(21 Days Left)

I spent the rest of the afternoon running circles around various seedy and not-so-seedy shops, procuring the necessities for my departure. My most expensive purchase, for eighteen gold, was a backpack with a Space expansion rune which made the pack’s interior a 1x2 meter space that could technically double as a tent to sleep in if it was placed sideways on the ground. According to the salesman, the Space could even be expanded if I knew a Space mage willing to pour power into the runework.

Another costly acquisition, for five gold, was a dark-gray cloak with a gold ring pin covered with runework that made me unnoticeable in the crowd.

The next thing that cost an arm and a leg, or seven gold, was lightweight leather armor covered in runic arrays that bounced off small projectiles, sword blows, and low-level spells. It also cleaned itself and made me less sweaty while wearing it. The armor ran on an Illatius-produced crystalline battery that lasted about five minutes in a brawl. Any mage worth their salt could recharge the battery by pouring mana into it.

Not knowing exactly where I was heading to, I also procured two weeks’ worth of non-perishable food, a sleeping bag, and a survival kit for starting fires and bandaging up bruises.

I also considered buying an armacus bracelet but balked at the price of three hundred gold for the damn thing and the fact that the artificer selling it needed to thoroughly investigate the client for a week or three before allowing one to buy the glorified mage’s omnitool.

Sadly, I did not know any orphan-born artificers.

Thus clad and completely ready to depart the city I was born in, I briskly walked to the Acadia Skyway Central Station. Skyway Central was the city’s only departure point, and it was absolutely packed with people. In fact, I had never seen so many irate people in one place. When I had visited Skyway Central a year ago, having climbed over the wall while my fat master was sleeping after having consumed far too many alcoholic concoctions, the station was nowhere as busy.

The reason for its business had soon become apparent to me. Departing and incoming mages were being thoroughly frisked with scanner wands, newly installed rune-covered iron gates, and even gods damned bees!

I saw a very large wizard sweating bullets while a beemancer made his entire bloody swarm crawl all over the man and his opened suitcase. It was a ludicrous and gut-wrenching sight wrapped in one horrifying package.

Having observed the mad commotion filling the station, I turned off the eye-redirecting runework and helped an old, frail-looking witch in emerald robes carry her oversized luggage from a feathered birdkin taxi to the line of departing passengers.

“Do you know why the station is so busy?” I asked the woman. “I’m waiting for my auntie to arrive on the Illatius-Acadia skyship, and she’s taking forever.”

“Oh, sonny.” The old witch shook her iridescent dark-blue hat, which twinkled with blue sparks on the interior. “It’s the damned topaz dealers.”

“Topaz?” I asked.

“A rather nasty drug from Illatius that leaves one paralyzed and dreaming of false heaven.” The witch sighed, leaning on her cane. “Baron Nicodemii the Third finally had to put his iron boot down and locked up the station tighter than a dragon’s hoard. Apparently bees can smell the stuff,” she added. “I dread when my turn comes to be checked by them.”

“Yeah, that seems excessive,” I commented, my frown deepening.

“You have the look of a dying puppy.” The old witch examined my expression. “Is everything all right, young man? Are you that worried for your aunt? She should be fine. They mostly harass the men.”

“I… erm, no. My sister is very sick,” I lied. “She has an incurable, exceptionally rare magical malady. The System told her she has twenty-one days to live. My aunt might be able to help her, but it is doubtful.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the witch replied with a gentle look. “Perhaps you could take her to Illatius? The archmagi of Nemendias Arcanarium are the best of the best in our nation; they might be able to heal her with a uniquely designed hexagram.”

“How much would an archmage-designed treatment cost?” I asked.

“Three hundred gold at the very least,” the witch replied. “An archmage’s time is very valuable.”

“We don’t have that much,” I muttered with a frown.

“Well, there is another way… for those lacking finances,” the dark-emerald-robed woman said. “At the edge of the Basq Empire where the Acadian mountains meet the ocean, there is a dungeon called the White Tower of Castiglia. They say that those who reach its 100th floor are granted a single wish.”

“A wish-granting dungeon?” I blinked.

“Dungeons are known to grant artifacts of incredible power to those brave enough to conquer them,” the witch intoned. “The White Tower is far less random in its rewards compared to the Infinite Chasm Dungeon of Illatius. From what I recall, it’s theoretically possible to reach the 100th floor of the White Tower in two weeks’ time. The skyship ticket to Castiglia from Acadia is only seven silver too!”

“I see.” I mulled over her suggestion.

I had not considered conquering a dungeon as a means of my survival. If anything, dungeons very often took the lives of adventurers braving them. Master Milgrim’s journals and books documented numerous magical fungi and beast parts acquired from the Infinite Dungeon of Illatius and how obtaining such was often paid for in human lives.

As I got closer to the departure gate, standing by the old witch’s side, I noted that all single male travelers were pulled out of the line and dragged into a glass box where a rather annoyed-looking tall and thin wizard waved an extremely complex-looking magitek crystal wand over them.

The wand lit up quite often, and then the male magi were dragged off somewhere.

“Those poor mages are likely getting interrogated by a scryer or a scritimancer,” the witch commented. “It’s a rather slow, laborious process of hundreds of questions being asked under the glow of truth runes. Hopefully, a few more weeks of this and the baron weeds out all of the topaz dealers in Acadia. I have a cottage in Castiglia and traveling there has definitely become a pain.”

This was an enormously problematic issue for me. If that scanner wand detected the discrepancy between my LV 47 crystalline heart and my LV 0 body, I would absolutely be arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned.

I knew that while my worthless ass would rot in a cell, absolutely nothing would happen to my master. Alaric Milgrim was best friends with a magistrate and was therefore beyond the reproach of the law. He only got a small slap on the wrist for his electrocution experiments on highborn students, and only nearly killing the baron’s granddaughter got him kicked out of the local arcanarium.

I bid adieu to the old witch, activated the eye-redirecting runes, and swiftly departed from Central Acadia Station, my heart aching for freedom that I wasn’t able to attain today.

Enormous shadows cast by skyships from overhead taunted me as I sulked, walking back into town.

I considered my options.

I could return to the orphanage and… No, that was tantamount to suicide. Master Milgrim wasn’t known for his forgiveness. If anything, he would electrocute me until I turned black and blue.

I could rent a room at a cheap inn somewhere nearby and wait for Skyway Central to bloody clear up. Surely, Baron Nicodemii couldn’t employ a cadre of beemancers and that Glass Box mage forever? It could be a feasible option if I had more time.

Hiking through the Acadian mountains down to the ocean would take far too long, several weeks at best. I would be dead before I even got a chance to see the crescent waves or the glass beach.

I considered my resources and friends. Bolsh was a dick and would probably shake the rest of my cash out of me if I asked him for help.

Mila… was an option. I had no idea where she lived. Maybe I could catch her after work, ask to sleep on her floor in my new bag-tent? The apothecarist had near-eidetic memory and read tons of Master Milgrim’s journals. Maybe she could help me figure out what to do next, help me find some way to extend the deadline, or… help me understand how to use the crystalline heart.

Alessii Saint-Rian was a Space mage. In my heart I held the key to bending space. I just had to figure out how to open the door.

If I figured out how to make my own distance-crossing door using the dead mage’s specialization, could I simply gate around the world for free… perhaps?