The Pride of Ran City

The following day Uriel had already been up and training before first light. Despite his muscles still feeling sore, something deep down told him this pain was nothing in comparison to what he could feel in the future if he doesn't train harder.

He stopped swinging his practice wooden sword and wiped the sweat that had built up upon his forehead. He went to grab a bottle of water as Leo walked into the practice arena.

He was half awake and was wearing a huge lion onesie. Uriel couldn't help but snicker silently at the sight. 'The cowardly lion is dressed like a lion'

Leo rubbed his eyes as he shuffled into the arena and then spoke with a voice that betrayed the fact that he was still unconscious.

'Yawn'

"Hello brother, Grandfather said to get ready to leave. I'm going back to bed for a bit"

He then proceeded to find a bit of the arena that had plenty of sunlight and proceeded to curl up there on the sand and almost instantly fall asleep.

Uriel believed this was an amusing skill to have but the fact that his brother's name fits so well quickly overshadowed this thought.

He did his best to grab his things as silently and quickly as possible and left the arena like the wind.

As he was walking towards the bathroom to take a shower, he thought back to last night. Before bed, he explored the whole building with his new siblings. They spoke about their lives for quite a while during the tour.

Uriel told them all about living up on the mountain. Hunting magical beasts for food and practising every day.

To him, his life was quite bland and basic, however to Leo and Hari who had never seen magical beasts in real life other than ones that people keep as pets, this was an amazing experience.

Uriel was a captivating storyteller, as he spoke to his brother and sister, his words enchanted them seemingly showing them an illusion. They felt as if they were there living through his eyes.

It was a surreal experience and both Hari and Leo just brushed it off as Uriel being that great at telling stories.

On the other hand, Leo and Hari told Uriel about their life. Once in a while their grandfather would come and visit, he would come with some gifts and usually would put them through hellish training alongside spending some quality time together.

But their days were mostly similar to Uriel's. While they had a bit more of a normal childhood and could go out and explore the city going to places like the market and candy stores, they preferred to use those days to challenge various trainees their age from various guilds and families.

The amount of time they put into training wasn't close to what Uriel dedicated to it. But this doesn't mean the brother-sister duo were any weaker.

They were extremely powerful for their ages and many people have tried recruiting them from Expor who was responsible for them whenever Alin was not in town which was the majority of the time.

From how Leo and Hari described it, the people who approached Expor must have thought him to be an easy target to manipulate. In their eyes, if they won over the guardian then the kids would be in the palm of their hand.

Unfortunately however unknown to them, Expor had an undying loyalty to Alin. Whether it was due to fear or something else Uriel wasn't sure, but he was certain Expor would die before he'd do something Alin didn't tell him to do.

Uriel imagined the irritated and furious faces of various individuals and laughed. He imagined as Expor rambled on and on in circles and deflected any attempt to recruit his siblings and found the likely reactions amusing.

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After everyone had woken up and prepared themselves they left through the heavily fortified door they had entered through before.

Expor had to reluctantly stay behind and the only ones who left were Alin, Hari, Leo and Uriel.

Alin was dressed in an elegant black suit. He gave away a noble aura as if he was one above all. The indifferent and cold attitude made him look intriguing yet unapproachable.

Hari was wearing a silver puffy jacket that glistened a variety of colours like purple, it had sown in bunny ears on the hood and twin stripes going down each arm respectively. The stripes were the same colour as her eyes, Teal and Magenta. She wore simple black trousers and trainers.

Leo was wearing yet another winter coat with what looked to be an even bigger fluffy hood which made him stand out more than he probably would like. He wore blue jeans and boots.

Uriel preferred to wear simple clothing that was easily replaceable so he wore a white, over the head hoodie with a big pocket in the centre that he kept his hands in. Underneath that he wore a black t-shit.

Other than that he also wore simple trousers that were easy to move in and trainers. On one of his fingers, a ring gave away a pale green shimmer as the light hit it.

They walked down the alley for a bit, they could feel eyes watching them as they made it out of the alley.

Uriel felt slightly uneasy, he didn't remember feeling so many eyes when they came here. He looked over to Leo and Hari who were walking by him to see their expression.

To his surprise, they looked as if nothing was bothering them. Uriel wasn't sure if this was because they couldn't sense anything or if this was because they were just used to it.

Although quickly he shook his head and thought to himself 'Don't be stupid, they are strong. They must just be used to it, but tall these eyes feel troublesome'

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They walked for quite some time before reaching the city centre. A large variety of stalls were spread out on the sides of the street.

They ranged from ones that sold trinkets and handmade goods to ones that sold weapons and antiques.

As they walked past them a few stalls caught their eyes and with some persuasion, Alin gave in and spent money on some stalls.

They ate a wide variety of street food made from various different magical beasts and had a blast looking at the various trinkets.

As they keep walking they start seeing a huge structure. It was easily over 30 meters tall and resembled an arrowhead that didn't connect at the tip and instead was just an outline. It was made of white marble and it had gold highlights on it.

Suddenly a powerful light shot out from the structure upwards and disappeared over the horizon.

Uriel was about to look at his grandfather and ask him what the structure was but before he had a chance Alin spoke as if he had read his mind.

"You will find out soon."

As they got closer they noticed the structure was on top of an odd-looking building. It looked as if a large number of various buildings got fused together with no rhyme or reason. On top of it was the arrowhead they saw in the distance.

They walked into the building and Alin spoke in a grand manner.

"This is the 'pride' of Ran City. The grand portal hall. Here you can move from one part of the continent to the other in an instant as long as you can afford it. If one wanted to invade the empire, this place would be priceless."

They had a look around, the whole place looked much larger on the inside than it did on the outside. Unlike the wild and bizarre look, the outside had. The inside had modern decor. As you entered counters could be seen with various species sitting behind them.

Each counter had a crest and a flag above it, Uriel correctly guessed that the flags belong to each unique kingdom while the crest/emblem belonged to the City in charge.

In the centre of the building stood a platform that people would go onto and every 5 minutes a flash of light would appear and people would disappear.

As she looked around Hari couldn't help but notice something odd so she spoke up. "But Alin, if this place is important why don't I see any guards?"

"Ha, Ha, Ha" Alin patted Hari's head. "I am glad you have noticed. This place has no guards for a very simple reason. There is no need for them. The portal formations are easy to create and can only be made within this empire so there is no fear of sabotage. In an event of a possible invasion through the portal, they will all be destroyed on our side as to stop any movement from the enemy but still allow a possible counter-invasion"

Hari nodded but then Uriel interjected, "But shouldn't there still be guards to stop thieves or people trying to go through the formations without paying or just people causing trouble?"

A hint of disappointment flashed over Alin's face.

'Sigh'

"My dear boy. You seem to have forgotten where we live. Here the survival of the fittest is the number one rule. If you get attacked then you should be able to defend yourself otherwise you have no place in the land of the Dragons."