Chronicles of the True Wizard

Chapter 187 - Book 4

Looking through the portal, Felix saw a completely undisturbed sheet of white covering the ground with a light snow falling from an overcast sky above. Thezan turned to them and handed out some of the general supplies including potions, the winter cloaks and chain. Felix quickly fed the winter cloak to his Reaper's Mantle when no one was looking which just meant it suddenly disappeared from his back. He then set the Reaper's Mantle to take it's form and equipped it which made it look like he had simply equipped the cloak.

He stowed the chain and other supplies in the Kryptos Repository, memorizing their rune patterns so he could retrieve them in the future and identified the potions as he stowed them. Luckily they were small vials so they were portable and actually fit in the band.

[C - Common] Health Potion

[Potion]

Restores 100,000 health points when consumed.

[C - Common] Regeneration Potion

[Potion]

Restores 200,000 health points over ten minutes when consumed.

[C - Common] Energy Potion

[Potion]

Restores 100,000 energy points upon consumption.

"Uh, Thezan… these are little… huge? for me."

Except the energy one I guess.

Thezan chuckled as he continued to stow the vials in his armor and wrap the chain around his waist, "Yeah, we only ever buy for C grades. They'll work fine and it makes it less likely the client asks questions when I present them the bill. Not sure they would be as into the idea that I dragged a D grade into this one. Obviously they haven't met you but…"

"Got it. I take it they'll work fine anyways?"

Thezan nodded, "Of course."

"Well thanks for these, hopefully I don't need them."

"Yeah… hopefully."

With all of his supplies stowed he saw everyone else in the party was ready and they stepped through the portal, into the endless sea of snow and towards the ancient ruined Usorium empire.

Felix was the last one through the portal and it immediately closed behind him. He quickly wrapped his Reaper's Mantle, which was currently in the form of a massive fur cloak, around himself and started to heat up the inside with heat spells.

The snow reached about halfway up his thigh and though it was light and fluffy on the top layer, his ankles were buried in the densely packed snow below that. Felix looked ahead and saw the rest of the party simply trudging through, Elric sitting on Aros' right shoulder.

Felix had no interest in trudging through the snow because it was annoying and pointless. Instead, he thought about flying then reconsidered and pulled out a handful of Starmetal ingots that were affinized to his soul. He quickly fused them together and morphed them into the shape of a snowboard. He threw it onto the snow in front of him and made sure it didn't sink in then flew up and stood on it himself. He had to make it a little bigger than was natural because the snow was so fluffy but he quickly found a shape that worked.

As Felix started preparing the spells to propel himself forwards and replenished his own mana pool, he immediately noticed that the aether on this planet was different. It was both much denser and way more fluid than Trenus, the world event and the tutorial.

Telviras' aether was fluid but much thinner and acted a little odd because of all the enchantments at play. It flowed about somewhat erratically. Here it was like the mana was both denser and less viscous or just more ready to be moved about. He measured and memorized the coordinates at his feet incase he needed mana like this in the future.

Using some simple Force spells to propel him, Felix shot across the snow and caught back up with the party. He wondered why they didn't have a better way to travel through something like this but he quickly realized, the snow didn't seem to affect them at all. They had cloaks to keep themselves warm but they didn't trudge through the snow, they simply walked like it wasn't even there.

Stupid C grades.

Elric was the first to see Felix shooting around on the snow and had Felix make him a sled for Aros to pull. Thezan quickly took notice and after a short discussion, Felix used more ingots, his snowboard and Elric's sled to make a much larger sled they could all fit into. Initially Aros was happy to pull them, because his strength would make it so he barely felt it but Felix assured him he could propel them without running out of mana before they arrived.

Felix addressed Thezan as they stepped into the sled, "Why didn't you buy something like this sled back in the city?"

Thezan shrugged, "No good way to move it. My bag doesn't open wide enough to fit it. Enchantments also don't really split up well so we can't really break one into pieces and reassemble it."

"Could have had a basic sled though and had Aros pull us?"

"Wouldn't have been any faster than just walking."

Right, C grades. Snow, and the throes of time apparently, mean nothing to you…

They all hopped into the sled Felix had made then he propelled them using Force spells over the snow. Thezan directed him and they traveled for hours. The landscape around them never changed once the entire time until they arrived at the edge of the landmass. The endless sea of snow ahead of them suddenly dropped off a cliff into an endless sea of deep blue, white capped rolling waves.

As they slowly approached the city, a pit started to form at the bottom of Felix's stomach. He assumed they were just nerves so he tried to suppress it but he found, he couldn't. He could get rid of the physical sensation but the feeling originated from his soul, it was more instinctual. It was so minor though that he simply ignored it and chalked it up to excitement or fear of the unknown.

Thezan had Felix turn to the left and they followed the cliff for a few more hours until they spotted a castle rising up over the horizon. The castle seemed to be located on top of a jagged peak in the cliff face and surrounding it from all sides, were the ruins of houses and shops. Nothing more than a corner or a pile of bricks remained for any given building in the city core itself. It almost seemed like some kind of natural disaster had ripped through the city specifically though, it was hard to tell because most of it was covered in snow.

They followed the cliff face right to the edge of the city then slowed down so Felix could maneuver through the building remains. They occasionally hit things, some of them hidden by the snow, others unavoidable as Felix couldn't turn on a dime but none of them complained.

They ignored the entire city and headed straight for the castle in the center because it seemed to be almost entirely intact. They were hoping there would be records or clues as to the weapon's whereabouts somewhere in there.

The castle itself was the only building that didn't lie in ruins. It seemed to only show minor signs of wear on the outside as far as Felix could tell. It stood at the highest point in the city with no towers or other ornaments outside of the main building itself. The main building was a monolithic structure of stone brickwork and windows that was at least a kilometer wide, though only a few stories tall.

Felix could see that the top of the walls and the castle itself were crowned by a flat parapet making him initially think the outside was simply a wall. The only wrinkle in that theory being that Felix could see the ruins of a wall that once surrounded the entire structure of the castle.

Felix pushed his makeshift sled, and the party sitting within it, right up to the front gates. The front gate had once sat in the middle of a stone wall that surrounded the castle itself but as the city fell to ruin, so did the wall and now, neither were effectively protecting anything. Felix could have pushed the sled through the gate area but Thezan told him to stop it there.

Thezan turned to the group but looked mostly at Felix, "We don't know what kind of traps or defenses they might still have lying around. At this point, we walk on foot and we move slowly. I'll look for traps myself, kid, you try and see if you can find anything arcane, anywhere. Be careful and try not to trigger anything."

They all nodded then carefully walked towards the front gates of the castle wall, following Thezan as he

The others wandered off leaving Thezan and Felix standing in the sitting room.

Felix looked up at Thezan, "So what now?"

"Now I see if I can get a meeting with Dogran. I'll let him know about the Ravens and see if they want us to keep chasing this thing. It might take a while for him to contact the client then there's the Ravens… just sit tight. I'll come find you when we head out."

Felix nodded once, "Any idea how long?"

Thezan shrugged, "A term or two if I had to guess."

"Oh… ok then. What will you do in the meantime?"

"Go home. Relax with my family." Thezan shrugged.

"Oh… that makes sense. You guys just check into a room just to prepare for a job then?" Felix asked as he looked around.

"Sort of. We used pay for a room at all times for the team to use but recently it's gotten too expensive." Thezan nodded and placed his hands on his hips.

"The price increased?" Felix frowned because he already knew how much they were getting paid.

"Yeah. It's based on demand and the last 5 Epochs or so the adventurer's guild has been super busy, way more adventurers and jobs than normal. It's just not worth it anymore. Anything more than prepping for a mission and I can't justify the cost. Even if our client is paying us a stupid amount of creds."

"It's busier than usual?" Felix frowned.

"Way busier. No idea why but yeah, like I said, there have been way more contracts and way more adventurers."

"Has this happened before?" Felix looked up at Thezan with his confusion displayed loudly on his face.

Thezan just shrugged, "Not that I've ever seen or heard of."

"Doesn't that seem weird to you?"

Thezan shook his head, "No. Could be any number of reasons and no point in worrying about it, right?"

"I guess."

"Anyway. You did a great job today kid. I'll leave your pay with the guild once I get it but just be aware, the client may only give us part of it now and the rest when we actually find the thing they're looking for. It may take a while."

"Alright, thanks." Felix turned and took a step then decided he was better off saying something and turned back around. He took a spell tablet out of his inventory and quickly drew out a diagram as he spoke, "I know I'm not very high level and I'm only just learning how to enchant things… You're armor's enchantments are… kind of a mess."

Thezan raised an eyebrow and cocked his head, "What do you mean?"

"I mean it's a mess. Here, I'm not great at it and I know multiple people who can do way better this, but even this is better than whatever is currently in or on your armor." Felix handed him the tablet.

He had inscribed the enchantment around Thezan's arm with the most basic of changes. Just simple things like altering the channels slightly to have the enchantments connect together less crudely. He didn't spend enough time to alter anything dramatically and he didn't have the experience to properly fix it, but he knew enough to make minor changes.

Thezan took the tablet and nodded, "I'll look into it."

Felix nodded then walked to the door and left. He descended the elevator that still amazed him with how seamless it was then flew off back to Inscripticae. Though he had plans to do a handful of other things, he wanted to check in with Aldahn and Fralyna first. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .