16 Princess Aqua

Deep within the Great Wildlands Forest, thousands of miles away from Azmond's fight with the Goblin GrandMeister and Asuras, stood a handsome boy around twelve years old, surrounded by five goblin corpses sprawled out around the area.

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"...Hmm...?" Aqua came out of her stupor with an astonished look on her beautiful features as she scanned the area with her eyes and saw four dead goblins leaning up against a few trees and one goblin corpse with its neck twisted unnaturally.

"...What happened here?" The muddle-headed princess asked.

"One second I was talking with the Ange- I mean, Azmond and the next second, he's gone and a bunch of goblin corpses appear."

She pondered over how such a thing could happen, until she eventually thought, 'Was it Azmond who did this??'

A slightly infatuated look appeared on her face when she realized that it was likely his doing, and when she saw the bloody and 'dashing' figure of Azmond scavenging through the goblin corpses looking for valuables, that infatuation only seemed to intensify.

.....

"Tsk! There is absolutely nothing of value on these green piggies! Why are they so poor?? Every single one of them was in the Core Formation Realm and yet they only have peanuts on them." Azmond spoke with a slightly annoyed look.

"Whatever, I guess I should go talk to that Aqua girl. She might have some useful information on this world," he muttered to himself as he looked in the direction of the still slightly dazed Aqua and started walking over to her.

"!!!"

This casual action of his caused Aqua to become nervous as she put her head down and looked at the ground as if something interesting were there.

"Hello? Aqua?" Azmond asked the meek princess with a concerned look on his face.

"?!?"

When Aqua heard her 'Angel' speak to her in such an 'affectionate' tone, a large rosy blush materialized on her beautiful face as she started twiddling with her fingers underneath her long blue hair.

'Is she really braindead?? Or some sort of zombie? I don't think that's the case... but anything is possible in the world of cultivation, so I won't cross out that possibility just yet,' Azmond thought to himself with a slightly apprehensive expression.

"Hey, are you going to wake up, girlie?" Azmond spoke a little louder next to the princess's ear, as he was mere inches away from her face.

"Hwhat?" Aqua yelped a little before she accidentally bit her tongue and tripped over her feet a little.

After realizing the extreme blunder she just made, her countenance became a tiny bit disgruntled as she thought, 'He's going to think I'm a stupid, ditsy girl, isn't he...?'

Her expression turned for the worst before she steeled her nerves and thought, 'No! I can't allow that to happen! Quickly think of something to fix this situation, Aqua!'

She worked her brain at full capacity in the span of a split second, and that was when she thought of something that she thought would mend her misunderstanding!

Aqua quickly reorganized herself and stood up straight, with an expression that made it seem like her tripping never happened, and with a face as serious as she could make it, she said, "What nice weather we're having today, is it not, Sir Azmond?"

"..." Azmond observed the awkward stance of the girl before he thought, 'Is this odd girl on some weird substance or something??'

'Are all the people of this world like this or is she a special case?'

He was seriously starting to doubt the intellect of the inhabitants of Asterion, and he didn't even consider himself the brightest tool in the shed...

'Whatever, I am just going to ask her straight up where we are,' he thought with an exasperated look on his face.

Azmond got straight to the point and asked Aqua something that he had been dying to know for a while now. "Where are we right now?"

"..." Aqua's earnest expression became a little bewildered after hearing what he had asked her about.

'Did he just ask where we are? How does he not know where he is? Is he lost?' She thought to herself with a barrage of quandaries as she responded with the most logical answer she could think of.

"We're in the forest?" She spoke with a confused look on her face, as if she didn't know what the correct answer to such an obvious question was.

"..." Azmond, after listening to Aqua, was beginning to think that he was being looked at as the stupid one in this conversation.

He let out a sigh before he muttered, "I know that much... I was asking, what forest are we currently in right now?"

"How do you not know what forest you entered into, Angel?" Aqua asked with an even more puzzled look on her beautiful face.

"It's complicated... and I said to stop calling me 'Angel'. It's weird, and I already told you my name, so use it," he reprimanded with a soft tone.

"As you wish, Ang- I mean Azmond."

"I sa-" Azmond was about to scold the girl again until he heard the last part of her sentence.

*Cough Cough* He cleared his voice a little before he said, "Good, now could you kindly tell me which forest we're standing in?"

"??" Aqua couldn't understand why he didn't know what forest he was in, but regardless, she answered his question truthfully:

"We are in the Great Wildlands Forest, a wide expanse of forest that stretches on for hundreds of thousands of miles in every direction. A very dangerous forest where even strong Golden Core Realm Cultivators go missing occasionally. It's also home to over a dozen different monster kingdoms and borders both the SunBurn and AquaRing kingdoms." 

After finishing her brief overview of the Great Wildlands Forest, a knowledgeable look formed on her face as she looked towards Azmond, expecting some praise out of the corner of her eye.

And it didn't take long before she got the 'praise' she was looking for, as he said, "I see... Thank you for the information. Could you also tell me what the world, or continent, or whatever we are on is called as well?"

'He said, 'Thank you'... Hehe...' Aqua thought with a goofy look on her face as she started giggling to herself.

"...' Azmond looked at the girl completely zoned out again as he thought, 'This girl is an odd one...'

"You're not very good at focusing, are you?" He asked.

"!!!" Aqua was suddenly taken out of her stupor as she mumbled, "Oh, sorry... What did you say?"

That's right, Aqua didn't even hear the full question, as she was lost in her own little world when it was asked.

"I said, What world or continent are we on right now?" Azmond repeated his question.

After having heard his question clearly, she asked, "You don't even know the world you're in? Have you never been outside since you were born or something?"

"As I said, it's complicated," he murmured. "Could you please just tell me?"

Aqua thought it over for a second and saw no harm in answering such a simple query of her savior, so she said, "Hmm... Alright, we're in the World of Asterion! A world where the strong rule over the weak... A cruel world indeed..."

Aqua's expression became a little saddened when the topic of 'cruelty' reminded her of the cruelty she was about to experience not even a few minutes prior.

"The World of Asterion," he declared.

Excitement filled Azmond's heart as he finally learned the name of the world he was thrown into.

'Asterion is a fine name for the first stepping stone on my journey to power!' He thought.

However, his train of thought was interrupted not long after, as Aqua continued speaking from where she left off:

"We are in one of the 5 continents of this world, It's called |The Azure Blank Continent!| In one of the 12 provinces that make up this continent, |The Divine Sun Province|. It's a province that is home to hundreds of Kingdoms and 6 huge Empires that rule over the land with an iron fist. In addition, the closest Empire to us is the Fire God Empire which is a few million miles to the north of the Great Wildlands Forest."

Azmond listened with rapt attention until he saw that she was done speaking as he said, "I see... This information is of great use to me, Aqua, so thank you," he added with a look of gratitude and a gentle smile on his handsome face.

"..." She was lost in his smile for a second before she quickly snapped out of it and responded to Azmond with a slight blush on her face. "You Welcome..."

Aqua's hair covered her face again as she looked at the ground with a happy smile on her beautiful face.

However, before she was able to fully revel in the warm moment she had with him, Azmond suddenly remembered something that he forgot to ask the Princess:

"Have you by chance heard of an area where a bunch of strong goblins could be congregating? I met some fairly strong goblins who attacked me a few hours ago and was looking to give them a little payback." His smile grew into a slightly evil smirk as he thought of finding the green piggie who put a target on his back.

The look on his face may freak out those faint of heart; however, for a certain blue-haired princess, it was a smile that she thought looked like the most beautiful smile she had ever seen!

"..." Aqua stared at Azmond with an entranced expression.

Nonetheless, she still had a question to answer, so after getting in another few seconds of gazing at his smile, she responded, "Yes, there's a kingdom to the east of us where powerful goblins rule."

"How strong are they?" He asked with an expectant smile.

"The strongest of them are in the Golden Core Phase, with their King being at the very peak of the Golden Core Realm. Some even say that he's half a step into the Nascent Soul Realm!" Aqua replied with a weary look as she waited to see Azmond's reaction to what she said.

However, his reaction was far from what she expected...

"Golden Core Realm Cultivators, huh...? Haha!" His smile grew until it reached his ears as he started laughing.

"I can't wait!!" Azmond's overjoyed smile turned into an expectant one as he looked into the distance, where he saw the not-so-distant future of him fighting stronger enemies!

He practically couldn't contain his elation at such an amazing notion!

Furthermore, it looked like he wasn't the only one who was enthusiastic about him being pumped up about fighting, as a certain robotic voice was going off in the background, completely unbeknownst to Azmond.

*Ding!* *I'm cheering for the host! Fight stronger enemies and become stronger and stronger yourself! Only then will you be able to use me to your heart's content. Hehe~*