Prologue

Xavier Maye was running through the streets of his home town, Paendley.

Although it was called a town, Paendley may well have been a city considering it's size, spanning many kilometres, and boasting a population of over 100,000 people.

Coming from a poor family who couldn't buy enough food for themselves with the little money they made through farming on their little plot of land on the outskirts, as any other starving boy of the age of 15 would do, Xavier resorted to thievery.

Already knowing that the punishment for thievery of any kind was a minimum of ten lashes, Xavier would still continue to steal food, because who cared about a punishment that might not even occur more than if they were going to starve to death or not.

Unfortunately, Xavier had gotten very unlucky today, just as he was in the middle of pocketing a loaf of bread, a decently wealthy customer walked up to the stall. Upon seeing this man, anyone could see that he had a great sense of self importance just by how he strutted around everywhere looking like he owned whatever place he walked into.

This man had just seen Xavier, a dirty, worthless, little street urchin in his eyes, and immediately got himself involved.

"Thief! Thief!"

Looking at this annoying man, Xavier immediately bolted with the bread, hoping to escape eyesight before people, and even worse, the corrupt town guards, started chasing him.

Scurrying through all the back alleys and shortcuts he had memorised like the back of his hand, Xavier was just about to exit the inner part of the town and reach the more rural outskirts where his families house was when he felt a thick, rough hand grab his shoulder, turning his head around, Xavier caught a glimpse of the angry face of the baker, who had been caught off guard when Xavier stole the bread.

With the thief in hand, the baker was already planning on turning him into the city guards to be punished when he felt an acute pain on his hand.

Xavier had just bit his hand as hard as he could, and when the baker reflexively withdrew his hand, Xavier quickly got up and ran away towards home, laughing at the stupid baker while doing so, getting a kick out of watching him hop around holding his hand.

Having lost the baker, and any other pursuers for good this time, Xavier happily walked towards his house with his hard earned loaf of bread, eager to show it off to his parents and sister.

Sometime later Xavier reached home and saw his parents and sister finishing chores around the house.

Xavier's Mum and Dad were both in their forties, named Sophie and Daniel, while his sister Lydia was only 10 years old, five years younger than himself.

Watching them do the chores, Xavier was grateful for all the hard-work that they put in everyday to eke out a living.

Sneaking up behind Lydia, Xavier quickly covered her eyes and whispered guess who into her ear, much to her surprise, which very quickly turned into joy.

Realising it was her brother, Lydia quickly turned and gave him a big hug, excited that Xav had come home for the day.

"Big brother, what's behind your back?!"

Unable to contain her curiosity seeing that something was poking out from behind him, Lydia immediately asked what it was.

Oh this, you mean this big loaf of fresh bread, I was gonna keep it for later, but I guess since you're so curious you can have it now.

Lydia's eyes lit up upon hearing this, for their family, fresh bread like this was a rare delicacy.

"Now, now, we can have it later with our dinner, why don't you both go clean yourselves up after being outside all day." Quick to stop the eating of the bread before dinner, Sophie ushered them away from the bread while laughing at their antics and went back to helping Daniel with the chores.

The rest of the day quickly passed and it was soon the next day. Today Xavier was planning on a bigger target to steal from, a caravan of merchants had come to town recently and brought many expensive items with them, making them a juicy target, however with their arrival came the rumours that in their employ was a guard who was actually a cultivator.

In a small town like Paendley, a cultivator no matter their level was highly respected, and for a lot of the residents, a never before seen sight, so having a cultivator guard was almost a guarantee that their wares would be kept safe from thieves.

However, this wasn't enough to scare Xavier off, all this meant to him was that there was something highly valuable that the merchants wanted to keep safe, and if he could obtain it, he could make a lot of money to help his family.

Setting off for the place where all the merchant caravans were set up and selling their goods, Xavier got ready to scope the place out.