Chapter 15: Chapter 15: The Importance of Forming Connections

Chapter 15: The Importance of Forming Connections

 

Two days passed, and Nara made her way to the Expedition Hall together with Chrome. On the way, she checked the Communications Office and had received an unexpected letter from the Church of Knowledge. After a mental discussion with Chrome, she stowed the letter for later reading. She spotted Lee Hu standing there waiting for her, as well as another familiar face.

“Sen?”

He greeted her, “Congratulations on your essences.”

“Thanks.”

“Mr. Sen Arlang her has volunteered his team help with your ability verification, since he said he personally knew you.” Explained Lee.

“We’ve met through my mother.”

“I will be joining you for this first expedition, to personally verify.”

 

The three of them headed toward where the rest of Sen’s team was waiting. He began to introduce them, one-by-one.

He first gestured to a runic. “This is Lan Qilan. She’s our magic attacker.”

Lan Qilan was older than Sen, in her thirties, although her iron rank de-aged her slightly. Her black hair was in a neat bob, and dark blue runic tattoos patterned her tawny skin. Like Sen, she held herself with perfect posture. Overall, she gave off a sharp and intellectual impression.

She would not have looked out of place sporting business casual wear under glasses and a white lab coat.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Her intonation was clean and even.

“You’ve meet me already, Sen Arlang. I serve as interceptor and defender.

Sen finished the introductions of his team. There was another frontliner, a rust-furred Leonid named Gento. He waved back with a cheery smile after he was introduced. The next was a human black-haired beauty who coolly introduced herself as Jaina. She held herself with the relaxed ease of a martial artist, despite her position as the ranged attacker. The rest of the members had been temporarily gathered for the expedition, which was one of the advantages of the academy. Only Sen and Lan were registered in a permanent team together.

The combined group headed off towards a tall tower with Lee Hu in tow. Due to the steep and complicated topography of the region, expeditions would head out from these towers on hang gliders. These gliders had a simple magic device that propelled it forward with wind when magic was injected. Across the region, similar towers were set up that adventurers and students could use to return to the city. Floating platforms within had ascended them to the top of the tower.

Nara stood in line behind Sen’s team on the top of a tall platform overlooking the city. Around her, students, adventurers, and others would tip off the edge and glide through the air. Some groups in the distance traveled on sky-faring boats and airships that set off from a larger tower, known as the Airship Terminal. Others flew freely without the assistance of external objects; they manifested cloaks, wings, and rode the wind. Others traveled at high speeds on familiars, carpets, swords, and bubbles. Large vehicles were prohibited within the city limits, but she had seen others jump from the ground to launch themselves into the sky instead of walking or riding the underground transportation. Permits for smaller flying vehicles could be acquired for travel in the city, but this was mostly used by officials, as they weren’t permitted within city streets, only above or freely outside the city limits.

The rest had launched themselves forward, and she did the same. Solid ground fell away, and the wind lifted her glider up. Her heart pounded with exhilaration when she saw the landscape sprawled out before her. Unintentionally, she let out a whoop of joy. Her hands shook from nervous adrenaline, even though she didn’t have acrophobia. She shifted her feet onto the small platform on the real of the glider, and injected mana into the device and sped up to join the formation of the others. A small blue fish joined her floating freely at her side as she approached.

“So how did y’all meet?” The wind around them roared, but a magic device attached to the gliders transmitted voices to linked devices.

Sen gestured to Lan, “this is the friend I mentioned, from the Magic Society.”

“I was introduced to Sen by my mentor. I’ve been his magic theory instructor for since he was young.”

“My mother likes to introduce us to others to teach her children, rather than teach us herself.”

“She understands the importance of forming connections.” Lan appraised Lisera’s methods highly.

Nara remembered that there had been some contention regarding Lan’s relationship with the Magic Society, but it appears as if she was still a member. Since she received no further explanation, she shelved the topic for the time being.

The other temporary members recounted meeting Sen during various events or classes at the Academy, and all had otherwise ordinary experiences.

 

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The group made their way to a small riverside junction town. The town, simply named “North River Junction” helped direct boat transportation across the intertwining rivers, the checking of goods for smuggling and illegal articles, as well as producing some local goods such as tea, quarried stone, and processed materials.

While portals and inventories could be used for mass transportation of goods, these methods were usually reserved for time-sensitive materials or during crisis. Some auxiliary adventurers with the holy grail of portals and inventories worked full time as transporters instead of hunting monsters. Day-to-day transportation utilized slow moving boats, airships, and skimmers. The higher the speed of the vehicle, the more likely it was to attract monsters, especially sea transportation where untold monsters lay in wait, so transportation groups traveled slowly. Quicker or valuable transports would posts requests for adventurers to act as escorts.

The team on this expedition did not accept any escort requests, and instead was to complete a gauntlet of monster subjugations. They accepted some additional requests at the town’s local monster notice board, consulted with the town mayor and those who had sighted the monsters for more information, and set off.

The group rented a specialty magic vehicle from a small vehicles rental store, which only Lan had the ability to operate. Nara conjured her own vehicle made of the astral, and Chrome and Lee joined her inside it. Her vehicle looked more like a wide floating speedboat but had plush cushions and seating. The hoverboat was constructed in the style of Sanshi, rather than appearing like a modern Earth speedboat.

“Who is this person?” Lee asked regarding Chrome, and the others in their rented skimmer looked on, curious.

“Chrome, my familiar.”

Chrome nodded from his position at the helm, ostensibly piloting it, and Lee greeted him cordially in return. There was no real need for him to pilot it, but the constructed vehicle did have all the necessary parts to allow it, and Chrome seemed to enjoy it. His actions reinforced Nara’s assumptions that he was in part here because he was bored.

 

 

“We stop here.” Sen let the team know, and the group halted. Nara stayed in the vicinity and watched as the group tore through an iron ranked pack of monkey-like monsters.

Sen fought barehanded with a style reminiscent of a battle monk. His fists deflected all attacks, and he came out unscathed. His attacks struck forward with the precision and power of a martial master, smashing apart monsters and intercepting attacks for Lan. He was relatively balanced between resilience and power, both able to suffer a beating and dish it out.

Lan’s fighting style was strange, a byproduct of her unusual essence combination: Thread, Adept, and Magic for the Master Confluence. She was a quintessential product of the Sanshi Essence culture; an essence user with an eclectic essence set. She wove abilities and spells, linking enemies together with incorporeal thread, then unleashed a spell at one of them. The threads chained damage to the rest of the linked enemies, causing them to suffer a portion of the damage as well.

The other members were similarly effective. Gento leapt forward with flaming gauntlets, each blow boring smoldering cavities in monsters. He narrowly dodged with the precision and nimbleness of an experienced boxer. Jaina stood at the backline pelting enemies with arrows that easily ripped through fur and flesh. Enemies stuck with arrows had ice explode from within, manifesting painful cold icicles that impeded movement, causing them to limp and howl. These vulnerabilities allowed the others to move in, finishing them off with ease.

As they backed away from the corpses of the monsters, Nara activated her looting ability. They told her to wait until they left the immediate vicinity, as when monsters would dissipate into a foul-smelling rainbow smoke when looted or after a length of time passed. For those who had dimensional storages, the loot was deposited directly inside. Otherwise, tidy bags of spirit coins, quintessence, and wrapped monster materials dropped directly from the sky above their heads. Laughs erupted from within the group when a member had a loot bag smack him in the face when he looked up, and he unhappily rubbed his nose.

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You have looted [Chimeric Forest Monkeys]

• 300 iron spirit coins
• 30000 lesser spirit coins
• 30 iron rank monster cores
• 150 iron ranked monkey quintessence
• [Chimeric Forest Monkey] Leather (iron)
• 5 iron rank healing salves

Loot has been added to your [Astral Domain].

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The monsters were roughly valued at 10 iron spirit coins and 1000 lesser spirit coins per monster. Pulling out an iron ranked coin from her inventory, she observed the pattern engraved on its surface. It was a three-quarters profile of her face, with medium length wavy hair just past her shoulders and Nirvana in earring form. Following the shape of the coin, “Fear Not Death – Enjoy Life” was written across the top and bottom of the coin. The iron ranked coins were aptly named, appearing a dull grey metal despite crystalline in touch. The normal ranked spirit coins were even darker, the shade of charcoal.

The coin was an odd mishmash of past and present features. But if the coin represented her soul, then was its features a culmination of her experiences?

“Looting ability has been confirmed.” Said Lee Hu as he did the same, removing a coin from the dimensional storage pouch at his side. “Shall I take my leave here?” He asked for Nara’s confirmation, in case she felt uncomfortable during her first expedition.

She shook her head, “I think I’m in good hands here.”

Lee nodded, and a circle of shadow energy expanded into portal.

“I thought portals were supposed to be rare.”

“I am assigned to this position because of my abilities.” Lee said. He gave a parting greeting, and stepped through, the portal closing behind him.

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