There were times at which I hated my inquisitive nature. After discovering that ominous glow in the crater deep within the Charland, my first impulse was to investigate and find out what the glow was and where it came from. To figure it out, to learn and maybe get a little more powerful in the process and it was a strong impulse, one that was only tempered by the realisation that we simply couldn’t charge in without proper planning. Anything else would result in a piss poor performance, one that might just doom the entire group.

Only, every investigation into the area we had managed thus far had only shown that intruding into it during the day was even more dangerous than venturing in at night was, simply due to the increased amounts of enemies and the limited mobility we suffered under. At night, we could evade enemies and keep moving to prevent them from swarming us but during the day, we could only hole up somewhere, hoping to last till the night fell. That wasn’t a winning formula, especially not in an area where the enemies were almost certainly stronger during the day, stronger and more numerous. No, we couldn’t spend the day within the Charland and the distance between the crater and the outside meant it would be nearly impossible to traverse it in a single night. It might be possible, if I pushed myself to the limit, exploiting Blood and Wind magic to speed myself up while also using my cloak to evade enemies, either by turning invisible or by flying to stay out of their reach. Sure, my flying was more an extended jumping with some gliding thrown in, but it should be enough. Still, I’d have to cross about forty kilometres one way, a daunting distance that’d leave me very little time to actually investigate.

And yet, despite knowing that these troubles and dangers existed, I still wanted to try. To test myself, knowing there were some dangers involved but when I started to seriously consider my options, I was fairly confident I could pull it off. The crux of the matter was that my concealment, while alone, was incredibly good. If the worst happened and I was delayed, I could bury myself if needed, using my magic to conceal my burrow, especially when adding the cloak on top of my already excellent abilities. In addition to that, I could teleport from shadow to shadow, making it almost impossible to pin me down, plus the flying thing. It would work, especially if I maintained caution, just in case the central area was even more dangerous than I could currently fathom.

When I told the others about my plan, the reaction was mixed. None of them liked it, that much was obvious, but they could see my reasoning. It was a simple fact that I had the best chances to keep myself concealed if I operated alone, just as it was a simple fact that Silva could take the most punishment if she augmented herself with Divine Power and that Lia was the physically most powerful of us.

So, the decision was made that I’d head into the depths of the Charland the next night, while the others would visit the fire node once more, allowing Alex and Lia to get some extra work done. They apparently had a few more ideas they wanted to try before we continued onward. Judging by the ever-increasing amount of equipment we all had access to, their current ideas were panning out nicely, though some of the things they made were a little unrefined. Still, the simple fact that Alex seemed to rapidly learn the trade of a black, or armour, smith was quite impressive, especially knowing about their already prodigious skill as an alchemist.

When we set out the next day, I realised that I was quite lucky. There were quite a few clouds in the sky, blocking most of the harmful rays of the sun, allowing me to advance quickly through the now-familiar outer parts of the Charland. While the shadows cast by the clouds weren’t thick enough to let me become invisible, I tried to keep my cloak wrapped around me, even as I was running. At the same time, I channelled a small amount of Blood Magic through my body, not trying to push myself beyond what I was physically capable of but instead preventing my body from tiring as I was moving at a fast jog. I was running a marathon, almost literally, not a sprint, if I tried to run as fast as possible, I’d just get tired and exhaust both my body and magic long before getting to the centre I wanted to investigate.

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Moving through the area at high speed made it a lot harder to remain unnoticed and more often than not, the enemies in the area got a glimpse of me. The cloak was good but unless I covered myself completely there were gaps and while running, the coverage varied despite my best efforts. Most of the time, I simply ignored their efforts, dodging around the few projectile attacks they sent my way while continuing to move. None of them tried to chase me for long, the longest a particular group of fiery rats chased after me was for about a minute until I decided to leap across a nearby wall, using my cloak to get the extra altitude I needed.

There was one tense moment after I stumbled across a giant, fiery lizard and the thing decided I’d make an excellent snack or something like that. Where I had been able to evade all enemies that had tried to pursue me to this point by leaping across buildings or using walls as cover, but that didn’t work with the lizard. It had enough bulk to smash through smaller walls and it was agile enough to leap up a building and climb it. My surprise at watching a lizard about a metre tall at the shoulders and three metres long without counting the four-metre-long tail scramble up a building just as quickly as it had been running after me on the ground almost made me stumble which would have been bad. To make matters worse, the thing demonstrated that it wasn’t just a giant lizard, it was an actual discount dragon, complete with knock-off Dragon Breath.

Luckily, it was just a cheap copy, far from the lethality a true dragon would have but still, the white-hot embers it sprayed in my general direction were something I’d rather not get hit by. They looked like they’d be quite painful, a thought handily confirmed when the roof I had been running on started to blacken from the heat. For a moment, I wanted to turn around and show this stupid lizard it shouldn’t mess with me but that would take valuable time and power. Instead, I kept going, a plan quickly forming in my head.

The roof we were on didn’t go on forever, it was a strangely intact warehouse about two hundred metres in length and high enough to make me wonder what used to be stored here or if it was a product of the strange expansion. Either way, as I was approaching the edge, I briefly focused on conjuring Ice right below me, covering the area in a thin, perfectly smooth and somewhat slick, layer. Even I wouldn’t have been able to run on it, not without slipping and sliding around everywhere, but I didn’t need to. I could simply push off, using my cloak to glide along for a little longer.

Behind me, the lizard wasn’t as lucky and I could hear an incredibly amusing sound that I could only describe as a squawk. Somehow, I managed to twist in the air without changing my momentum or sending myself in some strange spin and could watch the lizard slip off the roof and sail through the air, completely unable to control its descent. It might have been agile for its size but it was bulky enough to make the normal ways a lizard would deal with such a fall impossible.

To make matters worse, I decided to toss out one of the Icicles I carried with me to the ground, keeping my Astral Power connected to it until I could place it right at the lizard’s landing point. Then, I activated Overflow and pushed Astral Power into the Icicle, turning it from something I could readily carry on my hip into a deadly spear. Moments later, the bulk of the lizard made sure that the spear pierced through its chest and out of its back. Another surge of Astral Power and the spear splintered, sending sharp shards into the lizard's innards while allowing all the severed blood vessels to liberally bleed.

Before I hit the ground one street over, I received a notification, telling me the lizard had died and I received EXP. A grin appeared on my face, wondering if I should hope for more enemies or worry about the expenditure of Astral Power.

I still had a long way to go and every bit of power and time might be the difference between getting to the crater or having to turn around in failure.