The Third Star

Chapter 30 – By the Cliff

Ken’s POV (12 yrs. Old)

AAAAHHhhhhhhhh, I’m bit! Nothing like a good training in the morning. Although my mana has run out, and my body is close to being sore but aching, yeah, it’s still good, now I just gotta lie down and gather as much energy as I can to get through with my day,

-preferably this for afternoon- turns out no matter how tired I become half the day, if only I just gather energy from the surroundings, my mana gets replenished, and my body regenerated.

It’s like one of those martial books or novels I’ve read that mentions, what’s that word again? Ah, ‘Qi’, it seems like this world has similar concepts when it comes to such energies,

I discovered this 4 years ago when I was all alone -again- at one of the trial missions given by our teachers, got lost from the group, ran out of magic, and nowhere to go.

‘That’s because you were too caught up experimenting on your foe that you didn’t notice your mana depleting.” Now there’s my trusty ‘second the motion’ person.

‘What would’ve happened back there when you didn’t have me with you.’ -White-

“Haha, right.” Huh? Who’s come over to see me?

*Light footsteps*

Third Person’s POV

“Hey Ken, what are you doing out here?” Ken opened his eyes to see Celine gazing down at him, still in her training uniform -or attire-, holding a basket by her right hand.

“Just getting a feel of the wind, and relaxing, but mostly relaxing.” Ken moved at the side so that she could sit beside him under this tree, near a cliff.

“Have you had your lunch?” she asked.

“Nope, but I will after I’m done relaxing.” -Ken-

“I have some extra lunch here in my basket, would you like some?” she said, which making this foodie’s eyes sparkle at the mention of something scrumptious.

‘Such a glutton’ -White-

‘Shut up’ -Ken-

She offered two sandwiches, Ken taking fairly large bites out of it, and ate silently beside each other, good thing about her sandwiches thought is that it has four layers of bread, packed with meat and vegetables.

They don’t have ketchup or mayonnaise though, but they have this kind of sap that surprisingly tasted like ketchup and mayonnaise, it has a purple color, with a shade of white, -not really good at describing things based on color, just remember that the taste is similar to mayo and ketchup-.

Guess who’s the culprit of Celine’s sandwich having four layers, hehe, Wilbert! And also this guy, this was when she had brought sandwiches on the tenth day of their training, each giving all of them a piece,

Wilbert gobbled the whole thing in one fell swoop, while Celine gave Ken a piece and when she looked back at Wilbert, got confused where the sandwich go, Ken knew that Wilbert was embarrassed, since he’s a good friend, he mentioned that ‘Wilbert bulldozed your sandwich’,

Making the other embarrassed even more, and the two of them got confused at the terminologies Ken mentioned, Ken chuckeld. This isn’t the modern era.

“What are you smiling on about?” mentioned Celine, Ken turned to her and offered a smile.

“I’m just thinking about the time you first brought us sandwiches.” She giggled lightly at the other’s reply.

“Yeah, I remember, it was such an unexpected day.” she said, smiling to herself

‘Huh? There’s no more? Ooohhhhh, I’m still hungry.’ grumbling to himself.

“Do you have any more?” the guy asked.

“Yes, but these are for the others.” Ken gave her an aggrieved pout.

‘Aaawwwww, I should’ve known.’ continues to ramble to himself.

“*giggles* But I do have some spare bread here, sadly I had limited ingredients to go with the bread, but hey, this would be the perfect time for us to try out that sandwich you made last time.” said Celine.

“Huh? You mean, the honey sandwich?” that would be good.

“Is that how you call it? You really have weird names for things *chuckles*.” commented Celine.

“Ah, hehe, right.” Ken scratched the back of his head, right, they do not know the names he’s using, funny thing about this world he’s at, is that some things don’t have the same terminologies as they did in his past world, good thing sandwich is still named sandwich.

“Okay, give the bread to me.” he exclaimed in a childish tone, to which she laughed and waved the other off saying…

“Oh I’ll keep the bread for the mean time, we wouldn’t want to repeat what happened in the past now would we?” she said.

“AAaawwww, such a tease.” Ken whined.

 “Well I learned from the best.” she replied, still has a teasing tone in her voice, Ken laughed at that and stood up, dusting the stray leaves on his pants.

“Well I’ll go get the ingredients now, wait for me at the table!!!.” Ken disappeared from Celine’s sight using teleportation and arriving at where bee hives are located in the forest.

‘Funny thing how this all started was when Celine had brought us sandwiches -again-, which I think was around 2 years ago.’ looking around how many bee hives are available to harvest some honey.

Ken was late to arrive at the table set up below a tree beside the main training ground of the northern forest’s village, which they created just a few days after they were accepted to train under the leaders,

The leaders said that it was such a hassle to travel back and forth from the kid’s original training ground, Ken would like to emphasize that helped out too, now it’s similar to that of a challenge valley from modern era,

Contraptions here and there, obstacles and such, which he pushed them to make, later on got interrogated how he had such ideas.

‘I think it was days after they had left me off the hook, saying that I do be careful with my ideas in case they will all be leaked to other people, apparently, they think my ideas were dangerous. Which I agree too, hehe.’

When Ken arrived, all the sandwiches were gone, regretting the part where he didn’t think of bringing a spare lunch for himself -but now brings himself some-.

Ken went to each of their houses -teleported-, stole some bread and ingredients -leaving a few-, created sandwiches at his home, went back to their training ground, sat at his usual seat, and ate, with fourteen sandwiches made by the side.

Of course, it made the others hungry for more, but what made them very curious was the different sandwich that was present, the honey sandwich, when they asked to have some, Ken refused, but when they gave him each puppy dog eyes,

‘Let’s just say I gave in, and each gave them a piece, both the regular sandwich, and the honey sandwich, and they haven’t stopped bothering me to make more, but I shot down their idea of such a change in routine, I mean, what will Celine feel if her role of giving sandwiches is stolen, if it were me, I would feel very, very sad.’  

After collecting honey juice from ten bee hives, -don’t ask, Ken just need a lot of honey for this-, Ken created a portal to the training ground and brought the honey with him using mana as a container, it’s quite curious to wonder of the things here, when it comes to things that are created by mana and assume physical form.

Ken is not able to bring many things using teleportation, only by portals or simply by carrying them. ‘But what’s up with my scythe though? I’m able to carry it with me using teleportation, -and right now I just place it within a sub-space I created, hehe, good for carrying stuffs-.’

‘Wait why didn’t I think of that when bringing this honey? O right, I’m supposed to use my mana in manipulating the essence of the honey’s juice to turn into jam, for the first time I spread honey on a bread, it soaked down, and slipped out of the bread, but by turning it into a jam, it doesn’t soak nor slip. Nya.’

“Uh, Ken? What are you doing? Getting lost in thought again” he snapped out of his thoughts and surveyed who spoke…

“Hehe, I guess I did.” Wilbert offered a smile and scooted over the long bench to let Ken sit with them, still the six orbs of mana, containing honey, but it seems that they have already finished eating their lunch, and why of all days that he just had to forget to bring his lunch box, but Celine saved him though, still. Good thing it’s Friday.

“Do you guys want some snacks to go with lunch?” he asked looking at the six people before him, already knowing of Celine’s opinion. Then a series of yes and nods of agreement were passed, taking one mana orb that is similar to the size of a crystal ball -these ones are here too-,

By manipulating the essence, and thickening the substance of the honey, turning the content from half of the container filled, to almost one fourth of the container filled, then turned the raw mana into ice before setting it down on the table.

Doing the same thing to the rest of the orbs. Once they were all finished, he cracked opened the ice orb in half horizontally before deforming the cut upper half into some type of platform that holds the lower half of the orb.

“Umm, Ken? Why did you make so many?” Lila asked. Ken smiled looking at her.

“So that we could have spares to eat later, hehe.” he replied, then looked at the others and said.

“Dig in.” and dig in they did, it was funny seeing them compete who gets first especially Glen and Wilbert who shoved and bickered playfully, as they watch them do their antics, but sometimes, it’s not so pleasurable for him since he sit beside Wil, and when the both of them start getting physical,

Ken got himself caught in their brawl, but he’s fine, most of the time, worst part they both sit beside one another, Allen sits at Glen’s left, his sparring and co-apprentice, across him is Saber who always sit besides his sister Lila, and then Celine who sits across Wilbert, and Ken?

Yeah no one sits across him, naah, just kidding, sometimes one of their parents or masters sits along and eats lunch with them, which makes KEn wonder, where is Master Klein anyway? He’s supposed to eat with them today since he said so, and just like Saber read Ken’s mind, he said…

“Teacher Klein went back to the village for some important matter, don’t know what, but don’t care, he’ll be back though.” sometimes Saber’s intuitions are so on point that it scares him, or is it mind reading, yeah definitely mind reading.

Ken stared hard at Saber while eating his honey butter sandwich -yeah, he named it just now, don’t worry why he called it honey butter, the honey is just like the substance of butter, without peanut butter, where to find peanuts though-.

“Don’t look at me like that Ken, I know what you’re thinking, we all know I don’t have the power to read minds.” Ken whined and said.

“But your assumptions are so on point!” with as much enthusiastic whining as he could muster.

“Still no.” effectively concluding their conversation.

“Don’t worry Ken, father had already eaten with us before you arrived.” said Allen, the other looked at him grateful for the information, and returned back to eating his sandwich, he thought they would layer it into 3 or 4 maybe, surprisingly they didn’t and had stick to having two breads each.

‘Uwaah the atmosphere here is always so nice, the gentle breeze, the light chatter and soft caress of the sunlight makes this the best of every the best lunch I have ever had. Tehee.’ taking a glance at everyone present.

Ken gotta say, everyone of them had improved and matured throughout the years they’ve been together, although baby faces are still visible here and there, but throughout the training they’ve endured, tempered by the hardships and trials they’ve faced all those years,

He can only say that, they are more than capable of looking after themselves, for isn’t that what they were training for, but what could twelve year olds do at this time? Nothing, maybe.

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