Transcendence Volume 2: Awakening

Chapter 7: Flowers of Remembrance

[Ridan 7, 0100 A.R., Ventrion]

[Avaloa Valley, Lyrkish Kingdom of Phirames]

[Luxenheim]

The Avaloan Valley left behind an interesting trail of destruction in its wake as within the last six days had passed since Shinn had accepted Juno's offer to take him to Streania. And within those six days, the two had spent every waking day of Juno sparring with Shinn testing his ability to keep up with Juno. And the past six days Shinn had shown promising results, with each time Juno would land a hit against him only to be responded with twice the strength of what she had given him. As the days went by both of them had two different goals in mind.

For Juno, it was obviously to help slowly improve Shinn's performance as when the two aren't sparring the two were actively hunting down the local monsters within Luxenheim.

For Shinn it was to push her further into stop holding back, slowly edging her to go all out. As Shinn knew full well that she was holding back, and that he believed that if he managed to get her to lose all restraint and survive a battle against her then it was then he was fully ready.

And on furthermore, not only had Shinn managed to get her to draw her sword against him as she had fought with her sheathe still covering the rapier but to also actively use Ki. As Shinn leapt back as Juno lunged at him coating her Rapier with Ki to meet against Shinn's own Ki infused Flameclaw causing the ground to briefly crack as both of their swords clashed with one another in an attempt to assert dominance.

"How am I doing?" Shinn asked with a cheeky grin.

"Doing better but--" Juno swung her rapier to the side briefly staggering him and is followed by a kick sending him crashing into a tree as he fell into a ravine only for Juno to grab him by the arm and threw him to a nearby hill to prevent him from injuring himself further.

"--you lack environmental awareness," Juno told him as she helped him up. "You have to put your whole environment into your advantage, and don't hesitate to use Cheap moves against the enemy."

"Coming from a woman whose class is an offshoot of chivalry that's pretty surprising," Shinn commented as he grabbed Flameclaw. "I kind of expected for you to discourage cheap moves against the enemy."

"A friend of mine told me that I was too focused on that kind of mindset which made me susceptible to being defeated easily," Juno explained to him.

"You mean Jedidiah?" Shinn asked innocently.

"Someone else," Juno shook her head as the two continued their walk, along the two made their way into the clearing showing a massive field of three silver petaled flowers that grew on the ground that seemed to occasionally glow.

"Do you want to hear a story?" Juno said as she stopped for a moment and looked over the field as she took off her helmet as Shinn watched her take a deep breath and let out a sigh, for a moment he noticed a brief moment of nostalgia go through her face as she looked around.

"Sure why not?" Shinn asked shrugged and walked towards her, as she knelt and plucked a flower from the ground and placed one on her helmet.

"It is said that both Saint Strea and Saint Axton used to be a lot closer than what people think about them today," Juno explained as she put her helmet back on and turned to Shinn. "Back then the two were both inseparable and powerful together, and these flowers represented it."

"What are these?" Shinn asked as he knelt and looked at the flower, but as the sun began to set the petals changed from pure silver to a beautiful shade of purple as they swayed in the breeze as the field continued to let out this glow.