By dawn Hilda and I had already organized and stored all our luggage during the cool and calm night both and the mounts had enough rest to return to their peak state. Both were ready to continue the journey, but obviously today the travel speed will decrease as they wouldn't heat to maintain the same speed as yesterday for the whole day.
"Ready Hilda?"
"Yes, let's try to reach them before nightfall ."
"Calm down, remember that poor little horse can't maintain the same speed as yesterday. Remember he has to travel all day."
"I know. I should have gotten a better mount for you."
Mounted on our respective mounts we followed the road north. Just as yesterday Blue made a point of standing in front of my horse, she would not allow herself to be overtaken by a mount she judges to be inferior.
During the mornings I tried to talk to Hilda, but this proved difficult because Blue not only insisted on getting in front of the horse, she also sped up every time she started talking to Hilda and every time she walked away she turns his head towards me and sticks his tongue out in a mocking way .
I spent the entire morning being teased by a very childish weasel. The rest of the day was quiet and the lunch pass was directed so our mounts could drink water and eat as after they had their five minutes rest our march north continued.
Hilda and I ended up eating grates and dried fruit while we were mounted. All the tranquility that dominated our trip began to annoy me the reason it is not because I'm addicted to conflict but that all this calm is not normal. Even though this road is relatively safe and thus the chance of being attacked by bandits, the problem lies in the lack of magical animals near the road not avia nor a large living creature just a few harmless herbivorous rodents that ate grass near the road.
Even though we're a few hours behind Ingredi's group and they've been attacked by the magical animals, there should still be some magical animals within range of my vision and very unusual not to have any for the entire day.
With late afternoon approaching I killed some rabbits to use for dinner tonight. I got an inquisitive look from Hilda and pointed to Blue who in turn tried to steal Min's rabbit. His robbery attempt was foiled by Hilda who pulled his reins .
"You can't eat this Blue I have cores to feed you."
"I think she prefers to eat some meat too. There is Blue? "
And Blue lunges at me again, but she's not aiming at the rabbit but at me. I dodge her attack easily only for her to growl at me. I looked at Hilda just to see that she was enjoying my misfortune .
"So it looks like we're only going to reach Ingredi tomorrow morning, it looks like their group must be riding level one magic animals like me if they were using normal animals we would have already reached them."
"That has become obvious now Ulric I will feed the mounts while you set up camp and prepare dinner."
I feel like I'm getting the hardest part, but just thinking about having to feed Blue makes me see the sena that I'm chased by her. Unlike yesterday we armed ourselves and had dinner much earlier than yesterday, probably Hilda will want to run tomorrow to catch up with Ingredi .
"So from zero to ten how tedious is this trip for you?"
"Seven, why didn't we find anything on the way? I thought we 'd have found some bad guys to kill, my only entertainment and watching Blue play with you."
"I'm glad I'm being helpful to alleviate your boredom, but I also find it strange the lack of conflict is it that the group that Ingredi is in killed all the magical animals in the aria near the road?"
"Maybe not many animals going north just when we get to the grassless area to various crawling and poisonous animals. Whatever the reason for the lack of conflict it only increases our chances of reaching Ingredi before something bad happens. When will the rabbit be ready ?"
"He 's almost done. But Ingredi is with mine from a group of adventurers she's not in danger Hilda doesn't need to be worried."
"How about we talk about any subject interesting for you to think about Ingredi?"
"Like what Ulric I'm not in the mood to be talking about trivia."
What a bad mood.
"How about we talk about the Wind element we both have it. How about comparing the arts we know of the Wind element?"
"It could be, but I don't know many, I learned a few of them."
"Why?"
"I'm more focused on combining my elements than specializing in switching between the two."
"But won't mastering the Wind and Water element better help you master the Ice element ?"
"I said I haven't learned many elemental arts not that I don't train control over my elements."
"Difference?"
"Lots of! And a waste of time mastering many Ulric elemental arts is more efficient to focus on a few of them and focus your time on customizing them to better suit your fighting style. The maximum power potential of any quality art can only be reached when it has an orange or red core."
"What do you mean ?"
"Even a basic art like the Wind Path movement art will only demonstrate its power limit when used by an orange core warrior who has mastered it, no matter how much we master and strengthen our elemental control we don't have an elemental power. strong enough to trigger art at its peak."
"That's demotivating Hilda."
"Welcome to the Ulric world , at our power level and nothing compared to the power of a green core warrior who is in turn regarded in our realm as a basic warrior."
"So what arts are you majoring in?"
"I have two movement gears, two support, one defensive and three offensives from the Wind element."
"I thought you didn't practice many Wind element arts. Since when is eight is a small number ?"
"Go to shit."
For the rest of the night I managed to distract Hilda and ended up learning about various elemental arts that I put on my shopping list. What caught my attention a lot was Hilda's support art, one of them aims to create a Wind element territory around the warrior and it has the effect of strengthening his wind element and at the same time weakening the ability of the Wind element of the warrior. opponent .
She is very unique and extremely difficult to master at Hilda's level she barely managed to attract the wind element to her body much less create elemental territory. Taking the acceleration in her Wind element energy regeneration only when she has reached the green core can she create a mastery, but this will take years of training and by then her understanding of the art should be greatly strengthened.
The second support art is based more on control than on amount of elemental energy I was quite tempted to ask if there was a way she could lend me her manual. It consists in creating a vibration with its wind element it can be used both to silence my movements and to create a sound attack, but this last part and more my speculation on top of the explanation is Hilda.
She would be very useful for me I just don't understand so much because she is considered a support art I could think of various methods to use her to attack my enemies if Hilda didn't explain it right or left out some omitted property of hers I believe that mastering this art You're going to be my newest goal before the institute test her name and Green Cloak.
The rest of the night was quiet like yesterday plus Hilda complaining I'm not a good cook, but I suspect she's worse than me in this aria except she would never admit it. Our quiet journey continues normally before dawn Hilda and I were already back on the road.
It didn't take long for the sun to rise and Hilda to speed up our trip she had either unsound faith or unfounded confidence that we'll find Ingredi soon. And to prove me wrong we located a caravan in front of us being attacked by various magical animals of level one and two I could see from afar the color of mana and elemental energy.
Hilda and I accelerated to catch up with the attacking group only to get there when they were finishing killing the last magical animals. As we approached them I could spot some familiar faces and standing out from the group I saw a weasel mounted by Ingredi she was very similar to Blue I can only hope she has a better personality than her sister.
Before I could introduce us to the pair of female warriors who had positioned themselves in front of me they were prepared to defend their group, but when Blue ran to join her sister she easily dodged the two female warriors. As they were dismounted they had no speed to catch Blue who in turn was rubbing her sister and on top of her there was a Hilda hugging a shocked Ingredi.
It would be a beautiful scene of brotherly love of two pairs of sisters if they weren't so close to several dead animals and a floor covered in their blood.