The Beginning After The End (New Heights Book 2) (22 page)

From the back of the podium, 6
individuals come out, two elves, two humans and two dwarves.
 
Clad in a refined white armor that
varied slightly for each person, they walked up and knelt down on one knee.

The three Kings each made their way
in front of the 6 kneeling knights and took out from a small ornamental box, 6
rings.
 
King Glayder of the Humans
presented the rings to the two elf knights while the Dwarf King presented it to
the two human knights.
 
Finally,
King Alduin of the Elves placed the rings on the two Dwarf knights, stating
that they stand and bow to the crowd.
 
As the cheers exploded, King Glayder went up and spoke once more.

“These 6 individuals will henceforth be granted the title of the Six
Lances.
 
Each Lance signifies the
ties they hold to not their Kingdom, but to the entire Continent.
 
This is a truly historical moment as the
first Lances have been anointed.
 
These 6 individual’s main goal will be towards the well-being of the
Continent, whether that be exploring dangerous and unknown dungeons in the Beast
Glades, as well as working alongside us, the rulers of this Continent to ensure
that our home is protected when the time comes that we are met with foreign
hostilities from the different Continent.”

Once more, the crowd roars as many
throw flowers and the clothes that they’re wearing up in the air.
 

“Lastly, while the title of being one of the Six Lances may be a
prestigious one that is comparable to even ourselves as Kings, this title also
brings upon great burden and danger.
 
Children of the new generation that seek to become the future protectors
of this Continent, strive to be one of the Six Lances!
 
Grow strong and noble as not even the
heavens is the limit!”

With that, the four orbs making up
the corners of the projection float down as the image of the announcement fade,
the last thing we hear were the chants of
 
“Long live the King, long live Dicathen”.
 
The City Square was filled with
excitement as everyone started discussing about different things.

Beside me, I hear Elijah muttering
to himself, “Wow… the Six Lances...
 
That sounds awesome.”
 
The
children within the crowd already started play acting the scene of the
anointment, shouting with their friends that they too have become one of the
Six Lances and are going to go out and fight evil.
 

A part of me wants to be excited as
well.
 
Hell, I was excited!
 
The prospect of a new continent to
explore with different people and maybe even different races intrigued me to no
end.
 
However, I was quite cynical
of this whole thing.
 
Sure, the
points they make are quite true, but in the end, they’re just making this new
Continent the common enemy so that all of the races of Dicathen can unite.
 
It was old tool used by many Kings but
an effective one that works.

Still… my heart as, not just a
King, but a warrior and mage thirsting for adventure and excitement, thumped
harder and harder.

As we were plowing our way through the crowds
in City Square, I heard various chats on the Lances.
 
These Six Lances were more than just a
group of overpowered Mages; they would soon become the very symbol of this
Continent.
 
Being composed of two of
each race, it is impartial towards the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves.
 
I wouldn’t be surprised if this caused a
big outbreak in talented Mages.
 
While not all children who awaken become mages, whether it may be due to
financial situations or issues of talent, the fact that everyone is eligible to
become a Lance will definitely stir up a new era of Mages.
 

I could tell the Kings purposely put a bad
light on the New Continent so that this new potential common enemy would become
the reason for the three races to unite.
 
Looking at it logically, there could be great advantages such as trading
raw material, knowledge on magic and artifacts and different technology, but
this would just create a potential competition between the Humans, Elves and
Dwarves, each of them trying to get to the New Continent first to claim the new
resources.
 
In that sense, I do
agree with this intentional propaganda of sorts.

Getting into the carriage waiting for us at the
edge of City Square, my father asks the driver to first take him to the Helstea
Auction house.

“I have a couple of things to take care of so
I’ll meet you guys back home later tonight.
 
Don’t cause too much trouble, Son.”
 
My father ruffles my hair while shooting
me a sarcastic grin.
 

“Please take us to Gideon’s facility.”
 
Vincent directs the driver to our next
destination.
 
About thirty minutes
into the drive, the scenery changes from tall buildings into small houses with
signboards reading “Artifacts” on a lot of them.
 

Noticing the curious gaze I had outside,
Vincent chimes in, “We’re at the part of the city where all of the Artificers
gather.
 
You’ll see a lot of neat
gadgets here as well as useful tools for Conjurers.”

Apparently, this sparked Elijah’s interest
because he asked the driver to stop at the nearest artifact shop.
 
“I’m going to look around for a bit and
see if I can find anything worth buying.”
 
He says before stepping out.
 

‘Sylv, go with Elijah while I visit Gideon with
Uncle Vincent’ I tell Sylvie who was on my lap.
 
She gave me a curious look but didn’t
complain, hopping out of the carriage after Elijah.
 
I didn’t want a genius researcher like
Gideon eyeing Sylvie so it would be better to just keep her away.

“Do you have any money
?!
”
 
I shout towards him from inside the
carriage as we leave him, realizing that normal 12-year-old boys shouldn’t have
that much money.

“I have my dungeon money saved up.
 
Remember?
 
I‘m not like you!”
 
I can barely make out a wink as he was
obviously teasing me about my lack of gold.

“Tch.
 
How immature.”
 
I grumble
under my breath, causing Vincent to let out a small chuckle.

About an hour later, after we passed through
the densest part of the city, we arrived at a fairly large building.
 
This building was only 1 story but was
quite big in width, which was rare to see in a clustered city like Xyrus.

“We’re here!” The driver announces as he opens
the door for us.
 

Hopping out of the carriage behind Vincent, we
make our way to the front door.
 
After knocking on the metal door, an old man with a handlebar mustache,
dressed as a butler, opens the door.

“Greetings.
 
Master Gideon is not… Ah hello Master
Vincent, please come in.”
 
He says
while opening the door.
 
He realizes
that we are welcomed guests, giving us a deep bow before showing us inside.

The butler seems to automatically deny everyone
but
a
certain few
people.
 
The inside of the facility
was hardly appealing.
 
The whole
place was a mess, with tools on the ground and rather intriguing looking raw
materials stacked high on shelves.
 
There were microscopes and other tools that looked vaguely familiar to
the ones in my old world.

“Himes!
 
I told you not to let anyone… Ah Vincent!
 
I see you’ve come to bother me
again.”
 
From the dim corner of a
different room, a very short, hunched man makes his way over.
 
Both the butler and the master seem to
automatically want to deny visitors at heart.

Taking a closer look at the supposed genius
inventor/researcher/artificer, I can say for certain that he looks the
part.
 
His curly hair that looks
like it’s been struck by lightning more than once complimented the beady eyes
that had dark bags under them.
 
His
complexion was pale while he had a pair of goggles hanging on his neck.
 

“Haha! As welcoming as ever, aren’t you
Gideon?”
 
Vincent shakes his head,
giving his acquaintance a helpless smile and handshake.
 

“Bah!
 
Don’t even start!
 
This past
year, the Royal Family sent in over a dozen messengers asking for a way to
start traversing the ocean to reach the New Continent!
 
I haven’t had a decent sleep in
months!”
 
The hunched eccentric
flails his arms in disgust as he starts pacing around.

“Is it really true that they really found
evidence of another Continent Gideon?”
 
Vincent couldn’t help but relieve his curiosity.
 
Even I was interested in this.

“Hoho!
 
That, my friend, is actually a truth those snobby royal families are
telling for once.
 
I was the one to
study the evidence!
 
All I’ll say is
that, the New Continent has even better artificers and perhaps even Mages than
ours.”
 
His beady eyes disappear as
his smile widens, revealing yellow teeth with remnants of whatever he ate for
his last meal.

“What makes you say that?”
 
Vincent pushes, leaning closer to
Gideon.

“The Royal Family took back the evidence for
safe keeping, but that ‘evidence’ was an artifact.
 
Even I couldn’t figure out everything it
does, but this artifact was attached to a bird-like mana beast that has never
been seen on Dicathen before.
 
This
bird-like mana beast had the ability to camouflage almost completely with its
surroundings.
 
The only way we were
able to catch it was because an Adventurer accidentally shot it down while he
was actually aiming for a nearby squirrel he was hunting to eat.
 
Not only that, one of the functions I
was able to figure out from the artifact that was attached to the bird was that
it was able to record and store moving images.
 
The artifact was the size of my palm and
it could do what four big magic projection crystals could and more!
 
Tell me, why would someone from our
Continent need to record videos?”
 
He leans towards Vincent too so that the two of them were only a hand
width apart.
 

“Fascinating!” Vincent sighs as he rubs his
chin.

“So… who’s the little kid you brought?
 
Your mistress’s son?” Gideon waggles his
eyebrows lewdly at Vincent.

“Oh God… Don’t even make jokes like that.
 
Tabitha would kill me… quite literally I’m
afraid.
 
No… this is Arthur Leywin,
I consider him a nephew of mine.”
 
He places his hand on my shoulder.

Giving a respectable bow, I introduce
myself.
 
“Hello Mr. Gideon.
 
Uncle Vincent has told me many great
things about you and your work.”

“Hoh~ quite the etiquettes for a kid.
 
How old are you?”
 
He asks, studying me with his beady
eyes.

“I will be turning 12 in May.”
 
I answer simply.
 

“I see… So, why did you bring him here,
Vincent?
 
I don’t take on students
or disciples you know.”
 
He nods to
himself condescendingly.

“Actually, I would like to know for myself why
he wanted to come.”
 
Vincent turns
to me.

“Mr. Gideon, the fact that you have messengers
from the Royal Family visiting you, I can assume that your work is quite
influential correct?” I put on the air of a respecting young lad.

“Of course! They’re a pain but I receive quite
a lot of money from them!”
 
His chin
sticks out and I can almost see his nose getting longer from his pride.

“Perfect.”
 
Without saying anything more, I pick up a big piece of paper lying on
the ground and sketch out a blueprint.
 
It took a while for me to think of an idea to sell without it changing
the world too much.
 
This world
relies heavily on magic for a lot of the bigger tools and machines.
 
That was primarily one of the reasons
they couldn’t build a ship capable of travelling long distances.
 
Mages didn’t have an infinite source of
mana and trying to carry along enough mages to power up a big ship was impossible.
 

Both Vincent and Gideon were baffled by my
sudden actions and were muttering to each other what I was exactly doing.
 
I didn’t let them see what I was drawing
so they were getting more and more impatient with my behavior.

After about 15 minutes, I finished drawing a
rough draft of a steam engine.
 
I
didn’t draw in some of the key components so that Gideon can’t just steal my
idea; I would draw those in AFTER the negotiations were complete.

“T-This is…this…” His beady eyes widen two-fold
and he snatched the paper away so he could study it in depth.
 

“Of course… why didn’t I think of this?
 
There was this solution as well!”
 
I could see his hands trembling as he
had a hard time digesting the blueprint.

Suddenly, his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze
darted all around the paper.
 
“I
feel like something is missing…”

I gently take the paper back and roll it
up.
 
“I did leave out some key
details that I will more than happily include once our negotiations are
over.”
 
I put on an innocent smile.

“Are you really just a 12 year old?” His gaze
becomes sharp but soon looks helpless, as he himself knows that what I have to
offer him is too good to let go.
 
Even Vincent looks baffled by the turn of events but he handled it a
little bit better since he knows I’m kind of always like this.

“Yup! Can you show me some of your best
artifacts?
 
Uncle Vincent tells me
you make some of the best!”
 
I throw
in a nice compliment to sugar him up.

“Himes!
 
Bring my latest works!” Gideon shouts.
 
Soon after, the butler with the
handlebar mustache brings with him a protected case that was the size of an
adult, sealed with something even I don’t recognize.