To the mountain...

The mana circle shone in the bright colour as the essence of the four ice-jagged wolves entered his mana space. Aiden felt that a warm feeling was spreading through his mana channels. However, he didn't dare to indulge in the feeling.

With a calm mind, he guided the essence cloud to the obelisk. The obelisk continued to glow in bright blue, as the essence clouds continued to float around it like four energetic beasts. Around that time, a part of the mana circle glowed.

'That is the part that controls the assimilation process.' Hearing Mraz's words, Aiden took a careful look. He understood that even if the design looked big, the whole thing was a single character.

"Is it some kind of language?" Aiden couldn't help but enquire.

"Who knows?" Mraz's voice wasn't very confident, "Nobody had taught me that. We just know from birth. We all know."

"All?" He didn't get an answer when Aiden inquired. Rather, Mraz rebuked him, "Concentrate. The assimilation process will be over soon."

Aiden turned towards the obelisk to find that the glow had become brighter as the futile struggle of the essence cloud had become stronger. It took a moment to subdue the essence cloud, but it was soon over.

"Did the colour of the obelisk change a little?" After the Obelisk had ceased to shine, Aiden touched the obelisk and asked.

"Might be. Who knows?" Mraz didn't care about it at all. He said impatiently, "How long do you expect me to control your body?"

As he said those words, Aiden felt that a strong rejection force forced him out of mana space. A wave of weakness washed over his body. Aiden, unable to control himself, fell to the ground.

It took a moment before his ragged breathing returned to normal, but there was still a feeling of weakness. When he looked around, he found that Robin was looking at him with big eyes.

"What kind of spell is that? I've never heard of a water mage who can heal such a fast speed."

"What are you talking about?" Aiden wanted to ask, but he soon realized that the pain of the claw attack had vanished. 'Could it be an effect of the absorption of the essence?'

"Your mana circle is they type that enhances your physical ability. It is normal for it to heal your body." And it was as Mraz had said. Apart from fatigue, he did not feel any problems in his body. Robin was still expecting an answer from him, but Aiden ignored him as he stood up.

Putting back the two essence crystals, extracted from the two wolves killed by Robin, Aiden moved towards the direction where the Bixi was resting before it stood up.

"Where are you going?" Robin ran up to him. "I don't think there is an outpost in the mountains. Even if we don't go in the direction, the beast has gone, we should still go to the east. We might reach an outpost within two days."

"How many bullets do you have?"

Aiden's sudden question surprised Robin for a moment, but his mouth answered on its own, "42"

"No, the special bullet. The one you used to kill the wolves."

"Three."

Aiden nodded, not asking any more. He was a little shocked when he heard that Robin was a second level wind mage. However, when he said that his mana was just 27 for two years, he understood the reason for the deployment.

What surprised him more was that the federation could make bullets from mana crystal. However, he didn't dare to put too much faith in it. As Robin told him, that it worked on three-circle jagged wolves, but it was useless on the three-circle ice trolls.

"You can do whatever you want. I have to go to the mountain." Aiden stopped for a moment, but then he added, "There will be more monsters in the mountains."

"Why?" Robin frowned. He knew very well that the right choice was to go to the nearest outpost. But there are two problems. First, the monsters might have also attacked the outpost. And if so, they going there is a terrible choice.

But the most important reason was that he wasn't sure he could defeat these monsters if they attacked him. So he felt that the safest option was to stick with Aiden, but…

"Are you sure that you could defeat them all?" After a moment of hesitation, Robin said.

"I won't die." Aiden didn't stop his foot.

That wasn't the answer Robin was expecting, but there was nothing he could do about it. He took a deep breath and ran behind Aiden. "How are you going to solve the problem of food?"

"I don't need food. You can eat those things." Aiden pointed at the dead bodies of the wolves.

"Can you even eat those?" Robin shook his head before asking, "What are you? Why don't you need food?" He kept talking as he followed Aiden.

Aiden, on the other hand, didn't reply to him and asked, "Who do you work for?"

"You didn't answer my question." Robin wanted to say, but the binding in his heart didn't let him, "I don't know."

Aiden looked at Robin, who just shuddered his shoulder and said, "I really don't know."

"Then what do you know?"

"Not much. But it has something to do with the reason that I can use mana."

"And…"

"I am not alone." Robin's face distorted as if he didn't want to talk about it, but he still said, "After the military training had ended, they took us to an underground training facility for one year. They..."

Looking at his face, Aiden asked before Robin could complete his words, "Have you signed any kind of confidentiality agreement?"

"Yes." Robin's face turned darker with each word.

"Okay. You need not answer." Aiden stopped for a moment, before he asked again, "As you told me everything, let me ask another question. What are your real objectives? It's not like they're going to spend the resources behind so many of you without a reason."

"We don't know." Robin didn't want to answer, but he couldn't help it, "As long as we don't get any order, we do what a simple soldier will do."

"Sleeper cells!" That was the only term he could think of. "But why do they need them? It is not like there is another country or anything. On the top of it, the military won't do this thing to their own soldiers without a reason..."

However, Aiden chose not to think about it anymore. He threw one of the seven mana crystals at Robin, saying, "Can you use [Reduce Drag]?" As Robin nodded, Aiden said, "Use it to replenish mana and try to keep up with me."

Aiden spared no glance at Robin and turned to the mountain as he walked towards the mountain.

'It is in that direction, right?'

"Yes," Mraz answered his question.

'What is it actually?'

"I don't know. But…" Mraz hesitated a moment before he answered, "I think it has something to do with me."

'With you, huh?' The words of Mraz came as a shock to him, 'when you were alive?'

"Something like that." Mraz sighed inside of him as he replied, "I am not sure about it, but it has something to do with the plane that Bixi rules."

Aiden wanted to ask many questions, but he waited for Mraz to finish, "I might have gone to the plane sometime in the past. I might have left a few offspring there."

'Your offspring?' Almost stumbled on the soft snow.

"What are you expecting? Do you expect me to spend a few hundreds of megayears of my life in solitude? I might have few offsprings here and there. But none of them could carry forward my phoenix lineage."

"What happened? Why do you stop?" Only when Robin called from behind, Aiden realized that he had stopped. He shook his head and kept on running towards the mountain.

'How many offspring do you have?'

"Who knows? None of them might be alive by now. Even the last one I had on the Neverwinter plane, a few hundred thousand years ago, is dead by now."

Aiden wanted to ask whether or not Mraz cared about his offspring, but chose not to. 'That means it can't be your offspring.'

"Who knows? That's exactly what I want to know."

'How many monsters could be there?' That was the most important question he wanted to know. He knew he wouldn't have a lot of trouble as long as he lent his body to Mraz, but he didn't want to do that.

"Few. Hundred at most."

'A hundred is a few?' Aiden wanted to ask, but when he realized that he was talking to something that had lived through a few hundreds of megayears. A hundred might not be a big number for Mraz. 'Come to think of it, is it possible to live so long?'

"What are you daydreaming about? If you have so much free time, why don't you try to control your essence-mana?"

Aiden didn't waste any moment and did as he was told. He changed the course of mana from his heart to his mana stone, where his mana space was located. And the obelisk continued to devour mana like a hungry wolf.

After a few moments of shining in bright blue, it began to breathe out blue mana, different from the mana he was absorbing.

"Direct the mana in your palm." Aiden did as he was told. At the next moment, his right hand glowed in bright blue, with a shapeless mana blob forming on his palm.

'It was easy.' A smile appeared on his face. But by the time Mraz told him to be cautious, it was too late.

The mana, mixed with wind and snow, rushed to his hand from every direction. The size of the blob grew into a giant ball of snow as the wind created a vortex on his hand.

"What the hell are you doing, idiot? Throw that away," cried Mraz in his mind.

Aiden did as he was told. But it was too late. By the time he threw it away, it was already as big as Aiden, and it was continuously absorbing mana, and...

*Boom*

Aiden and Robin were both thrown into the air. The only good thing was that there was soft snow beneath them.

"Idiot." Mraz cried inside his mind, "Why didn't you stop gathering essence mana on your hand?"

'But you never told me to.' That was all to say, as he lay on the snow while staring at the clouded grey sky.