Chapter 45 - Flying Continent

Aaron flew until he saw the huge white walls of the White Sea City. It was beautiful, filled with formations that might as well be works of art. But he ignored it all in his hurry; he was not there to sightsee but to avoid death.

He stopped anxiously at the door of the city, paid the toll to enter, then ran straight towards the place where the portal was located. His family's library had contained maps from all over the continent, and even some from other continents, including detailed maps from key locations like the White Sea City. He had naturally memorized them all.

There was a long line of people by the portal, that was nothing more than a slightly raised large platform made of black stone with silver inscriptions. Every time the portal was activated, mages would double-check the wear on the inscriptions, repair as needed, and only them about ten or so people would be allowed in to be sent to the Flying Continent.

Aaron would obviously not wait. As he ran, he activated his Legendary Stealth. There were five mages working on the portal, one of which was an Ascender, and two Eminences. Only the Ascender detected Aaron when the boy stepped on the platform, but only barely, as he looked at Aaron's direction with a frown, unsure of what his senses were telling him.

After stepping on the portal, Aaron quickly read the formation, which was nothing more than a mere Supreme formation. Usually, only Overlords using their Ultimate spells could teleport, but when formations were involved, Ascender could do it using their lower leveled Supreme formations, too.

As for Aaron, he had no issue reading the formation and understanding what it did. Basically, it was soul-linked to another formation in the Flying Continent, and once activated, whatever was over it, touching the platform, would be replaced with whatever was over the Flying Continent's platform.

Just as he felt the Ascender pulling some mana from himself to prepare a spell, Aaron acted. He had bought many materials in Lamia, including silver ink, which he pulled from his ring and used to cut a symbol on the formation in half.

Doing so revealed him for the senses of every mage around. The Ascender's eyes widened in surprise, which made him stop his spell casting. That second was enough for Aaron to also pull three suons – Supreme coins – from his ring, place them with mana on the circle outlining the formation, and use a new spell.

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting, Formation Mastery – Single Element: Soul – Legendary Energetic Link!

The coins connected to each other and to the formation, and the latter activated. It flashed in bright light, and when the light was gone, so was Aaron.

He felt his body being twisted, bound in ways that weren't natural, but it wasn't painful. It took only a few moments, and then, he materialized elsewhere.

He was on the Flying Continent.

However, he wasn't on the portal where he was supposed to be. When he used silver ink on the White Sea City's formation, he suppressed its connection to the Flying Continent's portal, but not to the Flying Continent itself. It was as if he had sent a letter without informing the street, house number, or even the city or state, only the country where it was supposed to be delivered to.

He looked around, finding himself at the top of a snowy mountain. He couldn't see anything below, clouds covered everything like a peaceful mantle. The skies above him were blue, and the white sun of that planet shone brightly.

There was no immediate danger around that he could see, and that's just what he needed. Finally, he allowed his body some rest, releasing his tight control over it, and immediately it demanded he coughed. And with the cough, came some blood.

He was still heavily injured from the reality shift, and using spells in that condition hadn't helped. He cleaned the blood away and took Helina, Mark, and Sara from the garden.

"I need some rest," he said. "Helina, do not use your Mana Sense, we don't want to be found, or even worse, provoke whatever beast might be around. But do set up some wards around us, in case something invisible enters our range, be it a sentient being or a spell. Sara, Mark, keep practicing. I'll need a month of rest before I can concoct some healing pills, don't talk to me until then."

"I... Have some healing elixirs..." Helina said hesitantly. She wasn't sure how she felt about the arrogant Herald who had threatened to abandon her at the Wyvern Pass, but she still had to keep him alive.

He nodded. "Let me see."

She took a small bottle out of her spatial ring. It looked like a fancy crystal perfume bottle from Earth, with a golden liquid inside.

Check Item, he thought. Two tooltips appeared, one for the bottle itself, and the other for the liquid inside.

Check Item

Name: Alchemist Elixir-Holding Bottle

Grade: Low Magical Item [4]

Check Item

Name: Golden-Grass Healing Elixir

Grade: High Magical Item [5]

He took the bottle with a smile, opened it, and sniffed the contents. Still smiling at her like a kind grandfather who had just witnessed his grandaughter do something stupid but cute, he offered the bottle battle.

"I appreciate your care," he said sincerely, "but the yin element in Golden-Grass-based elixirs is just too intense. What's more, the purity of this elixir is of only thirty percent, and its impurities are also of the yin element. Women would be fine with all this, as their bodies and souls are yin-aligned; even the impurities would be naturally, albeit slowly, eliminated from their bodies over time. As for men, while this elixir might heal them in the short term, it would also poison them! And a double poison at that, for not only the yin-aligned impurities would be an issue, but also the healing itself, since the healed parts of the men's bodies would be infused with yin element, too.

"If a Champion Warrior used this elixir, he would be unable to use any martial abilities for at least ten years, the time needed for his body to expel the impurities and correct the incorrect ratio of yin and yang in it. That, of course, would be the same as killing the warrior, since no master would take a useless warrior, and someone who used to live for fighting would be hard-pressed to find any other kind of job, especially if he had no money saved-"

Everyone paled a little as he spoke, especially Helina. "I didn't know!" She said quickly, interrupting him.

Aaron shook his head. "That's both a truth and a lie. A truth for you probably didn't know how harmful it was, and a lie for I bet you were told to never give this elixir to a man unless it was absolutely necessary. This came from the Temple of Time, after all, and its official members are all women. It's natural that they would develop a medicine that would be better for them, and detrimental to possible thieves. Not to mention some Prophetesses might want to make some money on the side, and by making sure about half the world population would be harmed from consuming this elixir, the upper echelon is also making it harder to sell the elixir, or at least making it less profitable."

Helina opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his hand to silence her and continued. "That being said, it wouldn't be as bad for a mage. At the worst, he might develop some minor and easily curable yin-attributed disease, besides being unable to train as a warrior. Of course, since mages bodies are usually weaker, it would take them about a hundred years to naturally expel the poison, and sick mages are mocked by their peers, but nothing major.

"Now, for me, personally, things are different. The only reason I haven't started training as a warrior is because I'm awaiting puberty, but after then, I would very much like to do so. It would inconvenience me to no end to have to wait a hundred years to do so. However, I obviously also have the means to both detect the imbalance in my body and to correct it, but that would also take two months, which is longer than my own plans of healing."

He had been smiling until now, but suddenly, his smile dropped and he looked dead serious at her. "However, a poison is a poison, no matter if it works or not." Helina paled even more, and he kept speaking. "As for the reason I haven't killed you for trying to poison me, it's because I believe you were trying to help. But just as I told Mark, you must take care of your suggestions in the future, especially those that might be harmful to me. Contrary to his suggestion though, you had information about the elixir not being supposed to be used by someone other than a Prophetess, but you withhold it from me. If you ever try to harm me again, be it by ignorance or willfully denying me knowledge, there will be consequences, Helina Chosen, and you will not like them."

He didn't think she could pale even more, but she found a way. He felt satisfied seeing that she had gotten his point, and felt it very interesting how impactful his words were to her. It seemed that Herald of Time thing was even more important to her than he thought, and likewise, harming the Herald of Time was something she dreaded.

"I'm sorry," she said with a weak voice.

Aaron nodded, sat in a lotus position, closed his eyes, and started tending to his wounds.