The Princess of Tokkiz was greeted warmly by farmers and herders as the royal expedition team crossed the vast valley. They sang songs to praise the Princess and pray for her family and offered her fresh meat and cheese as well as homemade beer and cider.

Yet, Hongki still warned everyone to watch out for any potential threat.

As a child who grew up in the lowest realm of society, Sakura felt overwhelming as well as curious at the same time – how does it feel to be loved and respected by everyone?

When the team entered the town, people gathered in crowds and showered the team with flower petals and stardust while chanting Eunbi's name like fans. Some young people, probably magic school students, even elevated themselves and "floated" in mid-air to see the Princess with a clearer view ("so mages can really fly!" Sakura thought). Hongki and his men immediately warned them to go back down. While the Princess returned their enthusiasm with great charm and gracefulness indiscriminately, the person with an excellent hearing ability who rode beside her heard that the Princess was secretly chanting a tranquilizing spell.

Great Yoonjung has already been waiting at the entrance of the castle when the team finally climbed their last slope. With a gaze sharp as razor blades, the archmage is glowing under the setting sun in solemnity. Even with a medium build, she looks mighty in a purple-black robe.

But Yoonjung's gaze softens when Eunbi jumps off the horse and skips towards her like a child.

"Eun-chan!" Yoonjung exclaims and pulls the girl into a quick hug. "Dearie, you grew taller!"

Following Eunbi, Chaewon is greeted with a slow and solemn hug. The archmage and the senior mage embrace each other not only lovingly like mother and daughter, but also look like they are exchanging secrets.

After the emotional moment, the master orders everyone to settle down and prepare for dinner.

Right after Eunbi jumped off the horse, everybody did the same to show respect, but Sakura deliberately jumped off the horse on the "wrong" side, using Ugly to stand between her and the mages. For an unknown reason, she has a strong urge to rush to the grandmaster, but she knows her place as a servant so she has to restrain herself. After the team was dismissed and many went to take a bath, Sakura volunteers to bathe all the horses to avoid meeting the archmage.

The South Castle was a gift to Great Yoonjung from the King of Tokkiz after they returned from the Cistu-Ar/To War. In contrast with Cistumons who embrace a new direction of machine-led development, the King opts to preserve and strengthen the traditional magic-led way of life. He renamed the South Province as Magic South and let Yoonjung co-govern the vast land with an administrative officer appointed by the government. After 10 years of cultivation, the Magic South is now an experimental and breeding ground for magical knowledge exchanges and innovations, as well as an incubator for new magical start-ups. The once-abandoned South Castle was turned into the campus of the Magic South University and became the magical capital of the whole Continent.

MSU students are very excited about the annual visit of the Princess and their most senior mage. It became an excellent opportunity for top young mages to exchange as well as compete against each other with their skills and innovations – although mages are encouraged to be co-operative and not competitive. Meanwhile, students are gathering in the dining hall to welcome their visitors. They show off their best to Eunbi and Chaewon, but Eunbi is also well prepared. She brought tubes of remedies and portions she has experimented with in her lab and shares them with the students. As in the past, she also put the formulas on paper so that students can use them to perform free healings for commoners, through the years, she has already developed her own line. There must be some reasons behind Eunbi's popularity.

Dinner starts when Yoonjung arrived. But she is not announcing "thanks for heaven and earth, and the river and the sea, we can start now", instead, she is looking around.

"Master, are you looking for anything?" Chaewon who is sitting on the right side of Yoonjung, asks.

"Where is the child?" Yoonjung asks.

Everyone is startled and falls silent.

"You mean Saku?" Eunbi asks.

Jaeyeon immediately stands up, "I will go and find him."

Yoonjung nods.

It didn't take long for Jaeyeon to Saku into the dining hall. The child is still wearing his traveling clothes, but he is totally wet with water and sweat. He bows to Yoonjung from afar and hesitates to walk closer to the grandmaster.

"Hey," Yoonjung smiles gently, "come closer, my child."

Sakura feels her heart hammers hard in her chest. Her legs are shaking when she walks towards Yoonjung.

Yoonjung scans the boy from head to toe sharply. She then tells him, "go change and come to dinner. I want to see you after that."

***

After meeting the grandmaster, Sakura feels strangely at peace. She finished eating quickly and rush to take a bath. Mama has always taught her cleanliness is about self-respect as well as respect for others. By the time students escorted Sakura to Yoonjung's office, all members from the palace are in the lounge.

"Saku-chan, you will go first," Chaewon says, expression serious as usual.

"Why?" Sakura gets nervous again.

Before anyone can answer, the office door suddenly opens.

"Are you coming in?" Yoonjung's voice is heard from the room.

Sakura immediately runs into the office.

The room is dimly lit. The archmage is standing by a tall window. She clicks her fingers after the door closes and a gust suddenly whirls across the room and closes all curtains.

Sakura swallows hard.

"Don't be afraid, my child." Yoonjung smiles softly when she walks to Sakura.

Yoonjung gently turns the boy around. A bright light suddenly beams from the back of Saku's left ear and illuminates the whole room, startling both the archmage and the child. Yoonjung thinks for a moment and inhales deeply before she puts her thumb on the boy's ear.

The light from the ear snubs out and the room immediately turns into total darkness. As Sakura begins to adjust to the darkness, she sees uncountable milky ways unfolding before her eyes. She quickly looks around and finds no floor, no ceiling, no wall nor furniture. She is literally floating in the "air"!

Sakura screams in panic.

"I'm here, my child."

Yoonjung's voice rings from behind. Sakura instantly turns to her back and grabs the grandmaster. She is stunned and quickly lets go of her hands when she sees Yoonjung's body flooded with bright light.

"Grandmas...ma" Sakura "lost balance" but soon finds that without gravity, she will not "fall down" anyhow.

Yoonjung laughs softly, "good, just call me grandma."

"Eh?" Sakura's eyes widen. "G...grandma...ma...wh...why are you..."

Yoonjung smiles, "this light came from you. It entered me."

"What is it?" Sakura asks.

Yoonjung looks intensively at Sakura but doesn't answer.

"So, grand...ma...where are we?"

"We are in an astral projection. Our astral bodies are in the realm of space."

"Space...why? Why do you bring me to the realm of space?" Sakura feels like she is going to cry.

"I didn't bring you, my child," Yoonjung shakes her head, "it's you who brings me to the realm of space. I couldn't perform astral projection on this level since the Cistumon Price stole my power – oh, see the stars! Aren't they beautiful?"

Sakura drops her jaw at a total loss for words.

"Saku..." Yoonjung starts and stops, "they called you Saku? But that's not your real name."

Sakura nods.

Yoonjung continues to ponder. After a long silence, she "speaks" with her inner voice, "my child...your becoming... The cosmic secret will reveal itself one day when you know your true self and your mission of life. The archmage is designated to give you the initiation and put you on the right way."

Yoonjung then puts her fingers on the back of the child's left ear and chants. Sakura suddenly finds the same light has now "transferred" to her own body. The body becomes transparent and colorful lights can be seen flowing along with her circulation.

Yoonjung speaks with her own voice again when the chanting ends. "My child, remember. You have a complete body that is so rare that it perfectly embodies feminity and masculinity, yin and yang, the two basic essences of existence. You also encompass celestial and humanity, the perfect mixture of mage and warrior, of Arukasian and Tokkizan – "

The archmage then pushes her face closer to the child and grins, "that means the wolf and the rabbit. So, you have the most precious body and you must treasure it and use it well."

After Yoonjung finished, the light quickly condenses and compresses into a speck of tiny light dust and finally dissolves into Sakura's heart.

Sakura starts to feel her weight.

She opens her eyes and finds that she is in the room again, with Great Yoonjung standing in front of her.

"You may go now, my child," Yoonjung smiles warmly and says, "remember, there is no need to tell anyone about what has just happened."

***

"Unnie!" Sakura hastes towards Eunbi when the door opens and finds the Princess dozing off in the lounge.

"Kura?" Eunbi murmurs and opens her eyes. She quickly wipes away the saliva at the corner of .

"Unnie," Sakura tries to speak but is disrupted by another sound.

"Eun-chan?" Chaewon slurs, thinking she heard Eunbi calling her.

"Nothing, unnie," Eunbi exchanges a smirk with Sakura while speaking to Chaewon.

"So, how did it go?" Eunbi whispers while straightening up her clothes.

Sakura looks confused and grabs her left ear, "unnie, is there anything wrong with my ear?"

Eunbi quickly jumps up without a word and flips over Sakura's dumbo ear, "It's gone!"

Chaewon wakes up instantly by Eunbi's exclaim. She dashes to Saku's back and examines the boy's ear too while illuminating a finger. She then proclaims coolly, "no, it shows, at last."

Eunbi looks closer with Chaewon's finger lighting, "oh yes, it can be seen now, but it looks so pale that I nearly missed it."

She then uses her palm to capture the image of the back of Sakura's ear and show it to the girl.

"What is it?" Sakura asks.

"A wolf totem that was tattooed on your ear." Eunbi answers, "it used to be blurry and flickering that even me and unnie couldn't see it clearly.

"So did the master do anything to it?" Chaewon asks.

"The grandmaster touched it."

"And?" Both mages widen their eyes and ask in unison.

The door of the lounge flung open as Sakura prepares to speak. Nako and Jaeyeon walking in with trays of tea and snacks.

Before the mages can ask further, the office door opens again.

"The three witches!" Yoonjung announces.

Eunbi quickly snatches the tray from Jaeyeon and rushes into the room along with Chaewon and Nako.

Sakura is dumbfounded. She turns to Jaeyeon, "Nako noona..."

"Oh yes, Nako is a mage too. She used to be an extremely smart commoner child. The master thought she has great potential and decided to train her the first time they met – honestly, it is not a simple job to serve a mage princess."

Jaeyeon smirks and slumps onto the couch.

Sakura looks puzzled, "I thought the class a person belongs to was pre-assigned. My ex-master always said we are born to be slaves."

"Crap!" Jaeyeon waves his hand in distaste, "slavery is a practice and not a class. People can be born into the royal family but never attain the status of mage or warrior and being stuck in the commoner class. Many commoners have found the right teacher and worked hard to make themselves a warrior class. Mage has higher requirements, but commoners can still attain the status of a mage. My father was born a commoner but he earned the status of a mage as well as the title of Viscount after I was born. So Saku-chan, I was not a noble by birth. Even though I was born to be a warrior, I still have to work very hard to secure my place in the warrior class – which means that you can grow up to anything you want. Just work hard!"

Sakura smiles and nods vigorously.

Jaeyeon taps the side of his seat, "so, sit down and tell me how was your meeting with the master?"

Sakura sits down and grins sheepishly, "grandmaster asked me to call her grandma."

"That's great!" Jaeyeon laughs, "that means you got the blessing of Great Yoonjung!"

Sakura grins and turns to the back of her head towards Jaeyeon, "hyeong, can you see the tattoo behind my left ear?"

Jaeyeon examines the boy's ear carefully, "I can't see anything – it must be a magic seal. Did the Princess say anything?"

"She said it's a wolf totem."

"The white wolf is Arukas's symbol, like rabbits to Tokkiz – so what does it mean? A proof that you are Arukasian? Can you read? Maybe we can look up the answer in the library? The library here is even bigger than the Royal Library in the capital city."

Sakura pouts and lowers her head.

"It's fine," Jaeyeon laughs a bit, "which reminds me – we will be free for the next many days. The mages will have very intensive lessons for 2-3 weeks. So, it should be the time for you to learn martial arts."

Sakura's eyes instantly shine.

Jaeyeon nods proudly, "I have pledged to teach you martial arts, remember?"

"Woah!" Sakura exclaims and jumps from her seat. Jaeyeon quickly pulls the boy down and covers his mouth.

"Silent, silly boy!" Jaeyeon warns. He then looks seriously at Sakura and says, "listen, Saku-chan, there is something I need you to know. You are definitely not born to be a slave. When you were sleeping, Hongki has repeatedly mentioned that you must be a Merit Class by birth, just we don't see your full potential yet. So, we must help you to know your true self."

"My Lord..." Sakura looks intensively at Jaeyeon with her puppy eyes.

Jaeyeon puts his arm around Sakura's shoulder, "hyeong."

***

When the door opens again, the three witches leave Great Yoonjung's office and enter the lounge again. The atmosphere in the lounge is quite the opposite of what they feel in their heavy hearts. The master must have made some tricks on people who wait in the lounge. When Saku was in the office, they all fell so sleepy that Nako and Jaeyeon have to get out to make tea; and when they were meeting the master, both Jaeyeon and Saku slept soundly on the couch, with Saku slightly leaning on Jaeyeon's arm. Saku is snoring softly and looks so cute that Eunbi wants to pinch his cheeks.

The sleeping Jaeyeon, on the other side, looks so soft and gentle, in contrast with the ferocious and rigid knight Eunbi has always seen.

"Should we wake them up?" Nako whispers.

Eunbi thinks for a second and shakes her head, "why don't we sit down for a rest and watch them sleep?"

Chaewon shrugs, "I'm afraid it may be a scene you will see every night after the two of you got married."

Eunbi sighs.

"Why?" Chaewon squeezes Eunbi's hand briefly.

"Just..." Eunbi sighs again, "overwhelming."

"The wedding is not announced yet, we can still stop it," Chaewon says.

Eunbi shakes her head, "no, it's not about the wedding. I think we can make a good couple even though it is not love. We are good friends. Our minds are always in sync, we can communicate without words."

"Well, I am not sure if marrying one's best friend is a good idea," Chaewon comments bluntly.

"I don't want to disappoint my parents," Eunbi argues.

Chaewon just rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"Unnie, I am fine with Jaeyeon," Eunbi says in a barely audible voice.

"Then is it about Saku?" Nako asks, "that makes you worry."

Eunbi puts her index finger on her lips.

Nako nods and Eunbi continues, "unless there is a miracle. The only thing we can do is to protect him the best we can."

Chaewon exhales, "we can do our best to let him grow up in a happy and healthy environment. I think I can help."

Eunbi sniggers, "well, that will be tough!"

"Eun-chan!" Chaewon raises her brows as well as her voice.

And that wakes up the boys.

Jaeyeon squirms and suddenly becomes wide awake. He quickly wakes Saku and both jump up immediately.

Saku looks so groggy as if he is going to fall back onto the crouch anytime, making the three witches break into a good laugh.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," Jaeyeon says while smacking the back of his head to wake himself up.

"That's okay," Eunbi smiles, "why don't we relax a bit before going back to our rooms. I am tired. I want to hear some jokes."

When Jaeyeon is about to crack a joke, Eunbi suddenly remembers another thing, "Saku-chan, you still haven't told us what happened when we were circled up by the wolves. Did you negotiate with them to let us go? Sit down and tell me."

Sakura bites her lips. Somehow her gut feeling tells her that it is not a good idea to tell the Princess she was called a prince by the wolves, so she says, "they came to thank us for liberating them from the big bad wolf. The Dark Lord of Wolves was his name. He has occupied their home and control them through black magic for many years, many packs disappeared. I accidentally killed the Dark Lord of Wolves and saved them, so they promise they will never attack humans or animals from the Magic Vally and protect us for the rest of the trip."

"Were they the wolves that came into your dreams?" Jaeyeon asks.

Saku nods, "I supposed so."

"So they were expecting you to come to save them?" Eunbi says.

"Yes, something like that..." Saku gulps and lowers his eyes, "they knew the time has come when I...we started the journey, but that means the Dark Lord also knew about me. So he tried to kill me before I killed him. I am sorry, we were attacked because of me..."

No one knows how to respond to the newly revealed truth.

Finally, Eunbi is the first to speak. "Don't think like that, Saku-chan. Life is cruel. Fate is not up to us to decide. We can only do our best on our part. Regardless of what, you should be proud of what you have done and who you are."

Chaewon looks sharply at Eunbi. She has a strong feeling that the young princess is already a grown-up monarch inside, and the burden that is shouldered on the teenager is beyond her imagination.

But Eunbi doesn't seem to worry about what Chaewon is worrying about, contrary, she curls a proud smile and says, "the one who defeated the Dark Lord of Wolves should be rewarded as the White Lord of Wolves – that's what the totem on your ear has prophesied."

Author's Note:

I update this chapter just before IZ*ONE's concerts because I may feel too devastated after that. Let's continue to imagine we are still together for a while with all the fanfics we are reading and writing. Please drop me a comment. And give an upvote if you like this story.