Perhaps the easiest part about getting to that island was the journey itself, as while a large stretch of ocean technically did separate them, it was hardly an issue for the group. Except for Raccelline, who could only utilise mana unconsciously through various techniques, somehow, and as such needed to be carried.
But besides that, everyone else simply walked on the exceedingly gentle waters of the calm belt.
To keep up with the rest, Icy did require his spirit, but the improvement to its aura usage was far from small. Unlike before, where it could only release aura in bursts, allowing him to move explosively, it could now form steady outputs. And so, he easily ran across the water at only a slightly lower speed than the rest. And when enhanced from a Slipstream spell from Mala, he could just barely keep up with their unenhanced speeds.
However, sustained aura use didn’t have much effect besides simple things like maintaining a high speed and walking on water. He still liked those things though, and for now just really wanted his second growth phase to end as soon as possible so he could continue eating those Divine Phalanx bones.
All seven safely reached the other island in no more than a few minutes, and quickly threw on their cloaks whilst removing flashy armour or weapons. Stuffed into various dimensional storages, one matter became blindingly obvious as Icy used a Sky Sight Barrier to look at the locals.
Almost all of them wore light and sparse clothing due to the high heat. So it became obvious what would stand out immensely in this case.
“I think Raccelline will be fine in a plain dress and barefoot. The rest of you though…” As he looked at what the natives here wore, even those that carried weapons and had to be warriors by inference, there were a few obvious points.
Metal armour was rather rare here, as most of it had to be dedicated to weapons and accessories instead.
Instead, the obvious answers were to use leather and bone for armour, which is what almost everyone wore. Everyone native, that is… Meanwhile, those who very clearly came from the continents often received glares. Even from a distance, he could see it easily.
And these people were ordinary individuals, completely powerless in being here. Maybe that was why no one attacked them… But what about Gold ranks and Sprouts?
Fortunately, at this distance, no one in the city destroyed his spell. Right now, the whole group stayed huddled in a small section of jungle surrounding the city. It just barely offered enough cover for them to think something up and figure out what to change into. Local clothing was actually mostly just the basic cloth stuff they had available, but decorated with coloured feathers and dyes from various plants.
“You three have it easy… We don’t have any of the loose clothing.” Mala commented as it was easy for the men to just put on some cheap linen trousers and walk around shirtless. With their strength, it was obvious why none had tanned skin.
But for the two girls, it was a tougher question. Clothing styles in the calm belt were… Strange, to say the least. On one hand, it was rather restrictive, and some women completely covered their bodies in baggy clothes such that they stayed cool during the daytime but showed little skin.
And then some women wore what could almost be considered lingerie.
This was a range though, and clothing options all throughout were common, but the sheer extremes on both ends only made partial sense. Less clothes to stay cooler or loose baggy ones. While they could have studied it more, no one actually cared for an answer. Except for maybe one person…
Unfortunately, the specific cultural norms of these islands weren’t something Mala ever bothered to learn. One could only take a gander why…
“Okay, we’ll go in by ourselves, and sell some gold tier beast parts to buy some clothes. Then it’ll all be fine,” Darak eased the situation with an extremely simple solution. Although he did have one additional matter to bring up and asked, “Did you see any robed priests?”
Icy just nodded his head in response and found Darak’s dedication to his faith impressive once more.
The robes he wore did not matter too deeply to Manus’ religion. In fact, they primarily only existed to make identification of priests a lot easier. Even considering this, it wasn’t strange for priests to only rarely take off their robes to bathe or change into a clean pair. For a fact, they all knew that Darak changed or cleaned his daily. Not for a single day did he forget or wear some other sort of clothes.
Mala interrupted the threes’ plan with a simple rhetoric, “Did you three forget something? Like the fact you can’t speak to these people?” It quickly shut them up, and she turned to face Icy instead as his spell remained active. “Were there any wizards in robes?” It took a short while, but eventually, a few were seen across the large city, clearly, that choice of clothing remained as well.
So, as they rehashed their plans twice in little over ten minutes, Mala was able to quietly enter the city with the identity of a cloaked wizard and purchased the clothes they needed with some steel tier monster parts.
Once outside, she immediately changed into a set of looser clothing which covered her body. Picking one with a yellow fabric covered in sequins and splashes of red. The shirt tucked into the elasticated pants, with a sari wrapped around her body which felt unnatural. Meanwhile, Rebecca jokingly considered the brown, revealing outfit covered in vibrant feathers she told them to buy, but given that Jaren knew her best of everyone there… He picked up a more modest thing that she’d actually wear in most cases.
Perhaps the only thing which stopped her from doing it in the end, was that it would fail to draw any attention, which immediately devalued its worth. Not that she didn’t keep the thing in case it ever found future use.
With this, they were able to get inside the city and avoid drawing attention to themselves by using a different entrance this time round.
It turned out that even in the calm belt, the existence of a priest sort of made them untouchable to ordinary folks, and so came the first real interaction any of them had with others since arriving. The guard at the gate didn’t even say a word as he noted their arrival, everyone’s weapons made it clear they were warriors.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Although, a child travelling with them still seemed weird.
Within the city, barely had they walked past its walls made of massive logs before a young boy approached them. He said in a language which only Mala understood, “Newcomers to the city? May I guide the sirs and misses anywhere?”
Icy set up a Soul Link between everyone so that they could avoid revealing their identities, and now it allowed Mala to translate for them. She replied straight away, “We need to sell some valuables which we believe came from the eastern continent, can you help?” As soon as the boy, and those around, heard the words ‘continent’ their attitudes worsened.
It wasn’t a logical dislike for such places, as even the child who barely reached 10 seemed to carry the same disposition.
Nearby, a young man who clearly held too much hatred within stated his criticisms, “They dropped some trash here again? Fucking cont–”
“A preserved safe near the Stormwall. You think I would sell trash?” Mala interrupted him by revealing part of her mana. Not enough to give away her identity as a Sapling wizard, but at least enough to match a Sprout. With the display of force, it shut up the man instantly, and some nearby and the others formed their own conclusions on how they acquired it.
Due to the circumstances, Mala was also forced to take the role of the leader here. She knew how to play tough, and it worked wonderfully.
“There’s only one place that dares buy outside stuff here…” The boy sheepishly replied as he appeared pale from the shock of mana engulfing him, Mala purposely avoided squashing the boy, but it still left him shaken.
“They are worth more melted down and recast.” While the boy didn’t understand how that was the case, he did realise Mala’s intentions. Not a dumb kid at least, too bad he was forced to grow up in a place so constrained. He led them to a rather large merchant’s store, and like many of the buildings in the calm belt, it was mostly made of wood, leaves, and various plant fibres. Meanwhile, the path they walked on was actually built with wooden slats on the dirt beneath, an interesting choice but fair, given that holes are annoying to repair.
Wood wasn’t exactly in short supply.
Only Mala entered the store, revealing just a handful of 20 black crystal coins much to the merchant’s disgust, which rapidly turned starry eyes. The minting on the front and back of the coins triggered that innate response, one formed by nights listening to the stories of their abandonment to the calm belt. But the other side of him, the adult who favoured wealth and trade, immediately knew the material.
Mala only haggled for a few short minutes before the man vanished into a backroom of the store and fiddled with some sort of safe made of stone. Interestingly, its arrays blocked her ability to see what the man did, not that she’d rob him, and just a minute later, he slapped down a stack of cotton bills on his counter.
“1500 Balums, please do count it,” The soft cash was an uncommon sight for Mala, but with metals being so valuable here, it was a magnificent waste to use them for currencies. With thirty notes in the stack, each worth 50 Balums, she stored the cash in a Dimensional storage ring and thanked the man for his time. No doubt, those coins would be melted down before the sun set.
However, the money they received for just a small handful this time was stupendous. Double what they received per coin on the human continent, roughly speaking.
Perhaps the merchant wildly undercut them, but did it matter?
In the early afternoon, they eventually found an inn willing to house them all, mostly because this ‘inn’ was actually just a set of small two-room houses that stood besides one another. Icy didn’t even need to do anything special to enter as he could fit through their wide doors. Each of the buildings had thin wood walls, rattan flooring, and either straw or leafed roofs. A lot less impressive than the buildings used as permanent residence or stores.
However, as nice as the wealth and actual housing was, it was impossible for anyone to do much. Speaking aloud would reveal they knew Baranot, a language common over in the human continent, but over here?
Not in the slightest.
Learning it wasn’t exactly quick either. And they dedicated a fair bit of time to learning the major elven language in Avril Port, but then things went sideways all of a sudden.
Icy did have a record on the few major languages in this calm belt, and Mala told him which one this island used, but then he needed weeks to both write words into his Mind palace and learn to pronounce them. After just one day in the city, they already felt like claustrophobic rats, forced to hide and stay quiet in fear that the vindictive innkeeper might notice them.
[Second growth phase completed]
He informed the rest of that change through the Soul Link, but it was tough for any great mood to exist. This just meant he couldn’t get stronger purely by sleeping and eating for a while, not exactly a great thing to realise.
Some benefits existed at least. This place did actually have techniques for Mithril ranks, however none of them appealed to the group. As such, they just purchased some skills and sent Darak off with the rest to request his learning materials from a church here. Fortunately, Manus didn’t care that much about money in his churches. In fact, everything given by priests was just redistributed amongst the many less successful ones who required support to stay afloat.
So, Darak ended up getting two spells for the 400 Balums he offered. One healing, and one defensive. Their group’s offensive might really couldn’t be scoffed at, and really it was magical attacks which left them concerned most.
Mala and Icy alone couldn’t cast spells fast enough to prepare against such things.
Divine spells were special in that regard, in that they didn’t depend on spellcasting in the slightest. They focused on the concept of ‘creation’, using divine power directly to force a change. It was for this reason that priests could heal wounds nearly instantly without any flaws.
He explained it to the group long ago in their lone travels without the two interesting additions, but never had to mention it as Icy already knew and felt it too.
Deep within every priest’s heart is a small sliver of gold light, an intangible object that links every one of them with their chosen god. An object made purely of Divinus runes, and the only way for a mortal to transform mana into divine power.
Darak headed back to the places they all stayed in and looked over the two new spells which had been placed in his mind.
He’d be using these a lot for a while.
* * *
Standing out from the homes of wood, one particular building was a manor constructed purely of white stone which shone in the clear skies of the calm belt. This large, three-story building housed the island’s president and his family. In particular, the tall, stocky man in a white admiral outfit bit his lip whilst tapping a coin against the gold-trim mahogany desk.
This mahogany was a rare sort from a mana gatherer tree. And finally, he placed the coin down, one made of black crystal.
“A secured storage deep in the ocean near the Stormwall… Quite an unlikely story. Though they certainly have the strength to investigate that place.” He didn’t really care about how they got the coin. In fact, he knew that these things were just collectors’ items these days. Anyone with a lick of intelligence would have melted it down and repurposed it into a useful item otherwise.
“You think they traded with outsiders, sir president?” He looked towards the secretary who alone kept him company in this room. She stood at all times, in most cases making notes of his requirements at any time.
“Obviously not. They’d have sold it for far more in that case. An informant told me that one of the Stormbreaker voyages near here towards the west ended up with one less ship than expected. It was lost somewhere in the wall… But why would they be carrying these?” He couldn’t make sense of it. And for now, left the coin on his desk.