Q: Who's behind the concept of Sleepless?

A: 01010011 01100001 01101001 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01001000 01100001 01101100 01101100 01100001 01101110

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I stopped the urge to shout at the top of my lungs, flying side by side with tall trees. My leg almost hit the stem of a tree, but with a quick manoeuvre I managed to kick at the stem, safely escaping from another collision against the trees, however, the snow flung from the tree, and fell on my body in a large quantity. I did not mind that, as the suit was hotter than I could handle.

And it needed to be mentioned that the urge to shout at the top of my lungs was out of fear, but excitement. I felt nothing like this before. Even though I collided with trees a few times in the dark and got hurt badly with the cold, I still was not done with flying.

10 grams of spirit stone will keep me flying for about an hour like this, where I will not accelerate much. If I wanted to use it properly with the best speed it could go, I would only get about 15 minutes of this stone. I am really burning money, but at least I'm enjoying it.

I took five turns in two or three minutes and managed to get a better hold of the suit, though I still needed more training if I wanted to battle in the air wearing this. Luckily, there should not be much of a need for that on these occasions.

According to my knowledge, there was no one in the Dark Deer who has the dominion of gravity or this type of suit from Ruthalyn, but I can't be sure. That is a year after this when a lot of stuff will change. That was why I was still training in those fast motions.

This was actually not hard for me, though I read in the books very few of the Ruthlynian soldiers could manage it this early. Perhaps Scars' instinct was the reason. All I had to do was trigger the steam releaser with the strands of spirit force while manoeuvring the part of the body.

Professor Club is a genius, though I can't give all the credits to him for making this.

I got all the capacities in two tries. The vacuums on the legs and arms were most important, while the bigger ones on the back, mostly used for linear movement. Motioning and manipulating the arms and legs are necessary to change direction.

However, this suit was far from being perfect, other than the awful side effect of heating up, it's a little slow on the startup, too. I got to trigger a couple of seconds before the steam would be released. Considering the movements in the battle, that much time was a lot. Moreover, it could not lift me up more than fifty metres above the ground, which is about a lot less compared to the newer version of the suits.

The swift wind was blowing, far colder and heavier than before. I peeked at the twinkling moons over the clouds. It was still a couple of hours away from midnight, so I better check out the sealed rift now.

With that thought, my body swiftly moved towards the middle ground in the east. It was between the middle of two mountains, with more trees in the downy path. I had already covered most of the distance flying down. Even though there was only the suit over my body, it was working as a good heater—a little too good for my own good, perhaps.

I got down on the snowy path as my feet stuck almost a foot in the snow as I went. I had memorised the map entirely, however, I could barely make anything in the dark. The little blue luminescent lamp barely helped, anyway.

I walked around for over half an hour and finally got the way towards the cave. Even though the sealed rift would open only when the five moons appear in the same sky, I still wanted to check it out. There were possibly other wild animals there, so I planned to clean it out today and look out for other things, so that I won't have a problem tomorrow night. There’s something else too I needed to check out.

Tomorrow was the night of five moons. If the Winterheart Reindeer did not come today, it will possibly come tomorrow, recalling in the book that it was a night of five moons as well. So, I better prepare everything. The least amount of time I would need to pick up the power, the better it would be for the mission.

I have not remembered the description of the place from the book entirely, but seeing countless boulders sticking together, I remembered a lot about this place.

I bound the lamp on my waist and brought out the nail sword. Infusing spirit force into it, I walked over the boulders. There were possible snakes or other reptiles living in the cave. Though they are not that dangerous, my inherited fear towards them made me cautious.

There was another reason for me to be cautious. Edward actually did not find this place, but he fell into the cavern when he was running away from the leader of the dark deer. That reminded me, there was an artifact there that helped him grow in strength. I should take it as well. Even though I will be taking away the fateful blessing of the reindeer from Elinor, I should give her other things to strengthen her spirit force.

It should be near. I walked, keeping on the cautious steps. I seriously did not want to fall. Though considering the suit I'm wearing, I could help with some carelessness on my part.

A swift icy wind blew then and with it came snowfall. I frowned and looked at the way the wind was coming. Looks like the blizzard was not far away.

It took me another five minutes to find the entrance to the cavern. It was not actually open like how Edward fell into it, but closed with a few boulders.

I looked around and, noticing no one was near; I moved to open the path to the cave, pushing away the boulders. With my strength, it did not turn out to be difficult, though I had to use all of it.

The entrance of the dark, murky cave opened before me, and a few bats came out immediately, squeaking. I ducked instinctively and entered cautiously.

The path was inclined for about fifty metres deep into the underground. I increased the burning of the luminescent stones and cautiously climbed down.

I wondered how Edward saved himself from breaking any bones from falling from here. Right, there should be a small pond just below it. How could I forget about that important part?

I knitted my brows and looked at the still water below, reflecting the blue light of my lamp. That's the way to the sealed space. In the deepest part of the pond was where the gate was, though I have no intention of going there now. It wouldn’t budge, even if I used all my strength.

Edward had the luck of the protagonist as he directly fell into the water and made his way into the sealed space from there.

Other than the bats, I found no other wild animals so far, though I'm sure there should be some snakes or other reptiles.

I moved out of the way of the pond to go in the other direction to find if there was anything. Surely, Edward did not have time to check out this cave entirely, and after he had taken the stuff from the sealed rift, it all collapsed, eliminating all of his chances of searching for more.

The cave was actually quite big, and as I walked, the fear of the unknown within me started to lessen. Other than being gloomy and a little murky, this place was nothing, however I can't say the same for the sealed rift.

Even though the cavern was huge, it did not take me more than a couple of minutes to get to a dead end. I was about to leave when something interesting held my eyes.

There were actually some cave paintings on the wall, and there were many things written as well. I brought up the lamp close to it, and found what the painting suggested, though I reckoned it would take a normal person without knowledge a lot of time to figure it out.

There were three separate paintings. The first was depicted as a person diving into a pond when there were five moons in the sky, though the way it was shown, only a person with much knowledge in the ancient sign language would know. I barely figured it out, knowing I have to dive into a pond to get to the sealed rift.

The second painting was of some demon which I could only describe with one word: bizarre. It's huge and bizarre. I couldn't even make heads from tails—that's how bizarre it was, nor would the lamp light let me see it entirely at once.

As for the last painting, it appeared to be a map. A frown appeared on my brows as I scanned it carefully. It seemed like the map of a labyrinth, but what could’ve such complicated passages? The answer appeared at once.

Stargrave.

I let out a hot breath self-consciously and opened my handbag to bring out a pen and my notebook. Without a second to waste, I note down everything from head to tail. Stargrave, the labyrinth hidden in the Starfall mountain range. Other than the Ruins of Roshansar, Stargrave is the most significant sight.

Completing copying the map, I tried to copy the painting of the bizarre demon, however, I failed royally. My drawing skills are awful as hell.

Other than the painting, there was a lot of stuff written on the wall, but I could not make sense of them, however, I started to copy them as well. They were probably written in the old tongue of the second epoch.

Though I did not know the language, I reckoned it's something important. Any secrets of the second epoch are undoubtedly important. Even though I could not figure out what was written here, others could. This could possibly lead to something else or uncover some secret of the dominion.

It took me over an hour to note down everything in the walls, from the map to the cave paintings. It wouldn’t have taken that long, however, I triple checked everything just to be safe. However, when I stopped at the bottom of the writings, my eyes widened like saucers.

I brought the lamp close to the endnote, to confirm I have not read it wrong. It was actually something I could understand. Maybe only I could in this realm.

Ayaan List. They call me a hero, however, I call myself a Passenger, or a Dreamer, perhaps.

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