Long Time No See

Bard Wendell had no idea where he had been taken—but not because he had been blindfolded or transported while unconscious. In fact, the soldiers and officials escorting him had never stopped him from looking around. He simply could not determine his location or destination because everything he saw along the way exceeded his understanding and imagination.

Such a prosperous, orderly city, so distinctive in style and full of life. He had once believed Stone City, near the Holy Spirit Plain, was already a breathtakingly grand city, but now he understood why the warden had kept saying that Stone City was merely a rapidly developing frontier market. The true prosperity of the southern region lay farther south—

Cecil City, the miraculous city at the foot of the Dark Mountains. No wonder the Arcanist he had shared a cell with had advised him, after sobering up, that he absolutely had to visit this place if he ever got the chance.

Bard found it difficult to imagine how the Pioneer Territory, which had been barren land only four years ago, had developed into this. Perhaps the city still seemed too young in terms of historical depth and the number of intricate classical buildings—such structures often required longer to build, and the older a city was, the more of them it tended to have—but its prosperity and vitality were unlike anything this former Typhon general had ever seen.

He recalled the southern region when he had fled in haste after failing his mission—it had not been like this back then.

Magic-powered mechanical vehicles glided smoothly along broad, clean roads. On either side stood crystals floating in midair, supplying power to the city's facilities, while Holographic Projections flickered at intersections, plazas, and other locations. The content within those projections changed constantly, bringing news and sights