Translator: Leo Editor: Frappe
Over the course of the next several months, Angele had been routinely staying at his residence and focusing on studying the basic courses transmitted to him by Henn. He had asked the wizard apprentices from the headquarters to deliver food and water to him every single day.
He communicated with Mincola through the telescope and the communication rune. Angele had also sent several messages to Hikari, Stigma, and Reyline through the signal obelisk.
Stigma responded to him twice but both Hikari and Reyline only replied once. It seemed that they were all busy with their own missions.
Angele had also sent messages to Isabel and Nancy. The message was sent through the signal obelisk in the headquarters which was then transferred to the signal obelisks in the Molten River area. Messages addressed to the west coast would only be delivered once they collected enough messages to justify the cost.
Sending messages to the west coast through this method was too expensive and it would take about two years for the messages to be delivered.
Angele did not tell Nancy anything about his current situation, but he told her how to reply to his message.
He wanted to make sure people knew he was still alive so that Nancy and his family would continue to be protected.
Henn rested for another two months after transferring the basic courses to Angele, but she asked Angele to go to Star Dew Mountain first and find the female wizard named Vivian. If not, she would not transfer the level 2 spell model to him.
Angele packed up, putting the badge on his robe, and headed to Star Dew Mountain.
Star Dew Mountain Range.
Early in the morning.
Atop one mountain, parts of black rocks were covered by white snow.
Right in the heart of the mountain—or rather, a volcano—thick white smoke was slowly rising from the magma chamber.
Frigid winds blew some of the snow into the air. A stench associated with rotten eggs due to sulfur permeated the air.
Kata-kata
A man wearing a thick white cloak was slowly climbing up, heading to the top of the volcano. The snow-covered narrow path was a bit slippery.
He was wearing a white hood and was holding a silver staff with his right.
The surface of the path was covered by thin layer of ice and it was topped by the thick snow.
Ha…
The man took a deep breath as he stopped. He turned to the side carefully and looked down.
He could not see the foot of the mountain at all. The thick clouds had blocked his sight completely.
Are you kidding me…It’s over nine thousand meters tall…
The man took off his hood, revealing his smooth skin and glowing eyes. This man was Angele.
White snow had fallen onto his hair and his eyebrows, but it quickly disappeared after a second.
Angele had been using the Fire energy particles to keep his body warm. For that reason, the snow close to him had evaporated.
‘Henn, are you sure this is the right place? It’s getting ridiculous…’ Angele shook his head.
‘I’m sure the location is correct. The environment in this area is the worst but the view is great. This is also the only volcano in the Star Dew Mountain Range.’ Henn’s voice was deep and hoarse. ‘Keep climbing. You’ll know why once you reach the peak.’
‘Are you serious?’ Angele looked down again but the only things he could see were the clouds. He had started to feel a bit dizzy. ‘The altitude is even higher than the airships…’
Angele took a deep breath and started advancing again. He left a trail of deep footsteps behind as it was hard to walk on a snowy path.
‘I didn’t plan on using High-Temperature Forcefield in this manner, but the temperature is…’ Blue light dots flashed in front of Angele’s eyes.
The current temperature was displayed in his sight.
‘-81.5 degrees Celsius.’
‘I doubt I can survive this bizarre environment without the forcefield. That must be why I didn’t see any normal creatures here.’ The chilling wind here felt like daggers cutting his skin. The energy particles stored in the chip was used to support the forcefield. The good thing was Angele could restore the energy particles easily.
After using the mentality compression technique, Angele could now absorb energy particles at a much faster rate.
The only problem was that there were not much Fire energy particles in an environment like this, with only about 10 degrees of energy was being restored every hour. Nevertheless, it still reduced the consumption of the spell.
Kata-kata
He kept advancing on the twisted snow path.
It almost looked like a white ant trying to climb to the top of a humongous mountain.
After about half an hour, he finally reached the crater of the volcano.
Apart from the crater being covered by black rocks, Angele did not see any snow. The temperature in this place could easily melt the falling snowflakes. However, thin layers of ice still coated a few areas of the crater.
Angele stood on the crater and narrowed his eyes. He wanted to see what was within the magma chamber.
‘That’s the place? Henn?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ Henn responded right away. ‘The elders of Elemental Hand are dealing with something else right now, so they don’t have the time to monitor the activities of the formal members. This place is supposedly a meeting area of the younger members, but it seems that they don’t come here often. No one has restored the temperature matrix.’
‘Younger members? Are you related to them?’
‘Yeah…They are my family members and I’m their teacher. The lectures were usually held here but that was many years ago…I think Fin already left and Tidania is still missing. I don’t know how many of them are still alive…’ Henn responded, sounding a bit depressed.
‘But what about now? Is there still people here?’ Angele was concerned about this. Since it took him quite a while to reach the volcano, he did not want his efforts to be in vain.
‘There should be someone here if you’re lucky, like…Vivian.’
‘What should I tell them?’
‘Just tell them you’re one of my students. It’s easy to prove, so don’t worry about it,’ Henn responded.
‘Can’t you just leave my body and talk to them?’ Angele pursed his lips.
‘There’s no point in me doing that. I’m too weak right now. They will understand and even the ancient wizards did not know how to turn themselves into the soul form. I don’t want to become the test subject of some sick wizards. Your life is connected to my soul right now, so we’re in the same boat.’ Henn sneered. ‘Arisma is not my only enemy. You already know how I lost my physical form.’
‘I need to be more careful then.’ Angele was speechless.
‘I had spent a lot of time teaching all those students but not many of them know my identity. Only the strongest of the students knew who I was and all of them were Elemental Hand’s core members.’ Henn explained. ‘I don’t know about the others, but Vivian will certainly help you.’
‘So she’s the most loyal one?’ Angele was curious.
‘Loyal or not, I do not know. But her parents died when she was young and for that reason, she treated her only son very well. Her son was one of my students but no one else knew that Vivian had a son. Vivian thought her son died during a mission, but I can convince her that her son is still alive.’ Henn chuckled.
‘What do you mean?’ Angele narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to tell her that I’m her son…’
‘It’s a good plan, eh?’ Henn lowered her voice, ‘From now on, you’re the son of Vivian Fenrir, and my student. Check your right shoulder right now.’
After a second’s time of hesitation, Angele pulled his clothes to the side.
Zero’s warning echoed in his ears, ‘Unusual energy activity detected at your right shoulder. Eliminate it?’
A dark red birthmark slowly appeared on his right shoulder and it looked quite strange.
Angele asked Zero not to do anything and he was now feeling relieved by the fact that the chip could warn him about Henn’s unusual behavior.
‘What are you doing to my body?’ he asked in a cold tone. Angele was not mad at all but merely wanted to dig out more information.
‘Don’t get mad. Her son did not die during a mission. He suffered from a special disease and I failed to save him, but I knew that there was a birthmark on his right shoulder. Vivian should know about the birthmark as well, so she should believe you just for that.’
‘Are you sure it was just a disease? Don’t tell me you killed him.’ Angele kept asking. He was asking Zero to check his body condition to make sure that Henn did not do anything else.
‘It was just an accident…’ Henn was not concerned. ‘Vivian lost her ability to bear children due to a problem that happened during an experiment, so she will be very happy once she knows her son is still alive.’
‘Are you sure this will work? She won’t trust me just because of the birthmark.’ After all, there were just too many holes in this plan.
‘Don’t worry, you have me. I know a lot more about Vivian’s son than Vivian herself and you also have the harpy’s bloodline coursing through your veins so it’s hard for her to do any test. My mentality wave will block all soul-checking spells. If you can give me access to your mentality wave, I can even modify it to make it similar to the one her son had.’
‘Interesting, you rested so long just for this moment?’ Angele narrowed his eyes. ‘Show me the mentality wave pattern. I can do it myself.’
‘Sure. Anyway, I’m just making a fair trade with you. Since I need you to become stronger and kill Arisma for me, I won’t do any harm to you. I will even make you my inheritor and provide you all the knowledge I possess so what are you afraid of?’ Henn sneered again.
‘That sounds beautiful and all, but I’ll most likely die during all the tasks you will ask me to complete if I’m not cautious enough. You’re hiding too many things from me.’ Angele himself knew that there was no such thing as free lunch in this world, but he couldn’t simply do whatever Henn asked him to.
