Ben leaves Ireland with Felix and his children to learn to become a Rider. He is taken to a secret island that is very large, and from what he can see has technology, that is far ahead of anything he has ever seen before. On the island Ben see's that it is heavily defended, and filled with many people, he was surprised since he thought they were a secret organization. Felix informs him that the people working with them were descendants, relatives, or people who were once victims of the war they fight, or descended from victims. In rider terms like animals they must not let anything go to waste. Each person serves a purpose or a chore. They have doctors, scientist, engineers, cooks, cleaner's, nurses, janitors, cooks, fighter's, trainer's, drivers, mechanic's, accountants, from all over the world who help them keep the war secret from the rest of man.
Ben is surprise that the war as he learned it has been kept secret for nearly 10,000 years, he can't believe that it never got out. Felix let's him know that, in truth World War I and II were both conflicts between Demons, and Spirits. Demons want to bring the war to a whole new scale, but the Medians have managed to maintain it so far. Medians, are humans who know of the war and keep it secret from the rest of man. Ben can't believe that people are this blind and naive that they can't see what is happening right in front of their eyes. Felix reminds him that he spent nine years visiting the grave of his mother, and not once tried to remember how she died. The techniques they use to keep the war a secret were very good. They use a form of hypnotism mixed, with a few psychotropic drugs to manipulate people. Only Demons, and Spirits need stronger methods, but most demons, and spirits already know of the war. Ben accepts his answer and begins to first learn the history of the history of as he now must accept it his kind.. For their motto is "KNOWLEDGE IS POWER". That is how they have been successful in protecting the world for 10,000 years.
In the history Ben learns that Spirits always existed they were the sentinels the the earth created to protect itself from harm. Life no matter how low or inconsequential is connected. But all that exist is not equal or happy, and all energy has an opposite. In existence two forces exist light and dark, light. positive, and neutral, or good and evil, will always be fighting for dominance of the other. The earth exist in a realm known as Versa, and Hell in a realm known as the Netherworld. In between there is a place called the Nexus a way point, where the fallen go. Spirits don't kill demons, they vanquish them to the nexus forever to be imprisoned. This is done because it is almost impossible to kill a demon.
The Demon King Baal lives in the Nether realm. In the beginning the first guardians or God's were what is known as Deities. They were beings that summoned the power of nature and ruled over man with harsh threats. The Gods were cold and cruel and used Demons to enforce their power, however Baal a powerful demon fought back against his master's and after killing one realized he could control their power once he drank their blood. Baal then begin a genocide with his demons and began killing the deities and feeding off their blood and taking their power, soon the Dark age of man began. But Shaman's who knew the truth of Demons, and Deities summoned the spirits of the earth who usually took animal form for help. However Spirits usually stayed out of mortal affairs and as long as the war did no damage to the earth they were neutral it wasn't until Demons became greedy and began to feed on the blood of all life that they decided to intervene. The Spirits chose avatar's or animals to embody their powers. However animals although strong could not fight as well against demons.
It was during a difficult battle that a human seeing the Wolf Spirit losing took up arms to help it fight the Demon. The human Beo, nearly died saving the wolf. Ragnarok realized the human was noble, and feeling responsible merged his life force with the human to save his life, and together they became Beowulf, and defeated the demon. Thus other spirits began to do the same. They would search for strong brave humans, and merge their spirits with them. With this union of humans, spirits, and animals, demons began to lose. Soon in the end the demons and spirits in a final battle separated the 3 worlds. However the spirits who were merged with humans were never again allowed to return to the realm of Versa since they had in a way become mortal, and only immortals are allowed in the spirit realm.
Even though the demons, were trapped in the Nether Realm they found a way to free themselves by doing as spirits did and merging themselves with other humans, creatures, and even objects. So the war continued, however Baal their master could not find anything strong enough to contain his spirit, until they found one. Large powerful beings called Titans. He once took control over a Titan called the Kraken, however he was defeated by a wolf spirit. From that point on the wolf spirit and it's family were hunted. Since it was seen that they were shown to be destined to defeat the Demons. It's why Ben had no other family on his mother's side, the Demons wanted to ensure their complete and utter annihilation of their family. Because blood was the key. Once a spirit joins with a human, they can and forever only be joined with that human blood. Since Ragnarok joined with Beo all those millennium's ago. Once Ben was gone, the wolf spirit would forever be gone from this world. Ben was confused the spirit that possessed him said it's name was Fenrir. As Ben learns Ragnarok changed, but he was locked out from learning the change they spoke of since it was held only in the protected archives.
The funny thing Ben thought about the knowledge he now acquired was how, because he drank it. On the island there was an entire store house of bottled water, everywhere. Water is everything. The history and knowledge of all things was held in the earth and all things that live have water. Shaman were the children and care taker's of the earth they along with philosopher's and scholars, and mystics, had developed a way to take the ability demons used to take power through blood and utilize it to take knowledge. They would decipher water from all things even an area where battles had taken place and using that water utilize the events from the water to create what they called Molecular Memory. It could only take few years of memory but that was enough, and once combined with plain water they could create from Hydrogen, and Oxygen creates an endless supply of that particular memory. So all knowledge that had ever been could be drank, of course it couldn't be held not all of it since people did have to urinate, Ben didn't want to know if they would use that to gain his knowledge. As it turns out that was how he was going to train.
The blood water from every wolf rider that ever lived had been held. As it turns out only those with the right spirit could decipher the memory of other warriors, so only family of the same blood could see the memories of their predecessor's. When Ben went to the store house of his family the same symbol on the crest of his ancestor's tomb was on every bottle of water in the store house, and Ben was allowed to drink from each one only a sip. Each sip literally took him through a fantastic place where he could relive the memory of each of his ancestors, even the one's that were women, he felt uneasy about that, but that was the rule. Spirit's were not prejudiced about gender. It was surprising for Ben to learn that his ancestor Lycas actually married another spirit the Fox. She was also one of his ancestors, however he was not allowed to drink from her water, he also could not drink from Lycas's water, or a few other member's of his family. Like many other bottles of water they were forbidden.
But from the memories Ben had absorbed of his ancestors something awoke in him a power and strength he never knew was there. He could run faster, jump higher, smell everything even determine the direction the smell came from like a wolf. He could see so much. His hands changed and now when he touched something he could feel it down to the microscopic surface. With these abilities, he could be like a wolf and tell everything that was going on. He wished he had this ability in gym class when he was younger. He also learned of their fighting ability to use the sword and other weapons in combat. To help him train other rider's and guardians would spar with him, and help him get a grasp on the knowledge he learned. He even learned a skill called gun fury that was developed by his own great grand father who used two guns called his howling fangs. He preferred them over swords since he deemed them a faster method of attack.
From this he activated the fighting technique of legacy. The ability to fight using the talents of previous ancestors. He also accessed their distinct fighting technique called WOLF. WIN OR LOSE FIGHTING. This technique was so dangerous it put his own body in jeopardy if he did it wrong. However it's use in combat was unmatched since it would do great damage to any opponent. Using this technique he was even able to beat Tara who had no equal in fighting during a sparring session. However it did get him a five severe scratches across the face and chest, from her tiger's palm attack. Luckily they had the tank to heal him. The tank was a group of large cylinder's filled with a natural element where they took enzymes and water to heal most wounds. However Ben didn't like learning some of the elements in the water were stem cells. But he learned their kind had developed cross engineering that took stem cells from bird eggs and other animals while they were still in the womb to develop their material and retro engineered it for all life. They did it without even harming the animal. But Ben still didn't like it, since he wasn't a big believer in stem cell research. However in this world he guessed it was okay, but he would not use the tanks often. His favorite sparring partner's were Kat, and Drake since they seemed to help guide him in his quest. Drake was more like a brother to Ben the way they drove one another on, and Kat she was something else, but not a sister to Ben. For now even after learning the hard news of his family, their death's, and the secrets they hid to protect him, for the first time in a long time Ben was happy.
Back in the U.S. Ricky and Amy had a double wedding with Adrian and Omar, paid for by of course Leo. Amy was upset Ashley didn't come, but was happy since Leo was going to send them to Italy for their honeymoon. Adrian and Omar were happy they were pregnant. Jack proposed to Madison, and Grace had a fling with Dante without Grant finding out. Everyone was happy. Leo didn't even miss Ben because Ricky was so pretty, and he did great work for the business he even took credit for a sandwich shop idea to expand the business, Ben once told him about. Leo put him in charge of it, and thought he would make a great successor to his company. This angered Chloe because she thought Ben was his heir, but Leo hadn't spoken to Ben for over four months. Chloe got a call every month or so, but Ben was very busy drinking smart water, that sent him into hallucinogenic trances of knowledge so he didn't have to talk much.
Leo, and the rest didn't know it but they were all being watched by a group of people who wanted to know where Ben had gone too. They lost his trail in Ireland thanks to Felix who had a double of Ben leave on four different flights back to the U.S. that he never arrived. They actually left Ireland on a boat to get to the island. There was also someone close by that they all knew who wondered what was happening since they themselves had taken many steps to ensure Ben's life would be altered and wondered if everything was going according to plan. They never thought it would be so easy to manipulate Ben's life, but the people around him were so weak and stupid it was ridiculously easy. But now everything about their plan hinged on where Ben was now, and if he was doing well.