After leaving the stronghold, Arran traveled in secret.
Although the Academy wouldn't be looking for him just yet, he knew it was only a matter of time until they came after him. To avoid leaving a trail for them to follow, he made it a point to avoid villages and even roads.
Instead, he moved through the wilderness, doing all he could to avoid other travelers. The fewer people who saw him, the fewer ways the Academy would have to find him.
The journey was lonely, but not uncomfortable. His void bags contained all the supplies he needed, as well as a large tent to protect him during cold and rainy nights.
He didn't know exactly where he was going, but that didn't bother him — as long as he kept moving west, he would eventually reach his destination.
The Shadowflame Society controlled the western border of the Empire, and from what others had told him, he knew the entire border was covered by a massive mountain range that stretched thousands of miles from north to south.
If he just kept moving west he would eventually reach the mountains, and after that, he would have to find one of the border cities. It would be a long journey, but not a difficult one.
As he traveled, he often thought about the things Panurge told him before he left.
Unless the man had been lying — a distinct possibility — Essence was only one of the Pillars of Power, with Strength being another one.
Thinking about the matter, Arran had remembered something Lord Jiang had told him when they first met: that true power requires strength in all regards, magical, mental, and physical.
At the time, Arran had dismissed it as a mere platitude, but now, he suspected that Lord Jiang had actually been talking about the Pillars of Power, even if he hadn't used the words.
And thinking back further, he also recalled how Master Zhao had started his training: not with magic, but with months of sword practice.
The more he thought about it, the more he became certain that Panurge had told him the truth. And not just that — he began to understand that even if he hadn't known it, his training so far had involved more than just one Pillar.
Until now, he had believed Essence manipulation and Body Refinement to be mostly separate things, but looking back, he wondered how he could have been so blind to the truth.
When Lord Jiang had taught Arran Body Refinement, it was to allow Arran's body to withstand more Essence than it could handle otherwise.
And conversely, when he first learned about Body Refinement, Lord Jiang had him use Shadow Essence to strengthen his body.
Although he had later switched to using Natural Essence — Essence drawn from the natural world instead of Realms — the memory now helped him understand that there was a stronger connection between the physical and the magical than he had realized.
Once Arran got over his initial shock at both these new insights and his own blindness, he set off on a frenzied quest to learn more about the connection between Body Refinement and Essence manipulation.
Although most of his time was spent traveling, he used every free moment trying to understand how his magical and physical powers affected each other.
Yet despite these efforts, he made no progress whatsoever. With only a vague idea of what he was even looking for, it was like searching for a needle in a haystack without ever having seen a needle before.
After nearly two months of fruitless experiments, he gave up.
Panurge had said Arran would learn more about the Pillars of Power at the Shadowflame Society, and he grudgingly accepted that his curiosity would have to wait until he reached his destination.
Instead, he moved his attention to the spells Panurge had given him, Battering Force and Force Shield.
The Realm Opening Pills whose power he had used to escape the cell had also further opened his Force Realm, and although he already had a basic grasp of the spells, using them with more Essence wasn't an easy task.
Months passed as he traveled through forests, hills, and grasslands, only stopping for rest and practice. His travels were smooth if somewhat boring. He rarely encountered other people, and when he did, they were hunters, shepherds, or farmers.
Half a year into the journey, he finally caught his first sight of the Western Mountains, and the view left him awestruck.
Even from hundreds of miles away, the vastness of the mountain range was something he would not have believed possible had he not seen it with his own eyes.
Like a jagged wall that stretched up thousands of feet, the mountains reached up into the clouds and beyond. From what he could see, the mountain range seemed both endless and impassable.
Briefly, he wondered why the Shadowflame Society was even needed to protect the western border of the Empire. Hidden behind a wall greater than any man could build, it seemed like the Empire had little need for additional protection.
When he arrived at the foot of the mountains several weeks later, he spent some time camping in the hills, suddenly reluctant to move on.
Eager though he was to join the Shadowflame Society, the journey to get here had taken him over two years, and finding it at an end he had trouble taking the final step.
He had changed in many ways since the start of his journey, but some small part of him still felt like that country boy who had marveled at the sight of Fulai City.
Few of the people he had grown up with had ever traveled more than a week away from Riverbend. When he set off on his journey to Fulai City, it had felt like a great adventure — a tale he would someday tell his grandchildren.
Yet now, he had traveled far beyond Fulai City, and he stood at the edge of an Empire he had grown up believing was endless. Soon, he would step over that edge.
Although before him still lay mountains so vast they beggared belief, he knew that after he joined the Shadowflame Society, he would travel to the lands beyond those mountains.
The prospect was daunting.
Eventually, he set off again, traveling north in search of one of the border cities.
The search took longer than expected, and he spent several weeks just to find a village with people who could tell him where to go.
After another month, he reached a walled city that looked to be larger than Silvermere, with traveling merchants and caravans continuously moving through its wide gates.
With some trepidation, Arran approached the city, knowing that behind its gates he would find the first steps of his next journey.
Yet when he stepped through the gates, the trepidation made way for excitement.
He had finally arrived.
END OF VOLUME ONE