Chapter 161

Using the platform rather than one of the usual elementals I preferred to use, the journey to Silver Spires took more than two hours rather than the usual minutes, but at least, it was a more comfortable ride.

Pity that my reluctant guest was not in a mood to experiment, and kept her mouth shut other than occasional attempts to probe me about my employer, and I didn’t do anything other than deflecting her.

Then, Silver Spires entered our field of vision. “And we’re at our destination,” I said, even as I noted her distaste while she looked at the school. It was clearly below her mysteriously high standards.

Though, it might be also about the battle damage on the walls, still being repaired.

She said nothing even as I drove the platform to the ground before I let it dissipate. She looked at me questioningly. “I’m afraid we’re going to cover the rest of the distance by walking,” I said. “And before you ask, no you can’t transform unless you want to shout your location to our lovely adversaries.”

“I know,” she growled in annoyance, the rumbling it created enough to remind her that she was a dragon.

The rest of the walk passed silently even as I led her to sneak through the defensive wards, their damaged state making it even easier to pass through. The moment I entered the school, however, a magical message from the headmistress arrived, telling me to bring the dragon to a special basement building, rather than her office.

Interesting, I thought even as I guided her toward the location the headmistress suggested. It was the first time she arranged a meeting outside her tower, which forced me to reevaluate a few assumptions about her location. Maybe I had misread just how dependent she was on the coverage of her tower.

With that in mind, we passed through the specified entrance, only to find ourselves in a dim tunnel going down, the route itself confusing.

“What a weird tunnel,” the dragon murmured as we moved deeper. “Those wards feel familiar...”

I said nothing, though I could easily understand her concern. The sensation of the wards was rather irregular, making us lose the sense of direction as we walked. I had no doubt that, if I hadn’t saved her life twice, my guest would have been rebelling against the idea of following deeper into a mysterious tunnel.

As I moved deeper, my sense of direction started to disappear, forcing me to stretch my Perception stat to the limit to maintain it. However, it was when I felt the partial block on the system, once again preventing me from communicating efficiently, I recognized the source of the ward.

She was using Darkness Divine Spark to create the ward.

Interestingly, while the tunnel had several twists and turns, ultimately, we ended up under her tower, forcing me to revisit my assumptions once again, including why she would spend all that effort just to hide the fact.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t answered immediately when I finally reached the destination, directly under the tower. It was a huge room, with an unnecessarily high ceiling — unless one planned for a dragon to reside there in the first place.

However, despite being a basement, the room wasn’t poorly furnished. On the contrary, there was a nice living room on the corner, mostly using the same crystal for the construction, but also using very expensive-looking blue and black fabrics. But that part was just a detail compared to a huge crystal pool, large enough for a dragon to rest comfortably.

One thing that surprised me was, however, was the mana density of the room. The air was thick with mana, and the pool was even thicker. Though, a glance at the wards that supported the process suggested that the process wouldn’t deliver as much mana as I had been transferring, which was a benefit.

Of course, my guest didn’t glance around, looking at the hooded figure that was standing on the other end of the room. “You can go,” the headmistress said, gesturing me to leave.

The dragon glanced at me, but didn’t comment, even as I turned and left the room.

Not permanently, of course, as I was far too curious about listening to the discussion. And since I was able to sneak into the headmistress’ private room, sneaking to the basement was hardly a challenge. There was only one problem, that if I suddenly disappeared from the wards, the headmistress would have been suspicious.

Meaning, I had to leave the tunnel first before coming back. The process had been rather smooth, though it cost me several precious minutes, especially on the path to return, where I had to carefully sneak through the wards without alerting the headmistress.

When I arrived at the room, creating a tiny hole in the wall, the view surprised me.

The headmistress had long removed her robe, revealing her armored state, with a sword on her back. However, despite her pose, she was sitting on a chair. And the dragon, still in her human form, was sitting across her, a chair between them.

However, the interesting thing was their expressions. Considering the relative power balance of a headmistress with a school under her command, compared to a lost dragon that was cut all kinds of support, hunted by a faction of the Eternals.

How fascinating...

[Level: 31 Experience: 493210 / 496000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6226 / 6324 Mana: 7750 / 7750 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Arcana [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [100/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

Expert Craft [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]