257 Icy Cave(2)
The entire mission felt strange. What use would a scorpion sting have? Also, this icy cave was not a place unfamiliar to Arthur.
He had heard about it before, and if he was not mistaken, that place was one of the dangerous places everyone knew on the central continent, like the Forbidden Forest, for example.
“This explains why they took so long to form a team, and why only four of us are going there. Ha, greed is a powerful and deadly feeling.”
Arthur knew the mission would be a dangerous one, but the rewards were too plentiful! Not only would he pay for all the herbs, recipes and books he got without having points, but it would also give him a lot more of these points!
Not only that, but Bailey said the person who requested the mission would give them additional rewards, which made that mission even more tempting for those who needed money.
“My money is getting useless. I need either contribution points if I need the things the school offers me, or magic stones if I want to trade with other mages.”
These magic stones were too important for those in the rank 1 and above. It allowed them to use it as a coin for trading, an aid for training as they could absorb the mana from these stones, and also many other things, like a power source for formation, alchemy cauldrons, used to enchant weapons and many more.
It was basically the core of any planet which has mana. Arthur wanted some of these stones. The only way for him to get was to either find it in the natural veins of mana stones, steal it from others, or complete missions.
Well, Arthur had another idea of how to fetch some of these stones for himself, but that would still take some time to work, so he was not thinking about it at the moment.
“How strong are these scorpions?” Edmond said.
“According to the information I have, they have a power slightly higher than that of a newly advanced Official Mage. They are strong, but our brains are better, so if we think and team up, it should not be a problem for us to take a few down.”
Beasts were usually stronger than humans of the same level, but the downside was that humans were smarter, so in the end, it was an equal fight. What surprised Arthur was that these scorpions had that much power!
If he was not mistaken, these scorpions lived in the early parts of the icy cave, a place that the humans had barely explored! What other creatures could be in the depths of such a place? The thought of it made Arthur’s body shiver.
They kept talking with each other along the way, trying to get to know more about each other, as it would help them fight better side-by-side by knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
Obviously, Arthur had no intentions of sharing his secrets with the others. He only shared a few of his lightning spells, which were not a lie in the first place!
Arthur had recently got the lightning essence, and that was why he had the chance to enter the school. He had studied a lot of spells since the first day he went to the school, but even with his incredible learning speed, it was still impossible to learn a lot of spells within days.
He was behind his peers in that aspect, but he also had his fire and wood essence, which turned him into an absolute beast!
Everyone in the school had lightning as their primary element, but almost everyone had a second element as well, but it was weaker than the main one.
Almost every Official Mage could use two elements, but the second element would almost always lose in power to the first one, unless they turned it into a complete essence, which was the requirement to reach the level of a rank 3 mage.
A tenth circle mage had to complete the essence of his first element before passing to the rank one, and a rank 2 mage had to complete the essence of its second element before reaching the level of a rank 3 mage.
It was an arduous task. The low number of rank 3 mages on the entire planet showed how hard it was!
They felt weird that Arthur did not want to share a lot of his abilities, but none of them pushed him to do so. Acting like assholes would not make Arthur collaborate with them during the fights.
After half a month of travel, they finally reached the icy cave! When they got there, other mages were around the area.
“Mages from other schools?” Arthur said.
“Yes. The Icy Cave is controlled by our top schools, and not everyone can enter.”
“What? Controlled to get the scorpion stings?”
“No. We don’t even know the uses of these stings. The top schools control this place because we are still exploring it!”
“It is a way for them to share the profits if any of the schools find something useful inside the cave.” Arthur said.
It wasn’t a hard thing to understand. Not a single one of the top schools would allow the others to gain profit and increase their power alone.
These schools had a similar level of power, almost equal. So, they made some sort of agreement that would benefit all of them.
“Let’s go.” Bailey said.
When they appeared in front of the Icy Cave, the other mages quickly prepared to engage in a fight, but then they saw the tokens of their chests.
“So it is just the dogs from the One Hundred Thunder Academy.”
“Oh? Years may pass, but the Phoenix Blood continues to run in the veins of sparrows.”
“YOU!”
“Lightning dogs and flaming sparrows. Shut the fuck up.”
The person who said that was a youth with black-hair. It was someone from the rank one school. Arthur had a feeling of danger just by looking at the youth.
What Arthur did not expect was that the youth would return his gaze! They looked at each other for a few seconds, and both of them acknowledge the two were dangerous individuals!
Not a single mage talked after that statement, which revealed the supremacy of the rank one school had over the others.
Arthur and the others went inside the cave, as anyone with the token of the top schools could enter with no problems.
The moment they went in, a freezing wind passed through all of them! Everything was frozen inside that cave, a completely different season than the outside world!
“This place always has snow and frigid winds, and the deeper we go, the colder it gets.” Bailey said.
“Shouldn’t we rest before going in?”
“Rest? Does everyone wants that? Yes? So be it. Let’s camp inside the cave to adjust our bodies to the cold.”