The Master of Uradan

In the center of the Barren Lands, stood the higher mountain of the whole continent. Its lonely peak pierced toward the celestial being while the forever present clouds dissimulated a large part of the colossal mountain.

Snow could be seen on this protruded part of the earth, only appearing at a certain altitude. Contrasting with this cold rendering all climb up a harsh difficulty, the base of the cone-shaped mountain was covered with trees and meadows of green grass.

Further away from this paradisiac area surrounding the base, rocks, yellowed dying grass and trees could be seen stretching toward the horizon. The limit between those two regions separated by the climate was the frontier with the internal ring and central one.

The inside of the central ring, which was without a doubt the best region to live in, was fully under the control of four clans. Thus, the circle area around the whole mountain with abundant resources was perfectly separated into four parts, each controlled by a great clan.

The Whitefenrir clan was ruling the east, the Yellowphoenix clan the west, the Reddragon clan the south, and the last one, the Bluekraken clan ruling the north.

It was unknown how strong they really were in these clans, but from what Rohan understood, there should at least be an Advanced Warrior somewhere. The worst case would be that each clan had one, but he thought it to be highly unlikely.

There was a lot of information that he had found wrong since he had put his feet on the Barren Lands, but becoming an Advanced Warrior was far from being an easy feat. It was already hard to become a Beginner Warrior in the south, but the reality was that in the north part of the continent, where mana is more abundant, one could see those warriors everywhere.

Rohan had even read a long time ago that the most powerful and biggest human Empire had its armies with only at least Beginner Warrior: there wasn't any non-mana user.

Such a comparison with his own empire was the harsh reality of the world. But even then, an Advanced Warrior was still extremely rare, and a new Supreme Warrior would only appear once in a century - if the whole continent was taken into account.

Obviously, if becoming an advanced warrior is still this hard on the north of the continent, then it wasn't worth it to talk about the Barren Lands. One Advanced Warrior might have appeared in the four great clans, but Rohan found it unbelievable that each of them would have one.

Those clans were all composed with no less than a few tens of thousands of members, and the Yellowphoenix clan which had the most members was around 70 000 members. But even so, the central ring was almost as big as the whole Empire from which Rohan came from, composed of the three kingdoms under its control.

When Rohan heard that, he had frowned as it seemed to be preposterous. From his understanding of the situation, he knew that the central ring was the one everyone wanted to live in. The reason for that was a large number of resources one could find, as well as the climate far more clement that this damn sun he had to go through himself.

Since this area was so huge, then all clans of the Barren Lands should simply live there. If there were more resources as well as an improved quality of life, how could only a couple of hundred thousand people only live there all alone when millions of them could inhabit the place.

The answer to his interrogation was really simple. The four great clans didn't want any other clans to freely live in this region. The only way a clan can get to install itself here was to become members of one of the four great clans. But those clans were already the strongest of the Barren Lands, so becoming one of their members wasn't an easy feat.

The yearly gathering thus served two interests. The first one was to have a bit of the magical water which came from a special limited source inside the mountain, and the second one was to shine sufficiently so one of the great clans was interested to accept this person or even the whole clan.

For both of those situations, the outcome was decided by a ranking. This one was conducted at the gathering, and it revolved around the only value taken into account in the Barren Lands, and even the whole world: strength.

Two rankings will be made, one for all clans without restriction, and one for each ring. It was by this way that the Blackwolf clan had entered the top 3 of the strongest clans of the external ring.

As Rohan thought back at what the other members of the Blackwolf clan had explained to him, the karags finally reached this area after days of traveling.

The hard shaking of the carts against a large number of rocks suddenly softened.

The moment Rohan entered into the central ring, he raised his head and looked outside. His sight was simply crushed by the colossal mountain standing there. He was forced to lift his chin toward the sky to try to see the peak, only for the clouds to block his view.

Ever since the first time he had seen the mountain, the sort of call that had resonated inside his body had never again appeared, and even now, he didn't sense anything.

The second sight he could see after the mind-blowing mountain was the crazy amount of people out there. From all sides, he could see full clans coming at any time. Some of them were far more numerous than them, and some with even more than thousands of members.

Living in the external ring meant the resources were scarce and only up to luck for those who found them. Thus, the larger clans out there were only around five or six hundred members. For a clan to have more than a thousand members, it only meant one thing: they came from the internal ring.

All the clans all around also enter the central ring, only delimited by the fresh grass contrasting with the rock and desolated area touching here. The duality of the Barren lands was fully shown, and the thousands and thousands of members headed in the same direction without stopping.

Since they were now inside the central ring, no one stopped to duel another clan since it was forbidden here. But after the appearance of this small clan with only two hundred or so members, the other clans all glanced over there as if their preys had appeared.

Rohan felt as if a pack of dracasses was watching them and he suddenly had the urge to show off his strength to make them step back. However, doing so here would be pointless. He would get up and fight for the clan at the right time. That was what he had discussed with Darias during the trip.

Even Darias had felt that Rohan had accepted way too fast his proposition to fight for them. It was now almost three months since the young warrior was following them, and for Darias, he wasn't the kind to put his life in danger without any reason. And from his lack of interaction with the others, he also knew that this warrior wasn't the kind to fully fight for another person because of any emotions he might have.

Thus, he was truly perplexed as to why Rohan had easily accepted to put himself on the front for them. He couldn't know the answer, but it wasn't really complicated.

Rohan wouldn't dare to forget his primary goal for coming here. From the information Darias had given to him, it was the one fighting for the clan that had the honor to take the magical water or whatever. The source of this water was said to be inside this mountain, somewhere near the peak.

Rohan wouldn't miss this opportunity to enter the mountain. The only point that needed his careful reflection was about the order the fighters entered the mountain, as the first one would enter the first, and so on until the last representative. Because of this, Rohan felt that it would be better if he was either last or first in the ranking.

And since the result would affect the Blackwolf clan, he couldn't be last, right?