Luke looked at the pool of dried blood on the floor of the cell and the face of the cheerful young novice Elian Calan flashed through his mind. His contact with the boy had been very limited, but he had liked him from the start.

  In all his previous lives, Luke had not had a great number of friends. He had had many acquaintances, after all in his last life he had held an influential position in society, but as for true friends, they were so few that they could be counted on the fingers of his hands.

  The young novice had a kind and honest personality. He treated Luke with sincerity and respect, not caring about his status. Luke, who did not know much about the church of the moon dragon goddess, believed that Elian had the qualities of a true holy man. It could be said that in a short period of time they had become superficial friends, with great prospects of starting a true friendship if they maintained longer contact.

  Now, seeing that the boy's fate was uncertain, he felt it was his responsibility to make sure the novice was safe. After all, he believed that Elian had been captured because Flynn had asked to see him, following his own instructions.

  If he knew that he had actually been captured because of the jealous Forxis, he would feel anger in addition to responsibility.

  Luke looked at the group of children who were in a very poor physical condition, and decided that before going to look for Elian, it was best to make sure that the children escaped safely from the prison.

  He concentrated his spiritual power forming a large number of threads, then attached these threads to the children's bodies, and activating his camouflage technique, both he and the rest of the people who were in the corridor disappeared without a trace.

  Once his camouflage was complete, the rest was simple, just as he had entered undetected, he could leave without problems. Luke moved at high speed, carrying with him all the children, who floated behind him held by the threads of spiritual energy.

  He managed to leave the prison without any major problems and immediately went to the royal palace. Right now, the only safe place for him and these children within Lunaria was the royal palace where Zara was, who could protect them no matter the situation.

  He entered the palace without alerting the guards and went straight to his beloved's chambers. In a corner of the palace, Godrick Stone looked up from the report he was reading and carefully observed the almost imperceptible vibrations of spiritual energy in the environment. He frowned and focused his attention on the direction in which these vibrations were occurring. After a few moments his expression returned to normal and he lowered his head to continue reading the report from his subordinates.

  Luke arrived at Zara's chambers and entered without announcing himself. The Lunarian queen was sitting on the floor, her legs crossed and absorbing the copious spiritual energy in the environment.

  He deactivated his camouflage, suddenly appearing in the room.

  Seeing how her man suddenly appeared carrying a bunch of small children with him, Zara raised her eyebrows. She stopped practicing her spiritual cultivation technique and stood up. Then, moving with great speed, she appeared in front of Luke and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Flynn, who was the only one of the children who had remained conscious during the short trip from the prison to the palace, watched in surprise as Queen Zara, who he could usually only see from afar during Lunaria's popular celebrations, was hugging the young human who had saved him, and in front of his incredulous gaze, the Lunarian queen leaned forward and began to kiss Luke.

  Queen Zara was not a woman who did not know how to maintain her image in front of strangers, if it had been on another occasion she would not have performed such a daring act in public. But she was confident that she could keep the little boy her man had rescued from talking about it. Her emotions were hard to control at the moment, since this was her first time in a relationship. As soon as she saw Luke's handsome face appear in front of her, she couldn't help but throw herself into his arms and kiss him.

  The nature of people was like that. No one had just one face. Queen Zara, of course, also had several facets. She could be the solemn and elegant queen that Flynn had seen during the ceremonies, or she could be the strong and peevish queen that individuals in the high spheres of Lunaria knew, she could also be the loving and attentive woman who appeared only in front of Namira. Now, however, what Flynn was witnessing with surprise, was the Zara in love, who was immersed in the affection of her man and in the feeling of being accompanied, which she had not felt in her entire life, not even with her best friend Namira.

  Their lips separated, and Zara showed her beautiful smile while still hugging him.

  "I see that you had no problems saving the prisoners. I haven't received any reports, so it's obvious that you managed to keep your promise and didn't cause any commotion in the prison."

  Luke saw his wife's beautiful smile and, still feeling the heat on his lips, his heart began to get restless. He waved his hand and putting a bit of force into his palm, he spanked the Lunari queen's beautiful ass, producing a loud sound that echoed in the large, silent room.

  Zara blushed and looked at him reproachfully, but didn't make any comment about it. Her legs came together and she also began to feel restless inside. If there hadn't been a child looking at them strangely in the room, she probably would have started a fighting session right there!

  "I only rescued the children because they were the ones in the worst condition. There are still some prisoners left back there, so I will go back to get them out once I investigate their situation thoroughly."

  In addition to the children he had already rescued, there were still many other prisoners he had rescued from the spider queen's cave. However, the identity of these individuals was not entirely clear to him. To begin with, there were some humans who were probably slavers, then there were several Lunaris who seemed to be hunters, but there were a few others whose identities were a mystery to him. What he did know, was that among all the people he had rescued, there was a noble, but that noble was not in the underground prison, as to whether he had been released, or imprisoned somewhere else, was something Luke did not care about. He did not have enough energy to care about each and every stranger he encountered. He had saved the children at Flynn's request, and the rest of the people had been saved only because it was not any extra effort for him. Now, as a final courtesy, he would do some research on the prisoners and if there was anyone he thought deserved his help in escaping, he would help them one last time. Once out of the prison, they would have to fend for themselves.

  Hearing that he was planning to go back to the prison, Zara thought about dissuading him, but eventually stopped the words before they could leave her lips. She knew she wouldn't be able to convince the young man to change his mind.

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  "Don't worry, I'll just take a look and come back right away. In the meantime, could you take care of these children? Their condition isn't too good, if they aren't assisted I'm afraid some of them won't make it"

  Zara looked at the fainted little children still floating behind Luke and sighed.

  "These little ones have been through a lot to get here. Don't worry, I'll settle them in the palace and they'll be safe. It's because of my negligence that they've had to suffer so much within my city. The least I can do is ensure their well-being in the future."

  Luke kissed her once more and stroked her long silky hair.

  "Don't worry, these children are resilient, they will be fine. The future will be much brighter for them from now on."

  Flynn, upon hearing these words, felt his gaze cloud over. But he forced himself and did not let the tears escape from his eyes. He had already cried too much, now it was time to be strong.

  "Lord, thank you so much for saving me and my brothers! I will never forget this favor. I promise that one day I will give back everything you have given us and more!"

  Flynn was making a solemn promise, but Luke did not take it too seriously. He had not helped them to get something in return, so he did not consider that the boy needed to repay him in any way. However, he didn't reject the little boy's good will, he knew that Flynn needed to express his thanks or he wouldn't be able to be calm inside, there were people in the world who were like that.

  "Very well, we'll see what happens in the future. For now, the important thing is that you and your brothers recover. You will stay here in the palace, don't cause trouble for her majesty Queen Zara"

  Flynn nodded firmly, while Zara showed dissatisfaction at being called so formally by her boyfriend.

  Luke didn't waste any more time and immediately set off for the prison. He hadn't mentioned anything to Zara, but the main reason for returning was to check on Elian Calan's condition.

  As he made his way to the prison he thought about little Flynn and all the times he had surprised him. His senses were very sharp. He could sense his golem, discover him even when he was using his camouflage technique, and he could also absorb the light attribute… It was obvious that he wasn't a normal child. Otherwise the system wouldn't have issued a mission to save him.

  Thinking about the system, Luke decided to consult it about it.

  "Syzy, what is the identity of the little Lunari child that I had to save to complete mission 03?"

  Luke had used Xylara's eye on Flynn three times, the first time he had seen him on the street selling food, he had used the ability as he usually did out of habit, in case he found someone with a strange status. The second time he had used Xylara's eye on the boy had been in the spider queen's cave, after he had been able to notice the presence of his golem, and the last time had been in the underground prison.

  On none of the three occasions had he found anything out of the ordinary in the boy's information. According to the information at his disposal, he was a simple Lunari child, like any other in the great city-state. However, taking into account Flynn's abnormalities, it was clear that he could not be an ordinary child.

  *Host, Flynn Valtor is one of the children of destiny*

  "Children of destiny? What is that? And what relationship does it have with the system?"

  Luke could sense that he was facing information of vital importance to understand the role of the system in the world

  *Children of destiny are those who have been blessed by universal laws. Their existence is protected by the universe, they have important roles to play within the timeline and can be considered key pieces of the structure of reality. There is no data regarding their relationship to the system*

  Listening to the information that was being provided by the system, Luke showed confusion. He thought he understood what the concept of "children of destiny" meant. To put it in terms that were used in his first life on planet Earth, they were simply the protagonists of the story!

  If the current timeline, which made up the "reality" of this world was compared to a story in a book, the children of destiny would be the main characters, and the protection of the universal laws would be what was commonly called the "plot armor".

  These people were such key and important pieces in reality, that their very existence was protected by the universe. But if this was the case… then why was the little Lunari about to die?

  In fact, it could be said that if Luke had not intervened at the last moment, the little boy would definitely have died at the hands of the spider queen.

  Or is it that if Luke didn't arrive to save him, another event would save him anyway?

  So what was the reason for the system to issue that mission? He had to save him before he was saved by someone else? Or is it that the determinism of reality affected his system, and reality already had within its calculations that he would appear to save the boy?

  Luke became more and more entangled in his thoughts.

  Finally he could not help but ask the system about it again

  "Syzy, if i had not saved the little boy and completed the mission, would he have died?"

  *Host, if you had not acted Flynn Valtor would have died*

  "But wasn't he protected by universal laws?"

  *...*

  *Error. Corrupted information*

  Seeing that the system had started to malfunction again, he felt a headache. He would have to make do for the moment with the little information he had been able to obtain.

  "Leaving aside the fact that the system intervened in this whole matter, that little boy… Flynn Valtor, is indeed a special existence. I think I should keep him safe, and perhaps I should train him a little, so that he can defend himself should he find himself in danger again. Although the universal laws should protect him, considering the incident with the spider queen, I can't be sure that he won't face something similar in the future. As soon as I return, I will take him as an apprentice. After all, although I never came into contact with an energy of an elemental attribute such as light, in my previous life I was a distinguished teacher at the magic academy. I should be able to teach him the basics of sorcery and cultivation. Also, now that I can cultivate divine energy of the light attribute, I can surely find a way to guide him to utilize the powers of that attribute. As a last resort I can wait for the system to level up and design a couple of quests related to it."

  Making a plan for the future in his mind, Luke arrived back at the underground prison.

  He entered without problems and walked through the already familiar facilities. Finally, in the deepest part of the prison, where he had not been before, he found a large metal door that led to some rooms that were used by the prison staff to perform miscellaneous tasks. There were rooms that were bedrooms, others that were pantries, kitchens, and there were even large public baths that had a kind of natural hot springs.

  Luke was surprised to see such facilities. Evidently this was the place that the guards and staff in charge of the prison used as barracks.

  However, in addition to these relatively common rooms, there were others that were a little more "peculiar." Luke saw laboratories, where prisoners were used for experiments, he saw interrogation rooms with torture elements, and surprisingly he also saw a room covered in empty cages, where a large number of corpses were piled on a strange inscription on the floor. Seeing this last room, Luke felt a sense of unreality, since he could recognize the origin of the symbol drawn on the floor.

  These were symbols used by a branch of dark magic, demonology.

  Luke would never have imagined that in Lunaria, where it was rare to find even an entry-level sorcerer, there was someone practicing advanced dark magic, using the prisoners in the prison as sacrifices.

  Zara probably didn't know anything about it. Demonic dark magic could be very problematic if used on a large scale by a high-level person. As soon as he returned, he would have to inform the Lunari queen that there was someone playing with something so dangerous right under her nose.

  One more thing to add to the list of things he had to discuss with the Lunari queen. He hadn't forgotten that he had to consult her about her cultivation of divine energy.

  He put aside the surprise of stumbling upon a sorcerer's territory, and continued checking the rooms one by one.

  Finally, in a tiny dark room that seemed to function as an isolation room, he found the novice he had been looking for. Seeing the condition Elian Calan was in, Luke clenched his fists tightly, and a vein popped out on his forehead. He was angry, and someone would have to suffer the consequences!