Free Web NovelChapter 67: Chapter 67: Split
Arthur was done with the boss, but the rift remained open.
"I guess this is just one of those," he said.
"Ha. I’ll have to..."
He yawned.
"This is so boring. I wonder if the others are having much of a challenge inside."
Arthur wanted to head in, but he knew he couldn’t, at least not yet. He had to first wipe out the remaining orcs seeping out of the rift.
’It’s funny how none of them attacked while I faced their leader,’ Arthur thought.
’What was it Elijah always said? Oh yeah. Those things have a sense of loyalty. I guess I was the leader’s prey. I kind of like their respect.’
They fell to him one after the other.
"So what do we do? There are different pathways. I’m guessing we split up, right?" Roe asked.
"Yeah. We have no other choice," Lot responded.
"There’s three paths ahead. We’re four, so how do you suggest we split?" Andrew asked.
"I can easily handle my own. I’ll go alone," Lot said.
"Okay, chill. We are all the same rank besides the kid. I’m sure we can handle our own.
"I’d say we all take one path and have the kid join one of us. Probably you, since you made it here together," Perzeus said.
"Well, no. I’ll take the first route. Roe will take the second, and you two will take the third," Lot said.
"What? Do you even hear yourself? You’re saying we leave the kid to go alone?
"Him alone?" Andrew asked.
"No offense," he said to Roe.
Roe didn’t expect this comment from Lot or Andrew.
The way Andrew had addressed him earlier, he thought Andrew would at least respect him, and now it seemed like Lot was the only one willing to acknowledge him to some degree.
Lot was giving him a chance to prove himself. This was his interpretation of what was going on.
This wasn’t exactly how Lot saw it. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
Yes, the kid did need experience, but Lot wanted them to split up so they would be able to gather more intel than the other parties and ultimately cover more ground.
They claimed to be willing to work together and whatnot, but Lot was barely interested. He had a mission. He knew how important the emergence was. He wasn’t going to screw up.
He wasn’t going to give Merlin a reason to be disappointed.
He wasn’t going to give Solomon an easy leg up on him.
"That’s it. If you want to challenge my decision, then sure," Lot said.
"I’ll take this path. Roe, the second, and you two, the third.
"I’m sure you can handle yourselves. You’re not too chicken after staying seated at HQ for all that time now, are you?" he addressed Perzeus.
"I’m sure you can handle yourself. After all, we trained together back in the day, Andrew."
Andrew didn’t care. He believed Lot would honor his word and that they genuinely had a deal.
Perzeus was reluctant, but he agreed.
"You’ve got this, kid."
This was all Lot said to Roe before summoning his staff and zooming right in.
Roe did the same and waved the other two goodbye.
He was flying on his staff. This was rarely done by most mages. This is the reason the Temple of Merlin and most other circles used vans for transportation, as mana was expensive. Rather than use mana to fly or whatever, it was usually reserved for actual combat. When used for flight, it was usually to get to the rifts in the sky, not everyday transportation.
However much or little mana the flight consumed, it didn’t matter to Roe. After all, his mana pool was near inexhaustible.
He had nothing to worry about.
It’s the same reason a mage like Lot could use his staff casually for flight. His mana would obviously still be exhausted, but as an S-rank, his capacity to spend mana on minimal tasks was more lenient than lower-ranked mages.
Roe noticed he had been flying for a while.
Nothing was happening. He wasn’t seeing an end to the hallway. This was indoors.
"It’s so strange. We’re inside a building," Roe said.
He stopped flying and met the ground.
"We’re indoors. This hallway should have limits.
"It should.
"It’s probably someone’s technique or something. There has to be some kind of explanation.
"I have to be vigilant.
"I can’t let my guard down even for a minute."
Roe wanted to apply mana to the walls.
He reached out his hand. His goal here was to sense the possible mana pulse, or in the case that it was a technique, he planned to disrupt it by feeding his own mana into the walls.
He retracted his arm, though. He realized this wasn’t a smart move.
"No can do," he said.
"It’s definitely a spell. It’s just probably not powered by mana. It’s got to be that faith thing again."
He was now stuck.
He could go back, but there was no guarantee the spell wouldn’t still apply.
’If the hallway extends infinitely in one way, what’s to say the distance back isn’t infinite as well?’ Roe thought.
He sighed.
This was the first actual tricky situation he had been in since awakening.
’What to do, what to do?’ he thought.
Roe sighed again.
"If it’s a spell, though, it doesn’t have to be magic," Roe said with a smile of relief.
He activated a spell of his own.
Potential Trope was now active. Roe had a plan. He knew the hallways were static, but since a spell was applied to them, the walls of the hallway would at least possess some form of energy.
Roe would use Potential Trope to siphon off all that energy, and should this work, he should be able to break the spell.
One minute passed. Nothing happened.
Then another.
Still nothing.
Roe was starting to lose confidence, but he reminded himself that the spell required time to actually siphon off energy.
He began thinking of something. This resulted in a wide smile.
He was making no progress, yet he was laughing at something so random.
He was laughing because he remembered when he had just gotten Kinetic Trope and thought it would be useless, as the energy that would return to him would be useless since he was an SSS-ranker and had no shortage of mana. He didn’t need the extra energy.
"Ha," he laughed.
"I never thought I would be in a situation where I would use Potential Trope like this. I guess things could work out with that spell differently in the future as well," he thought.
Just then, a surge of energy was fed into Roe. It was done.
Roe got up. He ran.
Ten steps.
That was really all it took.
He was now in a different hall.
"It worked."
