Saang said, noticing the two otherworlders as if for the first time. Her eyes peered over at their form, wearing their gear and respected weapons by their side.
For Zeke, though, he just had his gloves on. But they were different compared to before. They went for a return trip back to Cru’s store to get his gloves back and also finally relieving Cru of her worries on the attack Zeke went through.
Even if they hadn’t known each other for long, Cru wasn’t the sort to just stop caring about someone who had done her a huge favor. Due to that, she didn’t just repair his gloves–she improved them.
Gloves of Saintly Sanctuary (Epic):
Gloves created with the sense of safety behind them. On top of pushing the ideal of protection, they also represent the inner kindness of their wearer.
Enchantments:
Major Support Aid
Major Support Proficiency
It was a vast improvement that helped Zeke use his healing and Ethereal Manifest even better than before. While the idea didn’t seem all that apparent on hand, he believed that now he can go beyond just healing a critical wound on a person. But for his Ethereal Manifest skill, unfortunately, it didn’t improve its defensive capabilities at all. Still, it was a good thing to have his gloves repaired and improved.
The sleek black design now had a white cross sewn onto the top of the gloves, as though they really bore the mark of religion. Though to hear ‘saintly’ in the name and the description for it made Zeke somewhat awkward. Somehow, both Mikella and Cru made it like this just to tease him, not to just show off how nice he was to other people.
“Yep, definitely different,” Saang said without any evidence involved. “Don’t know how, but you just are.”
‘How’d you guess?” Mikella raised a brow with amusement in her tone.
After they got their gear tuned, they returned back to the guild base to meet up with their team. It had been a while since they last saw them, but they looked the same as always. Though apparently Saang realized the difference the moment they met them.
“You got this air about you… like you just got stronger all of a sudden,” Saang said, her open hand spinning left and right. “Did you get some training done?”
“You could say that,” Mikella grinned. “Zeke found a good way for us to train over our limits.”
“Really?” Hamil asked instead, his brows widening. “How so?”
Figuring there wasn’t any issue, Zeke explained the process. With his attunement involved, the three quickly understood what he meant. There were pale looks on Hamil and Kote’s faces, though the latter was difficult to perceive with the mask he had on.
“Huh,” Saang nodded. “That’s pretty damn impressive. For a moment, I thought you two got desperate and took on shady elixirs or something.”
“Elixirs?” Mikella asked. “LIke potions and stuff?”
“Well yeah, but elixirs are the potent stuff that gives you extra stats. But they’re ridiculously expensive. You’d be stupid to buy some just for some added boosts if you’re just making do. Only nobles can really spend that much gold on that crap.”
“That doesn't mean they're the only ones,” Kote mentioned. “There are some that are being illegally sold for cheaper costs, but those come with some downsides.”
“I thought you took some of those,” Saang nodded with a smirk. “Glad to see you got good heads on your shoulders.”
“Well duh,” Mikella commented. “We know not to take drugs from strangers.”
“Umm… potions and stuff are still kinda drugs, if you think about it,” Zeke mentioned offhandedly.
“Then take the good drugs and not the bad drugs. Easy-peasy.”
Zeke shook his head. He was glad to see that the mood was fine despite what happened. But soon Hamil made a frown as the mood shifted.
“I’m glad to see that you’re alright, Zeke. It’s hard to believe that an assassin was sent after you. Though, after the stuff we found out, it’s not surprising.”
“What did you find out?” Mikella asked. “We figured it was the Alchemist’s guild running behind the scenes.”
“Whoa, how’d you figure that out?” Saang asked. “That took us a while to figure out for a bit.”
“We connected the dots,” Mikella said with a smile. Zeke figured out that this was Mikella’s chance to show off an investigative side of hers. Being a good partner, he let her take the spotlight. “Our blacksmith friend had her contract dissolved by those fuckers. Something about current circumstances not aligning well or some shit. Anyways, they let slip that the adventurer’s guild was the one involved, and we figured out that the ones who sent assassins were the ones getting their bottom line in trouble.”
“It goes deeper than that, actually,” Kote said, which ultimately burst Mikella’s bubble as she frowned. Kote quickly noticed that and backpedaled hard. “Though that’s really impressive. It took us all three to get that far.”
Mikella easily returned back to her smug self, making Zeke really try to hold back from constantly yelling ‘so cute’ in his head at her antics.
“We’re not exactly known to be private investigators–we’re more like the clean-up crew,” Hamil commented, which got a frown from Mikella as Kote cleared his throat.
“Think about it this way–a healer comes by and fixes the problems that the Alchemist’s guild themselves were finding issues to solve, only giving out stopgaps to not make it worse and spread,” Kote explained, gesturing towards Zeke. “It isn’t just their bottom line–it’s their reputation. So when you pit one man against an entire guild, some would make suggestions that the one responsible for the curses is the very man who is allegedly able to heal them when a large and popular guild can’t.”
That got both the otherworlders to widen their eyes. Zeke was left gaping at the accusation behind Kote’s words.
Mikella had other plans.
“Those assholes!” Mikella growled, and it was the kind of growl only a dragon could make as lightning began forming from the corners of her mouth like smoke trailing from a dragon’s maw. “What? They’re so scared that they’d rather blame a guy and kill him rather than admit that they didn’t know jack shit? I’ll fucking kill ‘em!”
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“That’s how guilds work,” Saang said. She wasn’t going to try and even calm Mikella down. Her eyes were narrowed, completely fixed on the problem. “They care more about themselves and their problems than just one or two healers going rogue. There’s also another problem–they found out he’s a Runist.”
“And once a Runist is involved, the Runist guild is also involved,” Hamil said, a distasteful frown on his face. “Nothing is ever pretty when they’re around. But being what they are, the Alchemists accused the Runists of getting onto their turf.”
That got Zeke to pause, his eyes shifting left and right as his brain worked to find the link. And he didn’t like it.
“Are you saying it’s the Runist’s Guild that’s coming after my head?”
Mikella turned quiet as well, realizing the same. The lightning finally calmed down, but her face was nowhere near relaxed, her brows knitted and veins tensed.
“That’s where our lead drops off,” Kote answered, shaking his head. “Once the Runists got involved, investigating became a major issue. They don’t like anyone sniffing around them. Cronus also let us know to leave them alone, as he didn’t want their guild, more than any other, getting rattled by this.”
“So we just leave them alone and let them try to kill Zeke just to avoid pissing them off? Mikella crossed her arms. “I can’t believe this…”
“Well, we got some good news,” Hamil said, putting on a bitter smile. “We got to go and handle a quest that has nothing to do with any of the guilds. And hopefully, we can get our hands on one of those towers on the way. That quest is really just a cover for us to deal with it, and it’s about time we do something about it.”
Zeke and Mikella nodded in turn. They spent a lot of time adjusting to the city and its environment. While the news felt sour in their mouths, it didn’t change their prerogative.
They need to clear the towers, and hopefully clean up the root of all these problems.
…..
After many days of speculation and research, the adventurer party and Alissa figured out the tower’s possible location. The tower in question was located at the north-eastern border of the capital’s limits.
The country was vast, enough to be called a small continent. While that sounded extremely large, people can easily traverse the lands and the air thanks to the leylines. It was these very same leylines that the capital itself used to drive their vehicles about without getting into any incidents and the like. Even people with personal skills used these leylines to traverse the skies and lands of Arcelot.
Unfortunately, adventurers and other travelers were unable to use the leylines that the people of Arcelot readily use outside of the capital, as those are either not constructed yet, or not stable enough to be used with regular vehicles. The towers’ existence is also responsible for making these natural leylines unstable to be used properly. But that’s only if an adventuring party has to rely on outside means for transport.
For the Tempest Winds, that was easily rectified.
Zeke was thankful that he could at least do this much with his Ethereal Manifest as the wind blew through his hair and clothes, traveling a lot faster than he initially expected.
He decided to create his usual barrier car, or in this case, Ethereal Car, like when they first arrived in Arcelot with Cronus and the rest. While that certainly surprised the veteran adventurers that he could do such a thing, nobody was going to complain about getting a free ride to their next destination without worrying about camping out in the hostile nature of Arcelot.
As he drove, his mana was draining fast, but his crazy regeneration and the increased mitigation on mana loss through his gear made it so that his mana is topped off every once in a while, no sweat. He could even pick up more speed if he wanted to without really spending too much mana. Before, he made his barrier cars with Barrier Craft, but Ethereal Manifest was a lot more attuned to his runes than his barriers were, making the runes’ effects a lot more potent.
Though that still didn’t dissuade his fear that a single finger flick could easily destroy his magically-made vehicle.
Then again, perhaps some enemy had to be fast enough to even touch it. His construct was already approaching race car levels of speed.
Running through forests, cliffs, steep edges and even through the air at times–they were making incredible progress contrary to what the Journeymen believed earlier.
As for the Tempest Winds themselves–well, it was easy to see how they responded.
“Whooooo!”
Saang’s arms flung to the air, her lungs working overtime to keep up with her excitement. The wind caused her hair to fling about wildly, but she didn't care in the slightest.
Hamil and Kote on the other hand were at their seat’s edge, so to speak. Kote was ensuring that he wasn’t flung off and left forgotten, though Zeke’s affixation to their place with his spell made sure that never happened. Hamil however was just stunned silent at the view of it all, his jaw still slack in awe.
Meanwhile, his partner was already used to the car-like construct, so she happily sat next to Zeke with a smile on her face, enjoying the view as though it truly was just a casual drive-by.
“Mana check,” Mikella said, usually saying that at every interval.
“All green… well, blue, but you get it.”
Zeke smirked, understanding her mana checks. Though Zeke had gotten more mana regeneration, Mikella still needed to make sure that he wasn’t pushing himself and draining mana faster than he could keep up. Zeke can understand since, if their positions were reversed, he would do the same for her.
“Let me know if anything changes, alright? We’re already covering a lot of ground so there’s nothing wrong with walking the extra way.”
Zeke nodded assuringly. “Trust me, if anything happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
Mikella smiled warmly at him, her worries disappearing. Looking ahead, Zeke noticed that they were closing in on the target. After warning the others, they started preparing for eventually stopping, their fun driving time at an end.
It was decided to stop a bit farther away just in case the area surrounding the tower might be more dangerous than they expected, so Zeke slowed down to a crawl and stopped around a mountainous region. There were some valleys decked with the strange bluish nature that they first saw, though there were some minor green and even yellow colors mixed within the vast nature. Now that the air wasn’t whistling in their ears, Zeke could hear the caws and howls of animals, or perhaps monsters, out in the distance.
The mana construct disappeared while Zeke double checked his resources and body. Noticing no issues, he told the same to Mikella.
He knew she probably had an inkling of his health, but she still smiled knowing the eventual result. On the other hand, Kote had his hand resting near the one of the massive non-greenish trees, stomping the ground lightly as though to ascertain his surroundings. Saang let out a groan of disappointment that the ride was over while Hamil was the only one returning back to his veteran side.
“We covered so much distance… I really wish you can stay as our permanent party member Zeke. We’d save so much on travel costs.”
“Hey, he’s my personal ride,” Mikella smirked. “Hands off my ride.”
“Ride?” Zeke hung his head back at the audacity of this woman. “You mean ‘partner’, right?”
“Quiet, my noble steed. Mama’s talking here.”
Zeke scoffed at her bad joke, though Hamil smiled at the antics. It was all well and good to ease the tension no matter how close up they were to the nearby tower.
“Urrgh…” Kote groaned, sounding more sick than they expected.
“Kote, you okay?” Zeke asked, turning serious at his clear pale face… well, the exposed part at least. “You need me to heal you?”
“Nah, he can handle it,” Saang said, waving away his worries. “He just sucks at handling long-distance traveling.”
“Ugh… yeah…” Kote eventually said. He shook his head, though it looked more damaging than helping. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”
Kote eventually grumbled that he needed to have some flying skill, though Saang cut his hopes when she mentioned that he could get sick of that as well. Putting aside their car-sick friend, Zeke turned to the direction where he figured the tower might be.
The rocky area surrounding them was actually once part of a quarry around a decade ago, but due to the monster population increasing, they had abandoned the site in favor of forming it into a monster infested area. As for the reason, instead of extracting materials the hard way, one can just kill the monsters that have formed its ecosystem around it and take the loot from their deaths. On top of the materials, one can also gain experience points from the effort.
Though once again the area was left abandoned as the monsters became more furious, putting adventurers out of the area and leaving the quest to the Tempest Winds. After walking for several minutes, they approached the anomaly that made it so.
Zeke just can’t believe it even with his own two eyes.
It was the tower that they were looking for–except that it’s floating in mid-air.