"So you're still planning on flying there?" Silvia asks me.

I'm currently preparing to head out, having spent all day yesterday after our meeting and subsequent discussion training. Or rather, I spent half of the day training and the rest of the day learning a bit more about this world. Also entertaining the twins, because Sol and Shade needed someone to entertain them while Silvia dealt with more monsters and reinforced her wards. Terrence wasn't helping as he was training his own skills, bringing all but his flight spell up another Level.

[Flight Wind] is a Tier V spell, the highest-tier spell he's able to cast right now, and it takes a bit more effort to improve.

Naturally, the sixteen-year-old [Archon] who only learned about magic yesterday already has it at Level 10.

Magic really does come naturally to me, as does working on improving it. I only worked on the four basic elements yesterday and will probably work on some spells in the light and shadow elements next. After that, I'll work on lightning.

This isn't due to difficulty or anything like that, it's just that I decided to learn them in their groups. Give myself a solid foundation for fighting, then learn the next batch. After that, learn the most destructive magic other than fire.

Once I've mastered the seven elements… I might see about manipulating the weather out of boredom. Today, however, is going to be aimed at getting some more Levels using the air lizards Silvia told me about.

"Just to the no-fly zone," I tell Silvia. "That shouldn't take us long to fly to, and then we'll walk the five hours, maybe run a bit to make it shorter."

"Alright," she says, then flicks her gaze to the golden chain around my neck, the amulet hanging from it hidden beneath my tunic. "Can you make sure Terrence comes back safe?"

"I can make sure he comes back alive," I tell her. "Unharmed? Well, I don't know any healing spells. I'm planning on dealing with the elements first before trying anything else, to get used to using magic and the differences between things."

The elements are also more basic, too.

"Alright," Silvia says. "Do you want to eat more before you go?"

"No, thanks," I touch my stomach. "I'm stuffed. I did put the food you gave me into our packs, so I'll have something to eat if I need it."

"Okay," she says.

"Let's go find Terrence," I pull on one pack and pick up the other.

Terrence is playing with the boys outside, all three of them in shorts, goofing around and chasing each other around. Judging by how wet they look, they probably keep jumping into the pond as well. Or rather, Terrence probably keeps throwing the boys into the pond.

I point at the trio, and a [Water Bomb] appears in front of my finger, roughly six inches in diameter. Seeing a hovering orb of water is a bit strange to me, especially since there's absolutely no movement in it. My skill with water magics has allowed me to cast water spells that don't ripple or wave on their own.

The spell shoots forward, and the trio of wolfkin boys notice it too late.

"No!" Terrence throws up his hands, an [Air Barrier] appearing.

He casts it too late, however, and it appears on the wrong side of the bomb, which impacts him square in the face. Immediately, it bursts, sending an immense amount of water in all directions. An interesting thing about bomb spells is that they expel far more of their element than they consisted of.

For example, though my [Water Bomb] was only six inches in diameter, it sent out enough water that we could probably have filled the swimming pool at home with it and still had a little extra. The pool's ten feet at its narrowest and thirteen at its widest, thirty feet in length, and goes from three feet deep on the shallow end to five feet deep on the deep end.

So that's quite a lot of water for such a little thing.

"Alright, boys," I say. "It's time for the trip. Go get dried off and changed, then we're heading off."

"Yay!" The twins exclaim, starting to run to the house.

"Not you two," Silvia appears behind her sons, grabbing each by the back of his neck. "The air lizards are currently more powerful than they are when you sneak off to kill them. Neither of you are strong enough to kill them. Uncle Terrence and Reid are going to go kill them for some Levels, and you two are going to practice your [Light Cloak]s. You only have another two months to make them well enough I can't pick you out with my eyes alone."

"Awww!" The twins complains. "But we want to hunt the lizards!"

"After the Slip is over," Silvia says. "Unless both of you gain fifty Levels in the next two days."

The pouting boys start complaining that her request is unfair, and I just chuckle and wait for Terrence to return. When he does, he's dressed in the same outfit I saw him in yesterday. He's even tied his tunic around his waist instead of actually wearing it properly. I toss him the pack and he pulls it on without pulling on his tunic.

After rolling my eyes, I gesture for Terrence to come closer to me. While he can cast [Flight Wind] on his own, he won't be able to take us all the way to the no-fly zone on his own. He'll focus on offense during the flight if it's needed, and after we land, we'll allow my Mana to recover a little before continuing on.

"I'm pumped for this," Terrence steps in close to me.

Way too close for comfort, I can feel my face heating up. Terrence needs to put on his tunic.

"Fighting air lizards?" I force my gaze to meet his own.

"Yeah," he says. "After we get a few Levels from these things, we'll go fight some undead! I've wanted to burn undead to a crisp since I was little, and I'm finally getting the chance!"

"Okay," I snort. "You know you're going to get chilly during the flight without your tunic on, right? [Flight Wind] manipulates the air that's already present, which means the already-cool air will feel cooler."

"I'll be fine," he grins at me, his tail flicking in a way that suggests he's aware of what he's doing to me.

Dammit. This is payback for soaking him and the twins, isn't it?

Looking away from Terrence, I start using [Flight Wind]. After we've lifted up above the forest canopy, I summon an [Air Barrier] around us. This will shield us from any debris and insects in the air in addition to protecting us against air friction. With the violet-tinted barrier of compressed air in place, I begin soaring us in the direction of the air lizard's domain.

Due to the lack of paths and the growth of the forest floor, we probably would have only managed one or two miles per hour, walking. The distance from Silvia's home to the zone we have to land due to the wyvern is around ten miles. The faster I fly, the more Mana I burn to fly.

I take us at a pace of about fifty miles per hour, which takes us only a little more than ten minutes to reach the zone. Finding a clearing in the trees that's out of the wyvern's zone takes me a few minutes, then I land us gently down, dismissing the [Air Barrier] as we descend.

"That was awesome," Terrence says as the winds stop whipping around us, and he gives as little shiver. "I'm even colder now that the winds aren't moving around."

"You can always put on your tunic."

"Nah, I'm good," he grins. "What do you think of me?"

"You're a dork," I say. "And you realize that I'm planning on returning home after the Slip, right?"

That reminder deflates Terrence some. I don't know what his actual feelings for me after after only a day, but I can make a guess about it. He finds me attractive and it's the first time he's known someone he can actually express that with. We're also sixteen (almost seventeen for both of us), so we're dealing with a lot of puberty hormones.

Terrence wants to show off and get validation from me, possibly even court me despite us having just met. I do feel bad about deflating him because of how starved for real attention he's probably been, but it's better this way.

Though the sad face he's making now is hard to resist.

"To answer your question, though," I tell Terrence. "If I weren't going to be leaving in the next two or three weeks, I'd definitely be interested in seeing where things go. But I'm not the type to be interested in someone immediately, so I'd have to get to know you a little better first, see if there's an actual spark there."

"Okay!" He perks up a little. "So what's the plan for the air lizards? Fighting together or separately?"

Thank the gods. A depressed Terrence has a higher risk of getting hurt in a fight. I wasn't lying to him with that statement, either. This past day has let me get to know him well enough to know that there's a possibility I'd want to date him if we got to know each other better.

Oh, jeez. I can just imagine Lyssa's reaction when I tell her about this. She'll probably tease me for months about my "boyfriend from another world", no matter what. Though it might not be a good idea to tell her about where I actually ended up during my time missing on Earth, I'm not going to keep it a secret from my friends.

Especially not if I keep my ability to use magic there.

Thinking of my friends depresses me a little, since I don't know for sure how long I'll actually be here. What if the Slip isn't the reason I was summoned and it's actually something that comes after? What if the gods really do refuse to send me home because of the deity that actually brought me here? What if it takes me years to be able to create passages between worlds on my own?

"We'll gain more Experience if we fight separately," I tell Terrence, clearing the worries from my mind, even if only temporarily. "Silvia said that they're around my level of power, so you'll struggle more than me for a bit. So we'll fight separately, but we'll stay close to the other in case one of us gets into trouble and needs help. Then, we can help the other out until we're ready to go at it alone again."

"Sounds like a plan to me," he stretches. "I'm going to be using earth magics. Air magics would work, but earth magics will be more effective for countering their own spells."

"Sounds good to me," I say. "I'll probably mix the two together. Shrapnel is great and all, but [Air Bomb] will be more effective at spreading the beasts out of it I need to."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Just don't hit me with it."

"I'll try," I snort.

We rest up for another couple of minutes, then take off through the forest. Neither of us want to delay this, so we just run, hopping over branches, roots, and undergrowth as we go. Our high Perception makes it easy to make out everything rather than the forest becoming a blur to us, and our high Agility allows us to react in time to avoid obstacles. It's the Strength that gives us our speed, however, bolstering the muscle strength in our legs.

What should have taken us five hours to reach only takes us one, and that's with a fifteen-minute break halfway through. That's a slightly-better pace than I could have done on a track back on Earth, and a track is flat and contains no obstacles or incline.

"Think they can see us?" Terrence asks as we look at the air lizards from behind a couple of trees around forty feet from the clearing.

Dozens of them mill about, resting on the grass or large rocks and boulders. The "clearing" they're in is about fifty feet wide and sixty feet or so long. On the far side from here is a fifteen-foot stone cliff, though we can see it descend a little as it wraps around the clearing. Moss grows atop it, though as the cliff turns from stone to dirt, the moss turns to grass.

A single tree stands in the clearing, along with about half a dozen clusters of rocks and a small pond. I can see off to the west some more rock clusters outside of it, where more of the air lizards live. We can't see those ones due to the foliage and forest, and the fact that they have their own dipped-down 'nest'.

"Hm."

Maybe I can see one atop the cluster over there.

A total of eight of these air lizard nesting areas exist, each one with a cliff along at least one edge of it, all of them having some sort of "shelter" and a series of rocks and boulders for them to lounge on. All of them also have ponds like this one, and Silvia mentioned that the largest of them has a massive pond that has some monsters of its own.

The air lizards themselves are kind of large, roughly ten to fifteen feet in length for the adults. They look almost like a normal salamander to me, with a light green body and dark grey spots. Well, with that and their size, they really are quite big.

"That one sees us," I indicate an air lizard that's turned its gaze to us. "I think it thinks you look delicious."

"I probably am delicious," Terrence says. "But if something's going to eat me, I'd rather it be a dragon than a large lizard."

Are dragons not just giant, flying lizards here?

"What's a dragon?" I ask.

"A mythical, but giant, flying lizard," he says. "Which can breathe fire. Some can even use other elements."

"So… if you get eaten by something, you don't want it to be a giant lizard, you want it to be an even gianter lizard that flies and breathes fire?"

"Yes," he answers. "Oh! I'm a dumbass."

"Dork."

The air lizard doesn't seem interested in us, and I experiment by backing away, gesturing for Terrence to do so. Once we're about a hundred feet further away than we were, the air lizard returns to lounging without a care.

Either it can't see us that well thanks to the foliage surrounding us, or it's decided we aren't a threat.

"Let's rest up some," I tell Terrence. "Recover from that run. I've never run and moved around so much at the same time before in my life, and I want to recover before getting into a fight."

"Yeah," Terrence says. "It's always good to make sure we're ready. Let's leave our packs behind as well, to avoid damaging them."

I pull off my pack and set it down, and Terrence sets his beside it. A gesture with my right hand conjures a [Stone Wall], though this one is more of a dome that forms around the packs. I add on a second layer, then a third. This should – hopefully – protect it from any potential damage caused by the fighting. We might be fifty yards away from the nearest clearing, but if things get extreme, the fighting may cause widespread damage.

"Should we go after the same nest?" Terrence asks after a few minutes. "Or attack different ones? Silvia said she only killed a handful, right?"

"Yeah," I answer. "And this one had about twenty of them. She estimates that at my current Level, I'd gain around three to four Levels from the first kill alone, and reach Level 40 or so total from five to ten. This is assuming her estimates about how much Experience they give base and how much is needed is true."

We told Terrence about the Experience Points theory yesterday after dinner, and he agreed that it made sense. Silvia estimates that he can reach Level 70, or another seven Levels, from five to ten of these lizards.

"There's plenty to go around," I tell him. "So why don't we each take a nesting pit? That should about cap out reasonable gains for us. Take the one we can sort-of see to the west when at this one, and I'll take this one. Send up a screamer if you need help and I'll jump over. I'll do the same if I need help."

"Alright," he says. "Ready to start?"

"Not yet," I tell him. "I've got an idea I want to try. Something I just came up with thanks to my domed [Stone Wall]s."

Closing my eyes, I focus on learning a new spell. Or rather, I focus on creating a modification to an existing spell that turns out to be its own spell.

This spell is a sort of thin, but strong [Air Barrier] that coats my skin directly, moving as I do. With as much skill as I acquired in magic yesterday and my innate sense for magic, it wasn't difficult to make the modification. The moment I finish, however, I receive a notification.

[Air Armor] learned!

Apparently, this is its own spell even though it's basically a modification to an existing spell. I suppose that makes sense, considering that [Air Spear] is just a longer [Air Bolt] with a bladed head.

The [Air Armor] has the same violet tint as the rest of my air magics, and I can move unhindered based on the minute of testing I give it. I devote another minute to working on improving it based on what I know of [Air Barrier], halving its cost to sustain from 0.8 Mana per second for a full-body armor down to 0.4 Mana per second, a total of four Levels, plus an additional two to make it stronger while keeping its thinness and mobility.

Now I can sustain it while still regenerating my Mana.

"Alright," I tell Terrence. "Now I'm ready."

He's been staring at me ever since the [Air Armor] formed, though I know he can only see it where my skin is exposed since it's almost like a thin film right against my skin. My clothes conceal it.

"I'm not even going to try to learn that," he tells me. "Not until after we've finished and returned to camp. I wish you'd thought of that sooner."

"So do I," I tell him. "But I should probably finish regenerating my Mana first. I brought it up in Level enough that I can regenerate Mana rather than lose Mana while this is active. It'll take me less than a minute now to recover what was spent."

"Got it," Terrence stretches again. "I'm going to head off to the other nesting pit. See you when it's done, hopefully."

The "hopefully" isn't because he might die, but because if he sees me again before we finish, that means one of us needed help.

"See you," I tell him.

Terrence takes off, and I stretch for a few moments before approaching my own nesting pit, conjuring up a pair of spells to prepare my offensive.