Chương 460: B7—Chapter 40: From Snowstorms to Sandbars

Back at the underground city, I caught up on the hours of sleep I'd missed until I felt human again. When I finally woke, another snowstorm had rolled in. It wasn't as fierce as the last one, but it was wild enough, with wind howling through the tunnels and snow whipping in every direction. I sighed, muttered a few choice words about the weather, and went back inside to open the house again. The first day, I gave in to laziness. I spent the whole day with a book.

Not one about magic—my mind wasn't ready for another Wizard assault. Instead, I read something easy, the kind of book that didn't demand too much thought, just company while the storm raged outside. By the second day, I was restless. The walls felt closer, the silence heavier. I wandered around the city looking for something to do. First, I chopped down another seven of those giant mushrooms, their thick stems resisting the hatchet just enough to make it feel like real work.

I sliced them into cooking portions, stored them neatly, and stared at the storm, which showed no signs of letting up. So I took out the rest and cut them up too. By the time evening crept in, I had enough mushroom rations for years to come. I cooked dinner, strummed my guitar for a while, then stood by the tunnel entrance, watching the white chaos twist and swirl, listening to the wind's howl echo off the stone. Day three. Still snowing. Still blowing. I turned my attention to the Earth element.

This time, I didn't need a separate mind split for every stone I moved. Instead, I ran mana through my earth affinity channels and connected directly to the ground through my feet. The loose stones scattered around the floor shifted, sliding back to where they belonged, climbing the walls and settling into place like pieces of a puzzle. It took me half a day to understand how the spell Fuse Stone actually worked, and after that, I didn't even need it anymore.

The mana from the stones I moved blended with the mana in the others nearby, locking them together naturally. When I finally figured it out, I did a little victory shimmy, grinning like an idiot. That grin faded when I checked my Personal Information. The spell Fuse Stone had vanished from the list of General Spells. I almost argued with the system, ready to demand an Ability Point for all the effort it stole from me, but then thought better of it. It wasn't like I'd paid for the spell anyway.

I'd "confiscated" it from the fox's spire in Lumis. Yeah, not exactly the moral high ground there. With a resigned huff, I converted Final Reinforcement into an Ability Point before the system could snatch that one too, and spent the next four days trying to recreate it. Nothing worked. Every test ended in failure. Cursing didn't help. Neither did kicking the wall. It always helped Mahya vent steam, but in my case, it only hurt my toes. I facepalmed, sighed, and shook my head.

I should've cast it a few more times to learn its structure and how it works before converting it. The storm finally ended. Using my ice affinity, I cleared the tunnel entrance, pushing aside the twenty meters of snow that had piled up like some smug white barricade trying to lock me in. When the passage was finally open, I stepped outside. The air hit like a slap. The temperature had dropped even lower, the kind of cold that made every breath sting and claw at the lungs.

I had to circulate far more mana through my fire channels just to keep from freezing solid where I stood. My cloak crackled faintly with the mana I poured into it, but even that was barely enough. I looked out over the endless stretch of snow and ice, teeth gritted. I'd had enough. Enough storms, and definitely enough cold. Dwarves or no dwarves, I was done with this miserable weather. It was raining on the other side of the Gate, a steady downpour that drummed against the ground in thick sheets.

I couldn't help but smirk. With a thought, I shaped a bubble around myself. Not a mana shield or anything fancy, just a pocket of space where the rain had no business falling. About half a meter above my head, the droplets shifted course, curving away and shooting off to the sides. I stayed perfectly dry, and that little trick alone made the long grind of training feel worth it. Yeah, elemental magic had its perks, no doubt about it. I poured mana into the bracelet, but nothing happened.

Mahya and Al were out of reach, their signals completely gone. Still, there was a faint, thread-thin connection to Rue. Clearing a dungeon. Of course they were. I sighed, more amused than surprised, then became invisible and lifted off the ground, the rain curving harmlessly around me as I flew toward Rue. The new red zone was smaller than the last one. That one had been the size of a city, sprawling across tens of square kilometers and dotted with fortifications.

This one barely stretched four or five square kilometers, with only six outposts marking its borders, and even those were modest, more like fortified camps than real strongholds. What caught my eye were the flags. Three of the eastern outposts carried banners in deep red, with a silver sword crossed over a golden chalice. The other three on the western side flew dark-green flags bearing a black bird holding a branch with white leaves.

The colors stood out vividly against the gray haze, proud declarations of ownership that left no doubt about who ruled here. So, the entire zone was divided neatly down the middle, two families each staking their claim. Probably keeping a very suspicious eye on one another. The portal of doom Rue had gone into refused to let me through, no matter how hard I tried. I even tried reasoning with it, which, in hindsight, might have been a sign I'd spent too much time alone.

"I'm from the same group," I told it, as if a murderous dungeon portal cared about paperwork. No luck. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. So, I gave up and settled under a tree a short distance away. The ground was cold and damp, but at least it wasn't snowing. A few monsters and spawnies wandered nearby, their mana sense so dull they didn't even notice me sitting there. After about twenty minutes, the air shifted.

The portal's color changed, slowly brightening from black to dark gray, then to a soft, pale gray that shimmered faintly, and the gang came through. Mahya was the first to spot me, or at least look vaguely in my direction.

"Got tired of the dwarves?"

"Didn't find any," I said.

"How come?"

"Shitty weather." They laughed, and before I could say another word, Rue charged straight at me. Invisible or not, he somehow found my chin and nose with pinpoint accuracy, covering both in slobber. His tail wagged hard enough to shake the ground, and I couldn't help but laugh. I became visible.

"How come you came out of the dungeon visible? Not afraid of the nobles demanding the core?" Al waved the question off.

"They are too busy fighting among themselves." Mahya nodded.

"Yeah, the two families controlling this zone are total idiots. A while back, a mana portal opened right at the border line between the two of them, and they both tried to claim it." She let out a quiet snort, glancing toward the distant outposts.

"It deteriorated to a full-on conflict. Right now, nobody is clearing anything, and they're busy attacking each other. Actually, the cleaners are clearing dungeons and slipping away with the cores, but the eliminators are too busy fighting."

"Any luck with cores?" I asked. Mahya made a so-so motion with her hand.

"Eh, sort of. This is our fifth," she said, pulling out a small pouch and giving it a little shake.

"But they're tiny. The biggest is less than two centimeters." She opened the pouch so I could peek inside. The cores looked like kids' marbles.

"Want to clear some more, or head out?" I asked. Mahya and Al exchanged a quick glance. Al gave a slight shrug.

"I do wish for levels," he said, "but our main reason for being here is your desire for cores." Mahya glanced around and let out a derisive sound.

"Let's go," she said, kicking a stone out of her way.

"Those cores are shit." We flew out of the zone invisible, and they led me to a valley between two mountains about ten kilometers away. There, I opened my house, cooked us dinner, and told them about my adventures in Ashara. They laughed their asses off when I told them about the jerk squirrels and my headfirst dive out a window, and I laughed at them when they told me about clearing a dungeon with monsters that threw up green sludge on them.

The next Gate was about two weeks away, judging by the distance we had traveled so far, and would probably involve quite a few trains. After some deliberation, we decided to use the balloon, but to land and switch to trains if it caused any trouble. The trip was uneventful. It took us nine days to reach the next Gate, instead of two weeks, with stops every other day as we passed over wild country. The view was nice, but we saw similar views before. Mountains, forests, a few lakes, towns, and cities. The usual.

It rained pretty much nonstop the whole way. I spent most of that time experimenting, learning to expand my water control until it covered the entire balloon with some space around it. Not that the rain could harm the balloon, it was just something to do. I was bored out of my mind and needed something to keep my mind occupied. The next Gate was a bust. An unintegrated world with no mana or tech levels. Another six days in the balloon.

The only noteworthy part of the trip was crossing a desert and finally getting a break from the endless rain. The desert was scorching hot, the kind of heat that made even breathing feel like work, so when we cleared it, we landed at the first lake we found with no one nearby and stayed for two days of swimming and doing absolutely nothing. We were in the south now, and according to the Map, it was a more densely populated region. Finding a quiet lake like this was a lucky break.

The reason for its solitude became clear soon enough: the water was full of toothy fish that seemed determined to sample anything that moved. I took care of that problem. Every time one of them tried to bite us, it found itself yanked out of the water and sent flying to shore inside a neat little water bubble. Another two days in the balloon, and another bust. This time, the Gate led to a world with mana level 14 and only two other Gates on the entire continent. We added it to the count and moved on.

By that point, all of us were tired of the balloon, even Mahya, who usually enjoyed piloting it. So, we switched back to trains. The next Gate took us eight days and two trains to reach, but the trip was a lot more fun. As always, I opened my house inside the compartment, and we spent most of the journey playing games or watching movies. It was a vast improvement over sitting in a basket smaller than my bathroom. The next Gate was better.

Travelers Gate #268887251 Destination: Parmo Status: Integrated Mana level: 30 Threat level: Low The other side was a tiny island, maybe half a kilometer across at its widest part. The Map looked strange, like a blue fabric dotted with dense green spots. I flew up and understood. Below me stretched a maze of small islands—hundreds of them—scattered across turquoise water that shimmered in the sunlight.

Each patch of land was covered in lush greenery, the shades of the trees shifting from deep emerald to bright lime near the shore. The water between them glowed clear and shallow, revealing coral patches and winding channels. The small islands stretched as far as I could see. I opened the Map again. The sea of water and islands stretched for thousands of kilometers to the closest continent, which was far. Landing, I opened the house and cooked lunch.

The smell of food filled the air, and by the time everything was ready, everyone had gathered around the table. When we sat down to eat, I asked the gang, "Staying or leaving?" Al cut his food neatly before answering.

"I do not have a definitive opinion on the matter." Mahya leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"It's level thirty, so there should be dungeons, but with the low level, they're probably few and far between."

"So you want to leave?" I asked her. Mahya looked at the Map again, her fingers tracing the lines of sea and islands.

"I'm not sure," she said.

"On Quassior, we have only one Gate left on that continent, and I'm not crazy about the idea of crossing a sea in a level fifty world. But this world only has five more Gates, and all of them are quite far."

"Five is better than one. Besides, we're not in a hurry," I said. Mahya nodded and let out a sigh.

"You're right." Her lips twisted into a disgusted grimace.

"I just wish the Gate to Zindor had stayed open a bit longer." I reached over and patted her shoulder.

"Yeah, I know. But look at the bright side. We're in an island paradise with great weather. We can fly, sail, or ski between the islands. They're so close it's barely an inconvenience. And I'm sure we'll find you a dungeon or two to brighten your day." She laughed, the tension easing from her shoulders, and gave a small nod. Every person had a way into their heart. With Mahya it was easy—cores, cores, and more cores.