A long night passed in the president’s manor, and throughout he came up with various plots and plans to deal with or use these humans. But in the end, he simply couldn’t see any opportune way that they could enhance his grip on the island. It seemed impossible for his men to take action, capture the group, and then claim something extraordinary from the people…

No, they would see such an action as the bare requirement. In which case, what he needed was to make them believe he completely sided with their views.

“Spread rumours that some humans from their continent have arrived and snuck in. No need to send any guards or patrols. In fact, reinforce the gates but do not give any specifics out. It’s pointless to kill them, perhaps even dangerous,” he gave out an order and sat back for the first time in hours.

All the Mithril ranks on the island were under his command, so he didn’t worry about any unintended problems taking place. Gold rank warriors are strong and problematic, but it was possible for those weaker to hide in front of them and escape. In which case…

Things might go very well, or in the worst case, he could just claim that things were out of his hands as the civilians did everything.

“Perfect... Kia, pour me another glass and get over here,” he said to his secretary with a smirk. She didn’t need to be told twice and placed down her papers. It seemed the president was quite happy with the final decision, to feel so relaxed.

* * *

For the past day, the seven of them couldn’t do much besides stay in their small huts and wait things out. The Soul Links gave them a way to talk at the least, but it only made clear just how restrictive this place was. Mala did practically everything, as they couldn’t risk being caught out, and to avoid having to explain how they had more coins, they would hand over parts from beasts they hunted. They planned to sell these things in the first place.

But the rush to sell these things came from the night before, when everyone awake overheard some drunk locals talking throughout the night. Whilst hardly an issue as silencing spells blocked out such noise, the topics which caused dozens of natives to jeer in unison were far from good. While the drunkards could hardly tell, it was plain as day that some less tipsy few purposely spread ‘rumours’ which got the group heated up.

Rumours about a continental ship crashing in the Stormwall. Rumours that some of the crew or passengers survived. And most troubling, rumours that they very well might be in the city.

Money no longer mattered. They needed to sell what they could and purchase anything of use. Techniques, skills, spells, equipment, and perhaps some reagents.

The gigatusk not only had an obviously useful set of tusks, but with a thick hide and such huge size, at least a few sets of armour could be made from what remained in good shape.

Bones, tendons, scales, blood, and most organs could be sold for a fair bit of wealth. In the end, just the few gold tiers they hunted came to 3500 Balums. For reference, if they haggled then Mala could have easily sold the 20 black crystal coins for 2500 Balums, but at the time, they weren’t so worried.

The next morning, you couldn’t go outside without hearing people talking.

“Can’t believe they were able to sneak in like that! Aren’t the guards meant to apprehend them?”

“Serves them right! Passing by like we’re lesser in some way, hope some of them died on the way here.”

“Supposedly, they’re warriors as well. I’m sure Tela would kill them all.” Dozens of conversations, and it was tough to focus on just one at any time.

The children were significantly less gory, but that did not make them innocent. Like the adults, they argued who would beat and cripple those humans from the continent fastest. Some speakers were related to those Gold ranks, making arguments quite heated.

It was almost a strange antagonism compared to what the natives showed to others like them, while aggression occurred quite often, such open discussions on killing and crippling did not.

By lunch of the day, things were bad.

Mala hardly felt safe walking around crowds in the city, but had successfully purchased seven skills, while Darak hastily purchased five more divine spells with the leftover cash and some magical plants they gathered but could not use. In the end, everyone found it way too risky to spend even another minute inside the walls of a city whose name they didn’t even know how to pronounce.

It didn’t take much to see that the gates were all more than well-guarded, and the warriors all around practically prowled in hopes of finding anyone who stood out. Was this the city’s plan? Block the exits with numbers and have the uncontrolled warriors search them out?

Certainly, a plan that any half-competent ruler would create, allowing them to reduce casualties on their own men while achieving their goals.

But none of them had any plans of being captured today, and a short conversation through their Soul Link quickly formed a suitable method for escape.

Maintaining a rather casual and slow pace, they walked towards the city’s low wooden walls while Mala cast invisibility spells on them all. From there, making it a breeze for everyone to hop over without being seen, and just in case, Icy did his best to restrict the mana which escaped from her spells. Five invisibility spells, and one Instant Shift for all the humans, Icy followed suit by teleporting across the wall as well before they simply ran for it.

From what they knew, this city was originally founded here because its land was objectively worse than all the islands north of it. As such, the three islands northwards were all used for farming, and large catamarans allowed for hundreds to sail across islands without much hassle.

Meanwhile, fishing was also a major source of food here, as was diving for various underwater wildlife. Even ordinary folk set up traps on the seafloor for crabs, lobsters, and other crustaceans.

In fact, those were generally nice islands, and each sported a small village that focused on growing crops for that year. People from the city swapped every so-often to form a stable balance between dedicated farmers and not forcing those from their families. It would be political suicide to ever repeat what the continents did to their people.

If it was any wonder what initiated the hatred between those from here and the continents, it would be worth looking at why humans even lived here. And if you travelled further along the belt, settlements of elves appeared, not to mention places where the two races lived together…

Because this place was once a prison.

Low-value criminals that wasted prison space but also did not garner the death penalty were chained up and sent to the calm belt for the rest of their lives, a practice which both continents made use of for decades. However, after such a thing stopped those criminals made lives here, eventually having families which started communities. And one would imagine those children would be absolved of their parents’ sins… surely?

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Yes and no. To show where the spite came from, both continents just refused to help extract the people of the islands due to a combination of distrust and economic reasoning.

Manus required priests in the calm belt though, and so in time a private channel was set up to allow priests a way on and off the islands. Including those natives who trained as priests. But these days… Actually, the empire offered refuge to some thousands of natives every year. It was just a drop in the bucket compared to the few millions of individuals living across the almost 30 cities in the calm belt.

The hatefulness and how it breeds endlessly is easy to see with such context.

As for the lone island to the south, precisely where they headed back to now. It was too much trouble to clean up and utilise. Before the city even rose up, quite a few mithril tier beasts already laid claim over it but were too evenly matched to actually dominate it…

As time passed and this island was left to its own devices longer, two of those already troubling beasts actually evolved and now had the ability to hit master tier. But as neither tried to journey to the city, everyone in charge ignored the issue.

Even if, historically, that’s always a bad idea.

Now a fair distance from the city, everyone just ran along the water to reach the sandy shores once more. Still using the Soul Link to speak until Icy cut his links off, finally reminding everyone else why they even had such things.

“I suppose we’ll just stay here until we can cross the wall ourselves… We’ll probably need a raft to rest on as well. Things were rather problematic as of now.” It seemed like the only way to get across would be hitting mithril tier so that they could use Assisted Flight and cross the wall. It was possible that Mala evolved before Icy too, in which case she could do it. He shared his thoughts with the rest, “Right now, I think only Intermediate true spells could get us out… Which means you need to evolve, or I need to go up a whole tier.”

No one liked either option. While Icy was, in theory, nearing an evolution, that could still be anywhere from just a few assimilations away to well over ten. The quantity of bloodline energy he needed increased, but never consistently.

“Why do you need to be a whole tier higher to cast Intermediate spells?” Korridan picked up on a point first, perhaps because Mala was too deep in her own thoughts.

“I don’t have anywhere near enough mana to cast so many of them… it’s not a matter of multiple casts, but due because the one I can think of would use all my mana in two casts.”

“But you said you know a way to consume souls to cast higher tier spells? Or was that unrelated?” Korridan’s point completely reminded him of something he’d completely forgotten for months now.

He’d been completely ignoring souls this whole time, but the man was right. With enough souls casting Intermediate true spells was easy! He wouldn’t even need to sacrifice a drop of mana, although a balance of souls and mana would be best…

How long would it take to complete his heart’s first transformation here?

If dedicated, he could now complete around 10% a month. Compression casting sped up the process somewhat, which just emphasised the insane time requirements of having to select and transform individual bits. But if his heart underwent a complete change, it should increase his max MP by a considerable factor. Perhaps a 30% increase?

Not to mention something like a 25% increase just from transforming his ice cream into crystals.

On top of that, his passive mana absorption would double instantly from this completion. Not that such speed compared to the whirlpools that stuffed him full of mana whilst below half-full.

All rough estimates, of course, and on top of that, he had to capture a huge amount of souls to test how many were required for each Intermediate true spell. Assisted Flight lasted about two hours per cast, and with their strengths, it was easy to travel a few hundred kilometres in that time… This all seemed very possible in a slightly longer amount of time.

However, the problem with the spell is that it wasn’t merely a cast and done spell. It required a constant supply of mana! If he were to guess, then perhaps just trying to maintain five cases at once would be pushing things, but that wasn’t really the problem when compared to the lower store of MP he’d have every cast. Using it seven times was simply impossible!

Icy gave his time frame, saying, “One year seems about right to get this done. Hopefully, we don’t draw the lords’ attention.”

“That’s still quite a while.” Korridan couldn’t help but dislike the tropical location. Not because it wasn’t a rather beautiful place to live, but because he couldn’t be sure whether or not locals might come to hunt them down in the future.

No one knew the answer to that, unfortunately.

Also, he gently nudged his head towards Raccelline, as to remind Icy of the things they had to do. But really, how could any of them even hope to save her father without at least one of them becoming a Sage or hitting Cornem rank? He didn’t even like the idea of heading back until he reached supreme tier, for god’s sake!

“A year is good. They’ll forget about me by then… right?” Raccelline played with the larger necklace given to her at those final moments by her father, now understanding just how powerless her uncle was to stop such an attack back then.

She’d also grown to understand her father’s mind a bit, knowing why he sent her to a hermit who lived in the woods rather than the empire’s Great sages or Primordius warriors.

If her dad didn’t think their home was safe, then neither could she.

It didn’t take long for her to end up in someone’s arms, where they comforted her for the rest of the day, meanwhile, Icy and Mala put off building a proper place to sleep on the shoreline and used Earth Creation at length to make a large platform which remained solid in the sand. Then just came building the house itself, to which they left to the other five. Raccelline wanted to help out as well, and so began the time strangely spent on an island.

However, before the year of training began, Icy wanted to hurry and complete another evolution. He already understood the principle behind manipulating souls, and while the boost from Soul capturing certainly made it far easier, it was far from enough to deal with gold tiers.

In fact, until he began training, he couldn’t even forcibly grab the souls of steel tiers!

Losing the Nexus benefits this time round would sting, but it was foolish to think he could hold off an evolution for an entire year. And so, without the group’s help, he tried to separate a weaker gold tier beast from any others and began a fight.

His first against a gold tier… And it went horribly.

Before long, the already sizable youngling dragon sat on the corpse of a tiger no smaller than itself. Around three metres in length and a metre tall, his speed with the spirit easily outclassed it, and yet his spells somehow fell short. As did almost every single one of his attacks.

Naturally, these were just Apprentice true spells, but even then, it shouldn’t have been so weak as to leave only tiny little wounds. His Plasma Arcs only left unnoticeable seared slashes, like a dagger faintly slashed against its skin but causing no real damage. It was easily able to destroy all his barriers with just a few moves, its claws capable of cutting through them like paper.

And worst of all was its innate abilities, three of them in total.

One seeped explosive blood onto its claws. After slashing, it detonated whether or not it hit a target. This was easy to dodge, and thus he never received it apart from accidentally being caught in the resultant blast during the first exchange. Its second ability was an annoying flame coating which covered its body, making a melee approach impossible.

And that last one. That damn last one…

It spat out a beam of concentrated flames for several seconds. This attack was far from lightspeed, but good luck to ever dodging it once fired. He had to react according to the tiger’s mana flow the whole fight due to it.

Out of anger, he threw a Psychic Bomb halfway through and noticed a stream of pale pink fluid drip from its nose, even if the tiger didn’t stumble or falter for a moment.

Why!?

Obviously, a psychic attack was highly effective against an unintelligent beast without any psychic affinity! But he refused to stay reliant on psychic attacks. Their absolute effectiveness would only disappear in time.

And for that reason, it took 13 Plasma Arcs, 12 Wind Guillotine seals, 5 Necrosis, and 3 Earth Swallows, the last of which actually kept it in place for the other attacks. Furthermore, all of that had to be done under the effect of a Magic Barrier of that respective element to finally fucking kill it.

[Killed Level 37 Flamewalker tiger! Received 459% EXP]

It took 20 minutes to finish that fight.

Only dodging with the spirit, no psychic spells, no soul spells, and he really regretted not learning an Intermediate true spell for offence now. His mana refilled to full around 50 times, it was a stupid thing entirely.

But why the hell were his spells so much weaker than Mala’s?