CHAPTER 42 - JUST ONCE MORE II
I walked towards the dungeon just three miles away from where I had killed those mana beasts earlier. The inconvenience of what I had done just moments earlier had finally sinked. It was just a mere test for my raw strength without mana and it had brought me to a realization.
What Sam had said, about me being an S-Rank sooner or later even though I had just been promoted officially and publicly as an A-rank, made me think about how much I've not relied on mana. It has been a couple of months now.
No wind. No water. No earth. And simply not a chance that I've recovered fire. Even the deviants don't count seeing as I have completely forgotten I had mostly all of them without any use.
This time as an adventurer had only been a mere training for me to upgrade my strength, physically and mentally, and yet I found that having to use no mana made me feel powerless.
I wanted to break my training to use mana when things went south, but I was afraid. Afraid that I would lose control of what I've gained over the years.
The power that I've been granted wasn't just an overpower cheat that could be used without any consequence, it was the opposite. I trained, day and night, minute and hours to gain some insight into this power. Only the elven lances know a part of the power but not in its entire glory.
To be honest, I don't even know if I am truly capable of unleashing its full potential as a human…
Lately, I've been dreaming.
Having multiple dreams where I'd gotten weak, taken over by my greed of becoming strong for this continent's salvation. Multiple people, from different races, come to a place where I'd been stationed. Chained and treated poorly, they throw rocks and what not into my fragile body without thinking of the reason why I was brought there in the first place.
My parents… they come to that place and grieve as I become a sole failure as a son.
Abandoning me for the great…
And then, Sylvia…
I had multiple times where she would appear in front of me during the dream where I would be chained in the open of a coliseum. In her Demon form, only later for her to go back to her dragon form. Speaking to me as she was alive, back in the cave before Cadell took her life.
Crying in front of her, saying, "I am sorry Sylvia… I-I couldn't get strong enough. I was weak minded…"
"Child, you've grown. You look skinny, have you eaten? How's life treating you? Have you made any friends, if so how did you treat each other? Did you find a partner, treat her well?"
Sylvia, in her white and golden majestic form of a dragon, would slowly walk towards me. Everything around us seemed to be stopped in time, like she did in the cave. Later, when she was close enough for her shadow to cover me whole, her dragon head would touch mine.
"It is far too early for you to know your cause, Luke. I am sorry for throwing the burden to you when you don't know your very existence. In truth, I should've endured it while I could but Agrona's plans have catched up to me and soon it will do the same to this continent. It may sound selfish of me, but, can you protect this continent?"
"I-I will."
"Thank you, ▢▢▢▢, my child."
That would be all I could recollect from my dreams. It felt like I had been there before, like a sort of reality where I had gone the wrong path.
Yet, I can't really know.
And Sylvia's last words to me… She would either get cut off or her voice would get distorted.
Maybe, after some time again, I would get to dream that same dream and hope that I remember what I had thought, to ask Sylvia for the name or word she said…
"Now, let's think of a way to find this beast's will."
***
The long walk down the dungeon where low-ranked monsters resided was quiet and boring to say the least. Aya was behind me, making sure that I wasn't flanked from behind. Alea and the other hand, walked in front of me, using her sensory skills to the max, all while killing whatever mana beast challenged her.
In all, I felt like a prince being protected by his guards. And that is something I didn't like.
"So, where do we find this mana beast that will drop a will?" Alea spoke, not turning around but I knew she was talking to me. "And why did you take the Quest? Judging by your face, you don't even know where this being can be."
Aya was the next to jump in even though she had been quiet all this time, keeping guard in case anything behind her tried to kill her or me. "I agree with Alea, why take this quest? Luke we know that being an AA-rank adventurer is boring without any Quest to do but you need to be patient. It wasn't that long ago that you were promoted silently into an AA-rank and publicly into an A-rank."
I silently listened to their claims, they were not wrong. I had indeed been promoted into an AA-rank because I saved an entire group of A-rank adventurers from being killed by an absolutely huge number of mana beasts rampaging from the cave due to some unnatural event.
Of course only a certain amount of people know about my ascension into an AA-rank. Still, the people I'd saved had put a word for me about ascending me into an A-rank, yet, they didn't know I was already an A-rank.
Bringing us to the situation in hand, only being known as an A-rank adventurer. No one knew the rank I had been assigned by Kaspian Bladeheart.
Confused by his sudden approach to my rank up, he did not only give me a satisfied look but also another way of telling me that we needed to spar each other.
"I know but being still in the Beasts Glades gives me uncertainty. Like there is something I must be doing." I took a moment before continuing. The active mana around me seemed to be drawn closer but then it's like they realize who it is and completely ignore me. "Not only that, but I don't know what Kaspian Bladeheart is thinking of giving me the Rank of AA."
"He must have seen the potential you carried over these past years as an adventurer, that is my only guest."
Alea chimed in, turning her full body to me with a smile that reached her eyes. "Or maybe he thinks you are the next person to be above a silver-core mage."
A breath of laughter left my mouth when Alea had said that.
"That dream of surpassing the silver stage core is now well past my mental image." I said to myself. "But maybe, just maybe, will I be a Lance like you two and fight alongside each other–"
"HELP!!!"
Alea, Aya and I dash at full speeds towards the pleading voice. It was a man's voice.
The white haired elf's light blue eyes lit up and her aura got stronger. "I will locate him!"
On the other hand, Aya had already used her illusion magic to go far ahead of us both.
Damn… If I don't want to fall behind I must use that…
"SOMEONE!! PLEASE HELP ME!!!"
The voice of the man screaming for help got desperate and so did I. In fact, I had the power given to me already seconds away from igniting. My vision turned brighter and it began to feel unreal, my other senses enhanced themselves like I was getting a level up. The surrounding mana in the atmosphere changed to obedience and froze, awaiting for me next command.
Or at least I had thought that…