Otherworld Adventure

Cecil attributed this to the large intake of Ether, which was then converted to both Mana and Ki that the party had acquired from the ritual last week. It had replaced their need for any sort of sustenance. This had happened to him once before when he received a large concentration of Ki from the World Tree"s Trials.

It was unsurprising for him, but the girls didn"t seem to like it very much. They wanted their beauty sleep, but couldn"t even fall asleep over how giddy and energized they felt. The two could only turn to cultivation to try and quickly process all that energy bundling up inside them.

Although there was that weird side-effect, but for the Wanderers, this was a very large boon. Lucia"s Ki cultivation had catapulted into the Ki Condensation stage despite her trying desperately to suppress it using the Ultimate Suppression method that Cecil had taught to her.

The same happened to Serilla as well, her Ki cultivation had reached a similar stage to Lucia"s, but unlike her friend, Serilla"s Ki cultivation stage was at the peak of Ki Condensation, while Lucia"s was still at the middling stage.

Cecil"s had the largest jump. He was already in the Ki Condensation stage and the Ether he had received catapulted his cultivation to the early Ki Crystallization Stage, despite him trying hard to suppress it. Now his goal of having both his Ki and Mana at the same cultivation stage had been reached.

A surprising thing was that when his Mana and Ki had reached equilibrium, they actually began to slowly meld together. It was shocking for him to suddenly find mana leaving his body, but when Cecil felt this minute change occur to him and the melding of his energies together, he knew that he was on the right track to cultivating ether.

Once this happened, Cecil strongly advised Lucia and Serilla to suppress their Mana Cultivation stages so that their Ki could quickly catch up. Then, after the two energies caught up, they would balance each other out and slowly combine together to form ether.

It was much different than what the World Tree"s Ancient Healing Arts recorded, but if this meant he"d have an advantage against other people, then he"d totally push for both Lucia and Serilla to have the same advantage as he did.

It was a good thing that both Lucia and Serilla"s Mana cultivations were at the Mana Core so the influx of ether wasn"t enough to push their stages into the next level when they suppressed it.

Because of this large boon, the party had been cultivating continuously for the past week. On another note, Silver had been traveling through the air for a full week now, and when Lucia and Serilla finally noticed that, they became so surprised and excited from being able to travel in the air when they weren"t even on an airship.

All Cecil had to say to this was, "Welcome to Silver Airlines." Of course, the two girls didn"t understand what he meant by that but, anyways, the Wanderers had essentially gained their very own "airship".

There was another thing that had to be mentioned, after receiving the large amount of Ether, the two girls had experienced Marrow Cleansing not long after. It was a windfall that significantly improved their physiques.

For Lucia, after she experienced the Marrow Cleansing, she found it easier to circulate and control her mana while at the same she discovered that it had become much easier for her to cultivate Ki.

As for Serilla, the effects were roughly the same for her as it was for Lucia except unlike her counterpart, Serilla found it easier to cultivate mana while her Ki became more active and the pa.s.sive boost to her physique was much more prominent.

Also, for some reason or another, Serilla became aroused after the marrow cleansing. Because of this, she and Cecil had been performing "that" more often for the past week. The Ether that catalyzed her marrow cleansing had made her pretty h.o.r.n.y.

So whenever she had the opportunity to pounce on Cecil, she quickly took it. Of course, she only did it whenever Lucia was cultivating and not around. Serilla naturally didn"t want to push Cecil into an awkward situation. She might not mind it, but her beloved would.

Cecil wanted Serilla to restrain herself, but the girl wouldn"t take no for an answer and whenever she asked for it, he somehow couldn"t refuse. Even though his head told him no, his body didn"t comply and he indulged in Serilla"s whims and the pleasure that it brought.

He would always cast a silencing barrier before performing the deed because Serilla was pretty loud and intense while having s.e.x.

After a week, the Ki had settled and Serilla no longer had the strong urge to do that anymore, but of course, this wouldn"t stop her from occasionally asking Cecil for it when given the chance. For some reason though, while Serilla was s.e.xually hyperactive, Lucia didn"t experience any of that. Cecil could only attribute it to the fact that Lucia hadn"t done "it" yet or just Serilla being Serilla and she took advantage of him...not like he minded it much.

The only good thing that came out of this was that Serilla had become much more content with herself and was more focused on training since she didn"t want to be left behind by her darling. Seeing Serilla like this, Lucia was much more focused in cultivating because she especially didn"t want to lose out to either one of her companions" cultivation.

******

"Silv, let"s touchdown in the forest, then we"ll continue on the ground towards the city." Cecil said as he took a look at the majestic city in the distance from high up in the sky.

If they were still traveling on ground with the wagon, it would have taken the party at least a fortnight to reach the Tempest Kingdom"s Capital, Tempest City.

"Sure is faster in the air than on the ground..." Cecil mumbled

"That"s right, Master. Well, that"s why Earth had airplanes in the first place."

"That"s true. Now we have you! Looks like our journey will be cut short."

"Not necessarily, Master." Silver said in reply. "I"m only able to keep this continuous flight for up to 2-3 hours before I need to rest. The only reason I"ve been able to fly nonstop until now is because of the Ether."

"Ah, too bad then," Cecil said regretfully.

"I"ll only need a similar amount of time to rest and recuperate before I can go at it again, so we"ll still be able to cut our journey short!"

"That"s great! Wait, since this ability is your own...doesn"t that mean I could use it too?!"

"Of course, Master. After all, you did gain the ability to use lightning, wind, and dark elemental magic from our pact."

"N-no way...I can use magic normally now?!"

"Yeah."

"Sweet!"

Cecil immediately grew excited after hearing Silver"s confirmation. He totally had to check his new abilities later. The past week was spent cultivating, so now it was time to process all that.

Since they now had a better method of transportation, they could rely on Silver"s newfound flight capability to arrive at Midgard"s western regions much earlier than what he had initially estimated. All he had to do now, was find another monster to pull the carriage while Silver was resting.

"I"ll be purchasing or catching another monster for us. It"ll replace you in pulling the wagon when you"re resting."

"Alright, Master."

Shortly after, Silver dove down into the forest just below them and landed in the middle of a clearing. Cecil had already checked with his Mana Sense that there were no humans within a 2 kilometer radius around them before landing. A flying wagon would attract a whole lot of attention and that was something his party didn"t want.

Once on the ground, Cecil jumped down from the driver seat and stretched a bit. He sent his sense into the surrounding forest and picked up only D-C ranked monsters within the vicinity.

With Silver"s dominating aura, those monsters wouldn"t even dare try to approach them. After a short rest, Silver began pulling the carriage towards the city.

After breaking out of the forest they quickly made their way onto the highway. Cecil could see that it was already bustling with activity from afar.

Many caravans, carriages, monster mounts and other modes of transportation were constantly running up and down the kingdom"s large highway.

It was peculiar to see a wagon come from the forest so many pa.s.sersby cast a curious look at the wagon. Yuna had taken over from Cecil after she had finished cultivating so people were astonished to see the beautiful young woman manning the driver"s seat, but they were a little intimidated to see the large majestic white wolf pulling the vehicle.

Silver nonchalantly got onto the highway and leisurely made his way to the city. After quickly showing their guild IDs to the gatekeepers, the party was able to quickly head on into the city with no problems.

Before that, they asked the gatekeepers directions to the city"s monster ranch. The Wanderers were only stopping by the city just to purchase a monster suitable enough to pull their wagon. If they couldn"t find one in the city, then Cecil would just go out and catch one for them.

After receiving the directions, they immediately went in, but before that, they were given a warning that the Kingdom was currently in a state of high alert with many areas of the city currently under lockdown.

Apparently, a small group of beastmen had invaded the kingdom and was causing havoc within the city. They were also told that any adventurers that were heading into the city were required to complete the compulsory quest issued by the kingdom via the adventurer guild.

According to the soldiers guarding the gate, the quest"s contents were about investigating the recent multiple destructions of villages and towns near the outer regions of the kingdom.

As the Wanderer made its way to the Tempest Kingdom"s monster ranch, Cecil and the girls were currently gathered in the living area discussing about the compulsory quest"s contents.

"This...seems familiar..." Serilla said.

"Yeah, I bet the beastmen group inside the capital city isn"t the only group that has invaded the kingdom," Cecil replied while deep in thought.

On the side, Lucia was finishing a pair of gloves that she had been knitting together in her free time from cultivation. She looked up at the two who were deep in thought and said.

"Hm~ in my opinion, the humans are getting their just deserts! They invaded first and this is the beastmen"s retaliation. Besides, we"re a mercenary group as well, so technically, we don"t even need to go out of our way to accept the compulsory quest!"

Cecil nodded at her words since they made sense. In a war, there"s no way only one side would experience losses or a.s.saults. Since the humans took the initiative to start this war, the beastmen would of course retaliate.

However, when Cecil was reminded of the gargantuan black pillar situated ominously in the middle of the city, he couldn"t help but think that the beastmen were going to be the ones on the losing side of this war.

The humans had already gotten the jump on them and their retaliation came a little too late. Also, during their brief time in the Orca Empire, Cecil couldn"t find any large retaliatory movements from the beastmen. From what he last recalled, most of the beastmen army was sent over to the OrcAnglarian Border.

Unless of course this was nothing but a feint and the Orca Empire had long since been prepared to retaliate against the humans and were only biding their time until the moment presented itself.

But from what Cecil could see, the Orca Empire was playing it a little too pa.s.sively and only quelling the chaos within their territory. He only found out now that the beastmen had already launched their retaliation. What more, they were giving the humans a taste of their own medicine. However, in his opinion, this was unlike how he"d imagine the empire would retaliate.

From what he remembered of the empire, they were very, very overbearing and did things in a high profiled manner. If retaliating through guerilla warfare and only giving the humans a taste of their own medicine, then this was most likely NOT the Orca Empire"s main a.s.sault.

From the information Cecil got from the gatekeepers, the beastmen were performing guerilla attacks on the kingdom and never have there been any large skirmishes that pitted the Tempest Kingdom"s army against the beastmen.

Cecil didn"t want to get wrapped up in all this since he was tight on the clock. He made his decision and informed the girls.

"After we head over to the monster ranch and purchase a monster, if there are any suitable ones, we"ll immediately head over to the mercenary guild and take on the mission that I heard about from the mercenaries while we were still on Urrugdrasil."

"Is this alright darling?" Serilla asked.

"This is the humans" problems, not ours."

"But Cel...you"re also a human." Lucia added.

"Hmph, don"t forget, I"m an otherworld human, actually I"m an Earthling. Besides, I don"t want to waste my time with their petty squabbles. I need to hurry up and find my family so we don"t have the time to play hero."

Lucia shrugged and continued knitting the pair of gloves she was working on. "Well, I"ll follow whatever decision you make Cel!"

"I as well, darling~"