Sylver wasn’t in the best of moods right at this very moment.

After 2 whole fucking days of playing around with mushrooms, he had next to nothing to show for it. He created some interesting fungi, some were quite deadly, and maybe useful, but he couldn’t make a portal out of them.

What was worse, every time Sylver was sure he was one tweak away from opening a portal, the whole thing would either fizzle into a puddle or would literally blow up in his face.

Every time Sylver thought his pride hit bedrock, he would do something that would force the poor thing to pick up a shovel and pickaxe, and dig even deeper.

It didn’t make sense.

Sylver had done everything right, he figured out the wavelength, the circuit was perfect, there was more than enough mana, the connection was stable, and yet…

Nothing.

Like the mushrooms were telling him to fuck off, eat shit, and die.

As odd as it sounded, Sylver felt insulted by them.

Thankfully this wasn’t the first time Sylver had tried something and failed spectacularly. He didn’t want to say it, but he was almost used to failure. Not to the extent he was surprised when he succeeded, but…

Sylver shook his head and forced his mood to improve.

At first, nothing happened, but by the time Sylver finished climbing the stairs to Lola’s office, he had at the very least put his anger on hold.

He knocked on the door, and his anger melted away when Faust opened it.

Bruno had said he looked upset, but Faust looked downright suicidal. His hair had been shaved so short he was almost bald, eyes were that of a doll’s, even as he stood there, Sylver thought he was about to fall.

“Would you believe me if I said I’m fine?” Faust asked.

Sylver didn’t even bother answering with words and just slowly shook his head.

“Oh well,” Faust said.

Sylver watched as the man stepped out of the way, and gestured for him to come inside. Sylver stared at him as he walked towards Lola, and could tell by her body language she hadn’t called him over to tell him she found the high elves’ Eldar tree.

Lola stared at Sylver while she tapped the surface of her wooden desk with her small ring-covered fingers.

“You’re going to need Faust to come with you,” Lola said.

Sylver turned around to look at the man in question, who had sat down on the couch in the corner and seemed to have gone completely limp.

“I’m fuzzy on the details, but there was an attempt on their emperor’s life. And apparently, it was so close, that they quintupled security, and then locked their borders up so tightly that they’re not going to let you inside, even if you’re a merchant giving away piles of gold,” Lola explained.

Sylver turned back around so his eyes were looking at her eyes.

“There is a barrier around the whole country, and if the rumors are to be believed, they have a dragon acting as a guardian,” Lola said as Sylver somehow managed to turn a slightly lighter shade of white.

“And the good news?” Sylver asked calmly.

Whatever feelings he might have felt previously had lost their edge,he wasn’t even sure where they went. Now he was simply frightened.

“The good news is that one of my sources has been able to confirm that the [Hero] didn’t have the…” Sylver saw a flash of rage appear for a fraction of a second on Lola’s face. She smoothed it away and continued after a barely audible breath. “I’m fairly certain that what you’re looking for is within the confines of that country’s barrier,” Lola said.

Sylver cocked his head at the high elf.

“When you say dragon, do you mean a dragon dragon, or a Dragon dragon?” Sylver asked.

“I mean, something is flying well past normal flying height, that allegedly swoops in and devours anything that tries to get over their barrier. That is literally all I know, those people are so isolated from the rest of the world, they might as well live on an island,” Lola said.

“Does it have to be Faust?” Sylver asked, with a lowered voice, and without gesturing at the man.

Lola nodded and did her best to smile.

“There are others, but this will work best with Faust. To them, Ki masters are the equivalent of nobles, the higher your mastery, the higher your rank. If it’s him, he’s like a duke, they’ll briefly glance at his documents to make sure they’re not blank, and because they will be afraid of making a duke wait, they’ll wave him in,” Lola said.

Sylver rubbed the back of his head as he turned to look at Faust.

“Are you going to be able to do this?” Sylver asked.

Faust looked like he was going to vomit for a moment. Then Sylver’s skin crawled as if hot sand was being rubbed against him. Faust stood up from his seat and looked 10 years younger. He still looked like he was going to off himself, but at least now there was a peacefulness to his appearance.

“I can’t use my Ki long enough to be of any use in a proper fight, but just for demonstration, there won’t be any problems,” Faust promised.

Sylver stared at him as if he was waiting for him to flinch, but the reincarnator just stared back. Sylver nodded at him. He turned back to Lola.

“I don’t like this,” Sylver said.

“It’s the best I can manage on short notice. If you’re willing to wait a couple of weeks maybe, I’ll find something better. If you have an alternative, I’m all ears,” Lola said defensively.

She was disappointed and pissed off, and Sylver could do little but scratch his head while he thought it over.

“Yeah… Yes, as long as I get inside, I can figure out the rest. Once I have Edmund, I can take my time getting out, there won’t be a rush,” Sylver reasoned, and Lola’s non-reaction seemed to imply she knew this was what he was going to say.

“Bravo will be ready to leave in 2 days. He can wait, but if what I’ve heard is true, every day you wait security will increase, and the chances of Faust bluffing his way inside will worsen,” Lola said.

Sylver continued scratching his head and finally turned to look at Faust again.

“Can I trust you to clean yourself up and meet me in 2 days?” Sylver asked.

He couldn’t smell the drugs and alcohol, but considering this is Faust, he was on something he brewed up himself. Sylver suppressed a slight smile as Faust’s eyes all but sparkled.

“Yes! You can count on me, I’ll be ready with everything I need in 2 days,” Faust said.

He disappeared and reappeared near the door. He opened it, and closed it behind himself as he left, and presumably teleported away.

“On the bright side, he’ll stop sitting around feeling sorry for himself,” Lola offered.

“What happened to him?” Sylver asked.

Lola sat back down into her seat, and Sylver sat down opposite her.

“I don’t know. When he and Mira broke things off, he just shut down. I asked Bruno to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. I tried talking to him, and he just looked at me, didn’t say a word. I had people looking after him, but he just disappeared one day. About 2 weeks later he was found outside Arda, covered from head to toe in blood, missing his right hand, and there were bite marks all over his face,” Lola explained, and Sylver could do little but nod for her to continue.

“What was I supposed to do? Once he healed up, he started drinking, and then he started putting unknown colorful powders into his drinks. I know he’s as old as you are, but he’s such a child. I’ve seen literal 20-year-old human children with more… I don’t even know the word for it,” Lola complained.

Sylver wasn’t sure if it would be worth arguing with her over this.

“You did your best… I don’t know Lola, I really don’t know. There’s something off about both of them. I think it’s because their memory has been messed with for so long. You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’ll figure out what’s wrong with Faust, and Bruno… Assuming he doesn’t have any problems with Tera, he’s golden. The man looks at her like a love-struck teenager, I’m honestly a little jealous,” Sylver said.

Lola crossed her arms over her chest and looked like she was about to say something snarky, but she unfolded her arms and started looking around her pockets instead.

She pulled a 2-meter-tall staff out of a pocket that looked like it could barely fit her whole hand, and placed it down onto the desk.

It was perfectly straight, a black metallic cylinder, with small rough-looking bumps near either end. One end had three very strange-looking holes, for the three ribs, while the opposite end had a small cone, about as long as Sylver’s thumb.

“The total capacity is about 90,000 MP. I know you like sneaking around and having something nearby leaking mana everywhere would be a massive hindrance. This is the best I could do, mana crystals that don’t leak have an abysmally small capacity, not to mention these are the only ones that will be able to handle an influx of different kinds of mana,” Lola said, as Sylver reached out and picked the staff up.

He inspected it with his mana and found a familiar-looking mechanism. As Sylver pressed it, the staff broke in three places, and the two-thirds that Sylver wasn’t holding fell and swung on a thin string. Sylver pressed the mechanism again, and the string retracted and forced the three pieces into one.

“I don’t know if you can feel it, but it’s enchanted to use MP in place of durability. As long as there’s mana inside the crystals, nothing should be able to break it,” Lola explained.

Sylver tried to use [Arcane Insight] five times on the thing and got next to nothing. All the skill would tell him is that it was a metal staff.

“Chrys helped make it,” Lola mumbled.

“Huh?”

“She pointed out a critical flaw in the design that I would have only noticed after you left. I fixed it,” Lola explained.

Sylver looked up at the high elf woman as he broke the staff into 3 and folded it away into his robe.

“I feel bad leaving like this. Krists on one side, the high elf Council on the other, not to mention the dark elves, and-”

“I’m used to it. I didn’t… I don’t mean it in a bad way, but I’m used to it. I will admit I enjoyed supervising mining golems in the middle of nowhere, waking up as the sun rose, going to sleep when it went down… I’m not upset Syl, I’m angry. But not at you, I wouldn’t be here if not for you. I’m just…” Lola looked like she was about to break down for a moment, but it passed without any tears.

Sylver walked around the desk and wrapped his arms around the small woman.

“Everything will be alright,” Sylver promised, Lola tried to wrap her arms around him, but Sylver’s torso was too wide for her.

Even though his time was limited, Sylver spent the whole night talking to Lola. He had to leave because Tamay had no choice but to get her and because Sylver could feel that Morana was coming out of her cocoon.