Chapter 177

I was already flaring my mana as I stepped back to the material dimension, afraid that crazy fire and water would have driven closer. Considering the impact they had on the mana, I had no intention of testing their impact directly.

Luckily, they were still tangling in the distance with all the intelligence and control of rabid animals, giving me a chance the focus on the more immediate problem.

The corrosive energies of the Arcana dimension, threatening to melt both my equipment and my skin.

I flared the mana I had gathered, dispelling the corrosive energies that could damage my body more. My clothing and the rest of my equipment weren’t as lucky, I noted as tried to save my clothing once again, but only being half successful. Helpless, I had reinforced the gaps with mana and temporary conjured material replicating the trick Janelor was quite the fan of.

[-690 Mana]

Unlike her, I didn’t construct the spell matrix excessively lightly, so the conjured material would hold a few days. And, luckily, this time, I wasn’t carrying anything I couldn’t replace easily — and only because I didn’t have time to rearm myself after the previous teleport attempt destroyed my weapons.

I really needed to put some time to make my instantaneous teleportation ability useful. Not just because it was a very functional utility ability, but it was obvious that I had no hope of following Aviada’s disappearance without perfecting it.

The chaos that was behind the dome, as revealed by the wound, was rather scary. I couldn’t help but frown as thought about that. I had known that the next crisis wouldn’t have been too far away, but I didn’t expect it to arrive without giving me chance to get a full night’s sleep.

Nor did I expect Aviada to be the source of it.

Apparently, I was still too optimistic.

“What happened, is Aviada well? Where’s she?” Carla asked as she dashed forward to me, taking a step into the wards I had created without care.

I shook my head even as I pulled my gaze away from the battle of elements, turning my gaze toward her, barely holding myself back from giving her a lesson about the perils of walking into mysterious wards.

I decided against it after a momentary consideration. “Don’t worry,” I started instead, wanting to calm her down. “I have discovered that she’s still alive and well.” My words were only partial truth, as while I had detected Aviada was still alive at that moment, I was having significant trouble feeling her as the wound continued to close.

I had no way of divining her fate once it was completely cut other than wishing.

But there was no benefit to Carla knowing that. Whatever Aviada was facing was not something her archer friend could help directly. And even if she tried to rouse the school, it was clearly not an issue that could be the rest of the faculty — at least not by anyone she could talk to.

It was a topic that even Titania knew precious little about, making the headmistress and Janelor the only reliable sources of information, neither a common student from the warrior department could access.

And that assumed she knew what to say in the first place.

“How can we save her?” she asked, her panic replaced by enthusiasm as she heard about her status.

I took a sigh as I turned my attention to the battling elements once more, noting that they were getting weaker — but not at a speed that would make me calm down. Moreover, the water was once again starting to lose against the fire, so I reinforced it with another flash of mana.

[-382 Mana]

“Unfortunately, due to a magical resonance, she had experienced a cascading teleportation failure, and it’ll take a while for me to go and bring her back, so, you should keep it a secret,” I said, not above reinforcing the impression with a judicious application of my Charisma, enough to ensure she wouldn’t go around trying to organize the weaker instructors to act.

The situation was complicated enough without others poking around, or worse, the spies in the school getting wind of the extraordinary nature of Aviada’s disappearance. I didn’t expect them to be able to follow Aviada, but it would be a problem once I successfully saved Aviada.

I steadfastly avoided any possibility of failure.

“I see,” she murmured as she fell silent, not knowing what to say, joining me to watch the dance of the elements. I was reasonably confident that even if the fire managed to defeat the water, it would fade away, but reasonably confident was markedly different from absolute confidence.

[Level: 32 Experience: 499110 / 528000

Strength: 46 Charisma: 63

Precision: 40 Perception: 42

Agility: 40 Manipulation: 45

Speed: 39 Intelligence: 49

Endurance: 39 Wisdom: 51

HP: 6528 / 6528 Mana: 7830 / 8000 ]

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]

Master Craft [77/100]

Expert Speech [75/75]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (0/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 22/26]

[Helga - Level 22/26]