The Sun soon dawned, basking the wilderness in its warm glow. With the arrival of the day's first light, various chirping birds and woodland critters crawled out from their places of rest to hunt and forage.
Following their example, my companions stirred awake too. As expected, Mizuno was among the first, followed by Joseph and Barik soon after.
Mizuno stood up from her bedroll, revealing she'd taken off her black cloak sometime during the night.
She was wearing a shadow gray, buttoned blouse fitted with a black leather harness, and her pants were a tight fit, emphasizing her slender form. On each side of her hips was a leather holster fitted to a belt. They were empty but obviously for storing her two twin longswords.
She performed a series of morning stretches to rouse her muscles into action before throwing on the black cloak, once again concealing her body.
Meanwhile, Joseph ventured over to the only party member who hadn't yet started the day.
"Get up," Joseph ordered a dazed Alan. "It's time to get up."
Alan shuffled in his bedroll and squinted upward toward Joseph. "Ugh...what time is it?" he griped while rubbing his eyes. He opened them slightly more to see the Sun still hid behind a wall of pine trees.
To Joseph's frustration, Alan mumbled, "just five more minutes," before rolling to his side, away from Joseph.
"It's time for you to get up!" Joseph replied, then repeatedly shoved his brother with his foot.
After each push, Alan sighed irritatedly but remained docile. Eventually, however, Joseph's incessant foot nudging frustrated Alan enough that it merited a response beyond unintelligible groaning and slurred mumbling.
Alan threw up a hand and tried dismissing his brother. "Why don't you try to give Mizuno a morning smooch instead?" he taunted and pulled his blanket over his head.
Joseph clenched his teeth in anger, and his nudging became full-blown kicking. "Get the hell up, you lazy lout!"
Several strikes later, Alan couldn't take the beating anymore. "Cut that out, will you?!" he snapped back. "Fine, I'll get up... Just stop that!"
Alan stood up from his bed, and we ate more of our packed rations for breakfast. Afterward, we equipped all our gear and fastened our rolled-up bedrolls back to our rucksacks. Ready for another day's journey.
We walked for hours, passing familiar scenery until we stumbled upon one of our old campsites. It was the one we'd been forced away from by that swarm of blue wisps.
Some of our makeshift supplies were still intact. However, the elements and creatures from the forest left their damaging marks in various ways. A bit of it was sure to be useful, but the risk of stopping here wasn't worth it.
"We should keep moving," I said. "Right, Mizuno? What if we reencounter those weird orbs that floated from the water? Shrug called them wisps."
Mizuno nodded in agreement and motioned for us to move on.
"You won't encounter them," Barik interrupted, "they're only attracted to high concentrations of mana." He then performed a hand gesture to emphasize his point. "They won't attack so long as no magic is performed near them."
"Are you sure?" I asked. "I was awake when they appeared and didn't see anybody casting magic. How would you explain that?"
Barik brought a hand to his beard and stroked the braids in thought. "There's only one other thing that wisps like. 'Crystalline Aether.'"
Mizuno and I gave him quizzical stares.
Noticing our confusion, Barik elaborated. "They're crystals formed from highly condensed and hardened aether. So wisps will swarm to those."
If we had one of those, everything would make sense. Especially when explaining their large numbers. However, that begged the question, "who had an aether crystal?"
"One of you must've; it's the only explanation," he replied confidently before heading into the abandoned camp.
Mizuno approached Barik. "These crystals... What do they look like?"
While walking to the log the sisters sat at, Barik replied, "they're hard to miss. Aether crystals glow, and their color reflects the element they were formed from. They'll also leave a colored residue on the skin of anyone that touches them."
Mizuno brought a hand to her chin while lost in thought. However, in the end, she emerged just as clueless as she started.
Likewise, I hadn't seen anyone with anything resembling a glowing crystal throughout the trip or with any strange residue on their body. Sadly, we couldn't turn back to question any of the others, either. Not while the camp was on the brink of starvation.
So we dropped it and, for the next several minutes, foraged for supplies around the campsite.
The brothers made it a competition to pillage the most gear. Though there wasn't much to pick from, to begin with.
Barik sat down and retrieved a crude writing utensil from his pack. Then, he pulled out another book.
When I walked over out of curiosity, I saw that he was taking notes regarding our paths, the surrounding scenery, and the pond ahead.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Without looking up from his notebook, he pointed to the pond ahead. "You said this is where the wisps came from, right? So I'm taking note of this place for the future."
"I did... But why are you logging the location?" I assumed it was to avoid danger, but he had already stated how to prevent it.
Barik took a breath and answered my question with another. "How many of them were there?"
Thinking back on that night, I remembered a scene painted wholly in blue. Like a night sky nebula, I recalled the space above the pond filled with hundreds of bright orbs.
"Hundreds..." I replied.
pαпdα Йᴏνê1,сòМ He brought the pencil to his beard upon finishing his notes. "Mmmmm," he grunted, "if there were that many, that makes this pond an aether spring. To answer your last question; I'm noting the place for rare materials. That's all you need to know." He shut his book and packed it back into his rucksack.
I looked out to the impossibly motionless pond. Like last time, no ripples, air bubbles, or even a fly approached it. The pond was utterly dead.
"An aether spring?" I questioned.
"Yes, you all witnessed a swarm of wisps being birthed from here. So there's nothing else it could be. Plus, you see how still this pond is? How even the bugs avoid it as much as possible? It's because no living thing can stand exposure to pure aether for long. Your Aether Gland will overload and rupture your insides if you absorb it too long."
For a moment, Barik and I sat unmovingly while staring out at the sparkling blue water. However, our trance was interrupted when a giddy Alan shouted from behind us within the tree line.
"Guys! Guys! I found something!" he frantically gestured for us to follow.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter