Chapter 338 - Journey Back To Ingrid

Mercury woke again after some time, he sat himself up and looked to his two sides, and showed a smile as he greeted the two beside him

"Good morning you Julia, Marie"

Julia nodded and greeted Mercury back

"Good morning Mercury"

While Maire reached up and held her hand out before she spoke

"Watch this Mercury"

Then she visibly focused before a small blot of electricity jumped from one of her spread fingers to the other, Mercury looked at her hand stunned before he looked back at Marie and asked

"What was that? It looked like lightning..?"

"Party bestowed me and Julia a skill each, my bestowed skill is called [Lightning unity] and… Well, it makes me able to harness and control my body's natural… What did she call it again? Electrical currents?"

Mercury looked blankly at Marie's hand for a bit before he suddenly trembled and began speaking

"That means you can control the natural nerve currents inside your body? That's amazing… If you could speed up the process of the nerves you could essentially double your reaction time as well as improve your fine motor control by controlling each individual nerve at your will"

Marie nodded

"Party said something similar, though she also apologized for not being able to bestow a better skill due to… What was it again? The bandwidth of the avatar?"

Mercury nodded before he turned to Julia and asked

"So what skill did you get Julia?"

Julia hesitated for a bit before she spoke

"It's a skill called [Third eye] It allows me to see spirit bodies and the flow of mana directly, Party also said that there would be some offensive capabilities if I leveled it up a lot"

"That's also amazing, it will definitely give you an edge in combat, right?"

Julia showed a smile and nodded, then Mercury turned to Marie and asked

"How is your walking training going?"

Marie showed a smile and literally jumped out of bed before she landed deftly on her feet then she did a little dance where she twirled around on the tip of her toes before she stopped and turned to Mercury and Julia that both applauded her, then Mercury spoke

"Well in that case I say it's time we get moving?"

The two nodded, then Mercury gave the two of them a quick good morning kiss before he spoke

"Well then, let's roll"

Half a day later the group could be seen on the road towards Ingrid, in the convoy was the two crusaders Jey and Ben as well as Naila the former member of the Wasim clan now sworn to Mercury as well as Mercury himself and of course Julia and Marie, besides them there was a new golem that Mercury had dug out of the ruins of Ode, it was the so far one of a kind Model: Grizzly

The Model Grizzly was a giant golem the biggest so far with a shoulder height of around 1 and a half meters and with a standing-on-hind-legs-height of almost 3 meters and with a weight of almost 600 kilograms the Model Grizzly is one big bear (Or as Mars would call it THICC) with a reinforced jaw and a bit strength of about 4000 Psi or that of a great white shark from Earth and a pair of reinforced paws with that's capable of cracking solid granite with a few slaps its easily a monster of a golem, that is, of course, not counting the two shoulder-mounted spike guns and the adamantine tipped claws and teeth

Of course, the Model Grizzly was accompanied by about 12 model Hounds and three dozen Model Sparrows that were scouting the area around the convoy to make sure that they wouldn't walk into an ambush, the journey would take about a month, the reason why it was faster than before was that they were a smaller caravan and lacked the big carriages that were not only restricting of what routes they could take but also a nice juicy target for bandits, after all, no sane person would raid a small convoy of people and a giant metal bear, the only problem was that bandits weren't always sane, so they were attacked a couple of times by bandits, but all were wiped out without any real problems by the golems, Mercury used more time to reload the spike cannons on the Model Grizzly and Model Hound than he used actually fighting bandits, this didn't take much time mind you, it was as  simple of retrieving the used spike and turn it into essence before he would recreate it using essence and then load it into the golem in question, of course some spikes were lost by simply missing their target and continuing into the forest or sometimes sending their victim flying off a cliff with the spike still embedded in them, which was inconvenient to say the least as Mercury was running low(ish) on essence from having made the Model Grizzly, tragically he was nearing the 100.000 mark which was the lowest he would go without being in a emergency

'Who knows when I need a chunk of living metal again…'

The journey to Ingrid took less time than expected with them entering the Prious pass on the 29th day since they left the ruined city of Ode, Mercury walked in the front next to Ben and was on a lookout for bandits as he asked

"So… How are the nightmares?"

Ben glanced over at Mercury before he sighed and spoke honestly

"They're fine… I think it's getting better"

Mercury showed a smile and spoke half sarcastically

"Hey there's nothing unmanly about being scared out of your wits when rocks the size of buildings start falling from the skies"

Ben glanced over at Mercury before he went back to being on the lookout for bandits for a bit before he asked

"But you weren't scared?"

Mercury shook his head

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because I've seen something scarier"

"Bulshit"

Mercury laughed before he spoke

"Have you ever seen a person you've just failed to save stand up and walk over to the protective glass before they say the word 'why' in a distorted voice before spontaneously combusting as they scream?"

"...No"

"Well that'll make you shit your pants for sure, didn't go to work for a week after that, though after that I was right back at it"

The two of them walked on in silence for a bit before Ben asked

"So what caused that… Well, nightmare fuel to happen?"

"Backstreet bionics… That or an illegal mod"

"And what does that mean in common people's language?"

"It means that they had installed illegal modifications on their body, but I don't know for sure… It's a little hard to pull data off a fried circuit"

Ben sighed and gave up understanding what Mercury was speaking about, then he spotted something ahead and called out to Mercury

"See that? That's trouble waiting"

"Yeah, no shit…"

Ahead was what looked like a toll station, the only problem was that it was manned with what looked like people from the United Cana Tribes, Mercury even spotted a single active mana armor that was standing next to the gate, the convoy continued moving until they reached the gate before they stopped and one of the gatekeepers spoke

"Halt! We need to inspect your belongings before you can pass"

Mercury narrowed his eyes, in his backpack was the two pieces of the ancient superweapon he had received from Ode before the cities destruction, he could not leave it so he had brought it with him, he turned back and looked at Naila that nodded and walked forwards as she spoke

"I am Naila, active armorsmith of the Wasim clan"

The gatekeeper looked surprised to see a member of the Wasim clan in the convoy and called out loudly

"Wail!"

The man that was servicing the active mana armor yelled back without removing his eyes from what he was doing

"What?"

"There's someone here that claims to be of the Wasim clan"

"GIve me a moment…"

Wail walked over and soon he showed a smile when he saw Naila and doubled his pace before he spoke to her

"Naila! It's good to see you, where is your brother not with you? And where is your active mana armor?"

Naila looked saddened for a moment before she spoke

"My brother is no more, he was killed like so many others when Ode was razed to the ground… I almost died as well and my armor was ruined"

It was obviously Mercury that had ruined her armor but Naila wasn't about to say that here, the man called Wail looked shocked for a moment before he repeated

"Ode was razed?"

Naila nodded before Mercury narrowed his eyes and spoke harshly

"That's some good acting there buddy"

Wail looked at Mercury and spoke

"You call me a liar?"

Mercury showed a cold smile before he spoke loudly for all to hear

"What? So your tribes happen to find ancient superweapons and when a meteor shower happens to fall on a nearby city of an enemy nation you're suddenly not involved?"

Wail's face darkened as Mercury continued

"I spent days going through the rubble looking for survivors, out of some 15.000 people, only 36 lived to tell the tale and that's including our little group here"