I was incredibly nervous with Wyatt putting me in charge of our mission. Part of me just wanted to rush straight to my mother, and call this quits as soon as we were done with that. I couldn't allow myself to be impulsive on this one. I was promised freedom if I survived, and did a good job. I'd been promised freedom before, but this time I believed it.
That made a significant difference in my mental state going forward. Wyatt walked alongside my mount silently. His own mount was carrying supplies for the journey. I pushed my mount a little faster. Our mounts were giant birds similar to a goose with longer legs with smaller wings, and more colorful feathers.
They could swim quite well, and the webbing on their feet was retractable. This allowed them better mobility in dry landscapes. Their long beaks had natural serrations on each side to allow them to cut through grass with ease. They were the most common mount although true warriors would never be caught riding anything besides a wyvern. Riding a wyvern was just as much a status symbol as it was a flex.
Wyatt could keep up no matter how fast I made the bird go. I just didn't want anyone else to see him moving like that. Plus we had dozens of individual artificial crystals that Wyatt had made as the product we were selling. He planned to make more to fill the boxes while we were on the road. Pure mana crystals did have the tendency to fuse if they were left too close together.
The dwarves solved this little problem with an anti mana alloy that allowed the crystal to remain in the box without losing power, but prevented any of that power from drawing crystals similar in nature to each other. Crystals that fused were more powerful then the original crystal. Allowing them to fuse would create higher quality mana crystals, but those were the high priced items. The blue padding in the box was mainly for display purposes. A salesman's way of making it look a little nicer.
Black padding was also pretty common. Some crystals did look better with a black back drop. The fact that the madam had kept so many boxes meant she had a lot of mana crystals on hand. Only a good customer would be allowed to keep the boxes. They were expensive on their own.
Most of our customers would probably be blacksmiths. Once the crystals were forged into solid object they couldn't fuse into each other.
"There's no one close by," Wyatt seemed to be reading my mind again, "We can go faster."
"It's a bit creepy when you do that," I shrugged off the internal shiver.
"You're not the only one that's impatient," he shrugged.
I pushed my mount into a faster pace. She honked loudly before running forward at full speed. Wyatt kept pace with me easily. His bird seemed more than a little startled when an apparent human was able to keep pace with the two birds.
"What are these things called anyway?" Wyatt didn't sound like he was running when he spoke.
He was running ten times faster than any human would be capable of, and he didn't sound the least bit winded. I found it a little weird that he could do that, and still manage to look, and feel completely human. I still felt his power when his eyes were on me, but that was a minor problem considering how much of a presence he had before. He had successfully suppressed his presence. To be completely honest I didn't think he was capable of such a subtle presence when I first met him.
Thinking about this was doing me no good. I turned my focus back to the road, and started doing my control exercises. Good control over mana was a requirement for some of the more complex spells. I was a decent spell caster, and I didn't have any intention of letting those skills go to waste. I'd been sparring every night before bed to make sure my skill with a blade stayed the same or improved.
I was more worried about my spell casting because I'd seen Wyatt's skill with a blade. His training under Letty had made him even more of a monster than he'd been before. His growth was unbelievable. Never mind the fact that he was an expert marksman. He only needed three shots with a bow before he could hit his target every time without the slightest bit of hesitation.
If he could pull off looking like an elf I didn't think he would need me here at all. When I expressed my thoughts on the matter he just laughed at me before taking the form of a high elf. His appearance was spot on for an elf. He could even mimic their natural grace. There was just one problem.
He couldn't get rid of that slight trace of mana he needed to maintain the transformation. That meant he couldn't get past a serious inspection without being caught. I on the other hand did look like a low elf. I wouldn't be considered all that attractive by elven standards, but passing for an elf was easy enough as long as I was careful. The amount of mana humans could use wasn't limited to just what was in their core.
I'd inherited a human core from my mother. That meant I was highly resistant to the poisonous mana of other worlds. I'd have to drain my core every single day for a week before I'd feel the slightest adverse affects. An elf would be completely exhausted once they drained their core. A human would just be tired, and annoyed.
Wyatt didn't seem to mind the quiet. I didn't feel like talking either. We ran the birds until they started to sound winded before we hopped off, and stopped to eat lunch. Well I ate. Wyatt just stared off into the distance.