Chapter 24: A journey to the mountain
Since he couldn't fully trust his memory, he wrote every detail of the future events alongside a profile of every character that ever appeared, whether it held importance or not in the script.
'The story has already deviated a lot from what it should have been, but I should still be able to use it as a reference, though I doubt it would be useful in the future,' Ryan thought, subconsciously taking a glance at the side.
Opening the window, Ryan looked outside from the fourth floor.
He climbed on the window frame and peeked back inside; it was midnight, and the only way he could differentiate between night and day was by using the hour clock.
'Everyone should be sleeping now,' Ryan assumed as he observed the silent surroundings.
He ascended using invisibility, cautiously using the edges to step on, ensuring he wouldn't slip.
"I should grab a flying power as soon as possible," Ryan muttered as he lay back, leaning against the wall, exhaling quietly.
He resumed moving quietly forward, walking along the periphery silently like a ghost, leaving the massive gate of the academy behind as he dashed toward the mountain at top speed. 'Let's go back before sunrise.'
"Huff... Huff... Huff." Reaching the foot of the mountain, Ryan kneeled on both legs. Holding his left side, he felt his stomach churning, resisting the need to puke his guts out. He cupped his hand, taking a mouthful of fresh, cool water by the riverside.
Ryan's whole being felt dizzy and uncomfortable. "I overexerted myself."
Going at full speed for three kilometers straight proved to be not the best of decisions.
He looked around, and the sight that greeted him of mana moving smoother than water in multiple colors throughout every tree, the earth, and the air in every corner of the forest, with green dots of radiation flying in the air like fireflies, looked fascinating.
Ryan didn't look impressed; this had become an everyday sight for him. Besides, it was always a confusing sight. If he stared too much at these colors, he would get muddleheaded and groggy.
Resting his back on a tree, he thought, 'The consumption of energy was too great. I need to exercise my body more. If only it wasn't so reliant on radiation. Ah... 5 minutes, and I'll go.'
"Haaaa." Letting out a long breath, Ryan felt the air getting thinner as he climbed higher, making it difficult to breathe.
The dropping temperature only served to make Ryan rise harder.
The forest was absolutely still, with only the sound of wind rustling and crushed leaves being heard. The previously paved path was covered in wood and overgrown vegetation.
An hour later, Ryan stood in front of the huge castle with over 4,000 years of history, a summer palace of the Angustan imperial family.
Seeing that the front door was closed, he entered by climbing the castle's wall.
Thud-
Moving alongside a long entrance adorned with worn-out statues and an overgrown garden, with a click and a silent creak, he opened the large front door with a bit of effort and walked through the hallway.
"Cough... achoo..." Dust was everywhere, invading his nostrils. Ryan walked in a straight path to the dining hall.
The huge castle, which had once been a summer vacation destination for royalty for generations, had become an exile place for 'Xander di von Angus,' born without any mana as the first prince's son of the emperor of the time, 'Shafir di van Angus.'
He had been excluded from the power struggle and fight for the throne, being sent away from nobles and out of the political world.
He survived after 'the destroyer' hit, owing to him being so far away. After that, he became an awakener and played a main role in the war against the magicians due to an inferiority complex.
Later on, he became one of the key founders of the Farris Union.
However, Ryan didn't come here to appreciate history.
Rustle! Rustle...
Pushing open the door to the dining room, the interior felt grim and gloomy. Ryan scanned the messy and unorganized table, frowning.
Rustle...
Ryan looked down at Noah, who was hiding behind a chair.
Noah similarly looked back up at Ryan, who was standing on the other side of the table.
Both of them stood motionless, looking at each other in uneasy silence. Noah looked slightly stiff and trembling, unaware of the fact that he was stronger than Ryan.
Ryan looked petrified and stiffly stared at Noah's stomach with a dead face, forgetting the fact that the current him was weaker than Noah; trying his best not to do something that would make Noah run away.
"What are you doing here? Why didn't you leave the island already?"
"...I," Noah's mouth opened, petrified and closed, "Don't know how to leave."
"..."
"Have you been living here for a while now?" Ryan asked. He forgot that there are no routes for leaving the academy until the next month.
Noah nodded, feeling afraid that Ryan may have come to take him back.
He slowly and very carefully pointed at the cup that was beside the head of the table and said, "Did you drink that?"
Ryan's voice, despite his attempt to soften it, still sounded stiff.
Noah shook his head vigorously, almost shaking it off, and retreated a few steps back.
"That contained the essence of the first prince's former maid spirit." Ryan gently explained.
The maid that had followed Xander her whole life had died tasting a poisonous wine for her master, becoming an awakener just a fraction of a second before her death, now a wandering spirit, trying to get someone to consume that cup of wine so she could get their bodies and attain the final rest she longed for.
But despite thousands of years, she could only be stuck in the castle near her foremost place of obsession: the cup of wine.
After thousands of years of waiting, her wish would come true when Catharina, driven by curiosity, came here with the main cast as Ash's girlfriend, was extremely thirsty, and drank it without thinking, getting her body stolen by the maid spirit and becoming Astin's wife afterward.
'Protagonists really can make anyone and anything a wife; this must be the so-called protagonist halo that his sister always talked about.' Ryan pursed his lips.
"You're an S rank. That's why she's taking a long time before being fully able to absorb your life force, but with the rate at which your body is currently corroding, you will die in two days. And that body will no longer belong to you."
Taking a deep breath, Ryan repeated, "Did you drink that?"
Noah retreated a bit and nodded hesitantly.
"When?" Ryan stepped forward.
Raising five fingers, Noah's back hit the wall with no further space to retreat.
Noah trembled, unwilling to believe what Ryan said. "Noah won't die; Noah doesn't want to die." Tears fell from Noah's eyes as he curled himself into a ball.
Whoosh...
Before Ryan could even have enough time to speak, a black silhouette tried to sneak attack him from behind.
He quickly evaded and looked at the unrecognizable shape; however, that mana flow resembled that of Mia.
'It seems like I got him too agitated.' he thought.
The black-red aura started to swirl crazily inside Noah's stomach, increasing his uneasiness.
Swiftly dodging the attack and making an ice sword in his hand, Ryan stabbed Mia, who was trying to attack him.
Bam!
Mia retreated after being pushed back, and multiple sharp objects such as knives, plates, and chairs attacked him. He summoned another ice sword to deflect the attack.
Clank...
Gravity smashed everything in the hall, and Ryan felt his body go heavy. He reversed the flow of which the radiation was moving, semi-annulling her power for a few seconds, and the force that pushed him down loosened.
"Noah, stop..." Ryan shouted at Noah, who was looking scared and stunned.
"It's not me."
Screech!
Mia screeched: A body that had been dead for over a week would lose its former shape and the ability to think or speak.
Crack!
Mia attacked once again from behind, using various objects as a distraction from the front.
Swhooosh!
Crackle!
A cracking noise could be heard from the hard surface of the ice wall Ryan created to protect himself. He fired an explosion at Mia's face, sending her a few meters back and smacking her against the wall.
Bam!
Taking advantage of the corpse's immobilized state, Ryan dashed toward Noah, grabbed him by the jaw, smashed his hand over his mouth, and restrained his hands with the other.
The moment he came into contact with Noah, Ryan started moving the radiation in his body, wrapping it around his heart and brain, stopping Mia in her tracks, who stood a few steps away, dumbly.
He ignored Noah's dilated pupils, tears streaming down his face, his whole body trembling like a rabbit.
Reversing the process of body possession was harder than Ryan thought; if not for the fact that Noah wasn't resisting out of fear, it would have been impossible.
'Sorry, Noah, but I have no way of fighting an A+ corpse,' Ryan apologized inwardly.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
Cough...
Blood dripped down from his seven orifices as severe radiation exhaustion soon followed, and his eyes became hazy.
Trying to suppress the maid's spirit, he spoke, "Didn't you want to die?"
The spirit slowed down for a moment, "Then stop and let me kill you."
The spirit became excited, moving even more frantically in an attempt to free itself.
Kaaaa!
"It's too late."
Splatter!
Ryan smiled, blood oozing out as his vision dimmed, and he fell unconscious. "I need to. Go... back..."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone