One thing I really miss from my past life is having an alarm clock is really hard to wake up before the sun comes up, even sleeping early and hard to wake up when there isn't even a light in the sky.
I woke up so early today because yesterday Hilda convinced Ingredi to go and try to recover the source of the life element that nourishes the land of the emerald village.
Yesterday I didn't have much trouble convincing Raziel, he accepted right away and I didn't even have to try to convince him. When I asked him why he is so excited and why hunting treasures with me is always profitable he only got him to buy his whip because of the money he made from the mining we did in the woods.
And as he needs a new maturity so he's extremely willing to steal from the Yates family, that's really good as his shadow element is more useful than the wind and fire element I have. Even though we hope we won't even encounter an enemy when we're below ground, it's always good to be prepared.
Using the fire element in a closed place like a newly made tunnel has the risk of the tunnel running out of air if I use too much fire element in a short space of time, this is a risk I prefer to avoid and the wind element also has its disadvantages although they are minors, taking away Ingredi's earth element which is effective underground the shadow element is our best choice to use if we are attacked while inside the tunnel.
I didn't count on Hilda inside the tunnel because her main weapon doesn't match the place and we're going to need someone on the surface to watch the surroundings and protect the camp and defend the tunnel entrance against invaders.
Yesterday after talking to Hilda, I already packed the groceries and utensils that we will use in the next few days while she was going to pack two level 2 mounts if possible so that we could travel at high speed and lessen the chance of being approached during the trip.
In fact, I hope she gets two mounts that can help her protect the camp like Blue and Soft. I gathered up all my luggage and went to meet Raziel at the institute's entrance.
I walked silently through the dark halls of the institute just to surprise myself I hope it's my mind playing pranks on me, but if I'm listening correctly, I believe as I came out of the dorms, I heard some suggestive sounds coming from five different rooms, I already had I found myself in this situation before when I had woken up before the sun rose, but today I realized an unusual point.
t's natural that interaction between students acts there is nothing strange or shocking about this since the institute is full of excited teenagers and with a lot of freedom and natural interaction between them, but what surprises me was the amount I only went through a part of the building and combining with the fact that in the girls' dorm there is a caretaker who protects moral values, but as far as I've heard she lets some girls who prove themselves responsible go out at night but the very small number each night she does it to avoid that the dorms become very busy.
But putting these facts together I realized that the number of noisy rooms I went through is very large and it's actually a very large coincidence that all the girls who went out tonight visited the students of my year. Maybe the girls' dorm janitor isn't watching the dorm today.
But leaving a trivial matter like this behind I find Raziel, who I ignore since seeing me he made a lot of comments and jokes about how noisy the dorm is today. It didn't take long to see Hilda and Ingredi mounted on the weasels and behind them there were two level two horses.
They're really different from the horse I used last time and the difference I'm noticing is the physics the level two horses are not only slightly taller and more muscular but I've noticed your skin on their feet and different from normal looks like skin of them is turning dark scales they must have the possibility of triggering a mutation or they are descent of a hybrid.
"Ready to travel?"
"Of course, and are you ready to steal one of your Ulric friends?"
"Hilda! Don't speak like that in public."
"Ingredi is right people may have the wrong idea about us, you make it look like we're robbing someone, but we're just harvesting a natural resource without an owner because if it had an owner, it wouldn't be buried in the ground alone."
"And annoying how you don't admit you're stealing; Ulric was funny at first but now annoying to hear you dodge and make excuses."
"It's natural for a funny joke to become irritating when repeated over and over by Hilda, but just hope she'll get back to being funny in time."
"I doubt it. We'd better get going soon we have to get back as soon as possible to sell the life element source and spend the money to buy a good ripe before the test."
As we made our way through town, I couldn't resist asking Ingredi.
"Are you going to spend the money we got on a fabric ripening for you too?"
"No, I will spend most of it to hire Grandmaster Vilkas for him to create my staff."
"I thought you already saved the money to make a staff."
"She did, but she's such a perfectionist so she wants a staff that can be upgraded later and to make it is much more expensive and that's because our mother said she would pay the cost to hire Grandmaster Vilkas."
"Hilda! I'm not a perfectionist I'm just thinking about the future buying a staff that can be upgraded later will save a lot more money in the future and I'll have to waste my time synchronizing with a new staff."
"Vote to sync with an Ingredi staff? I thought they were like an elemental sword."
"A staff is unlike a sword it has its own mana and elemental energy and for a mage to use the staff to its full potential he has to synchronize the mana and elemental energy of the staff with his own and this process is time-consuming and difficult the more the staff is powerful and more complicated and synchronizing it, so I want a staff that can be improved, it will already be synchronized with me and even after improving it will not change at most, I will have to get used to it being more efficient."
"I don't know that staffs were more complicated than ordinary elementary equipment and I agree with you. Ingredi investing in a staff that can be improved and the most rational decision to make."
"You agree with her because you don't know how many gold coins are going to be spent on her staff and not to mention hiring a grandmaster to create it."
"Very expensive?"
"Very expensive! At the level that adds up all our equipment, it won't come close to the value."
"This is too expensive."
"Hilda, you couldn't keep silent and not meddle in the conversation."
"No, my lovely sister."
After that Ingredi was irritated with Hilda for the next few hours I even looked at Raziel, but he signaled that he won't break the silence that formed on the trip.
The trip was calm despite the silence and Hilda smiling at Ingredi, she was doing it just to annoy Ingredi even more I feel that Ingredi is short to dock Hilda and I'm not the only one because Soft moves away from Blue.
Eat the distance between the two, the atmosphere improved until the night when they returned to talk normally. The relationship between the two is really confusing and since it doesn't generate too many problems I won't try to interfere.
The trip to the vicinity of the emerald village was smooth, except for some magical animals that attacked us during the night, we didn't even have a problem.
We didn't find a group during our trip or when we approached the village and this is a very good sign as, if possible, I hope not to bump into even a group during our pod. We set up our camp well away from the road and yet several hundred meters from the village I don't want to enter the village's patrol perimeter, even though the noble families are at a truce until they kill all the stupid bandits who have a connection with slavers, I doubt they will have not expanded the perimeter of the village patrol.
They probably doubled the number of patrols so staying away from the village is the safest option for us. After resting for the night Ingredi started creating the tunnel after breakfast she was having fun in the dirt for the next few hours she only stopped when it was time for lunch.
She actually has a lot more mana than before, her new core is actually a lot higher than her old one. But even with this change Ingredi would have no mana to spend for hours she only kept active until lunchtime because she was spending her time strengthening the tunnel walls.
Strengthening the land doesn't take a lot of mana, it only takes time. Over the next three days Ingredi spent her time creating a tunnel to the depths of the earth and traveling the distance until she was near the emerald village. Just then I went down the tunnel with Ingredi.