"Finally, that took quite a bit"

The mess of scattered items was nowhere to be seen and the only thing left in the wasteland was the dragon and the crow, not even the bodies of the beasts were spared as they were also sent into the pouch hanging on YuJu's waist now, the useful items, however, were stored in his freed up spatial feather

"Is your hand okay now Master?"

He heard Ellis ask, her tone tired and somewhat sleepy

Being reminded of the poisoned hand of his he gave the wound a look, it had halted the infestation of his body after some time from the battle but managed to ride up all the way to his forearm in the process

"For now"

Unsure himself of its lethality he couldn't ascertain whether or not things would be fine, the poison didn't have a common aspect with any other poison he knew, there were so many traits to it yet none at the same time making it seem like a bunch of random poison mixed in together

Turning his sight to the pool of this weird poison he frowned, more than once he entertained the idea of throwing the body into the greed pouch but he reasoned it would only destroy the treasures like it did with all the materials in the spatial feather, that was unacceptable since he had plans for useless valuables like those

'I should figure out what to do with the dragon first actually'

The crow could come later, this massive golem held priority

Walking to the coiled up scally body he searched the thing for any clue to its use, taking an entire twenty minutes before he finally found a small symbol at the back of its head just below the horns

'This means...unlock?'

A little versed in runes he translated while inserting energy into it

Crack!

The scale on which the symbols was located suddenly slid open surprising him quite a bit, past the momentary shock he peered into the darkness within this artificial beast

"Hmm"

Not one to walk into the unknown he decided to use the knife with an eye as a scout first by throwing it in

Weng weng~

The second the knife touched the floor inside the beast all the scales around him started to shimmer as lights came into being inside the dragon revealing an empty small white room whose walls were carved with many varying symbols he couldn't begin to understand

"A manually guided golem, this one's going to be tough to pilot"

"This thing is like a vehicle then?"

Asked Ellis who just jumped next to him after seeing the thing light up, her curiosity getting the better of her

"More or less, I just need to figure out how to activate it and we can speed our journey back to where Anput is"

By car, or whatever that giant dwarfs machine was, it took them two days and a half, using this flying beast would definitely speed things up though which he more than needed

Jumping into the cockpit he stored his knife and started trying to decipher the symbols, many would stump him but if a rough translation of some could be managed then perhaps they could fly it home

"This can take some time so you can sleep if you want"

He reminded the tired swordswoman to which she nodded gratefully, her actions betrayed her body's need of rest however as her ever-curious self went about exploring the empty room and its weird symbols

"Hmm?"

Every time she walked close to these runes a small shine overtook them, disappearing only after she walked some distance from them

Intrigued by the weird phenomenon she tried to touch one of these symbols only to flinch back at the unexpected response she got

"Ah?"

It felt like a foreign stream of words was quickly whispered into her ears, none of which she understood however making the phenomenon even weirded

"What is it?"

Hearing the confused reaction coming out of her YuJu asked

"Oh, I touched this symbol and I heard some sort of...words? I am unsure"

She explained to the best of her ability intriguing him in turn

Moving closer to her he viewed the rune and its shining glimmer, but when she made way for him to inspect it the shimmer died out only for the others near her to light up

"Hmm"

Clearly whatever the runes were they were responding to her presence, the question was why, and why didn't they respond to him

His brain spun in thought at what it could be but there weren't many differences between them and she wasn't emitting any energy either to cause such a phenomenon

'Emitting? Perhaps its her…'

"Try deactivating the hairpin"

He ordered much to her confusion, still she acquiesced and deactivated it causing her clothes to fade away leaving her buck naked

With the fade of the black clothes returning her to the redhead she was the runes' shine also died out like it was a lie, no longer responding to her presence or touch

"As I thought, it was the aura"

Nodding to himself he allowed his own aura to pour out causing the shine to come back on, this time whispering into his ears instead

"You can activate the hairpin again"

Nodding her figure was veiled for a second before appearing once more, now fully clothed in that simple battle attire, her hair raven again

"Couldn't you have used your aura to check immediately though Master?"

She asked in wonder

"I could"

There was a smirk that came with the reply, a teasing one that she could only helplessly smile back to

"These are instructions, a way to use it without understanding the runes, its made for aura holders after all"

Allowing the smoke to drift from him YuJu activated all the runes in under a minute and took only a couple more to understand the full functionality of this flying golem

"A transportation golem, it seems to be made solely for high-speed travel, that speed is quite a marvel though"

"So we will get to Anput quickly then?"

"Yes, this means I can store that crow's body again in my storage until we get to the grotto, fetch it for me"

"Yes"

Quickly she went and came back with the green poison oozing body, what greeted her in turn was a spile of over twenty treasures previously stored in his spatial storage

"Store these in yours, if it doesn't fit just leave them at the side"

Done exchanging the items YuJu let his smoke drift out once more, the first thing he did was close the entrance to the cockpit before waking the golem from its long slumber

From the outside one could see the scales glow brightly with cyan light as the sleeping beast finally opened its eyes for the first time in centuries, raising its head to the sky and giving out an engine like roar sending gusts of wind all over the place

Back inside the two were now facing a hologram that allowed them to view the world through the dragon's eyes

"Let's see if it can still take off after all this time"

Hoping for the best he manipulated the dragon into making use of its artificial aura and energy to send itself upward, watching through the image feedback as the ground got further and further away from them

"Good, let's get going then"

Without further ado the dragon plunged back down, diving into the gate and back upwards again, all the way toward the source of faint light at the ceiling

"Master we're about to hit the ceiling!"

Warned Ellis thinking he lost control over the golem but he paid her no heed, slamming into the light without a shred of fear

….

Back in the Infidome, in the ruins that fell to silence after the intruder's visit, the gate that swallowed those very visitors shined brightly once more, spitting out a huge dragon seconds after its re-activation

Seeing the purple sky and feeling no crash Ellis's heart finally calmed down, the light was apparently the way out and he didn't lose control over it as she assumed…

"Get some sleep"

He advised once more, and this time she listened, her tired body, and heart after that small incident, needed some immediate rest for she might have to fight something when they reached that furry companion of her's which would need an energetic body

YuJu didn't share the same concern though for the second he came back Anupt's thoughts connected to him once more, not very clear due to distance but clear enough to know the absence of any urgency or panic, in fact he could feel some excitement at their connection being restored

'Though it was never terminated, perhaps just weakened to a negligible extent'

Even in another dimension he shared with her some connection, however faint it was

"Haaah"

Thinking about the dimension he just left almost empty-handed a saddened sigh couldn't help but escape his lips, so much went wrong on this journey he couldn't begin to describe the loss

First of all the main objective was a failure, there were no huge gains to supplement the wasted time either other than this big machine which he wouldn't be making too much use of, furthermore he was injured enough for his hands to be maimed, forced to waste a soul slave spot on the Orelic, even forced to unwillingly accept Anput's new class without any research on its compatibility and use for her

'That's not even the worst of it all'

Indeed, there was something worse than all these combined

'I actually had to choose my third class'...'

Remembering the plan he chose to rescue Ellis and Anput brought no end to the massive pain of loss, that was an entire class he wasted

'Well, it's not true waste as I don't even know what other classes fit better yet, still there could have been many others more suitable'

Recalling the use of the class he pulled up his skill list to look at the two new skills he obtained from it

_________________________________

Master Synthesis: Combine components into your subject

Master Mineral Identification: Identify any and all Minerals in close proximity

_________________________________

'Only two skills remained from the class after being merged into my Master class, what a let down'

He had obtained the Synergist class back at the grotto by using energy to manipulating two materials from the mines to combine into a better whole, an easy task considering the wealth of knowledge he had, but once he accepted the class only two skills remained for him to use, granted they were rather great skills

'Problem is only my Orelic can make use of the synthesis, there is also only so much it could do'

Truly a sad thing, so sad it warranted another heavy sigh

"Haaah…"