' Raven inwardly thought.