CHAPTER 118: IMPROVEMENT

The young emissary’s body crumpled and shrunk to a small point like he was being squeezed by an invisible hand. Within the blink of an eye, his body was nowhere to be seen any longer, almost like he had been deleted from existence.

The Exalted One tapped the large dining table with a displeased expression on his face before he let up his aura that pressed on the surroundings.

The other Exalted and Half-Exalted seated at the table gasped immediately in relief, finally able to breathe properly.

"Nothing has been going according to plan recently..." the Exalted One analyzed as he read through the letter by himself.

"...So the three dynasties are in cohort now...?" Yeneffer, the saintly looking Exalted, asked while still gasping for breath.

"No. They have found the means to create inferior Oracles with their conflux points," the exalted one shook his head. "The orders were from their separate oracles."

"Something is brewing... Our influence grows weaker... Both on other worlds, and even here." He turned his gaze to all the other Exalted seated at the table. "Arcadius." He called his son specifically. "How goes your search for that shadow?" He asked, drawing a variety of reactions from the others seated at the table. Most of them perked up at the word shadow, while some others with deeper information networks simply frowned like the Exalted One’s words had just confirmed some previous information they had.

Arcadius also frowned slightly before schooling his expression. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t really shocked. In fact, it was to be expected of the Exalted One. "There are eyes out for the Shadow in question, but so far there has been nothing of note... aside from a few low-level operatives lost in action." Arcadius reported.

"Investigate every lost operative. And report your findings to me immediately," the Exalted One ordered.

"Yeneffer. Any report on the whereabouts of the Freehold Sanctuary?" He turned to his daughter, who shook her head in response. The Freehold Sanctuary had always remained elusive to them for generations since its inception. There were ideas about the general location, but they had still never found anything at all. The sanctuary remained ever elusive.

The Exalted One expected as much, simply asking just for the sake of it.

"The same goes for all of you," he eyed the rest of them at the table. "I need results from every of your channels before the start of the Sojourn."

They all nodded in response with calculative gazes. The importance the Exalted One had placed on this particular shadow he spoke of made those who had no idea about it overly eager. And those who had heard a thing or two were even more eager to get started so as to take advantage of their head start.

For most of them, that would be their priority rather than the Freehold Sanctuary that had eluded them for generations.

.

.

Freehold Sanctuary. In the large training room...

Zephyr was hard at work, testing out various spells and noting the time it took to cast each of them. The greatest difference he could notice now was the speed and ease with which he was able to cast.

He had added a whole lot of spells to his arsenal. Different variations of water, ice and fire spells. He even had a few air and earth spells too. There was now a long list on his full status panel that he was thankful he didn’t have to look at every time. The only spells he saw at a given time were those relevant to him at that moment.

Aside from just spells, the Logic gates he comprehended and embedded into his mana node also significantly reduced the time he used for spell state transitions. He brought up the panel for it just as he sat on the floor to rest a bit.

SPELL STATE TRANSITIONS

Gas to Liquid

Execution Time: 0.48s (prev 4.01s)

State: Very Good

Gas to Solid

Execution Time: 1.14s (prev unknown)

State: Functional

Liquid to Solid

Execution Time: 0.51s (prev 1.01s)

State: Good

Liquid to Gas

Execution Time: 0.42s (prev 1.1s)

State: Very Good

Solid to Gas

Execution Time: 1.02s (prev 2.10s)

State: Functional

Solid to Liquid

Execution Time: 0.53s (prev 0.93s)

State: Good

His fastest transition states were between the gas and liquid states interchangeably. The loose particles were easier to mold than the others. Direct gas to solid and solid to gas were the slowest so far. Aside from them, in general, it now took around half a second to switch between every other elemental spell state.

"Progress..." Zephyr muttered, conjuring up a small orb of water from the air that he drank to quench his thirst. He didn’t have anyone his age to compare against directly, but he knew he was way above any of them in terms of casting speed at the moment. The fact that he was able to match Komi, who was a Tier 4 mage in casting speed meant that he should be able to comfortably match any Tier 3 Exalted or Half-Exalted... at least in casting speed alone.

He had been testing spells on his own for a few days now. Aside from Pascal’s short visit the day before, he had been mostly left to his own devices. Komi had been extremely busy, and even Sage Maximus who had extended an invitation to Zephyr for him to come visit his laboratory had rarely shown his face either.

Something was going on, he could tell that much. They seemed to be preparing for something in a rush... but what it was, he didn’t know.

"...meh. I’ll just focus on my own thing right now." Zephyr stood up from the ground where he sat, getting back to what he’d been practicing earlier—the earth spell.

He’d seriously been enjoying the challenge it gave him. Plus the fact that this was an element his guardian—Bjorn had been proficient in made him want to master it to his full capacity.

His earlier theory about the spell had been correct. Whenever he visualized a shard of earth materializing out of thin air, his mana node processed his intention exactly the same way it did when he wanted to cast fire or water spells... It sorted through the available elements in the air and gave them the instructions on how they should be shaped. But that was not the best way to go about casting an earth spell.

Like before, the results had turned out to be a simple flimsy clump of dirt, made from the available dust in the air at that moment. It was surprising because he had seen Bjorn cast solid earth spells from thin air many times, so he knew it could be done.

It was either that at Bjorn’s level, the spell was being formed out of nothing... or just from mana itself...? He didn’t know. For now he was stuck with his own method alone, and since it wasn’t working like normal, Zephyr had decided to go about it in a different way.

Instead of just thinking of earth appearing out of thin air, he instead focused on ’influencing and shaping’ the real, solid earth below him.