Chương 255: (250) 4.29. Air Heads

The trek through Alka's fragment was even easier this time around than the last. Seeing as Lumel was a lot more vulnerable than Alka, Vin decided not to take any chances and fired off the occasional Sense Life pulse, just in the off chance that they missed one of the hiding snakes even with their incredibly high focus attributes.

He did have a minor heart attack when they got too close to one of the trees and his spell made the thing light up like a Christmas tree hooked up to a car battery, causing him to quickly shepherd everyone away from the base of the tree. Alka had informed him how monsters rarely chose to descend from the tree tops, but he didn't feel like pushing their luck.

It wasn't long before they found the same road that Vin had found all those weeks back during his first day on Edregon, and they followed it to Alka's abandoned town just to give the place a quick look over. Sure enough, the strange buildings constructed from dense grass bricks and the empty roads through the town were identical to how they'd left them, and Vin was pleased that they'd be able to give the infernals the go ahead to move in once they'd returned.

He did make one quick stop before they continued north, however. On more than one occasion, Vin had run into issues with people breaking into his room, be it his friends to grill him about his relationship with Lumel, or Golrim doing Golrim things. He'd only recently learned while lamenting to his girlfriend that Lumel actually had access to Magic Lock, a spell he'd been desperate to get his hands on all this time, but he figured he might as well go one step further.

After all, what was the point of a magic lock if you could just break through the door? One cast of Dimensional Sheath later, and he now had a door made entirely of petrified elderwood complete with a frame floating behind him in another dimension. It was the very same door that Samtha had broken down with her stone mace while they worked to uncover the mystery behind Alka's death. While the grass blocks supporting the door had been torn through, the door itself was entirely unharmed.

As far as Vin knew, nothing short of literal divine magic would be capable of actually damaging the wood. Or possibly an angry dwarf with an adamantine scalpel. They'd never ended up testing the two different seemingly indestructible materials against one another. Door collected, they continued north, avoiding the giant trees and making excellent time.

After a quick stop for lunch to devour some sandwiches Scule had snagged from one of the new restaurants in Terra, they finally reached the northern edge of Alka's fragment. And found themselves standing on the edge of a cliff with no bottom. The five of them stood there, staring in awe at the sheer drop in front of them. As far as Vin could tell, there wasn't any sort of ground anywhere beneath them.

There were all sorts of clouds gathered here and there, preventing them from looking down forever, but he had a sinking suspicion that there simply wasn't any ground down there at all.

"... What the hell is this?" Scule asked, finally breaking the silence.

"Is that what you meant when you told us about the void that replaced the infernals' fragment?"

"No, not even close. That was literally a void of nothingness. This is… some sort of sky?" he ventured, peering around the fragment.

"I mean, there are tons of clouds here and there, and what look like flocks of birds soaring around. Though I have no idea what they must eat."

"Why would the Gods place this fragment at this altitude?" Shia asked, frowning as she leaned her head through the flimsy fragment barrier and stared straight down.

"I thought fragments were all brought in at the same relative elevation."

"Maybe this world doesn't have a ground… I didn't exactly finish my education back on my world, but back in elementary school, we learned about different planets. I think some are literally just gasses and air, without any actual solid ground."

"If it doesn't have a ground, how do things live on it?" Scule asked, his eyes widening as he answered his own question.

"This has to be the fragment with the winged people! Malzar told me about a person with wings showing up at their village one time."

"Madam Trebella mentioned that the same person had been to the floating library," Vin nodded.

"Though even if they can fly, I doubt they can fly forever." While the five of them stared into the odd fragment, watching the birds soaring through the endless sky and the clouds drifting by in all shapes and sizes, Vin frowned as he felt something almost itching in the back of his mind. For whatever reason, his eyes were drawn to one of the nearby clouds drifting only a hundred or so feet away, and he stared at it while trying to figure out what had caught his attention.

All of a sudden, it clicked, and he started. He could see the unique density of the cloud, and somehow knew without a shadow of a doubt that this particular cloud would be capable of supporting their weight. He had no idea how such a cloud was kept floating, but he had to assume magic was involved.

"Lumel, are any of these clouds higher in mana than the others?"

"Hmm? Yeah, a couple of them are," she confirmed, pointing to one off to the side, as well as the exact one he'd been eyeing up.

"Those two have a lot more mana packed into them than the others. I figured they were magical storm clouds or something." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I think we can stand on those," he said, laughing at the wild looks his suggestion received.

"I'm pretty sure it's my Beyond the Veil ability. Still have no idea how it works, but it seems to let me see and intuit certain things that I couldn't before, even with a high focus."

"Exactly how certain are you of that claim?" Scule asked, joining Shia in peering over the edge of the world.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'd rather not take a hop down there anytime soon."

"I can teleport us from here to that cloud if we want to risk it," Lumel said, still staring at the cloud he'd pointed out as if trying to see what he'd seen.

"I've never tried teleporting while falling before, but worst case scenario, if Vin's wrong and we do fall straight through, I think I can warp us back to this fragment as long as we're all together."

"I've also got Redirect Gravity," Vin added.

"It would hurt falling a few hundred feet from that cloud over to the side of this cliff face, but it'd be better than falling… potentially forever, I guess."

"Counter point…" Scule said, still eyeing the distant birds warily.

"We don't go messing around in the giant fragment of eternal falling, and decide to head back to Terra and tell the infernals the same thing. Thoughts? Anyone?"

"I kinda want to see what's out there," Lumel admitted quietly, hiding under her hood when Scule frowned at her. The petian opened his mouth to say something, before hesitating and letting out a weary sigh.

"Alright, fine. This is your first adventure with us, after all, I guess your wishes get priority. But don't get used to this!" While Lumel and Shia began discussing strategy for after they'd landed on the cloud, Vin turned and smiled at the still-frowning petian standing on his shoulder.

"Thanks, Scule," he whispered, earning a grumble in response.

"I appreciate the restraint."

"Yeah, well, Lumel just doesn't understand our group dynamic yet," he mumbled.

"I can't very well snap at her with an insult or anything like that. If I did that to Alka or Shia, they'd just flick me off your shoulder, or fire one right back. But I have a feeling Lumel would just get sad and take it, and then I'd be the one feeling bad."

"Alright, you guys good to go?" Shia asked, her staff at the ready.

"We're going to give it a shot!"

"Shouldn't Lumel try it out first or something?" Scule asked, his eyes going back over to the distant cloud.

"You know, for safety?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" Shia grinned, reaching out and taking Lumel's gloved hand. Vin did the same, noting how she hadn't bothered to cover the hand he took with a glove, and Scule grumbled yet again as he grabbed a firm hold on some of Vin's hair. Once they were all secured, Lumel cast." Mass Dimensional Shift!" A purple bubble formed around them, and the world shifted as they were instantly moved over a hundred feet into the vast sky.

The moment the spell ended and the bubble popped, they all landed on the slow-moving cloud. And didn't fall straight through it to their deaths. Second ring fragment discovered! 1, 000 exp gained.

"Still get experience for discovering new fragments!" he said excitedly, shifting his weight from foot to foot as he tested the strange material.

"This is beyond weird!"

"It's cold!" Shia hissed, shivering as she also began stepping from side to side.

"The cloud is seeping into my shoes!"

"Huh? I'm not having…" Vin blinked as he remembered his own boots were an artifact. Not only did they allow him to walk up walls and ceilings, they were ridiculously comfortable and seemed resistant to things such as temperature.

"Here, let me try this. Stone Wall." A large, stone wall grew out of the cloud they were standing on, and he pushed it onto its side. The stone landed with a soft plop, and Shia quickly moved to stand on it.

"Thank you, that's a lot better," she said, shaking out her shoes.

"Lumel, want on?"

"I don't mind my feet being wet," she admitted with a sheepish smile.

"I honestly prefer when my clothes get soaked. It's comforting."

"Right, I keep forgetting you're used to living underwater," Shia chucked.

"Well, we're not all currently plummeting to our deaths, which is a great start," Scule drawled, still watching the distant birds.

"Now what? Shall we go back?"

"I mean, we certainly could …" Vin said, crouching down and gently sticking his hand into the cloud. Curiously, it was almost malleable in a way. He was able to press a finger through the soft material without issue, but if he tried pushing too hard or with too much force, the cloud seemed to solidify. Weirdly enough, he just somehow knew that the cloud was a mixture of water and air-aligned mana, which had to be at least part of the reason how it was supporting them. Minor Arcane Discovery! 1, 000 exp gained.

"Okay, I just gained experience for discovering this cloud," he said, standing back up and wiping his wet hand on his pants.

"Or at least how the mana constructing it is used. Not a ton, but still some. Maybe leveling this class won't be as difficult as I first thought."

"I wouldn't get too excited," Shia snorted.

"Maybe wait a couple of days before making such optimistic statements. Anyway, I think we should try going a bit further into this fragment before we call it quits. With Vin's eyes and Lumel's magic, we're not in any danger at the moment. And if people come from this fragment, that means there's got to be plants somewhere, and I'll be damned if I turn around without at least trying to find a plant that grows on a cloud."

"Come on, I can't steal clouds!" Scule whined, grumbling to himself as they all grabbed hands again and prepared to warp to the next cloud a good quarter of a mile away.

"I'll ask Casper to help find you a weird magic plant or something instead!"

"You do realize you're not the only person who befriended an Herbalist, right?" Shia asked, laughing at the sour look on his face.

"I can just ask Mary to help if need be."

"Gods' damned sociable elf," Vin heard Scule mutter under his breath.

"Ready?" Lumel asked, glancing between them all and making sure they were connected.

"Hold on!"