As I made my way towards the Hayan Mountains in the car Chancellor Ashford had sent for this purpose, I was relived to note that the effects of the alcohol from yesterday’s party had mostly dissipated by now. As my chaperone drove me towards the northern gate of the city, which served as the official entry and exit point for the Hayan Mountains, I couldn’t help but smile, sitting by myself in the backseat, at how different the circumstances were from when I had to sneak into the Serpentine Forest to train. Although I would have ideally waited until I was in slightly better condition after the congratulatory bash my parents had thrown for me yesterday, I only had a few days left until the academy started, and absolutely couldn’t afford to waste anymore time.

My parents were over the moon when they found out I had been assessed as a B-rank fire elemental after Magiharu, and even more so when they found out I would be attending Ashford Academy. I wish I had recorded their reaction when Chancellor Ashford himself came to escort me home on Magiharu and deliver the news himself; I think my mother might actually still be in shock, days later, but in a good way. Although I wonder what they would have done if they’d found out I was a lightning elemental, or that my actual rank taking the dual-elements into account was A-rank. Thankfully, this was not something they or anyone else would find out until I graduated from Ashford Academy, possible in large part due to the Chancellor’s support. Not only had he agreed to support my growth unconditionally during my stay at the academy, but had also provided me with the subject of my last request which I now held in my hand.

This small, rectangular, metallic card which fit neatly into my wallet, engraved with the insignia of the House of Ashford, was in fact a provisional adventurer’s permit; and something only one of the top houses in the province could provide. Although mages could choose a ‘path’ or career-class, from amongst adventurer, medic, technician, and hundreds of others, only after they had graduated from a magic academy, in special cases, prominent houses had the ability to grant non-graduates a ‘provisional’ permit for a specific path. Of course, this wasn’t frequently exercised, as the house would basically be guaranteeing responsibility for any and all of the mage’s actions on the basis of it’s long-standing reputation. The fact that Chancellor Ashford had agreed to issue this single-entry provisional adventurer’s permit to allow me to enter the Hayan Mountains without asking any further questions, had shown me more than anything else how seriously he took our partnership.

‘We’re here Sir,’ the driver called out to me, disconnecting me from my thoughts.

As I got out of the car, I was awestruck once again at the sheer magnificence of the four gates which surrounded our capital city; truly modern wonders of architecture and engineering using magitech. I was once told on a field trip to the Serpentine Gate that the four identical gates were roughly the size of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, although it was a strange comparison given the gates were basically gigantic arches, albeit embossed by glowing runes, shimmering mana stones and state-of-the-art magitech. Although I could have written an entire thesis of the importance of gates, I had learned to summarize my thoughts since studying for the written test on Magiharu.

Essentially, gates were what had allowed our kingdom to become the world’s leading economic and military power. Around three years after the Aurora Magilis, our monarch, the Silver King and his most-trusted advisors, the Knights of the Round, figured out a way to replicate the effects of a gatekeeper’s dimensional portals on a large scale. A gate not only acted as a gigantic portal connecting all of our kingdom’s major cities for almost instantaneous travel, trade and commerce, but also served as a gigantic magic wall; so when four gates were placed north, south, east and west of a city and activated, a magic barrier or dome would encapsulate that city, making it almost completely safe from external attack. 

If it hadn’t been for the creation of the gates, our kingdom, which stretched non-continuously from East to West and North to South, all around the globe, would never have been created. And we would probably still always be on the lookout for attacks from mana creatures, like many of the other kingdom’s still do. At least, those not allied with us and hence without access to our technology or the gates. Honestly, the thought of human beings in some of the other kingdoms, slowly moving from Point A to Point B in flying contraptions called ‘airplanes’ amused me to no end.

As I reached the northern gate, I was greeted by unwelcome stares from the guards stationed at the ‘exit lane’ until they saw the House of Ashford insignia on my permit, which seemed to change their tune in a heartbeat. After I exited through the gate onto the other side, which was similar to passing through a small opening or ‘door’ in the great barrier, I had to walk for about an hour until I reached the Ivory Post; a kind of small ‘adventurers’ town’ that had popped up, catering to adventurers making their way up the Hayan Mountains. 

Of course, I had already packed everything I needed in the silver storage ring I was wearing on the left middle finger; another gift, albeit a surprise one, from Chancellor Ashford himself. I could still hear his calculated voice echoing in my head saying, ‘You know a silver storage ring is about as good as it gets for high-ranked mages, even I can’t afford a black storage ring, so please take this as a token of my friendship.’ I shrugged at the thought of what this ‘friendship’ would cost me later on, but it was really convenient having your own little pocket dimension to store all your belongings and manifest them at will. And silver storage rings were indeed the second-highest tier of this particular magical artifact, able to fit about a small room’s worth of contents. I could only imagine what one needed a black storage ring for.

Even though I didn’t need any supplies from the Ivory Post, I decided to stop at the little café that had opened up and have a hot meal, since I didn’t think I’d be able to have one again for a few days. After ordering a chargrilled steak and an ice-cream milkshake, I sat down at one of the square wooden tables towards the corner of the room, which seemed to be made for fewer people. I decided to eavesdrop on a few of the conversations in the room between groups of adventurers until my food was ready, although it was ultimately a fruitless endeavor in terms of meaningful information gathering. 

I had already expected this somewhat, but it seemed like most of the adventuring parties, i.e. groups of adventurers, normally kept to the forest and foothills at the base of the Hayan Mountains without venturing further north. The biggest reason, apart from the generally unexplored terrain of this massive nature zone, was that high-rank mana creatures liked to hunt for weaker monsters near the base of the mountains, preventing most adventurers from going further up for fear of being caught. I didn’t blame them though; apparently even lower down, it wasn’t uncommon to run into B-rank or even A-rank mana creatures, which would be difficult to handle unless the party was made up entirely of A- and B-rank mages; which was a rare sight.

Still, my goal wasn’t to go to the foothills, but further up, towards the higher altitude cave systems which had been previously discovered within the medium-sized ranges of the Hayan Mountains. These caves were the only known habitat of a particular mana creature that I absolutely needed to find before starting my studies at Ashford Academy; the Purple-Winged Imperial Eagle. While I had told the chancellor that I planned to keep my lightning element under wraps until I graduated from the academy, I knew that in practice this might prove difficult. Ashford Academy was a breeding ground for powerful mages from all across the continent, and I was aware that I might come across a situation in the future which I could not resolve without the use of my lightning element. 

And that’s precisely why I needed to find the Purple-Winged Imperial Eagle. This particular B-ranked mana creature was famous for hunting during thunderstorms due to its ability to use up to mid-level lightning magic. So, I’d come up with the ingenious idea of defeating this mana creature in battle and forming a mana-link with it; allowing me to keep it with me as a familiar, to act as a kind of ‘camouflage’ if and when I did need to use lightning magic. Since the bird was infamous for only using lightning magic, it was my hope that if I did use it, people around me would assume it was my familiar which had cast lightning magic and not me.

As my food finally came out, I let out a mental sigh, choosing to dig in rather than overthink things further. After all, although I had learned the spell needed to form a mana-link with the mana creature, assuming I even found it, there was no guarantee I’d be able to do it. Although my mana capacity was high enough for the spell, forming mana-links required a mental fortitude and ‘strength of will’ I wasn’t sure I had. While Summoners, who were mages adept at bonding with and fighting using mana creatures, naturally possessed the skills to mentally align with certain types of mana creatures after their awakening, I was an elemental without this automatic advantage. So, I guess I would just have to hope for the best.

After finishing the meal and paying with my WristNAV, I started to make my way towards the foothills, eager to start my journey upwards. As the small town behind me became smaller and smaller, I could now feel a noticeable chill in the air, as the path heading up the snow-covered foothills came into view. If it was this cold down here, I wondered what the highest peaks of the Hayan Mountains would be like; suddenly thankful that a magical barrier existed to protect nearby Seoul from such extreme temperatures. 

In order to shield myself from the sheer drop in temperature that even a fire elemental would not be able to survive in without insulation, I extracted a long teal-tinted snow coat from my storage ring and wore it over my existing outfit. Since I’d needed something light but sturdy to wear, I had spent almost the entirety of my savings purchasing the all-black, high quality ‘adventuring outfit’ I now wore under the snow coat, along with mountain boots of the same color. I chuckled at the thought of looking like snow sort of blue riding hood going off to face the proverbial wolves of the mountain.

I spent about two days slowly trekking up the lower-part of the mountains, partly to acclimatize my mind and body to these new surroundings, and partly because I still came across occasional groups of high-ranked adventurers even this far up the trekking trail, contrary to what I had thought earlier. Hence, I had to tradeoff a boost in speed from lightning coat for keeping my secret, well, a secret. However, making only a few stops to quickly eat high-calorie food from my storage ring had paid off, and by the third day, I was confident I had left all other adventuring parties behind. After taking on more look at the interactive map on my WristNAV, I used lightning coat to breeze through the pre-charted route I had planned on using, at a speed at least a dozen times faster than before. 

My active mana sense stretched as far as I could possibly handle, along with the speed boost I received from lightning coat, allowed me to completely avoid the mana creatures in the vicinity of the trekking trail, even high-ranked ones, which was surprising. After about another day spent trekking up the now blatantly steeper trail that led to the mid-level caves which had been discovered recently in the Hayan Mountains, I was feeling quite elated; knowing that I’d soon reach the known habitat of the Purple-Winged Imperial Eagle I was searching for.

However, when I had almost reached the entrance of the large cave visible nearly half-way up one of the smaller mountains in front of me, the sun slowly reaching its peak behind me, I ran into a nasty surprise. I had forgotten that the mana creatures I had been searching for were daytime predators, and that it was around this time, noon, that they would be on the hunt. I was soon reminded of this fact however, as I noticed the pressure from the flock of Purple-Winged Imperial Eagles diving towards me from the clouds above; my teal-tinted snow coat and blatant use of the lightning element acting as a homing beacon of sorts for what could only be described as an entire army of the winged mana creatures.