Once their rest day was over, the next day was spent to fully test out their capabilities. Zeke created a field with his barrier, which has jumped up in its potency thanks to his advancement. As the two newly-made Journeymen stepped inside, they began to spar like usual–the only difference now was that they were both more powerful than ever before.

As usual, Mikella was the sort to go all out right from the get-go. But he honestly couldn’t had it any other way.

Even in the midst of Zeke’s own barrier, ensuring the safety of their surroundings, it was enough to cause the ground to shutter from their pummeling might.

Mikella swung her sword to tackle at Zeke’s weak spots, which was generally his head or heart. Her Dragon Eyes glowed with a passionate yellow, her manic grin riddled with dragon scales terrifying to look at for common men. To Zeke, it was an alluring gaze that he can’t seem to keep away from.

He really needed to focus as the sword almost took off the corner of his head. His senses flared as the intensity of the fight grew.

Her attacks multiplied, her sword transcending beyond common sense. Zeke wasn’t sure whether it was due to Mikella’s improvements of all her weapon masteries to Rare or due to her improved body, but her attacks were sharper and weightier than before.

But Zeke also improved by leaps and bounds. His new rune tattoos flared, activating his Dexterity to the fullest. He also realized a few things along with his various bouts with Mikella throughout the year, thus enforcing both his Strenght and Endurance buffs as well.

Her sword swung straight down at his right shoulder, getting him to tilt his body in a precise manner to avoid the blade. He kept repeating the same action, each swing occuring half a microsecond at a time which would just be a blur to the naked eye. At the same time, his Unarmed Mastery took over as his used his open palms and wrist to re-direct the flat blade of the sword away from his body, allowing him even better control over his dodges.

He realized that just upping his Dexterity doesn’t necessarily make him fast. Without the foundation, the body can’t work properly. Without the proper Strength, there would be no direction that would help his body move in a proper way he wanted. At the same time, without Endurance, his body would break apart from the sheer amount of force necessary.

But what he learned the most was that it didn’t work out properly if he only put his physical points at the exact same number. With a higher Dexterity, medium Strength, and lower Endurance, he found he could move faster and easier, allowing him to avoid using up so much stamina during a fight. While redirecting her sword strikes with his fists, high Endurance, medium Dexterity, and low Strength would aid a lot more than just with high Dexterity and Strength.

Thanks to his new updated rune buffs, he could easily alter the way his body needs the stats to be in the middle of combat, which was absolutely necessary as Mikella’s new improvements only made it difficult without them. Keeping her busy, Zeke’s Parallel Thought took over his floating pens, drawing on a conjured barrier below them without her knowing.

But just as Zeke thought he got the upperhand, Mikella immediately ceased attacking and drove her sword straight down–right at Zeke’s conjured barrier where his pens were drawing a rune.

Which was exactly what Zeke planned.

As soon as her sword broke through the barrier, the runes had already activated and a whirlwind of fiery butterbirds flowed, surrounding Mikella in a heartbeat. She growled, realizing her mistake of being played by Zeke as he jumped backwards to get some distance.

Zeke thought about using his new skill, Aether Blast, at her. But considering his attunement was responsible for transforming it, he didn't want to risk it going out of control. Instead, he prepared several rune-etched barriers to launch a multitude of spells straight after Mikella.

Within the swirl of distracting and literally flaming butterbirds, a pair of outstretched dragon wings appeared amidst the flames. Mikella then flapped her new wings and blew away the entire stream of butterbirds into non-existence, flying up all the way into the air and missing every spell that went after her. Zeke cursed as he looked up to find Mikella trying hard to keep herself into the air.

She was actually flying, but it was harder than it looked. Zeke knew he could easily take advantage, but decided to take it easy to let her spread her wings, quite literally in this case. She faltered, her right wing flapping more than her left, causing her imbalance as her body flew up and down in a frenzy. She was gritting her teeth, showing actual fangs from her transformation, as she tried to keep herself steady and graceful to no avail.

“You good?” Zeke shouted, cupping his hands to the sides of his mouth.

“Shut up!” Mikella snapped back, her voice loud and shrill. “You’re ruining my focus!”

“Hehe, Sissy, you gotta flap both wings equally! You want Brucey to teach you some tips?”

Zeke turned to the side to spot Clara watching with glee in her eyes at her flailing sister. Brucey himself actually looked over her shoulder, his tiny head and eyes peering at Mikella with actual disappointment on his face. When Brucey chirped near Clara’s ear, Clara responded.

“See? Even Brucey is disappointed in you!”

“Shut it, Brucey! I only just got my wings two days ago!” Mikella shouted, this time sounding more than disturbed over Brucey’s comment. Zeke just shook his head as Mikella finally managed to keep herself steady, though she had to stand ramrod straight in mid-air with her arms extended to the side T-posing for all to see.

Her wings stood straight as well, causing her to glide ever so slowly downwards. With that, she picked up the pace and flapped her wings once, twice, slowly and ever so surely keeping them in a steady rhythm. Despite her screaming and flailing, she was already doing a plethora more progress than anyone with wings can do on their first day.

Seeing her, Zeke decided to do the same. It was time to reveal his newfound masterpiece to the world (AKA Clara and Mikella).

His arms spread wide, he closed his eyes as he channeled his mana straight into a new rune tattoo he hadn’t put in before. His mana surged all the way across to his back, where his newly complex rune array lay at. It took over several hours of mind-numbingly painful carving, with Cloud adding in some necessary input–but it was finally possible.

The runes on his back glowed intensely, enough for them to show through his shabby battle robes as a burst of air flowed from his person. The runes did their job as the magic flowed all around him, creating a sort of ‘field’ that surrounded only Zeke’s entire body and nothing else. Otherwise, it would ramp up the mana consumption.

What he created on his back was something like a nexus for all of his rune tattoos. If his runes on his arms and legs were the individual rune arrays, then the rune on his back was the literal backbone for all of his runes. It was what made the interchanging stat gains across the status board a lot easier than normal, and there were other benefits as well.

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The ‘nexus’ portion on his back wasn’t just to increase his stat gains and control. It would become the foundation for most of his runic spells. In one way, he could create a runic spell with his pens, but the foundation tattooed on his back can increase the power of the spell outside of the normal Intelligence stat gains from his tattoos. It could also make some of the more complex spells, like altering light and shadows which are more intangible than the normal elements, feasible to work with. In other words, it was a ‘general everyday use’ type of rune array that could make all sorts of spells possible.

Inspired by Mikella, he made several effects come into place. First, he made his body weight almost like a cloud, keeping him aloft. Next, he made a rune spell with a barrier placed on his body to fill it with air mana. It worked almost like a healing spell, and with Zeke’s experience with seeing the inner parts, it didn’t do any damage to his own body and instead helped him become even better lifted. Though that alone was enough to consume 80% of the entire rune array mana consumption. Using that air mana allowed him to also make short bursts of propulsions from his hands and feet.

So, in short–he created a flying spell.

His feet were lifted off of the earth, sending his stomach dropping and his heart beating like a drum as he slowly floated upwards. Inch by inch, his breathing ramped up as his excitement soon took over. Finally, as though they had only just noticed–the girls turned to him in surprise.

And screamed in the same manner.

“Holy shit!”

“Wow! Bobo! You can fly?!”

Mikella shouted, actually becoming flustered enough to cause her wings to go out of order and making her flail again. Clara kept jumping and shouting, though Brucey just laid on the jumping shoulders not even giving a flying hoot that a man was flying.

Zeke laughed maniacally, his inner child roaring in satisfaction and even his adult senses were forgotten as he spun around, and even did a flip over and over with no issues. Granted, he was a little too hesitant in ramping up the speed, and even with this slow amount equaling to a snail’s pace, his mana was draining like a faucet flowing out of a sink.

But he was actually flying. With a bit more work with his other rune buffs, he could actually keep this up for longer periods of time. And the stronger he gets, the more power he could put into the flying array, as he and Cloud calls it.

Seeing Mikella trying, and failing, to keep still, Zeke floated over to her side and caught her. It nearly took both of them out of the air as her body messed up his own rhythm, but after a bit of flailing about, the two finally managed to stay still in the air.

His hands holding onto her own, he stared at her in wonder with her doing the same for him.

“Guess you’re not the only one needing to learn how to fly,” Zeke chuckled, knowing exactly how corny he was being and reveling in it.

“Oh my god, Zeke, I hate you so much,” Mikella said, though her smile was plastered on her face, absolutely glowing in delight. “It took me to become a Draconian to fly, but here you are already.”

“Well, someone’s gotta keep an eye on you while you’re flying about,” Zeke grinned, and Mikella pushed hard on his shoulder, letting him go and causing him to stumble and flail about on his own while trying to use propulsions to keep steady.

It was a lot harder than it looked.

“Mean!” Zeke shouted back, his eyes spinning but still noticed Mikella sticking a tongue out at him. God, she was cute when she did that.

“Bobo! Sissy! Let me in! I wanna fly too!”

Seeing the little girl totally ecstatic, the bout was considered over as Zeke turned off the barrier, allowing the now flying Clara to come towards them. Brucey’s wings were as majestic as usual, becoming as large as Mikella’s own dragon wings with Brucey’s tiny head still laying over Clara’s shoulder. It turned out it was a special feature for Brucey, built specifically to carry someone over no matter their size.

Zoan’s explanation about Brucey’s abilities also mentioned that as long as it continues to grow, it would unlock more abilities to aid in Clara’s survival. So it was no wonder that Brucey was a well-welcomed addition to the Ashton family.

The family themselves then had their own private flying lesson, with Clara being the teacher for once as she–despite Brucey doing most of the work of flying–actually provided some good advice on how to handle flying with their bodies. It was a surreal experience, but he actually learned quite a bit, and he could tell that Clara was totally ecstatic to finally teach them a thing or two.

Mikella, on the other hand, still had some big sister ego as she tried to learn on her own terms, only to actually end up falling straight into the ground. Zeke could have helped her by stopping her descent into the dirt with his barriers…

But he didn’t. He wanted Mikella to learn her lesson about taking advice from Clara. That did not earn him any favors as Mikella now decided to chase him in the ruse of playing air tag. Clara, of course, joined in on the fun, and now–somehow–the two girls were chasing Zeke around the air.

Seeing his own work, Zeke didn’t consider using flight anymore. It was just too much of a mana drain, and just walking on his barriers would be better for height advantage and cost barely nothing. Still, it was a pretty fun learning experience.

…..

The otherworlders sat beside each other, Clara happily playing with Brucey when Ana came around. Zoan, as usual, was probably at home reading a book as far as Zeke could guess. He didn’t think of her being such a bookworm, but he supposed even angels had hobbies when their powers were sapped.

Zeke was currently regenerating his resources with an off-hand Meditation, feeling that if he ever wanted to advance his skill, he’s going to need to put a full stop on everything else and focus on that. But he never felt the need to do so since his main resource, mana, is constantly regenerating at a rapid pace.

Mikella stood by, breathing smoothly without breaking a single sweat. Her Journeyman body made even that little inconvenience disappear just as he had.

“Man, I wish this can just go on forever,” Mikella finally said, her eyes peering over at Clara with a glowing smile. “Just figuring out how this stuff works and eventually getting stronger without any worries.”

Zeke wanted to agree, he really did. But the more he wished for a life like that, the more he found himself thinking how and why he was there. He knew Mikella felt the same as soon as her smile disappeared and a frown replaced it.

“Wow, even saying it feels cringey.”

“There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to anything,” Zeke said, but Mikella tilted her head.

“I know. But I have to ignore literally every problem that is coming for us. I don’t like that Cronus guy, and I don’t like the idea of leaving because we’re forced to. It feels no different than when we first arrived here.”

Zeke winced. “Yeah… you’re right. But, at least we’re stronger this time. And we have a lot of value compared to before. Cronus isn’t just going to throw us away or anything like that.”

“I guess. I still want to just have a normal life–at least, a normal life for a warrior on an adventure or something. Not this whole tower stuff that is actually messing up the world.”

“True…” Zeke closed his eyes. “Having a house would be nice too. Just having our own place, leave it with some self-maintenance runes and go on an adventure, then come back to a clean house ready to rest in…”

“Sounds like a dream,” Mikella smiled, resting her head on top of her arm while huddled to her knees. “I certainly wouldn’t mind that. I still feel like crap for freeloading Cloud and Val’s home all this time. Maybe it’s better this way.”

“Yeah, and we keep eating their food too,” Zeke grimaced. “Plus, they might be married for a long time, but I hate having to take their privacy away like that.”

“They sure seem like it doesn’t bother them,” Mikella admitted. “But I still don’t like it. Still, I wish we could leave on better terms…”

Zeke and Mikella had this kind of discussion before, and just as always, they divulged straight into depressing themselves. That’s why they usually spar it out to avoid thinking of the future like that. Otherwise, it’s coming right back to getting depressed over how little control they actually have over their lives.

Just when Zeke was about to change the topic, his senses caught wind of someone he recognized coming from behind him. Being in the barrier of the town, Zeke could feel some folks’ mana signatures, and he recognized this sort of mana instantly. He turned around, realizing that Mikella had already turned to face the new person walking towards them. Clara looked back, her eyes widening with Brucey instantly hiding behind her–but then quickly popping his head up and glaring at the newcomer, ready to strike him down with his tail.

“… You’re back,” Zeke said, his eyes widening at the surprise visitor.

“Is that really so surprising?,” Zyler said with a hearty chuckle, raising a hand. “Why wouldn’t I come after hearing you two got into Journeymen?”