"Don't let your guard down." Myera said holding her sword tightly clutched in her hands, standing in an attack stance. "They could show up from anywhere."

"Well it'd be slightly easier if they would actually 'show up'!" Razor complained.

An elongated pink whip appeared out of nowhere and lashed at Razor. The purple eyed spellblade cut it off with a Fire Blade. The source of the pink whip let out a scream, finally showing itself. The body of the giant chameleon started to change between arrays of different colors before settling to dark green with black stripes. Upset about its tongue being sliced off, it directly charged at Razor with its four moderate sized horns. Razor started to cast his Fire Blade once more.

"Okay that's enough games." Eon suddenly appeared in front of Razor out of thin air, and landed a Scorpion Bash on the giant reptile, knocking it out. The four eyes constantly looking at different directions finally came to a rest.

"Ah you learned Camouflage spell!" Myera exclaimed. "That's awesome!"

Using Two-Face as a monster detector had been working pretty fine for the gang. It could smell out any potential threat before they had a chance to strike, which was especially useful against these Chameleon Drakes who happened to nest around these parts of the forest.

"Don't you think these cute slimes make nice pets?" Myera asked, holding a small sap slime in her hand. She decided to let her guard down, now that the invisible reptiles were knocked out.

"Slimes are actually surprisingly short-lived, and they don't reproduce in captivity, making them really bad pets." Eon explained. "And that's a sap slime you're holding. They are famous for ruining the floors of houses by making weeds or plants grow everywhere, even in the concrete."

"Aw.. you're no fun!" Myera pouted.

"I get that a lot." Eon replied.

They had been travelling through the forest for almost a week now, making steady progress towards the mana jewel. Or they hoped they did, because travelling with nothing but a map as their guide proved very stressful. They had no idea where they were and assumed their location based on rough calculations only. The featureless vast forest did nothing to help them out at all.

"I need to find a Razorwing." Eon announced. "I'm done with experiencing the constant feeling that we are completely lost."

"You need a what?" Razor asked, jokingly.

"A Razor that's better at using the compass." Eon replied.

"Well I sure hope you succeed because this tin can is completely trash!" Razor held out the compass for emphasis.

Razorwings were magical corvus subspecies that possessed bio-metal feathers as light as air but sharper than a shiny new sword. Their feathers were used as an ingredient for valuable sharp weapons across the world. Only downside of those weapons were the same bio-metal that degraded after a certain period of time, so the weapons' didn't last too long. The birds were also exceptional at deviation magic, their passive 'Locator' skill gave them a sense of position and a clear picture of their surroundings, which was exactly what Eon was after.

"They should be around here." Eon placed a few dead mice on the ground. "Hope they notice these soon." The other two observed the Blue Mage from behind the bush. Eon returned and joined them a few moments after placing the lures.

Only five minutes had passed, and they noticed a couple of Razorwings poking out of the branches cautiously.

"These metal birds are famous for being very fearless. It's the first time I've seen them proceeding with such caution." Eon noted.

"Maybe they detected us?" Myera suggested.

"Interesting." Eon hummed thoughtfully.

In a few minutes the Razorwings descended down onto the ground. A familiar whip-like tongue was shot at them out of thin air. Startled, the corvid duo prepared to flee.

"Ah, the Chameleon Drakes. That's what they were afraid of!" Razor gasped.

"We can't let the birds get away without giving me the spell." Eon stood up. "Razorwing Magic: Whirlwind!"

A whirlwind trapped the two birds and spun them around, leaving the birds completely lose their sense of direction.

Myera acted fast and sliced the invisible monster in half. She was gradually getting good at detecting their presence. The green reptile's body dropped on the ground, cut in half.

Ensuring safety of the corvids, the three reclaimed their position in the bush. The Razorwings slowly recovered from the dizziness, looked around and took off.

"They're getting away!" Razor stood up to stop them.

Eon held his arm to restrain him. "It's fine. The job is done."

'Locator' skill was acquired!

***

"We are completely off our tracks!?" Myera yelled.

"Can't be helped. We all suck at navigation." Eon deadpanned.

"We could've reached the X mark two days ago!" Myera's yelling only got louder.

"We just need to backtrack a little. It's nothing too serious anyway." Razor commented. "Let's just focus on getting back on track instead of arguing about it."

Eon was surprised how even Razor made so much sense sometimes. Though Razor was worried about his father and that must have caused him to take the journey extra seriously.

"You know.. my mom never figured out anything about the Quetzalcoatl from its feathers. It's almost like the dragon was some artificial life form. And even though it had the appearance of a quetzalcoatl, the feather showed the existence of various other dragon species' flesh and blood in that large body." Eon glanced at the flowers in their full bloom at the end of first month of Spring. "She said whoever the dragon's master was, he created the dragon from scratch. It wasn't a natural born being."

"Your point being?" Myera asked, not quite sure why Eon decided bring up that topic.

"What I'm trying to say is, Razor is right. We are dealing with an enemy who can give birth to dragons capable of leveling a city within hours. We can not afford to slack off and argue about useless things."

Eon walked ahead as the other two followed his lead. It would take them half a day to get them back on track, and then they would be able to reach the mana jewel location on the map within a couple of days.

After a few hours of walking Razor pointed at a bird nearby. "Dude why is that bird glowing and everything?"

Eon looked at the said bird had and saw symbols like runes grafted and glowing all over its body. "That's..Interesting.." He mused.

"Something the almighty Blue Mage has no information on?" Myera asked jokingly.

"According to the 'Jewel Hunt' book Hotaz left for us, the wildlife around the crystal is very exotic. Long periods of exposure to the magical radiation coming directly from the jewel without any suppressors result in permanent changes to the body." Eon explained. "The monsters around the jewel have been being exposed to this radiation for generations. Even mundane animals start to show magical properties in this area. The ruins grafted on their skin might have something to do with the radiation."

A mole noticed three creatures not native to the forests staring at it, and simply phased through the ground.

"Can you learn to do that?" Razor asked.

"I should be able to. This will come very handy." Eon replied.

They decided to keep progressing through that direction, realizing their accidental off tracking got them very close to the jewel, and the location on the map wasn't entirely on point. They started to notice more and more monsters with glowing symbols on their skin. Some aggressive starwolves or boars attacked them a few times, but they managed to take them down with little issue.

After progressing a bit more they noticed the silver sphere making tiny beeping noises.

"A locating spell of some sort?" Myera asked, staring at the yellow light flashing in sync with the tiny beeps on top of the sphere.

"We are getting nearby." Eon replied.

"We can't even trust the map." Razor sighed. "This is the worst."

Razor had a point. This time they accidentally stumbled across the jewel, but the map didn't give a precise location of the jewel, only guided you towards the location. That would definitely result in tiresome inconveniences in the future.

Eon noticed the bushes around them were glowing with bright green symbols grafted on them as well. Looking around he found every living being around them were glowing with different colors of runes planted on their body. "It's like we are on a different planet." He exclaimed.

A shadow hopped out of the branches from behind. Before they could react, a beam of glittering energy struck Eon. He managed to evade the beam by shooting himself up with the help of Grappling Hook for the most part but the spell still hit the Blue Mage in his torso a little, disintegrating the clothing and the flesh of that tiny area.

Eon screamed in pain as blood gushed through the wound. Myera swiftly hit the invisible target with a chemical tube shot like a projectile through a self designed tube shooter gun. The glass broke on impact with the invisible target and painted it with color.

Then the young but experienced lady rushed to stop the blood flow from Eon's flank area and bandaged it thoroughly.

"Don't move and take rest for now. We'll take care of this."

The painted target jumped on the ground, finding no point being invisible anymore, the rather large chameleon drake's green body came into view. The glowing runes all over its body and the large single horn on its forehead announced this wasn't going to be as easy as fighting the other chameleon drakes.