The Heartstone Journey

Book 1 | Ch. 8 - Birds Out Of The Nest

It has been four months close to five months since Hunter's disappearance, Royal and Cloudy both passed the remaining trials they were given shedding blood, sweat and tears to do it. Nick surprisingly awakened right at the fourth month confused as to what was going on and was filled in on what happened. Unfortunately for him Gatekeeper was the most vicious and aggressive toward Nick for good reason due to his berserker state when collecting heat passively. With the fifth month arriving faster than they all would like Nick had managed to pass three out of the four trials he was given with the only one he couldn't successfully pass yet is ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕖. His pride was a rather handful for the knight and for the trial he was forced to endure knowing the contents of that specific trial. It was crucial that he explained the importance of holding back his words and to be more self-aware when in certain places. All of them gave an awkward stare aiming right at Gatekeeper as if they wanted to say something but were hesitant to do so.

"Go on~. Say it already or else I'll make you do extra trials."

He said with a hint of annoyance.

Royal muttered under his breath thinking he wouldn't be able to hear him if he spoke quietly enough.

"... When will Hunter return again?"

Gatekeeper turned his gaze toward the boy and gritted his teeth

"When he returns he will be a completely different person."

Royal's eyes widened hearing those words.

"What does that mean?"

Gatekeeper's eyes widened shifting away from their awkward stares and worried expressions only telling them that he would return when his time came scolding them to not bother him about that man again. The boys all were down in the dumps not knowing what they should be doing without Hunter's guidance and words of encouragement. They heard Gatekeeper stomping away with the metal from his armor echoing throughout the hall until it stopped seeing him sitting on the throne ahead contemplating something.

"It's ok... I will keep my promise to you. That wish you told me about will come to fruition. I won't allow him to fall into despair."

He uttered to himself saddened. After some time of silence he was left to consider what his next move will be as he heard the door open with Nick entering the throne room with a solemn expression on his face.

"I'm back."

Nick said in a monotone tone.

"Good you're okay. What did you learn?"

"There are many things to remember about the world but I managed to understand the basics well enough."

The boys decided to do what they could with the little free time they had and went on their own way around the throne room. Cloudy chose to plop himself in the medical room in order to rest his sore body from the training and trials he had worked so hard on while Royal was determined to practice using and manipulating aura. In the process of them doing that Nick was being trained vigorously without mercy. In a separate room much larger than the rest Gatekeeper called it the white box. It was capable of allowing him to manifest many larger things to reality such as a building or even something as large as a castle if he was given enough time. He snapped his fingers forming a brick box massive enough to hold a few beasts inside. Confused Nick looked over at the knight wondering what he was going to be forced to endure next. Gatekeeper explained that the room he built was designed to withstand high amounts of heat to basically keep the heat in to help absorb more.

"You must endure the heat and absorb as much as possible so you can handle more later on. Basically increasing the storage that allows you to hold energy. You must've been taught this already. Head inside the furnace room and get training."