Walking inside, he saw a large room way beyond what the caves space could ever hold.
It was filled with various things from normal science equipment to enormous tubes with a green substances. He could also vaguely make out the shapeo something inside.
There was also an elevator in the left wall of the room. He spotted two metal doors on the other side of the room that with one normal sized while the other dwarves it by almost 100 times.
He couldn't make sense of what was Infront of him and could only just stand there with his mouth open.
"Cool isn't it, I built it all from scratch." Hector spoke as he walked to the elevator. Feeling inclined to follow, Zeke scurried behind him.
"In this day and age, this is the most optimal set of tools you can acquire to do science stuff."
Hector was confident that the child behind him was nothing less than astounded by everything he said.
After entering the elevator, the doors closed and it began going up to the higher floors.
"You must be wondering how this is all inside just a cave, well let's just say... A friend "helped" me out."
Looking at Hector's unsettling grin as if reliving the act of committing murder, Zeke knew whoever did all this didn't "help" with consent.
Snapping out of his own head, Hector addressed the well made core in the kid's core.
"By the way, you have quit the lovely essence core my friend. Whoever did it for you must have tried their best to pull it off"
"You can see my core" Zeke may not have wanted to be a dreamknight, but he knew something basic as no normal person even by their standards could see a soul.
At best all they would see is leaking dream essence. This made him extremely curious about what kind of dreamknight Hector was.
"Oh yes. I can see that blue sphere just pulsating with dream essence inside of you, despite you only being a novice"
"What rank are you then?"
"Just a few ranks above, don't worry about it"
Zeke may have been young but he didn't like the idea of someone knowing what he didn't tell them, and especially if they didn't tell him the same.
"How am I meant to trust you if I don't even know that, Hector?"
With a deadpan expression on his face, Hector turned to look down exactly on Zeke
"Your not!"
Seeing he would get nowhere with the guy. And honestly not trying to push his buttons any further, Zeke just quietly waited till Hector started talking again.
"Anyway.. want to learn more about Dreamknights."
"
Like what, I know they have special abilities, I learned they have essence cores. I also know they can have very different abilities, but most only have those that are easy to wrap your head around."
Zeke had done the bare minimum of knowing this mostly because his parents were very encouraging he does for when he becomes one, even if complained.
Zeke had never seen a dreamknight do any fighting though due to how fortified Everheart kingdom was, and how isolated he was inside the castle walls.
The only Nightmare beasts he ever saw were in images. He also never saw an aggressive essence beast near the castle.
" Well did you know that Dreamknights all have a soul space where they can go to while their body sleeps or recovers?"
"Did you also know that all dream essence is the same untill utilised or called upon, making it a sustainable energy resource?"
As Hector kept going, a newfound intrigue was born in Zeke on the subject he wasn't a particular fan of.
The information he received growing up was minimal because his parents while supportive, didn't try to push too much about dreamknights to him.
They told him things once in a while that would make him wonder like how dreamknights aren't always sleeping, or that they can sometimes make deals with essence beasts, but never with as much detail as Hector did.
There was a genuine passion that Hector displayed as he laid out these facts. It almost made him forget how scary Hector seemed at times.
The elevator eventually stopped and they walked out into a small normal looking office were Hector took a strange device from the desk.
It had a large square metal box that would fill a person's entire palm with a big screen on it front surface and a long cord that extended from under it with a plug at the end.
After collecting the device, Hector walked back inside the elevator. He had not stopped talking about dreamknights the entire time as he did this.
"Hector what does that do?" Cutting him off, Zeke raised his curiosity.
"It tracks how chaotic the essence in something is."
"How though?"
"Let me show you."
With his usual maniacal grin which Zeke was beginning to get used to, he suggested they go outside.
The two made the short but annoying journey back into the cave, where Zeke stood outside the wall he saw open a few minutes ago close and look no different from the rest of the cave.
'How does he do that?' Zeke couldn't help but admire the intelligence of this strange man he had met.
"We're going outside for this one, hurry up"
Turning his head to look directly at him, he looked at Hector with panic.
"We?"
"Do I speak blisk to you... Yes we"
"What's Blisk?" Hector seeing this get nowhere, just came up to the kid and picked him up before putting him on his shoulders.
The next moment, they were moving so fast that Zeke couldn't keep track. When he eyes finally found themselves capable to see his surroundings, they were somewhere completely new.
If not for the same everlasting snowstorm, he would think they had escaped Northern Alteria.
Hector let him down and took a few steps back
"What was tha- ,blurgh!" After vomiting the contents of his stomach onto the ground, he stabilised his feet and asked his question again.
"Oh I just ran here, don't worry.. you'll be able to do that too one day of course"
Stunned but not too surprised with what he just heard, he kept quiet.
It was a known fact that while everyone has dream essence, no one can really use it without forming a core.
Even with one, without help some people would go years without knowing how to use it.
However if you did, then you could enhance your body to a little bit and use your knight's sword, which was a special ability.
If just being a novice gave you all that power, there's no telling what awaited higher stages.
Even after countless hours of reading, seeing it in action made him question if he was wrong about becoming a dreamknight.
"Wake up, time to collect on our deal" Snapping his fingers to get Zeke out of his daze, Hector went on speaking.
"Normally... without me you would have died, but with me you get to live a bit longer up to this point."
Noticing Zeke's confusion, Hector pointed right Infront of them. A few kilometres from where they were standing was a single black dot running in their direction.
Then another appeared and another untill a few minutes later there were multiple headed their way.
"See those are essence beasts called Footstompers. They get their name from how their feet can leave a dent in steel. Now I'm not asking you to fight them, just survive of course."
Looking at the approaching beasts with horror, Zeke didn't know what this man was meant after saying those words.
"They can dent steel as a collecti-"
"No, individually" Hector immediately cut him off, diluting his hopes for survival.
How was he going to survive that. He didn't know the much about fighting like a dreamknight.
"Wha.. what will you be doing?" He needed to know how this was in line with the agreement.
"I will be studying what's chasing them of course."
Looking behind the herd he failed to see anything.
"Don't worry, it's definitely there but you'll probably see it when I start fighting it. All you need to do is keep the herd away from me."
"How?" Taking a deep breath, Hector told him to repeat after him. He then extended his arm.
Afterwards he told Zeke to imagine something he likes doing in his head. Zeke imagined himself playing the violin one more but this time it felt different.
He felt a something very pleasant moving in his soul.
"Now push that feeling into your arm like this" Hector began to pulsate a faint red aura on his arm all the way to his palm.
Zeke did the same thing and his arm began to pulsate a green aura.
"Now keep doing what your doing in your mind, but try to fight like that too. Enough said... Hope you survive"
Before Zeke could ask for an explanation, Hector jumped so high into the sky that Zeke could barely see him.
He landed right behind the herd and ran untill Zeke couldn't see him.
He tried to calm himself down untill he saw a pebble bouncing on the ground.
The herd of essence beasts had arrived.