"Here we are, Frozen Mountains. Everyone it's dangerous area, be careful. If you spot anything unexpected, don't try to be a hero, and just call others." Said Merlin.
"Yes, sir!" Every young mage answered. The Frozen Mountains is a region on the south of Phoenix Kingdom. It is covered in snow all the time, and temperature was well below zero.
Everyone was shivering in the cold. Enchanted items that could help them, are very expensive and rare. The academy provided them only with clothes that protect them from freezing to death. They could use magic to help them with cold, but they would need to constantly use mana, which could result in lack of it during the fight.
"Nice weather" After Jax said that, he felt envious gazes, from all directions. He was the only one except Merlin to have enchanted clothes. 'It's not my a fault that I have materials to create most things.' Weather here wasn't a problem for him. He just liked to be warm. They walked in the snow for some time until they found frost ape. Frost apes were like the apes from earth, just bigger with white hair and able to withstand extreme cold.
"Students, knights will not always be with you. You need to find a way to deal with tough enemies yourself." Said Merlin. Expeditions like this, other than to accomplish its goal, were made to make knights understand and respect mages and vice versa. Knights were mostly put against, powerful monsters that were flying or used magic. Mages were put against monsters that were very tough and durable that they need to fight for long period of time. Merlin watched and nodded.' They aren't bad' Mages which were proficient in earth magic bound frost ape, and others attacked it. An hour later, frost ape was dead. Mages sat down on the snow, exhausted from the battle.
"Okay everyone, we will make camp here for an hour, try to regenerate as much mana as you can" Merlin said. Everyone set up tents and make a fire. Jax leaned against the tree.
He was thinking about his prototype.
'You used mountain glass as a lens, I don't think you can get anything better' Said Hephaestus.
'He is right, but you should look at formation at the part when it's going to concentrate, I think we can change few symbols and delete more to gain better efficiency' Sabrina suggested. While they were talking about, someone approached him.
"Do you need something?" Jax asked. The person who approached him was a boy, probably 14, close to graduation.
"Why did you not help with fighting?" He asked frustrated.
"Well I am not here to help you fight, also if I did fight, you would get zero experience. Btw, who are you?" He asked, of course he could use [Appraisal] to get information, but for him, it wasn't useful in this situation.
"I am James from Fire Crow clan." He said proudly. 'Branch of royal family? And he doesn't know me?' Jax was surprised. Average people only know his name, he doesn't appear in public, but heads of clans or other important personal have his pictures.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, that you hide behind sir Merlin." He mocked him loud enough for other people to hear it. Merlin wanted to act, but Jax send him a message to stand down.
"Do you have any proof of what you are saying? Or you just want to hide your own inferiority complex by insulting me? I don't care about your opinion, you aren't worthy in my eyes to care about." Jax casually replied and closed his eyes and continued to talk with Sabrina, Hephaestus and the rest. James was mad, but he couldn't attack Jax.
Merlin just shook his head, 'Foolish child, you are trying to go against someone, who can crush you between his fingers.'
When the hour ended, they picked up everything and went deeper into the mountains.
Some time later, they found another frost ape. They started to attack it. At some point, frost ape started to run towards Jax, who was leaning against the tree with closed eyes.
'Pathetic' Jax scowled in his mind. He knew exactly what happened. Jax was using constantly [Divine Sense] which granted him the ability to detect any entity living or dead and everything in radius of few km. Combined with [Mana Sense] he was able to detect that James used a spell to make frost ape attack him. When frost ape punched towards Jax, he casually caught its big fist in his palm. Jax opened his eyes, and for everyone disbelief, he ripped off the entire arm of the frost ape. Ape started to howl in pain, but Jax just flipped over its arm in his hand, and he held it by sticking bone. After that, Jax casually waved it's ripped off arm towards ape's head, which flew away from the body. When the big body of ape felt in front of Jax, nobody said anything, everyone was dead silent. Thanks to his clothes, he didn't have any blood stains anywhere.
"The Battle wasn't long thanks to Jax, so we can continue." Merlin broke the silence. No one after that dared to bother Jax. Few hours later sun started to fall down.
"Everyone, night is coming. You need to be careful in the night" said Merlin. He wasn't going to help them, his job was to prevent their deaths, or protect from too powerful beasts. Everyone set up tents, some who knew something about formation, created some that masked their presence. Jax took some boxes from his sleeves and threw them on the ground. They started to change until they created small house.
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"Sir Merlin. Do you want to come over?" Merlin nodded and they went into the house.
The insides of the house were cosy, it had fireplace, kitchen, bathroom and everything house needs. Jax made tea for them.
"You know Jax about" Merlin started to talk, but Jax cut him off.
"Yeah, you don't need to apologise for James. I will send a letter to Elizabeth myself when we come back." Merlin paled. James was in bigger trouble than he could imagine. Jax stood up and went to the fridge and took meat and some other ingredients." Btw, what you like to eat?"
"I will leave it to your decision." 'He is strange, but he isn't a bad guy'. Jax prepared some steak, salad and other stuff. He wasn't the best cook, but he learned how to infuse mana and aura perfectly into food, which enchants its taste a lot. After they eat, Jax washed up and went to sleep. Merlin was fascinated by things in Jax house. 'I need to ask if I can get something like this for myself'. In the morning, Merlin asked about if he can get something like this. Jax smiled and agreed. He wanted to create a better relationship with Merlin, and by using Merlin create a new market for his products. When they exited the house, it went back to cube form. Jax picked them up and waited for Merlin to give orders.
"Okay everyone we will continue moving forward" Merlin ordered.
...
"That Jax is a monster" said one mage. Other covered his mouth.
"You idiot, what if he hears you? You saw what he did to that ape" the other mage said. He had chills every time he thought about it.
"Yeah, you are righ..." First one fell over.
"Hey, is everything alright?" Asked second one and helped his friend.
"Yeah, everything is alright... Wait is this?" First one saw that something black and long was sticking from the ground. It looked like a giant snake.
...
A few minutes later, Jax and Merlin were looking at this. Jax used [Appraisal] on it.
[Pipes: they connect XXX to XXX] 'Blocked information? That's interesting!'
"Jax. Do you have any idea what this thing is?" Jax always knew things, Merlin never thought about it.
"They are pipes that connect two places, I can't get more information from this"
"What do you plan?" Asked Merlin.
"I want to check it myself. You should look after students. I have a feeling it's connected to mutation" Merlin nodded. Jax took out a box which turned into his snowboard. He used [Divine Sense] to see if he can detect anything interesting nearby. He found that nearby his position is located mana geyser, which is in the same direction as one end of the cable. Jax wanted to check this first.
...
"So here it is mana geyser" Jax was near a deep hole in the ground. There are two phenomenons connected to mana. Mana geyser and mana vein. Mana vein is just a big amount of mana underground that affects the world above, for example better farming land or mines with magical stones. Mana geyser is when mana vein erupts in the ground and creates a hole that spits out mana. They are more powerful than mana veins, but are far less stable and harder to work with.
"So, where it is?" He looked around using his skills and abilities. He couldn't find anything, so he tried a different approach.
"If I can't find it, I can just look for a place that sucks mana." He didn't want to try because looking into mana geyser using [Mana Eyes] was like looking at sun using via thermovision. He used [Mana Eyes] and second later he closed his eyes.
"Fuck this was bad idea, but I don't have a choice" He looked again, and after few minutes he found the place. He started to melt snow and dig the ground. When Jax finished, he saw something strange. He found a strange, enormous square shaped container.
"It looks like the part that sucks in a vacuum cleaner. Well it has the same role" Jax looked at the top of it and found some kind of panel.
"It's interesting, there are several colours, but few of them have different writings to them compared to the rest" He looked at the colours that had different writings. Red, Dark Green, Black and few others.
"Hmm, these colours match elements that were recorded in abnormal levels in monsters. Red-Fire, Dark Green-poison, Black-Darkness."
'So, what do you think is happening?' asked curious Shiro.
"Something that use that mana geyser and change natural into elemental in that box have some kind of damage which cause energy to leak. And because it has lower quantity of these elements, it sent signal here to get more to compensate it. For now, it's not bad, probably damage is new and didn't spread yet. If it spreads, more and more energy will leak to surroundings. Mutation, contamination, all of that shit. I need to find it and fix it or turn it off for good." He shook his head. He covered everything back with snow and dirt. When he checked if it's properly hidden, he went off to the second end of that pipe.