Chapter 35: Onwards to Bastion..
At the side of a creek, Anise and I just finished taking a bath and we're laying on the soft grass enjoying the afternoon sun.
Anise was musing over a chemistry lesson we had on the way while I was discussing with Ai and Senna about a recent idea:
'Do you think it's possible?'
[It might not be. It should be possible with things made completely out of spirit, but not material stuff.]
[*You could just use space. You need a vessel to imbue a pocket dimension into.*]
'But, to create a pocket dimension, don't I need to constantly spend mana?'
[*If you create it without a vessel, yes. If you use a vessel to contain and hold the pocket dimension, it should work.*]
'What could that vessel be?'
[*Any kind of material with spatial properties. I don't know if you can find one in this world, or even if they exist.*]
[You could ask Anise. She might know a thing or two.]
Hearing Ai's words, I turned my eyes from the sky towards my left and saw Anise mumbling something mass and matter. Seeing that she was in deep thought, I decided not to bother her and closed my eyes.
'Take me inside my soul space.' As my words finished, I was inside my soul space. Senna was sitting on some sort of reclining chair made out of darkness and playing with my staff. Seeing me appear, he threw the staff at me and said:
"That is a good toy. Your strength should at least double when you're using it."
I caught the staff before asking as I was looking at it:
"Do you have any idea what this bound magic is? I never heard of it before."
"Guiding Star? It's a high rank teleportation spell. It can teleport someone through space anywhere inside the multiverse. It's even able to bring you from this world all the way to your home world."
"Seriously?" I asked in amazement. "Can I really return to Earth?"
As my words finished, Ai appeared in front of me and grabbed the staff from my hands. She looked mad as she said:
"If you use this spell to teleport to earth, you'll only have a spiritual body and no avatar. You'll just be a ghost no one is able to see."
I don't think I've ever seen Ai so mad since Senna spoke badly of her creator. Trying to calm her down, I said: "Don't worry, Ai. I was not planning to leave for Earth. I was just happy to know there was another way to do it besides the Nexus if I ever need to."
She looked at me without saying anything for a good while before disappearing the same way she appeared and taking the staff with her. Senna chuckled as she said:
"Looks like I'm not the one pissing off the kid anymore. What are you in here for anyway? Did you just came to ask about that spell?"
"I was wondering if it's possible for me to share information with Anise the same way you and Ai share information between each other."
"Are you two of the soul race as well? It's not easy to share information without a good mastery of the soul. There's a high chance you might cause damage to her soul if you try it."
"I suppose. I just wanted to think of a way to speed up her learning process. It would be a relief if she could use silent casting before we reached the battlefront."
"With her rate of progress, she should be able to learn fire magic by the time you reach Bastion. Isn't that enough?"
"Maybe…"
"You should stop worrying about her and focus on yourself more. The demons are not easy foes to face. They are a race born with an ability to control mana that is at least ten times better than humans. They also are stronger physically. You have grown strong during the trials, but it might not be easy to take on some of the high rank demons. Your level is still only 28. That might be considered a high enough level in the south, but you'll probably be below average on the battlefield"
"I know. I thought about it too, but I should be able to progress a lot faster here. My spacial magic will also keep me safe to some extent."
"Keep thinking that and you won't even know how you died. I suggest you don't start showing off your silent casting as you reach there. Try learning some more chants and use them. Let them underestimate you instead of you underestimating them."
I sighed and was about to answer when Ai's voice sounded in the surrounding space: "Anise is trying to wake you up."
"Send me back, I'll ask her if she knows anything about a material with spacial proprieties."
As I opened my eyes, I was greeted by Anise sitting on top of me with a smile on her face. She gave me a peck on the lips and said: "I'm here, working my ass off to understand all this chemistry stuff and you're just taking a nap. Isn't that a bit unfair."
I chuckled and said: "Sorry. The sun felt so good that I just fell asleep. How is it going?"
She rolled down from me and said: "I think I understood. We can continue with the next lesson."
"Before that, I wanted to ask if you know of any material with spacial proprieties. I want to create a storage item to hold out belongings when we travel."
"Hmm.." Anise looked towards the sky as she thought for a moment before saying: "I don't. You will have to ask an artificer. They are the best experts when it comes to materials and their proprieties."
"Do you think we can find any in Bastion?"
"There should be one sent there by the Empire to aid in supplying items for the war. Meeting them would not be easy tho."
Nodding, I stood up and said: "I think we lazed around enough. We still have half a month until we reach Bastion. We'll continue out lessons on the way."
Anise nodded and we both climbed on top of Zephyr and started out lessons again.
Two days later, as I was explaining something to Anise, a platoon of knight dressed in white and red armor blocked out path. The capital guards who we encountered at the trial guards wore golden armor, which meant these guards were not from the capital.
One of the guard walked up to us and said: "Young magicians, I'm the leader of the Blood Knights order. Do you mind sparing a moment to help us? We'll reward you, of course."
Anise turned towards me and said: "It's fine. They are from a small southern kingdom under the Empire."
I canceled Zephyr and said to the leader who was only a few meters away from us at this point: "We're adventurers traveling up north to join the war effort. What do you need help with?"
"Up ahead, there is a large clearing. As we were making our way north, we were ambushed by a group of magicians who suddenly launched a series of spells towards our platoon. We managed to escape but lost quite a few of our members and we can't really fight against them if we can't get close. We were hoping, since you're also magicians, that you might be able to use magic to distract them as we close the gap and attack them from up close."
[He's lying. Their armors are too clean with no trace of even being worn into combat on any of them. It's most likely a trap.]
"This doesn't feel right."
Both Senna and Anise said at exactly the same time. I whispered in Anise's ear: "Leave it to me." Before turning towards the leader of the guards and saying:
"I understand your situation. We're going north as well so we must take care of those magicians anyway. Do you guys have a plan?"
"Do you know any high range attack spells?" Seeing me nod, he continued: "That's perfect. We'll show you the place of the ambush and you can use your high range magic to attack them back. As they are distracted trying to defend against your attack, we'll rush towards them."
I agreed to his plan and we started moving north with me, Anise and the guard leader in the lead. Once we reached a pretty big round clearing, the leader stopped and said: "That's it. They are hiding in the trees on the other side. Straight ahead."
'Ai, can you see anything?'
[The distance is a little too big and I'm unable to, but there is movement in both sides of the clearing. I think that must be the real ambush. They plan to exhaust your mana before attacking.]
'So that's their plan.' I smiled as an idea came to my mind and told Anise loud enough so that the leader of the knights could hear as well.
"Anise, use your strongest attack to wipe out all the attackers straight in front of us. Use all your mana to attack, no need to care about saving any of it.." Anise nodded and was about to start chanting when the leader interrupted us and said:
"Don't you think it's better if you both attack?"
Anise turned towards me and I said: "My mana is quite low since I've been maintaining this steed for quite a while. Don't worry, her magic is enough. She is quite strong."
The leader nodded and Anise proceeded in chanting a spell. Once she was done, a ray made out of light shot out of her hands and increased in size as it progressed further. Ten second later, as the bright ray of light disappeared, the forest for the next two kilometers in front of us was completely wiped out.
Anise was about to wipe her sweat away when the leader of the knights reached towards her neck, a collar in his hand.
[Don't let him place that collar on her neck or yours. It's a slave collar.]
'I was not going to.' I replied to Senna before teleporting together with Anise up into the air and remained floating there, looking at the knights under us.
[There are more than a hundred people hidden in the trees on both sides of the forest. I spotted a couple of them and they all seem to be wearing those slave collars. They must be previously captured slaves.]
'Any way to break those collars and free them?'
[You will have to get your hand on one of them so I can analyze it. I can't tell from just seeing it.]
Nodding, I used one hand to hold Anise and pointed the other towards the platoon of knights. A chain of lightning extended from my hand towards one of the knights and continued to connect to each of the knight one after another. Not even three seconds later, all the knights were convulsing on the ground with smoke coming out of their bodies.
I teleported in front of the leader, the only one I didn't target with my attack and grabbed his neck before saying.
"So you were planning on enslaving us? What for?"
"I.."
"Shut up." I interrupted him," On second thoughts, I don't care. The only thing I want to hear from your mouth is how to break the slave collars you placed on the other people that were waiting in the forest. If you tell me that, I might let you live."
"I can't break the collars. They are under the direct control of my king and only he can release them. I never wanted to do this but…"
Before he could finish his sentence, I channeled lightning into my hand, killing him instantly. Searching his dead body, I grabbed one of the slave collars and asked Ai:
'So?'
[You can't release them. If you break any of the collars that are already activated, the soul of the one enslaved will be shattered as well. The only person who can release them is the one who made the collars.]
"Anise, do you know the kingdom these knight belong to?"
"Yeah. They are from the Blood Kingdom in the far south. The distance from Cloven City to their kingdom is almost as big as the distance between Cloven City and Bastion."
"Since we can't go there and find the person who created these collars, we can only report this to the Empire. Maybe they can do something about it."
Anise shook her head and said: "They will probably not do anything about it. Slaves are allowed inside the Empire and with the war going on, they wouldn't really care about the Blood Kingdom enslaving people on the road."
"I see. I guess we can only pay them a visit ourselves as soon as we return south. Grab onto me, we'll fly over the clearing."
"What for?"
"There are slaves in the surrounding forest and they might attack us if we walk on the ground. I don't want to be forced to kill them. They are innocent anyway."
Anise agreed and I picked her up in a princess carry before using wind magic to float over the clearing. Once we reached the other side, I landed and release Anise from my arms. She pouted and said:
"Next time, let me climb on your back. That was embarrassing."
"Haha, I'll think about it. Let's continue."
I recalled Zephyr and we continued ridding north. As we got closer to Bastion City, we encountered more and more bandits, deserters and slavers, but they were no match for either Anise or I. Anise even started feeling that she was ready to level up again.
We had one more day until we reached Bastion City. As I was cooking some food over the fire, a loud excited scream came from the place Anise was practicing.
As I turned around, I saw Anise charging towards me with a fireball in her hand and a look of excitement. I grabbed her hand and prevented her from hugging me as I said:
"Congratulations. I'm happy for you, but please cancel the fireball before hugging me."
Her face immediately turned beet red, but she just canceled the fireball and kissed me deeply for almost an entire minute. As we broke out kiss, I said to her: "If you don't let go of me the food it's going to get burned."
She didn't seem to care as she gave me one more peck on the lips before looking into my eyes and saying with a look full of gratitude: "Thank you. I love you, Ethan. I love you so much."
"I love you too, but the food is really going to get ruined."
"I don't care." She said as she started moving her hands inside my robes. I was caught by surprise since we haven't had sex at all since the first time we did it. Catching her hand, I took it out of the bottom side of my robes and said to her:
"Let's eat first. We haven't eaten anything for an entire week. We can continue after."
She blushed again and nodded slightly before releasing me and moving towards the food. After we finished eating, as we were sitting in each other's arms she said:
"Ethan, do you want to return to your world?"
I was caught by surprise and answered: "I do, but it might be a long time before I'm able to."
A sad expression on her face, she said: "Once you do, can you take me with you? I don't have anything to stay here for, and the thought of you leaving is driving me crazy."
'Ai, can I even take her with me?'
[You can once this world in connected to the Nexus, but you won't be able to have her follow you as you move on to saving other worlds.]
"If you want to, I will." I replied as I planted a kiss on her forehead.
She smiled and said: "it's a promise." Before moving her hand downward from my chest as she looked into my eyes with a hungry look.
I knew by her look that it's going to be a long night.
Weekly Power Status
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