The group’s atmosphere changed immensely from this point onwards, he did not dare interact with the frightening human and even his niece remained silent for once. He wasn’t sure if he should rush ahead to speed things up or maintain his pace, but no matter what the man didn’t raise any complaints.
Step by step, quiet second by second, and what felt like the longest night of his life… It all accumulated to an unbearable force on his psyche just begging for him to screw up somehow.
There wasn’t even wind to calm down his frivolous thoughts, the man’s aura utterly suppressing that force of nature as well. He didn’t know what he got himself involved with, but there had to be a small chance that this man left him alive… hopefully.
The distance from the winter’s hope tree and the battlefield sounded long, but that only happened due to his own low movement speed. The group reached it after just 20 minutes of walking and the hundreds of holes all over immediately had him dropping his head. Trying to form some sort of explanation, he said, “This place holds a lot of magical plants and no predators… Well, except for that one at the back.”
“I have no interest in your battles,” a cold and harsh reply completely replaced the relatively kindly attitude from earlier. He was a bit disappointed by not even knowing the thing’s identity, but he couldn’t truly blame the man.
“The bones are underground, I dug down in search of older plants untouched for years.” While consuming bones for power isn’t the most ridiculous thing, it took certain requirements in normal cases. If he claimed to be capable of consuming all bones then it increased his value as a research subject.
“Stand by me.” His command came unexpectedly, but still the hatchling followed. Walking over to the side opposite Raccelline, he waited for the man to react. But of all the things which happened, he could have never anticipated the magic used.
All three rose up in the air ever so slightly, the effect of flying strange but not unforgiving. At first he just imagined it to be a way to quickly traverse while boring a huge tunnel… The next spell he used was not for digging.
One by one, rings appeared in front of the man, finally hitting six. Six rings are the limit for ‘regular spellcasting’ which could only mean one thing…
The rings inscribed with dense runes collapsed into a point like all normal spells, but did not activate, instead remaining as that small ball of powerful energy. A stable finger touched the point, methodically dragging it through the air to create a set of seven symbols. Just one is the sign of a master true spell, and yet this went well beyond that.
He gulped before quietly muttering,“A Sage… You’re a Sage.” A being who approached the very pinnacle of power on any of the eight worlds, and to think he was so kind just moments ago. But the dragon also laughed internally at being amazed by the aura released earlier… This man had to restrain almost all his power!
“Yeah! Uncle is great! My dad always says I’ll one day be stronger as well!” The young girl beamed at the memory, not at all realising the implications of such a thing.
The seemingly simple-looking characters written glowed in front of them for a few moments before exploding into shrapnels of light, all around them he noticed the snow simply disappear. Not teleported away or melted, but literally stopped existing.
“Is this destruction magic?” He’d seen a few mentions of it throughout the books, but such spells were so far above him that they never really registered. No one responded to his question as they began floating downwards, snow vanished as soon as the group moved near it.
“The location?” He stopped thinking too hard about things with the mental link providing a new message, leading him to check his mana sense for a direction.
“Still further down, I’ll tell you when we’re level with a bone.” The man simply nodded and continued descending at a consistent pace. Travelling down about a metre a second meant it still took quite a while to reach. But once there, said, “Just over there.” With a leg pointing outwards it did not take long to finally approach the bone ball. Naturally, a Sage could see the litter of bones as well as these balls, but never did he expect what laid within to be the items of interest.
He saw how the magic around them dissolved half the ball away just on approach and it only stopped as he saw the ordinary seeming bone within. While Raccelline and himself remained outside the ball, the man didn’t hesitate to drop right in and pick it up, grinning as those runes glowed bright and tried to take control.
Not that any mana nearby listened, all completely tied down by the aura of a Sage.
“Young dragon, tell me, do you happen to recognise these runes?” He told him with a blatant smile, knowing full well what these were himself.
But the hatchling knew better than to stay quiet, replying with, “They’re one of the five great languages… Well, one of four. Is it Divinus?” The man nodded, proving his conclusion correct as well.
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As for why he knew it to be one of four.
Where else could Draconic have originated from? It simplified a great language, which allowed for hatchlings and younglings to use it! Naturally, his memories included spells in this great language, and he figured it out of just hours after seeing the bone.
“But this alone is not enough to be divine… Have you been to the bottom of this place?” The results weren’t a complete surprise as even he doubted the power of these bones, but with his head shaking it caused the man to place the bone down and walk towards him. “Let’s see how far down it goes.”
He could feel the anticipation in the air, this Sage actually placed high hopes on this place! And to think he only knew of it due to the Nexus providing bloodline names. Another six ring spell formed which were drawn into an identical set of runes, the same destruction effect activated once more and the group of three flew downwards at incredible speed.
From mana sense alone, the Elder guard bones left the periphery of his sensing in just a second, yet they travelled at that speed for at least half a minute!
Thousands of mana filled objects passed by with haste, and in the process he saw at least a hundred of such bone balls… Some of them being several times stronger than the one which almost possessed him.
But soon they slowed, he picked up on the reason immediately as well. Once more receiving a fright as a compressed point of mana so powerful now existed below them. This was nothing like a firefly in the night, but a blazing star almost single-handedly blinding the sense!
They approached it, snow and ice continued to vanish, but then they came to a complete stop. Below them rested a layer of polished blue stone actually withstanding the incomprehensible spell. The man spoke aloud, only some of the words recognizable to him. “Aquamarine prymite for a shell? That’s… troublesome.” He looked over to the two following, only in a spot of trouble as most methods to break through would instantly kill them. A hint of sincerity appeared on his face though, hidden moments later. “It’s just a month of waiting, nothing that long…” And while he claimed that, a pained expression still formed as a strange device appeared in his hands.
The golden device was like a large clock, but instead of a face held large gears which rotated about the outside. He believed it was similar to an astrolabe, but wasn’t sure. However, he couldn’t really see much else, the small object held incredible mana and also distorted his sense.
When compared to the star below him, this thing was like a flickering flame. Not to say it wasn’t impressive though, exceeding the girl’s mana by dozens of times! His sense of scale simply couldn’t comprehend the levels being presented to him.
As the man fiddled with the tool, slowly moving gears on its surface, the three of them rose up quickly. Soon the blue stone resided at the edge of his mana sense, and he became curious how they’d pass through it.
It did not take long to receive an answer.
A loud click sounded out as though something locked in place, and the man dropped his golden tool. They all watched as it plummeted like a rock, but a purple light began to form on the surface. It made him uncomfortable, nauseous even, and he instinctively tried to pull away.
Fortunately the sensation vanished as it fell further and hit the blue stone, neither of the two things damaged in the slightest. The purple light grew significantly stronger before finally…
It blasted outwards to create a field of purple, like dye colouring the world around it, and soon dispersing. For just a few seconds an orb appeared and disappeared, from his point of view nothing else seemed to happen, except noticing that the device seemed to contain no mana, clearly using it all in that process.
However, once closer, he realised that the originally mana-rich blue stone was as dry as the snow around it! He knew what about the purple glow gave him that sense of nausea. His bloodline at its core resonated with mana, anything capable of nullifying it had to be a natural weakness.
The man only had to kick gently to crack the stone, moments later smashing a hole through it. He wasn’t able to see it with mana sense, but this material was over a metre thick!
But now within, several Light spells lit the room. What he saw was not at all as expected. The Sage’s claims of a ‘divine relic’ left a sense of something like a powerful blade, a weapon capable of felling Sages with ease.
Instead, he saw twelve giant corpses, all in crumbling mana, stand around the crumpled body of another. Their bodies all retained some strangely calcified flesh, and the curled up one in the middle proved to be the source of all this mana. He could feel it.
A pulsing. A throbbing.
Something of such intense power it drew on him once more… but this time he could fully resist. It was no possession, but truly his own greed being drawn upon. The power to enhance such minute emotions was never good to encounter, but there was little he could do to hide the thoughts.
“After so many years, I finally have it. My path to a Great sage,” he said with disregard to the other two, placing them down besides the standing giants and quickly walking over to the curled up corpse.
A single hand snapped apart its body, limbs breaking instantly as they hardened after so many years. And finally, he flipped the torso over to reveal the source of power.
A simple bone necklace.
Bone chips of varying size decorated the accessory, all strung together on a frayed twine. However, it could not be clearer that the entire necklace emanated pulses of pure power unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
Carefully retrieving the necklace, the man held it gently before placing it into some sort of storage item. Perhaps it wasn’t even an item but instead a spell, either way, he had what he came for.
“A corpse of a demigod, a shame it’s fallen to this state. It holds some use at least.” Taking out a short knife, something you’d more likely cook with, he ran the edge all the way around its head. Simply jamming the knife into that incision and pushing caused the top of the giant’s skull to fall off and reveal its brain.
No longer pink and fresh, it was instead more of a stone covered in those same shimmering runes, the only difference being thousands swimming around this ancient brain. Gently pulling it from the corpse, the thing as large as his torso wasn’t as heavy as imagined.
But just as he planned on placing it in storage, a spark of mana appeared within.