Coming back to First, John Ryder instinctively ducked at the whirling sound of a projectiles flew overhead.

Huh? He was dumbstruck and immediately called out. It had narrowly misses this small ship and John truly disliked the idea that someone had fired on him.

“Icarus! What’s going on!?!”

The pixie-like AI rushed over. “We are being perused. Counting 13 ships, 12 are destroyer class attack ships with the last of unknown design and slightly larger, none of them have any markings stating their origins.”

“Bandits?”

“That is the most likely. Though something against this theory is the state of their ships, they are in pristine condition.”

“It doesn’t matter, they fired first and I don’t want to deal with anything that deals with things like this. Get into the clouds and alter course.”

Icarus began to sink, the view of the bow showing more and more of the clouds beneath them until suddenly they began washing over them like a sea.

The bursting clouds left only a foot of sight for John.

“Arcane eye, Veil of concealment.”

John released his magic, creating a construct made purely of magical energy. The Arcane eye was a skill that he shared with the scout class that acted like a floating camera. When he closed his left eye, that eyes sight would be replaced with that of his little camera. In addition to this, its location was controlled by his thoughts and could travel a fair distance to observe what he wished.

The Veil of concealment was not of the scout class. It was a rare magic that made small objects nearly transparent. Unless one caught a glimmer of its figure while it moved, it was very difficult to see. Together they were exceptional at spying.

John raised the eye above the clouds. There he observed the movements of the ships that had been in pursuit.

They were changing course.

&#$*!

John was swearing at their movements. They were too precise, as if he were a pole and them a compass.

Icarus had been marked!

John instantly looked back at his most recent experiences. There were only two new elements to Icarus, the skytiger and the elf.

The skytiger? No way, a tracking curse would of shown up on his sealing card when he first did so. The only explanation was the elf.

Immediately John rushed over to where the elf was, she was in poor health. As a result she was still sleeping and completely unaware of his existence.

Sending a pulse of his magic over her, he found the culprit. There was a reaction underneath her clothes over her right breast.

Like a beast he tore apart her clothes to reveal the seal along with ample tender white skin.

John’s eyes narrowed after seeing it, while praying she did not wake up this instance and misunderstand the situation.

It was no normal tracking seal.

“Who would make a tracking seal this complicated?”

In perspective though, to John, this was just annoying and didn’t change his plans at all.

Finding a key within a labyrinth was indeed difficult and if one made it more so, the difficultly could only increase further. Facing this seal, it was exactly that kind of situation so what was he to do?

Blast it to oblivion was his answer. This magical labyrinth though complicated was still but a magical object. He had no intention of wasting his time solving its construction that someone obviously put much time into. All that was needed was brute force.

A quick burst of strength from John’s magic reserves collided with the seal and it was no more. It was like smashing a small, dazzling sculpture of stained glass with a hammer the size of a mountain. It had been truly a beautiful creation of magical design but alas, John had no patience for it.