I refocused on the journey we'd be making to the north. I didn't want to just resort to slaughter. I was supposed to be above all of that. I would become an all powerful dragon one day. I needed to start thinking of the long term effects of my actions.
I would have to return to earth on a regular basis soon. The planet needed my excess mana to thrive, and as the strongest of the dragons I intended to give as much as I could. It was the only place I could freely absorb mana without worrying about being poisoned. The only planet I felt truthfully comfortable on. It would be nice if I could negate the poisonous effects of the other worlds mana, but that was a dream within a dream really.
The thought of it was humorous. A guy could dream, but dreams rarely came true.
"We're going to pretend to be patrolling the south for the nest while we're actually going north," I settled, "While we're gone, Jax will keep us informed of the movements of the guild. As long as we don't overlap with anyone that thinks of heading north, or ends up that direction by chance we should be free, and clear of arousing any suspicion from Eric for now."
"We avoid suspicion, and we should be able to investigate to our hearts content," Savannah finished the thought, adding mentally, {You'll be able to gain as much XP as you want while they're out of your way.}
{Among other things,} I agreed.
If there was an XP boost for saving a few of these intelligent wyverns then I'd want to get that as well. As much as Savannah didn't want me to treat this like a game there were more benefits to the system then there were negatives. The power each level gave me was what we needed right now. The more powerful I was the more power my bonded could rely on. The stronger we'd be as a whole.
"Are we all clear with the plan?" I looked at Jax since he was the only one who'd objected to it in the first place.
"Yeah," Jax looked away a little angrily.
"Good," I looked up into the sky, "We have about four hours of daylight left. We should establish a starting point where I can portal to each morning while I'm patrolling."
"Sounds like a plan," Savannah shrugged dismissively.
"First," I threw out a wind slash, "The drone was sliced in half in an instant."
Savannah, Jax, and Ethan all looked surprised. None of them had sensed it at all. The only reason I'd noticed at all was because of my spatial awareness. I hadn't noticed it's range extending with each level. It was only about ten feet per level, but it was enough that the five levels I'd gained since coming to this planet extended far enough for me to detect the drone.
I didn't even know it was there until I looked right at it. It was quiet, and near invisible. Add on the fact that it was so well insolated that it barely registered in my infrared vision. Which was more then a little impressive considering how cold this planet was. That meant Eric had eyes on me since I'd gotten here.
Not the whole time obviously. He hadn't been able to anticipate my ability to use spatial portals. Teleportation was a rare ability. The spatial affinity was actually more common then teleportation from what I could tell, but the humans didn't have much experience with the ability. I'd lost that drone more then once or Eric would know that I destroyed his warehouse.
I didn't know if there was another one or not. I doubted this thing could record audio. It was already incredibly advanced just for being able to hide from me so well. It was far enough away that I doubted it could hear our normal speaking voices even if it could record audio.
"We'll keep our more important thoughts secret from here on out," I stretched slowly, "If they send one that can hear I don't want them finding out what we're talking about."
I crouched down so they could get on my back. Ethan, and Savannah both easily managed to jump the distance, and settle into the respective notches. Jax needed more help. It didn't take me much effort to put him up on my back. Jax settled into his notch.
I jumped into the air, and started heading north while giving the guild a wide berth. I made sure I was too far away from the guild for them to see me. It was long after dark by the time I reached the northern reaches of the guild. I was glad I could see in the dark or this icy landscape would be a dangerous place for me to land. I coasted down until I found a place that was easy to remember.
As cold as it was to the south it was even colder to the north. Some of the trees were frozen permanently bent at an angle. I picked out a dark spot that turned out to be a cave once I got to the other side of the trees. The cave had obvious markings of beasts having been through there. The markings were all old.
Nothing living had been through here in a long time. Now that I thought about it. I had seen some small beasts to the south. Mostly scavengers. The humans to the south had probably hunted everything that was big enough to use as core material for weapons.
That was the whole point of the guilds in the first place. To hunt, and sell creatures no normal person had ever seen before. The big selling point was adventures, but guilds weren't places of adventure. My scales shivered at the complete, and utter silence of the cavern.
"No shit," Savannah mumbled when she heard my thoughts.
I hadn't exactly kept my thoughts secret. I'd never been somewhere so still. There wasn't a single breath of life anywhere within the space I was aware of. Even the trees felt long dead. This place was a graveyard.