The entrance on the side of the mountain led us through a deep, winding tunnel. We encountered several monsters along the way, mostly Treants and Mucky Rats. Everyone present could handle these low level monsters with ease.
Seren had insisted I hold up the rear alongside the other two magicians of the Black Blades. I got to chatting with them along the way, as there was nothing much for the three of us to do; the front line fighters were mopping up the weak monsters with ease.
"You really are a stubborn one. You know… you won't last long in this business trying to do everything yourself. I know you must be talented, having ranked up so quickly, but for a lone mage to hunt down a fire drake by himself is beyond reckless."
Seren seems to have taken it upon herself to play the role of the wisened veteran passing off advice to a newbie adventurer.
"That's right", the other mage chipped in. "Magicians are naturally weak in close combat. A surprise attack from even a weak monster can prove fatal if you're all on your own."
The other mage was a very short demon man named Jeb, probably about 3 feet tall. He had a face similar to that of a goat, with two weathered horns that curved behind his head. It was typically hard for me to tell the age of most demons by sight, but I could tell that Jeb was fairly elderly for his race.
"You both underestimate the power of magic. Magic is all powerful in this world, we are limited only by how much we learn."
Seren laughed under her breath. "You can only say that because you have such a powerful warrior protecting you in combat. I heard one of your members is an incredibly strong man who even claims to be a Superd."
"Hmmf", I grunted, indicating I was done with this conversation.
I saw Jeb wince a little when Seren mentioned the Superd. Still though, I have already noticed Ruijerd's curse starting to slowly weaken, ever since he shaved his head. I guess what the Man-God had told me about Ruijerd's curse being related to his green hair was true.
After a couple more minutes of walking in uncomfortable silence, Stefan raised his palm up towards us as a sign to stop, and then put his index finger in front of his lips to shush us.
He slowly peeked his head around the corner, and then came back to us.
"Their nest is right around that corner, they all appear to be sleeping", he whispered to Seren.
"Excellent. This is a perfect opportunity to launch a surprise attack and kill several of them while they sleep.
The Black Blades silently got into formation while Seren and Jeb started whispering incantations for launching a surprise attack.
I recognized the incantations they were chanting. Jeb was chanting the incantation for the Icicle field spell while Seren was preparing to cast Blizzard Storm.
I rolled my eyes at this and while they were finishing their incantation, I cast disturb magic on each of their spells to cancel their effect.
"What? What happened?", Jeb stuttered.
Seren looked over my way to see I had pointed a hand towards her. "You. Did you do this? How did you stop my spell?"
Seren had lost her composure a bit and had forgotten to whisper. I noticed several of the Fire Drakes had woken up and began to stir.
"A slow freeze with Icicle Field and then pummeling them with Ice shards? You're going to damage their scales and ruin the meat", I said condescendingly. "Anyway, your spells weren't going to have a wide enough area of effect. You wouldn't have even killed half of them with that."
"Everyone! Get ready! We've woken them up and they're coming!", Stefan yelled.
Several Fire Drakes, who looked more like salamanders, had gotten up and a couple were now running towards us.
"I'll handle this", I said nonchalantly.
I reached my staff out and cast Absolute Zero, an Emperor ranked water spell.
Immediately, the entire nesting grounds were frozen over completely. The room instantly became still, and eerily silent, the screeches of the Fire Drakes vanishing entirely.
All the members of the Black Blades stood just as motionless, but they were only frozen from shock. I walked out into the frozen nesting grounds, surrounding myself with a thin layer of warm air using the Heat Island spell.
I walked up to one of the frozen Fire Drakes that had been charging us and used the Flame Slice spell to cut off its head, arms, and legs. I then began removing the scales, precisely using the Flame Blade spell to make sure I didn't damage the meat in the process.
"What.. What did you just do?", Seren was the first to overcome her stupor.
"I froze them all at once", I answered as I continued removing scales, not even looking back at her.
"I see that. But… how? Is that staff you are holding a magic item? Is this freezing spell its ability?"
"No, it's just a staff."
"Then that was a spell of yours? What spell was that? I didn't even hear your incantation. And even now! How are you using fire magic without any incantations!?"
"Calm down", I told her in a slightly annoyed voice. "I am a silent caster, I don't use incantations."
"What?!", Jeb yelled from behind.
"I've never heard of such a thing…", Seren muttered, eyes wide in shock.
Stefan began walking out towards me, but yelped in pain and jumped back after stepping on the frozen ground.
"Be careful", I cautioned. "The ground here is still frozen solid and the air is incredibly cold."
"What spell was that?", Seren asked again.
"Absolute Zero", I answered. At this point I had removed most of the scales from the Fire Drake I was working on. I quickly created a stone box to act as a cooler and began carefully slicing off high quality cuts of still frozen meat to place inside it.
"I'm Advanced rank in fire, water, and wind magic and I've never heard of that", Seren said questioningly.
"It's an Emperor ranked water spell", I clarified.
"Emperor ranked!?", they all shouted in unison.
"And you can cast it without saying a word!", Seren exclaimed.
"I told you, didn't I?", I said. "The magic in this world is all powerful. You are only limited by your research and ingenuity.
They all looked at me dumbfounded.
I prepared the meat from two of the Fire Drakes and filled up my stone cooler. The cooler was quite large, about three feet long and wide and two feet tall. Once it was filled with meat, it was far too heavy to carry by hand, weighing hundreds of pounds.
I used earth magic to seal the stone cooler shut and then lifted it back towards the rest of the group with gravity magic. I also filled the carrying sack I had brought with some of the scales I had removed from the two Fire Drakes.
"As I promised, the rest is yours to keep." As I said that, I used a powerful Heat Island spell to warm the frozen nesting grounds back to room temperature so that the Black Blades members could gather the rest of the scales for themselves.
The Black Blades collected as many scales as they could carry while I used earth magic to carve a complex magic circle into the ground beside my cooler.
"We're ready to leave once you are", Seren said as she approached me.
"Why would you wait for me? We're not even in the same party."
"I could never leave such a young mage on his…"
Seren stopped mid sentence as I glared at her.
"I'll be fine, go on without me. I will head back to town when I'm ready, there are a couple more things I have to do here."
I could tell Seren was curious about what I had left to do, but the rest of her party was eager to get back to town. Not only did they have a huge haul of valuable Fire Drake scales, but some of their members seemed wary and wanted to get away from me sooner rather than later.
"Well, ok then. We will head back now. Please let me know once you get back. I'll be waiting at the guild."
Seren bowed respectfully before heading back with the rest of her party.
Shortly after they had left, I finished the magic circle and then took out a scroll from my pocket with another magic circle on it. I placed the scroll up against the side of my cooler and poured some mana into it.
Seconds later, I opened my eyes to see the familiar walls of the stone building in the forest outside Sharia. I moved the cooler to the corner of the room and removed some of the meat from it, just enough to fill another sack I was carrying with me.
I then took out another scroll from my pocket, and after activating it, reappeared in the cavern above the magic circle I had carved into the ground.
'Well, time to head back and complete this job', I thought as I destroyed the magic circle.