Night passed uneventfully enough. At one point, some wolves started howling in the forest to the south. Despite being on high alert for the rest of the night after that, I still felt refreshed by the time Cellestra stirred.

Soon enough, we went through our morning routine during which we ate the last of the berries. The basket they had been in was added to my back when we loaded everything again. There was no point in tossing it out.

Our journey continued onward after a short while.

“You’re in a good mood today, aren’t you?” Cellestra asked warmly once we were underway.

I nodded. “I am. We’re starting to get close to our goal. I can feel it.” I turned my head to the sky. “Finally, I’ll be able to see them again, hug them again. Finally, I’ll be able to move… forward. I feel like I’ve been stuck this entire time.”

“Would it be strange for me to say I’m looking forward to that moment?” The elf asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think we both wish each other happiness, don’t we? I don’t think that’s strange at all.”

“We do,” Cellestra said softly. “Let’s continue our practice, shall we?”

“Yeah.”

Starting our magic practice after a night of rest proved to be wonderful in our efforts. We still struggled to get Cellestra’s flow of mana to take the shapes needed to cast healing light successfully, but I felt like we were at least making progress this time. As long as we made progress, we would eventually get there. Unfortunately, we had to conclude that despite all that, we wouldn’t be able to get her to replicate the spell today. I didn't think we would get there tomorrow, either.

This spell proved to be the most intricate one to date.

The landscape flew by. We halted our practice as soon as I saw blue appear over the horizon. I knew it to be the river which meant that there should also be a bridge that we’d cross, guarded as was usual with important landmarks.

Even if most of the people here were peaceful and problems from abroad were non-existent, bridges and trading posts would always need to be protected to protect supply lines from bandits and their ilk.

However, there was no bridge in my perfect sight. It made me wonder if we’d somehow missed it.

“Hmmm,” I let out, scratching my head while running. ”No bridge here. Did we go wrong somewhere?” Immediately after that, I figured it wouldn’t matter too much. “I’ll follow the river north. Hopefully, we run into the bridge, if we don’t… we were supposed to go that way anyway, before or after crossing, it shouldn’t matter too much, and well…”

“Well, what?” Cellestra asked curiously.

“I’m looking at it right now and it seems the water level is quite high. If it’s calm water, I could simply walk across to the other side.”

“Oh yeah, you can do that. Do you think your spell will be strong enough to hold us both?”

I chuckled. “Cellestra…” I grinned as I had a hard time containing my laughter. “I think you weigh nothing in comparison to what I’m carrying behind me. I’m sure that little bit of extra luggage makes no difference.” I shook my head. “I’m certain I can manipulate the spell’s strength if needed as well. Worst case scenario, I summon ice walls under my feet to walk across.”

The elf nodded. “I trust you know what you’re doing.”

“Well, it’s not like I'm going to jump onto the water or anything like that.”

Cellestra giggled softly as we neared the river. It was about fifty yards across and fortunately for us, the water was calm. The water level was a few feet below the riverbank, but thanks to my long and powerful legs, I reckoned I could make it down without putting Cellestra in a precarious position. For the moment, I decided to walk north, in hopes of finding the bridge the soldier talked about.

When we didn’t run into it about half an hour later, I came to a halt and mentioned that I was going to walk across.

The elf nodded and gripped my hair tight.

I paused for a moment to figure out the best way to do this. I decided to approach the water walking sideways. I then cast my water walk spell and lowered two legs onto the water and applied pressure. When I felt that the calm water was solid ground, I followed up by adding my other two legs.

Thanks to all the joints, I could still remain in a position where Cellestra was sitting upright and wasn't tilted in the slightest. I then shifted most of my weight to the legs on the water, but the spell remained strong. I then slowly moved my legs further onto the water before two of my right legs found their way on top of it. Finally, I had all eight legs on the water and found the spell holding without problems.

“Told you,” I said with pride.

Without delay, I started skittering across the water surface, wanting to get to the other side as swiftly as possible. We got the attention of a large number of smaller fish, which would have made me smile otherwise, but I didn’t want to lose focus while over the water.

Cellestra seemed to have similar thoughts, and kept quiet until we were back on solid ground.

I couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief when it was over.

“Nice one,” The elf complimented me as she softly patted my back.

“I’m happy that went well. At least now I know what I can do with this.” I turned my head to the north. “Now, let’s see if we can get to that body of water today, shall we?”

The brunette nodded. “By the way, if we find some time, do you think we could catch some fish for tonight?”

“Another one of your cravings?” I said slyly.

Cellestra nodded shyly. “I thought it would be a good idea, with this river being here and all…”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get you some fish.” I started running when I had an idea pop up in my head.

I followed the shoreline as closely as I could while keeping my spider eyes fixated on the water, trying to spot any fish that were close to the surface.

“I’m trying something,” I explained, earning a nod.

There had been no new spell mergers available to me for a while now, which led me to play with the idea of making a certain attack which was a combination of two spells, but without actually merging them. As a test, I summoned some of my threads and kept them suspended in mid-air to my right.

I then summoned an ice lance that briefly hovered at the same side. In the short time that it was suspended and aimed, I manipulated the threads to wrap around the icicle’s base. Then, the spell fired.

The icicle pierced the water surface but didn’t hit anything after that. I reeled the icicle back in by pulling the threads.

“That… was interesting…” Cellestra said.

I was smiling from ear to ear at my successful test. “It is, right? Now I can fish without having to stop.”

I practiced my new ‘spell’ a couple more times, even going as far as using high-velocity ice lances. I found that the threads held in both situations, which was something I’d been slightly skeptical about.

It wasn’t simple as there weren’t many fish close to the surface. This alone made it hard to aim at anything, but an hour or two, and a few failed attempts, later, I finally managed to strike a fish.

You have killed a River Salmon: No experience was awarded.

“Salmon, apparently,” I said as I reeled it while the elf on my back watched with large eyes.

“Damn, that blessing is useful. You already know what it is before you can even see it.” The elf had her eyes fixed as the impaled fish appeared above the water. “Salmon is incredibly delicious too. I could only get it at very specific times in the year. Maybe they are more common out here?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “I’ve only had it once or twice in all my years, and I never bothered to figure out how and when to get them.”

“Hmmm,” The purple-eyed elf let out. “They are delicious if you smoke them. Actually…” Cellestra turned her head to find the sun in the sky. “Do you think you can do that?” She looked at me expectantly.

I chuckled. “Don’t think I have the means or the knowledge to do that. I can try to cook it using hot air, but that’s about the best I can do.”

Cellestra shrugged. “Up to you if you want to do it.”

“Alternatively, we could ask once we reach the village, but you know how I think about all this.”

The elf nodded. “Let’s just cook it as best you can and keep going. We can always do this some other time.”

“Agreed. I’m still hoping to reach at least the first village today. I can already see the ocean appearing over the horizon. At least, that’s what I think it is.”

One step closer to my long-lost relatives. With every step that I took, I felt more nervous as I was approaching the goal that not so long ago, had been so far out of reach. Soon, we would be reunited. I said a small prayer of thanks to Elysa in my mind.