Chapter 406 – Signs
After the upgrades were completed, Damion did not feel any different, but the world around him did seem different. It was not that he could see through objects, it was that he could feel through them. Before, when casting a spell like Blink or Portal, he had to focus on his destinations, to force the mana to do what he wanted. Now, it felt almost like the mana wanted to help him, to follow his commands.
Using Blink, Damion moved himself out of the cave where he had been sleeping to the surface. From the Magic System Inventory, Damion took out his auto-mapper and tablet. The display did not reveal much after first, after all, the ruined city reached further in all directions than the range of the auto-mapper. What did surprise him was what it read underground.
There was a cave system leading down and it appeared the much of the city had sunk into pockets. It would have been fascinating to explore, but the auto-mapper revealed not only numerous Realm Breaches in the caverns, but hundreds of thousands of Demonic Beasts as well.
Damion was not sure, but he felt that it was likely the Realm Breaches had opened before the destruction of the city. This meant that there were Demonic Beasts that had been trapped underground for who knew how long.
He thought briefly for a moment on why the goblins had come to this area. Because the mana density was lower. Realm Breaches were dangerous and were usually collapsed as often as they were found, he imagined the races of this world followed similar logic. Though there was one question that he thought might hold some unusual answers.
On Nerotath, Realm Breaches spat out mana. The stronger the Breach, the more is released. This was the cause of certain magical phenomena, such as the Benault Forest growing so large, the Realm Breaches that had been left undiscovered for so long led to increased magical growth. Well, if on Nerotath the Realm Breaches exuded mana, then on this world did they suck in mana? Was that the reason the mana in this area was less dense, because all those Realm Breaches forgotten beneath the surface were sending the mana elsewhere?
Damion was not sure what the answer was, but he decided against exploring underground. He wanted to sit and focus on compressing his mana to raise his magic power further, since his body was now more than strong enough to contain it, but with the threat of untold numbers of Demonic Beasts lurking beneath his feat, Damion decided to get moving early.
With Manipulate Earth, he created a new post about the direction in which he would head. With Portal he could return here if he wanted, but he had a feeling that no one was going to be following after him. Casting Ice Sword, Damion took to the air on his flying sword and flew off in search of the Iblis.
If it was a two-month journey for goblins, who likely traveled by foot, flying should cut the distance down considerably. He had his auto-mapper out and attached to his armor. Hopefully, if he approached close enough to a town or city, the artifact would alert him. Even if he only came across a small village, he should still be able to get directions to a larger city.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
While flying, Damion devoted much of his attention to compressing his excess mana. Mana Absorption was active, and he was trying to boost is magic power as fast as he could. He was fast approaching the upper levels of B Rank and that was from just being in an A Rank environment. How much faster would he progress if he ventured into an S Rank environment?
Given his stamina, Damion did not need to rest often, but on a world with longer days and nights, that was hard to keep track of. With a bit of guesstimation, and assistance from his tablet, he had come to the conclusion that this world had a day and night cycle three times the size of Nerotath. He had no idea what this meant in terms of rotation speed or gravity, but given that he felt everything was fairly normal, his best guess was that either nature or magic, or perhaps both, had a way of balancing things out.
Every few days, local time, Damion would stop and rest. Sadly, he did not have any more dreams of Elicia or Bethany. The thought occurred to him that both dreams happened while the System was offline, but he did not put the question to the System. No matter what the answer, there was likely nothing he could do to change his current reality. He had to push forward and solve the puzzle the System had given him.
What he found interesting was that he had completed his quest regarding goblins and the Iblis, just by reaching this Mother World, but not the quest regarding the Alfar. He guessed at the purposes of both, in their use of Realm Breaches, but the quest for the Alfar seemed different, which meant maybe their goal was different from the other races.
Quest hints were available now but considering how far he had come without hints from the Magic System, he felt he could at least find an Iblis and ask, or maybe even an Alfar. It would at least save him a thousand credits, and he could always change his mind later if he became stuck for too long.
When Damion stopped to rest, he would pull out one of the Demonic Beasts he had collected during the beast wave in Viridis. Since the Magic System Inventory and his personal spatial storage perfectly preserved the carcasses, he was able to field dress each one in turn and even add their cores to his pile of credits. Not that they were worth much compared to the credits he had in the bank.
When he finally ran out of the Demonic Beasts he brought with him, Damion was forced to keep an eye out for local game. There were plenty of Demonic Beasts around, but most of them were in large groups. Sure, it was possible for him to take down a group, but that was usually by using powerful magic and then he would be having to pick through the remains to find one that was not ruined for a good meal.
After journeying for a month, Damion finally encountered signs of civilization. He came across a group of Demonic Beasts that had been slaughtered recently. They were all either killed with a sword or struck by Lightning affinity magic. Since there was bladework at play, Damion figured there had to be an intelligent being behind it, though he did have to admit that a strong sword wielding skeleton was not out of question.
Damion paused for a long time when he came across the slaughter. This was practice for someone’s skills. Who, he had no idea. Iblis? Goblin? Perhaps even Alfar, but his auto-mapper did not ping anyone within its detection range. Since he had no other leads on the location of civilization, Damion decided to follow the carnage.
None of the creatures killed appeared to be exceptionally strong. Perhaps mid A Rank at best, but it was hard to tell, since the Demonic Beasts were dead. Still, he was confident that he would be able to escape if the person who did this was hostile.