Chapter 1 Daniel

In a big prairie, stands an enormous solitary tree.

This tree's trunk was large enough for a small group of men, had it been hollow, to hide inside it. Dozens of differently sized branches grew from it in all directions, making the tree reach a height of at least three hundred meters at its highest point. Each of the tree's branches split into hundreds of leaf covered twigs. Its foliage was thick, with colors that spanned from orange, to red and dark brown. At its feet, a series of aggressive roots spread for meters, before sinking deeply into the dry leaves covered soil.

Inside the thick foliage, on a small branch which still sized half a meter from side to side, sat the figure of a young man. His physique was very lean, almost underfed.. His black hair stuck to his sweaty face and hung down the sides of his head, as he leaned forward and tried to reach with his arm.. his slightly small clothes stuck tightly to his sweaty body like a second skin.

Grunts and mutters broke the sound of rustling leaves, as a pair of long yet thin fingers hung in the air, just centimeters away from a plump, odd-looking fruit.

"Come on!... damn it!" Growled the teenager, as drops of sweat streamed down his straight nose, and his skin explored every shade of red it can possibly turn into.

For a few long minutes the teenager tried all he could to reach the fruit, but due to the sheer massive size of the tree, no other branch was closer to it than he already was.. Unfortunately, the twig where the fruit was hanging, was too slim to support his weight.

It is important to understand that this wasn't a simple fruit, as this wasn't a simple tree.

The people of Phyrri named this tree 'The Catering Tree', a name given due to the legend that surrounded it. This legend claimed that, when a worthy someone in need of a helping hand would come close to it, the tree would grow a fruit as a gift for that person.

This gift was a fruit of the size of a grapefruit. Its skin was smooth and shiny, yet the color was odd. No matter from which side one looked at it, the center would always look red, while the external part was yellow with a strange shine to it. It looked as if someone constantly kept shining a light against the back of the fruit.

According to the elderly, this fruit had magic properties, and although even they were unsure of what those effects were due to the lack of people who managed to obtain it for hundreds of years, they still remembered the stories from their ancestors better than the younger generations did.

This made the city of Phyrri special in the past through the whole Karalis kingdom, and the tree renowned.

Many young boys and girls used to travel from the whole kingdom to try their luck, and obtain the blessing of The Catering Tree. Unfortunately with the passage of time, this tree caused more disappointment than anything else to the people who came to visit it.. so, as it was now, the tree's powers were either considered just a legend, or a natural power that had been lost in time.

This never stopped people that heard this story from trying to approach this magical tree out of greed, yet none of them succeeded. This was because, in order to gain the approval of the tree and earn one of its gifts, a person's intention had to be judged by the tree. Sadly, nobody remembered this detail anymore.

The day this teenager's had approached this tree, he didn't do it with the intention of obtaining the tree's gifts. He had of course heard of the myth of 'The Catering Tree', so after he had noticed the fruit hanging from one of its twigs, he decided to take it, and use it to extinguish a debt. A debt which his deceased mother had passed down to his when she died, the day he turned ten.

This debt forced him to pay ten silver coins at the end of each month, in order to keep his freedom, and that of his sister.

Naturally, due to his age and his incapability of working, he ended up making most of those money by pickpocketing the wealthy women and men that were foolish enough to hire him as a guide or to carry their bags as they moved through the city.

The city was big, and he had always been agile and fast enough to escape whenever he got caught. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when he stole from the wrong person.

The unspoken rules between pickpockets were only a few.

Never steal from a guard captain, never take too much from a single person, and finally, Never get caught.

That unfortunate day, he had managed to break two of the three rules within a minute.

The reason one should never steal from a guard captain was simple. In order to become a captain of the city guard, one had to have reached the rank 4 of martial cultivation, which allowed them a superhuman awareness of their body. The slightest change in the weight they were carrying, was more than enough to alert a rank 4 martial cultivator. As one could have guessed, this young man's target, that day, was in fact, a guard captain from Algro, a city weeks of travel away from Phyrri.

Furthermore, the captain was carrying valuables from a city to another.

Luckily enough, most soldiers and guards focused their training in strength and endurance, and this particular one was no exception. So, thanks to his dexterity, he was able escape. But not before the captain of the guard had managed to take a good look at his face, and reported him to the local guards.

For weeks, he was forced to roam the streets with an extra layer of worry whenever he saw the shine of armor nearby, making him unable to gather enough money for the monthly payment.

The person he owed the money to was a brutal one.. His mother, left without alternatives after the death of her husband, had to ask for a loan from a man her husband was acquainted with, but for reasons she didn't know.

The man turned out to be the owner of a shady hotel that dealt in drugs, prostitution and gambling. From almost missing one of her payments, she had learned that, in case she missed any of them, she would have ended up becoming a slave along with her children. This lead to her working herself to death, and the debt to be inherited by her son and daughter.

The reason the teenager ended up in that prairie wasn't to try his luck and obtain the fruit of this once legendary tree. The real reason, was that he had been recognized by a guards patrol right outside of the city walls. Where he had the habit of swindling foreign merchants into hiring him as a tour guide.

He ended up being chased into the forest, and kept running for hours while thinking about the punishment for stealing. Which would have been being sent to work into the mines as a slave, for the rest of his life.

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