"Greetings Lord Hamton, I hope you had a smooth travel to Crutof." Volzen welcomed the Noble of the Razbid region. The other nobles had already arrived. Hamton was shown to the meeting room by Volzen. The meeting room was just by the stairs. It had an enormous door of marbled frames, with handles made out of gold. Volzen entered the room with Hamton. The other Lords stood up and greeted them. The room had a huge oval table at the centre. A spiritiz furnace was attached to the centre wall. Volzen waved his hands, the lights turned off and the oval table came to life with a bright shine. Volzen liked the surprise upon the faces of the nobles. Almost everything in the Vistara mansion was made using advanced spiritiz technology. The table displayed a map. It was the map of Eldis. Volzen zoomed in on the division between the Great Forest and Hosontropia.

  "The topic of today's discussion is the explorer murders." He started the discussion. "There have been countless deaths inside the forest. Some of them were due to asura attacks, some of them were marked by betrayals. But we have never seen any bodies at the entrance of the forest until now. Twenty one bodies were found by the guards at the entrance of the forest. Each of them had bullet holes and traces of spiritiz."

  Ryoner, the Lord of the Hesti region, interrupted Volzen. "Must be a a spiritiz ranger.... Were they able to trace the spiritiz back to its user?"

  "No." Volzen said immediately. "The murderer might be a third grade spiritiz user or above. But the main point of this discussion is that the people who were killed, were representatives of the Spiritiz Council. That's why a request was put in for the Nobles to look into this matter." Volzen concluded his statement.

  Belzi, Lady of the Soren region, let out a frustrated groan. "Those Spiritiz Council bastards.... Why are we always helping them out? What have we got in return? They exist because of us. Shouldn't that be enough?" Belzi's outburst shocked almost everyone except Lizle, Lady of the Vilene region. "Calm down Bel... No need to get worked up about this small incident."

  "Lady Lizle please refrain from using informal terminology in a formal meeting." Belzi pointed out with signs of extreme irritation on her face.

  Lizle gave a mischievous smile to Belzi. She then turned her gaze towards the other nobles present in the room. "Why don't we ask Myztic to look into the matter?"

  "We can't..." Hamton spoke up. "Myztic is busy training the new Apostles. They are bound to focus on the task that is more important. According to them nothing is more important than shaping the future generation."

  "I have an idea.." Volzen stood up. "Why don't we personally go and investigate? It's been years since I've seen any action." The others were a bit skeptical about Volzen's proposal but even they didn't like the boring responsibilities of a noble, away from all the action, holed up in their offices. Ultimately everyone decided that they would investigate this matter. The entrance was closer to the Soren region, so the Nobles would be staying at Belzi's mansion. The date was fixed for their journey. But the meeting didn't end. Since the Nobles met with each other after so many months, they started talking about their experiences in past few months, their children, their struggles. This took an unexpected turn to politics and suddenly Belzi was having a rageful debate with Ryoner about the policies of Hesti. Their debate ended when the nobles heard a shriek. It came from upstairs. Volzen opened the door and saw a maid approaching him. "What is the matter?" Volzen questioned her.

  "S-Sir the young masters are having a physical altercation." The maid replied shakily.

  The nobles ran upstairs and saw Voldar running towards them. His forehead was bleeding profoundly.

  "Father....I.....They..." Voldar couldn't speak. He was frightened by the look Volzen had on his face.

  "I'll deal with you later." Volzen hurried to the left wing corridor with the other nobles. As soon as they turned the corner, they saw Ryuken, son of Ryoner, fighting Azoth, son of Lizle.

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  "CUT IT OUT!" Volzen shouted.

  They stopped immediately. "What is going on here." Volzen questioned in a calm but stern voice.

  Azoth stepped up. "Forgive me for disrupting your discussion Lord Volzen. I apologise for the mess I've created." Volzen looked at the corridor and saw that all the statues had fallen down, few windows had broken. Lizle looked at Azoth. "Explain", she said. "Mother, I was simply teaching Ryuken, a lesson." Ryoner looked at Ryuken. He wasn't hurt badly but was surely traumatized. "Ryu, what happened? Are you alright?"

  Ryuken looked up at his father. "They were ripping the bodies apart, relishing on the blood and organs that poured out." Ryuken had tears rolling down his cheeks.

  "What did you do to my son?" Ryoner almost attacked Azoth but was stopped by Hamton and Belzi.

  "Calm down Ryo, it's just a grade 0 illusion spell. But the question is...." She turned towards Azoth, "Why did you use such a spell on young Ryuken? What lesson were you talking about?"

  Azoth replied without any sign of regret or guilt. "Earlier today, Voldar was studying a book on spiritiz channeling. I was passing by his room while exploring the mansion and saw him reading the book with immense focus. I was intrigued by his attention span." "Wait", Volzen stopped him. "Are you sure the book was on spiritiz channeling?" " Yes sir... it was written by the famous Krypis Palad. He's an expert on channeling." Ryuken answered. Volzen did not reply but made a gesture indicating to continue. "I wanted to have a conversation with Voldar. I was going to call him out but then I saw Ryuken dash into his room. Apparantly they were acquainted. He pushed Voldar out of his chair and threw the book out of the window. Then he called him vulgar names. I interfered when things got physical. When I confronted him, he said that he was teaching Voldar how to defend himself against asuras. But that was clearly a lie since a simple demonstration wouldn't cause someone's forehead to bleed. I asked him if he knew anything at all, about the asuras. Looking at his confidence, I decided to test him. But his mental defense was weak and he fell into the illusion. As a result, he launched uncontrolled attacks, disarranging the corridor." Azoth ended with a light sigh. "That doesn't excuse you from using an illusion spell on my son!" Ryoner exclaimed.

  "Calm down Ryo.... Be grateful it wasn't the 3rd grade illusion spell Az has been practicing."

  Before Ryoner could say anything, Volzen vociferated, "Grade three spell?!" Everyone looked at Volzen.

  "Your son is a prodigy! Is he a channeller?" Volzen asked.

  "No, he's a shaper." Lizle replied. Although Volzen did not like the fact that two children destroyed his left wing, he had taken a liking to Azoth. He turned his attention towards his guests. "I have made arrangements for lunch. This was just a small disagreement between children, let's not go any deeper."

  Volzen called a maid. "Take the guests to the dining hall."

  "Won't you come?" Belzi asked.

  "I have something to deal with." Volzen replied and went towards Voldar's room.

  Voldar was applying medicine on his wound, when he saw his father storm in.

  "You miserable buffoon! You couldn't even stand up for yourself. Have you learnt nothing in that academy?"

  Voldar wanted to explain himself but his father didn't give him a chance. After a while of insulting, Volzen glanced on his table. "Channeling books!!" Voldar shook with fright. "You, the son of one of the greatest shapers, are studying channeling? How dare you!"

  Now, Voldar gathered enough courage and spoke up. "But father.... C-Channellers hold the same position as shapers in the......" Volzen slapped Voldar.

  "I'll show you the power of shaping." Voldar helplessly looked at the bolt of lightning taking form in front of his father's hand. He then released it towards the books on the table.

  BOOM!!!

  The the table shattered, the books burned to a crisp.

  "Let that be a lesson to you." Volzen stormed out of Voldar's room.

  Voldar couldn't hold back any longer. His eyes were red. His left cheek started to swell. For the first time in his entire life, Voldar felt an emotion unknown to him. Voldar was enraged. He wasn't angry at his father. He was angry at the fact that he could not do anything except letting his teardrops flow out constantly. He knew he was weak. But this time he felt the anger in his blood as it rushed through his veins. He understood how helpless he truly was.