Core 9 [TBATE]

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Michael Leywin POV

As I unfurled my firey wings, I flapped them with considerable force, and with a few more I found myself above the clouds. Looking around I spotted something tall and mountain-like sticking above the clouds. Utilizing my spatium rune I moved close enough to not be far, but also close enough to be safe.

It was a mountain. And because there was no snow or wind it was a peaceful place. Another good thing was that there was a high concentration of aether.

There was nowhere to sit, so I just took out my weapon and imbued it with wind and earth mana. Then I made a powerful and clean cut. It fell backwards and started tumbling down. Then it crashed. It wasn't loud, so I don't think that anything got woken up.

Settling down, I took a deep breath and looked up. The air smelled cold and fresh. The sky was black and littered with small lights of many colours and one large 'stone'. This zone's moon.

I took a meditative pose, closed my eyes and started to gather as much aether as I needed. Then I started to coat my main core with it, creating a hard shell. I pumped more and more of it, till it stabilized sufficiently to not disperse. Then I repeated the process for my spatium core. I took as much as I could in one go and created a shell around it. Then I started to pour more of it in. It was getting slower and slower each second, as more and more aether was taken from the atmosphere. When the last particles got to it, it became sufficient to stay that way. In that way, I got one layer on two out of four aether cores.

'Thankfully there was enough aether.' I looked up and saw that the moon was almost at the midpoint. During the time I was in the academy, I learned that I should listen to what my teacher says. Even if it sometimes makes no sense.

Channelling aether, I found myself looking at a much more detailed grid. Now it was 50x50x50 cm as the base and aether consumption was the same as when it was 1x1x1 m. Another thing was that there was a beam-like structure somewhere around our camp.

I reshaped the space so that it would take me where it was and when I got there, I realised that it was somewhere around the place where I stepped away. As I was still airborne I used [Wings] and flew down. Casting the same spell that I used when exiting the camp.

"O? You are back. Finally." Vincent said. I just went further, to my place of sleep, got rid of the clone and laid down. Suddenly a deep rumble got to my ears. It sounded far away.

'Ups! I think that it was an avalanche from the tip that I cut down.' I thought. I think that some people woke up and that someone was going to our entrance and then coming back, but I didn't care. All I wanted to was to go sleep.

The next day or more like: In the Morning.

"Everyone! Wake up." The wizard said. "We are leaving in an hour, so use that time to eat or something." He finished talking.

There was no one near the stove, so I went there took out the leg and then skinned, de-spiked, deboned and de-blooded it. I put some of the plentiful snow in the pot and started a fire under it. After heating up, the snow started to melt and sometime after it got close to boiling so I took the meat, cut it into pieces and threw them into the pot. Then I took out my scythe and using its end I stirred the soup. I left it there for some time and after like five minutes I put the fire down, took out a bowl and a spoon and ate some of it. It wasn't the best soup, but considering the environment it was good enough.

Several people came to me and asked if they could have some. I, of course, agreed. I didn't do it just for myself. I wasn't sure what to do, so I just went and meditated to advance my core even further.

After around 40 minutes I had to stop since we were going to leave that time. I went outside. It was similar to yesterday. Wind and snow. It was weak. Just like a winter on the mainland.

"WE ARE GOING TO TAKE THE SAME FORMATION AS YESTERDAY." Said Brad. It took us some time to form correctly, but when we did it, we started going.

Surprisingly, we went in the same general direction when I had my night trip. Then someone from the scouts' team came running.

"Miss, a pack of wolf-like creatures has been spotted running toward us. Shall we fall back?" The teacher in question nodded and he turned to his team and then they came back.

Following them a large pack of creatures came. They were of average male height. But two times longer than they should be with their size. They had six legs, their fur was grey-white and long. It covered their eyes and most of their mouth. When they saw us they started wagging their tails and sat just a few meters in front of us. They seemed to welcome us highly.

Seeing that they did nothing to us, our teachers looked at each other, and Vincent put his weapon away just cautiously approaching the one that appeared to be the leader, as he had a crystal-ice spike on top of his head. When Vincent walked close enough, the wolf-like licked him in the face.

"Great, now my face is all wet. You are paying for this." He told the wolf-like and used his fur to clean his face.

The animal made a chuckle-like sound and 'sit on my back' kind of move with their front paw. Vincent did that and the animal looked at us expectantly.

"It's safe!" Said Vincent and the teachers looked at him confused. "I just know it." With that, Brad did the same on another creature from the pack.

Then the rest followed. First were the teachers and then the students. Each of the wolf-like had at least two people on his back. I was with my teacher and someone else. When everybody was seated, the pack took off.

They also went in the direction of the mountain. We picked up a considerable speed and it paired with snow didn't make it too comfortable. After riding for at least an hour we made it to the mountain's foot. But we still were riding. The pack went around its foot and we were met with what remained of the avalanche. Then we started to run uphill. Some of us became slightly unnerved, but we continued.

As we rode for another good 10 minutes, we could spot a cave. Many students became unnerved, but the teachers said that it was safe. When we got to the entrance, the pack stopped and prompted us to go inside. The teachers went first and we followed. The pack gave us a tail salute-like movement, the snow got much more intense and they disappeared.

And so we went deeper and there was the Gate.

A/N: Chapter on a longer side this week. Well, one zone is done, few more to go. What do you think? Was it good or not? Hope that you had a nice week and a good read. See you soon.

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