Chapter 157: Oh Really?

After I parted from the team, I headed deeper into the chain of mountains. I had no high hopes of finding the cheat this early because it’s exact location was never disclosed in the novel. All I remember being said was that it located within an underground cave, underneath a spire mountain shaped somewhat like a crude drawing of an eagle.

Before I came here, I was like, how hard could it be. But now that I was actually here, Yeah, it could be hell of a lot hard. You see, the Spire chain of mountains covered an extremely wide span of land, of which there were around nine hundred or so spire mountains.

And let’s not forget the scale of each one. But all wasn’t all that bad, if I just skim past the mountains, only looking for the slightest resemblance to an eagle, I should be able to find it in a few hours or so I thought.

**A few hours later**

Fuck the hell out of whoever it was that designed this chain of mountains. I didn’t care whether it were the gods or the author. How could so many of these damn spire mountains look shaped like some crude form of a bird? How the hell was I supposed to find what resembled an we eagle amongst them?

“At this rate, it should be called the Avain fucking chain of mountains.” I cursed out loud. It’s been three hours already since I parted with the team, and I hadn’t made any progress. Since a lot of the spire mountains were shaped like birds, I had to actually examine each one I saw, check for cracks that may lead underground, or something of that nature.

The problem with speeding that up was that this wasn’t my main body,. If it were, I’d simply make reflections and increase my search range. Unfortunately even though I was a prime reflection, I couldn’t waste the aether holding my existence together in making more reflections.

So I continued the grueling search, and before I knew it, an entire day had passed with no results to show.

Grrrr!

I had just jumped out from a crack at the base of a mountain but in a blur of movement had to quickly jump backwards. A moment later, a massive bolt of lightning struck the place I had been.

My head snapped in the direction the attack came from, and there I saw the culprit, a little brown furred beast that looked like a squirrel with antlers .Over the time I’d spent here, I had encountered beasts of varying strengths and sizes. Some I had to kill, and some I simply avoided because they weren’t worth the trouble.

This beast in particular however had been following me for over twelve hours now, attacking me whenever it thought I wasn’t looking or when it thought I had my guard down. And it wasn’t like I didn’t want to kill it, but believe me, it was one of the ones that weren’t worth the trouble. Killing it was harder than it looked.

The bastard was a Theta ranked beast, and had more cunning than I gave it credit for, and more than it’s rank suggested. I swear I could almost see the challenging taunt in the little bastard’s eyes, as if saying; catch me if you can.

There was a reason why I said killing it wasn’t worth the the trouble. It was insanely fast, and could get out of my sight in a moment. Though, like I said earlier, it only attacked me when it thought I was off guard, and then make a run for it after it failed. This had dragged on for the past twelve hours.

While I would love to ignore everything and chase the bastard to the ends of the world, I simply couldn’t. In the end, I could only watch as it ran away, and I continued with my search.

**Many, many, many hours later**

“I think this one’s looks like an eagle enough right?” I muttered to myself as I stood wearily before another one of the spire mountains which just so happened to have a cave that led underground.

Without further ado, I entered the cave. As I continued deeper into the cave, a flight of stairs descending downwards caught my attention.

“…Holy shit.” I was left speechless for a moment before I cursed out loud. Was this really it? I was almost in tears. Why you ask? Well I’ve been looking for this fucking place for a little over two days at the moment.

Calming down my racing heart, I quickly began descending the stairs until I reached it’s end which happened to be an even wider and larger cave. The walls of this cave had multiple crystals jutting out of the walls, illuminating the cave in a soft mesmerizing light.

That wasn’t all. Most of the cave’s expanse was occupied by a wide crystal clear lake at the center of the cave. But that was not the object of my attention. What grabbed my attention instead, was the silver sphere of light gently suspended inches away from the lake’s center.

Hah! I took a deep breath, taking slow steps until I was in front of the lake. There it was, the silver sphere floating atop the lake was what I came for. With this, I could be more…

“Who are you and what are you doing here?!” A sharp voice cut through the air from my behind.

My snapped to my behind almost instantly, and there I saw a pair of cold royal blue eyes glaring at me. Hannah Hargreaves stood there, her pale blond hair packed in a loose ponytail, and most importantly, her sword was pointed in my direction.

I frowned underneath my mask. What was she doing here? No, stupid question. Of course she could come here anytime she wished. The Aetherial association owned both the place, and the cheat I was going to steal. Plus even in the novel, she was the one who retrieved it and gave it to Alistair. But that’ll be in a year or so, give or take.

“I said who are you? Only a few members of the Aetherial association know about this place, and you don’t seem like one!” She said, her eyes narrowed.

I took a look at her, and even sensed her aura which she made no attempts to hide. And I smiled at that.

“You are right, I don’t seem like one because I am not one.” I replied. “I merely stumbled upon this place by accident. But worry not, I’ll be on my way.”

“You think you can just walk in here and get to leave just like that?” She asked as if she couldn’t process me either not recognizing her, or didn’t care who she was.

“What do you propose then?” I asked feeling a headache coming on.

“I shall take you back to the tower, where you’ll be investigated.” She said as a matter of fact.

A smile crept onto my face as she said that. “And what if I fail to comply, or rather, do not wish to go there?” I asked, making sure she could hear the amusement dripping from my voice.

“Then I’d be forced to take you by force, a scenario I’d rather wouldn’t want to happen.” She said.

“Oh really? Take me by force? Man, now wouldn’t that be a spectacle.” I said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. You see, I’m not too keen on being taken by force or being investigated.” I chuckled. “Besides…” I paused for a dramatic effect. “I was planning on taking that sphere of silver light that’s behind me, and I reckon going back to the association’s tower with it in hand wouldn’t work out well for me, now would it?”

“I understand now.” Hannah’s royal blue eyes cleared. “The reason you came here in the first place was because of it.” She said. I had to give it to her for finding that out even though I was the one who subtly nudged her in that direction.

“I don’t know how you came to know about it, maybe from an inside leak or something else, but it only makes me want to take you back all the more.” She said as a royal blue aura erupted from her body.

Hannah was a Theta ranked aetherial, and two years older than our set. Though, she didn’t attend the astral mystic Institute.

Even though, she being at the Theta rank rank didn’t mean I was afraid of her. I was a prime reflection with stats far exceeding the Eta+ rank. She was by no means Alistair, and she certainly was no Anastasia.

But still, I wanted to find out if I could beat a Theta ranked aetherial hands down. So I tuned the amusement in my tone to an all time high as I spoke to Hannah.

“Oh, really? You’re welcome to try.” I smirked under my mask.

***********

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