Terre stood on mist as he attached a transmitter to the back of the top south facing communication dish. After fidgeting for a while, he took out a small white box out of his Items Bag. In my vision, a familiar faint magical glow emanated from inside, although the outside was plain steel. An energy crystal was in the box. Terre connected the transmitter to the box with a small cord and the transmitter let out a shrill alarm. The sound ended as quickly as it came. He pushed buttons, then attached the power box to the steel beam and stepped back to double check his handy work.

He must have been happy because he took out a small disk — a shield barrier. Something I was very familiar with since we sold it at my family's shop. Terre attached the disk on the steel next to the power box then touched the disk. A circular shield grew out of the disk, the multicolored strands of magic weaving together tightly until there wasn’t a single gap. The barrier encased the transmitter, power box, and the communication disk they were attached to.

Terre jumped down, inspecting the barrier from afar..

I stood next to him, staring up at the magical orb.

Sure enough, I could see a sliver of aggressive red magic blending in with the vibrant colors. I knew Uncle's magic well enough to recognize the detonation spell. That thing really was rigged to blow if someone was messed with too much. Energy crystals were pretty stable, but the right kind of boom caused them to release their energy. And the spell hidden in the barrier was the right kind of boom.

I glance at Terre. "What if a monster sets off the barrier?"

He tilted his head to the side, thinking. "That's possible, but not as likely. If it blows, I'll know immediately."

"What?" I asked. "How?" Did he have a monitor on it?

He simply gave a cool smile and didn't say anything.

I stared at him, wishing I could open his brain and look inside. What was worse? Being vague, or purposefully withholding information? Ah, scratch that. It was definitely withholding information. I didn't need to know his deepest darkest secrets, but he could be a little more open about the System. I hated secrets, especially ones that involved me. Sadly, it seemed like my whole world revolved around secrets. Both ones kept from me, and the ones I kept from everyone else.

"Alright," Karmin called from the side, "let's get this door open."

I looked over to see her standing next to the A framed building. She looked at me expectantly and motioned to the flat gray panel.

"Why?" I asked. I cast one more glance at Terre, wishing that he'd change his mind and spill the beans for once, then walked begrudgingly over to Karmin. Did she call me over on purpose? To cut off the conversation with Terre? God, I was being paranoid.

Terre followed after. "The government wanted to collect the data from the station here. Weather patterns and such. That way they can accurately plan on how to fix the tower." He was tight lipped about the energy crystal, but apparently had all the time in the world to talk about this. He pointed to the roof.

I didn't notice before because it was all the same dirty gray color, but several solar panels were mounted over the rusting metal roof. One was shattered from when the tower leaned on the building, but the other appeared intact.

"They're hoping that the solar panels are undamaged enough to have powered the monitoring equipment inside enough to keep them running and collecting data all this time." He shrugged. "They also want to use the data to piece together how the events changed the environment's weather patterns and what not. I guess the weather used to be more extreme hot and cold in the area. And the government’s meteorologists want to know more about the change."

My brows rose. "That does sound important." Even though it didn't directly affect my life, I understood how it would be important for the rest of the world.

People in a whole, were desperate to know why the Gates appeared in the past. And to prevent it from happening again. It's common belief that it wouldn't happen again, but no one knows where that rumor came from or how credible it was. All they knew was if the Gates opened again, humanity probably wouldn't survive. It's taken us decades to get this put together as is, and there's still so much more to do before we can claim to be top of the food chain again. I mean, half of Europe was still unreclaimed wilds. Never mind large countries like China, Russia, Australia and the US.

"Big surprise, the door's locked. If we kicked the door in, it won't ever shut again," Karmin observed.

Terre frowned, inspecting the building with care. His gaze locked on a crack on the wall where the tower had leaned on. He walked over, took a dagger out of his Items Bag and carefully chipped on the crack until a quarter sized hole formed. "I'm impressed that this building is still standing. I hope it stays that way for a lot longer."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

I examined the roof from below. "I don't see any holes in the roof, and rust worms can't dig through concrete. I doubt they made a mess inside." But another monster might have. It just depended on when the stone giant took over this place.

"Let's hope you're right." Mist grew around Terre and spread across the wall, seeping through the hole he created. A second later, he disappeared like a ghost.

My eyes widened and I glanced at Karmin. "Did he just go inside?" I asked, pointing at where he used to be.

She nodded to the side. "Convenient, huh?"

"Yeah. I bet you guys never worry about locked doors, huh?" Finding an intact building without cracks and holes in the abandoned wilds was like searching for a needle in a box of metal shavings. Impossible. "Can you do that?"

She shook her head. "Nah. Warping in mist is special to his family."

I shook my head. "Bloodline doesn't matter to magic."

Neither does being a Hunter for that matter. I mean, take my family as an example. Uncle Maveric was a A ranked fire mage, my grandpa was an E melee Hunter before the Gates disappeared and became a normal human after. My dad was a human, my mom was a C melee Hunter, and we didn't know about Micah yet. As for me, well, I was just a freak of nature. First I was an E ranked melee, and now I'm a D ranked water mage with growing potential. But that's how all families were. There's no rhythm or reason to who becomes what. Genetics, exposure to magic, climate, none of it seemed to affect how a Hunter manifested — if they manifested at all. Fifty years of testing, and scientists were still clueless.

Karmin simply smiled. "Sure." What a nice shut down. So, did Terre teach her that trick, or did he learn it from her? I have a feeling it was the former.

"Well, are you two related?" I asked. "You both have mist magic."

Karmin snorted. "Do we look alike?"

No, not at all. Karmin obviously had latino heritage and Terre had white blonde hair and white skin. It wasn't just their coloring, their facial features didn't match either.

"Nah, we're not related at all. But we have been in the same class since kindergarten." She grimaced. "There's not a lot of kids around here, especially when we were young. There's a lot more people now, even though the school is still small. But it meant we ran into each other a lot more." She bumped my shoulder with a smile. "Terre's all suave now, but he was quite the stiff growing up."

"Karmin, don't teach Ria bad things," Terre called from inside. "I'm not going to open the door. The door's busted on this side, and it's smaller than it looks inside. I'll be out soon."

We both glanced at the building, then back at each other. And kept talking.

Thirty minutes later, I sat behind Terre as Ghost ran through the air. Levi hung on my shoulder, his head in the wind, enjoying the air. In no time, the tower disappeared from view hidden behind another mountain peak as we turned towards Mist Haven.

"You said there's going to be a map update?" I asked over the wind. "When?"

"Soon," Terra tossed over his shoulder. "They didn't tell me when, only that it'll take a couple days for the transmitter on the communication tower to troubleshoot and get running, then they were going to release the update."

I nodded. "When was the last time they updated the Guides like that?"

"It's been a long time," Terre admitted. "Years. It's not as easy as people think. Guides look and act like technology, but they are magic. It's harder to change magical functions, especially without the Guides present. It's as easy as changing a couple codes and then done. They practically have to rewrite the entire Map spell. And the Association doesn't have time to adjust each Guide individually, so upgrading every Guide across the country is a big deal."

I nodded and gripped Terre's armor tight as Ghost angled down, following the mountain slope. How can he stay so steady without reins or anything to hold on to? It was like Terre's pants were glued to Ghost's saddle.

Still, I leaned over and watched the forest zoom by below, watching the change in greens from tree to tree. From up here, it wasn't nearly as scary. I didn't have to worry about monsters hunting me, or turf battles. I spotted monsters moving below, but we were too high for them to reach us. Not that they dared to, anyway.

A blue ribbon caught my attention. I looked over to see the stream had traveled on cutting through the forest. In a way, I missed that river. It was convenient in so many ways. Traveling on my water boat, cultivating, and using it to fight. That river was a major reason I was still alive. It didn't have a name yet, so I should give it a good one.

Hm, Helpful Waters was a bad name. So was Ria River.

A flash of light below caught my attention. Frowning, I focused on a bend where the river spread out and created a marshy area. Tiny lights flickered between the cattails as a feline monster stalked a line through the swaying foliage. Something clicked in the back of my brain as I stared at the flickering lights.

I gasped and pounded on Terre's shoulder. "Terre!"

He pulled Ghost to an abrupt stop. ChoCho screeched and almost ran into us.

I didn't care, I was too buzzed with excitement. "Terre, are those pyreflies down there?" I pointed at the lights. The color was right, and it was a wet location. But it was a little far away for me to see clearly. "Please tell me those are pyreflies."

Terre was completely confused, but still looked where I pointed. "Yes, those are pyreflies. Why?"

My excitement went full throttle. "Can we go down there? Please, I absolutely need a pyrefly wing. Like desperately. My whole career depends on it."

Terre stiffened. "Your career?"

"Yes." After disappearing from my family like this, I was going to need an amazing peace offering to comfort Dad. The sooner Micah made that charm, the better. And pyrefly wings were the reason I traveled to Laramie to begin with. After everything I went through, I'd hate to return home empty-handed.