Chương 425: (418) 6.32. A Short Break

Vin's 'little spellwork' ended up taking a lot longer than he anticipated, but that wasn't too surprising. He'd spent almost the entire day prior to the trial working on a brand-new spell to hopefully deal with projectiles better after watching Curash get shot a dozen times in front of him, and he was more than happy to put his nose to the grindstone to get the runic formation finalized and banged out. He had a feeling he'd be getting more than a little use out of his latest spell. New spell learned!

Tier-2 Air Spell (Wind Wall). 10, 000 exp gained. Ironically enough considering the events of yesterday, Vin's inspiration for the spell had actually been Golrim himself. With the aid of his kingdom's vast resources and skillful mages, Golrim had transformed the entirety of his skeleton into a vast array of runic objects, with many bones holding entirely different effects depending on which ones he channeled his mana through.

One of his fingers allowed him to conjure up an invisible wall of force that he could use to block projectiles, which was exactly what Vin wanted to be able to do. Luckily for Vin, he already had two perfect spells he could draw on to try and accomplish that goal. Firm Water and Still Wind were exactly what he needed when it came to building blocks for this latest spell.

Still Wind allowed him to isolate a chunk of air and separate it from the rest, while Firm Water showed him how to use mana to increase the air's density to the point it became a solid wall. Funnily enough, he even borrowed a bit of the structure from Slow Fall, as that spell already dealt with increasing the density of air, albeit to a lesser degree.

Picking and choosing what parts of the formations he wanted from the three spells, as well as making his own tweaks here and there to improve upon the formation and make it his own, had taken him longer than he'd anticipated. Even so, he was more than happy with how the spell turned out. Doubly so as this latest chunk of experience brought him past the halfway mark between levels 49 and 50.

Who knows, maybe this newest fragment will bring me the push I need to reach level 50, Vin thought, smiling to himself as he headed south. Similar to Alka, the rest of his team was busy working on their own thing as well. Shia was off in the Sacred Forest doing who knew what with the dryads and elves, and Scule and Reginald were still visiting their family in the Citadel.

Vin could only hope that Copi was happy with whatever class he'd ended up going with, and he made a quick note in his journal to try and come up with some sort of congratulatory present to give the kid the next time they saw them. Not seeing any need to make the long run overground once more, this time, Vin took a shortcut through the Underside, coming out in the lightning fragment after fighting his way through a handful of mimics.

The monsters that went through such great lengths to look like stalagmites were easily picked out with casts of Sense Magic, and Vin either avoided them or blasted them apart with well-placed Fireballs when needed. He made another mental note that he still needed to replace the staff Shia had given him, but that could wait until later. He'd lost the staff along with his fire-knife when the ranker king had thrown him in prison, and it felt weird running around without having a staff in hand.

Ignoring the crashing lightning from overhead, Vin headed straight south, curious to see just what the next fragment on his list to hit was going to look like. After the relatively normal forest that Shuvo and his Tamer village had lived in, he could only hope this next one was just as welcoming and less-than-lethal. The good news was that at first glance, it looked fairly safe. The bad news was that at second glance, it still made his head hurt.

Vin scratched his head as he took in the fragment laid out before him. Most noticeable, was the strange ground that didn't look natural in the slightest. There were tall hills and large divots all over the place, turning the ground into what looked like a runner's worst nightmare. It almost looked as though some level 80 Earth Mage had had a seizure while channeling their magic, warping and twisting the land horribly out of proportion.

There were trees and plants growing in the new fragment, but due to the warped nature of the land, many of them were growing at an angle, jutting out from the hills or in from the divots, making the fragment all the more confusing to look at. Slowly, Vin stepped through into the new fragment, noting the slight increase in temperature as he breathed in the fresh air. Third ring fragment discovered! 1, 500 exp gained.

Almost by reflex at this point he cast 'Sense Earther' and confirmed that there weren't any souls within the fragment with zero points in their magic attribute. With that out of the way he began jogging forward, struggling to move in a straight line with the wavy earth beneath his feet. The creatures living within this fragment seemed more than used to the lumps, bumps, and holes all over the place, and Vin picked out a handful of wildlife as he jogged.

Six-legged animals that looked like possums froze as he went by, locking their arms and letting themselves tumble to the bottom of whatever hill they happened to be climbing at the time. Creatures that reminded him of fish with legs were even more easily startled, and they would let out high-pitched chirps as he approached, before waddling away with their tails flapping as they ran.

Large birds would swoop down and go for these strange animals, actually landing themselves on powerful legs and running after them with their wings extended before snatching them up in their beaks and taking off again. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Vin couldn't help but laugh as he watched one of the possums escape a bird through the power of gravity as it rolled faster than the bird could run after it.

Angry, the bird let out a loud caw, flapping its wings again and taking off into the air. Where an arrow then slammed directly into its chest, knocking it out of the sky. Vin instantly dropped into a combat stance, cursing yet again his missing staff as he released a small pulse of Sense Soul to check his immediate surroundings. Sure enough, from the direction he'd thought the arrow had come from, he picked up on a lone soul.

He wasn't sure if they'd seen him yet, seeing as the mass of tiny hills all over the place made seeing anything in the distance that wasn't flying next to impossible. Not wanting to startle them when they crested the hill in search of the bird they'd just shot down, Vin called out.

"Hello there! I'm an Explorer, just wandering through the fragment! Are you friendly?" Silence stretched out for a few seconds, broken up only by a few of the chirping, fish-like creatures as they ran from the fallen bird. Just as Vin was preparing to cast Sense Soul again to check if the mysterious archer had run at the sound of his voice, they called back.

"An Explorer? Are you perhaps, Vin?" Vin blinked, not at all expecting the stranger to know who he was. He could tell the speaker was a man, but he certainly didn't recognize the voice. He'd definitely never been in this fragment before, so that was more than a little odd.

"Yes… I am," he confirmed, scratching his head in confusion.

"How do you know who I am?"

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Moments later, a head popped up over the hill as a smiling dwarf appeared. Wearing simple clothing and with a short bow strapped to his back, the dwarf scampered down the hill, his surefootedness making running down the steep incline trivial.

"It's good to meet you, Vin! I'm Hearshal," the dwarf said, reaching out as if to shake his hand.

"Likewise," Vin said, still confused as he reached out as well. Rather than go for a standard handshake, Hearshal reached forward and grabbed his forearm, so Vin did the same.

"Again, not to be rude… but how do you know my name?"

"The Tamers told us," Hearshal said, laughing at Vin's look of surprise.

"They entered our fragment just a few days ago, which was a sight to see, let me tell you. Those long, four-legged beasts of theirs do not take well to the hills. We ended up revealing ourselves to them just because we didn't want to see any of the beasts slip up and break anything. Thankfully, our Whisperer and her apprentices are able to speak their language, and they've been translating for us.

When we asked why they were only just now venturing beyond their fragment, they spoke of you and the fall of the Red Dawn."

"The Red Dawn made it to your fragment?" Vin asked.

"I hope you guys were okay."

"We live within burrows in the hills. They never managed to find us," Hearshal said, waving a hand dismissively.

"And even if they hadn't added to the danger of being out and about, we're not ones to travel. We find comfort in our hills, so we've yet to really explore the surrounding fragments. Anyway, a friend of the Tamers is a friend of ours! They explained how you were a wandering mage, and how you took one of their own to instruct in the ways of magic. Not many of my people have the knack, so that is exciting to hear!"

"So some of your people do know magic?" Vin asked, already liking where this was heading.

"The Whisperer and her few apprentices," Hearshal nodded. Reaching down, he picked up the bird he'd shot earlier, plucking his arrow from it and returning it to his quiver.

"If you would like, I'd be more than happy to bring you back to our Burrow. The Tamers would be ecstatic to see you again, and I'm sure the Whisperer would enjoy the chance to talk about magic with another who has been blessed by the mana. What do you say?" Vin's gut reaction was to say hell yeah, but he forced himself to pause and think for a moment.

The last time he'd gone off on a solo adventure and willingly followed some people back to their leader, he'd ended up imprisoned by the ranker king, had most of his possessions stolen, and nearly bled out on the Underside floor. Of course, that had been a society built around martial might, filled with over ten thousand warriors. While Hearshal was admittedly a rather small sample size, in more ways than one, the dwarf seemed far friendlier than the rankers had been.

Not to mention he literally knew Vin's name, and he seemed to be on decent terms with the Tamers who Vin had already confirmed were good people. It wasn't often he ran into a brand-new people who had already received a glowing recommendation regarding him, and the prospect of getting to relax with the Tamers once more sounded rather appealing after the heavy days he'd just experienced.

"I'd love the chance to see your Burrow and chat with your Whisperer," Vin decided.

"I do feel a bit bad showing up empty-handed though. I've never run into people who knew who I was by reputation. I almost feel like I need to make an even better impression than I normally do."

"We can tell them you helped me shoot down this bird if that makes you feel any better," Hearshal laughed, reaching up to clap him on the back. Clambering back over the hill, he motioned for Vin to join him.

"Follow me, and be sure you don't slip and fall! You taller-folk seem to struggle with the hills a bit, and we have a little ways to go before we hit the closest entrance to the Burrow!"