Ch.35 Blizzardvern

Entering Mont Hakobe, Jax started to search from mountain to mountain. Every mountain was the same—high, cold, ice everywhere, caverns everywhere and snow everywhere. Thankfully, with his fire magic, there wasn't any problem with the cold or the snow. He had only a single job, and that was to find the monsters, which was one of the reasons for the beginning of the invasion.

Flying down from the third mountain he had explored without success, Jax saw that the night was getting darker and darker. As such, he found a small cavern halfway up the hill, which could only be accessed by flying, set down some traps, reinforced the cavern and used his nature magic to close down the hole without cutting off air to keep ventilation in the cave. Jax then got some camping gear from his shadow storage and set up everything. Finally, he started a small fire in the middle of the cavern to keep warm during the night and lay down in his cave.

"I wonder how the other guys are? The invasion of sea monsters sounded serious. I hope those guys survive." Jax said, talking to himself to relieve the loneliness. "I wonder whether Gildarts already finished his job in the Phoenix mountains. Probably. It's Gildarts, after all. Well, even if he doesn't find the cause, can't he just crush the entire mountain to find out?" Wondered Jax as he imagined the scene of Gildarts taking down one mountain after another.

"I shouldn't care about that. I still don't know if I'll be able to beat the Blizzardvern and come out of here alive. Well, everything should go well one way or another." Jax said to himself before falling asleep.

The next morning as Jax opened the door made of vines and roots, the cold wind entered the cavern, effectively awakening him. Taking a deep breath, Jax looked at the mountains and faintly saw in the distance a few sparse Vulcans. "They should be coming back to the mountains now that their king is dead. There will most likely be a few of them who will try to stay down to bring back a woman or two, but they will surely get killed by the mages, warriors and soldiers located in the village."

As he glanced at the mountains all around him, Jax once again started to fly with his air magic to search more mountains. "Let's try to search eight mountains today! At this rate, It'll take at most a week before I find that damned monster."

Searching the mountains one after another, Jax killed all the Vulcans he met on the way since every time he met one; they tried to kill him. Jax searched four mountains in the morning and continued on the same way in the evening without finding any Blizzardvern traces.

"They shouldn't be too far. The soldier said that it was protecting something and he had been walking in the mountains. As such, the monster should be in the first few mountains. However, even after searching for them, I can't find them. Well, whatever. I'll continue looking tomorrow." Said Jax as he found that talking to himself did ease the loneliness one could feel in the middle of the mountains.

Finding a cave to sleep in that night, Jax quickly fell asleep. This activity continued for a few more days. The fifth morning he had been in the mountains, Jax finally heard a bird cry in the distance. Strengthening his hearing with both his sound magic and his fairy magic which increased his senses, he finally found a trace of a few flying monsters.

Leaving the cave, Jax rushed towards the mountain peak where he had heard the sound. As he watched from a distance, the sliver-haired-boy smiled in relief as he finally saw five wyverns along with a Blizzardvern. This specific monster was a branch evolution of the wyverns. It possessed the flight ability of the wyverns and liked the cold. They could use wind magic, and their skin was as hard as metal. Their only weaknesses were right under their wings, directly at their articulation, as the scales were slightly weaker to allow the monster to fly normally.

However, even if their weakness was under their wings, it wasn't easy to hit as their wings were as sharp as swords and could cleave a man in half without even trying. As Jax was standing far away, he felt a soft pull from his magic, and as he stared closely at what the monster was guarding, he saw another pearl. A white pearl. In other words, a pearl of wind.

Frowning as he knew that other people or creatures shouldn't understand what the pearl was, Jax focused more on the circle the grey flying monster seemed to protect. As he concentrated, he used his earth magic to feel the earth, and he was surprised to see that it was full of keys. Full of celestial spirit keys. Frowning at this weird scene, Jax took a look around the mountain top and felt abnormal magical fluctuations. Turning back to the top, he noticed that a silver celestial spirit key had just broken, sending a pulse of magical energy in the mountain's surroundings.

First, it was apparent that it had been artificially made as the keys were placed in a specific pattern. As he saw the key break, Jax felt a heartache. Sensing this, Jax felt weird as he had thought he had gotten over this odd obsession with the celestial spirit keys. Deciding to save them, Jax first used some magic to take the pearl on top of the mountain and destroy the weird pattern the keys made.

The moment he destroyed the pattern, he received the pearl, which he promptly threw in his shadow. Simultaneously, the six flying monsters let out long cries as they flew to the ground to look at the spirit keys, which seemed to be important to them. As they were trying to place the keys back in place, Jax crept closer with the help of his magic and first threw a sharp condensed earth spike which went right through the weakness on the left of the Blizzardvern.

This situation surprised Jax as he was half expecting the attack to fail, but it seemed that he looked down on the attraction the keys gave the monsters as Jax exploded into pieces the spear that had infiltrated the defences of the beast.

Hearing the monster shout out in pain, Jax pressed on with his attack as he controlled another earth spear to fly towards the giant injury under the wing. At the same time, he used his lightning magic to attack the remaining five wyverns. He wasn't expecting to kill them in one hit but simply push them back while he tried to kill their boss.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Jax underestimated them as they evaded or tanked the attack and flew towards him. Using his earth magic to create a wall while he lowered the earth under him, he saw two of the wyverns slashed through the wall he had just built and tried to get him. However, he had already foreseen this happening and had lowered the earth to evade the fatal blow. On the contrary, a giant fireball was ready and hit them both once they missed him.

As they fell due to the injury, Jax used air magic to slash directly through their long necks. It wasn't possible due to their high speed before. However, once they fell to the ground and stopped, they just became a big target.

Collecting the bodies of wyverns with his shadow storage as they could be used and were quite precious, Jax faced the remaining three wyverns and boss. Using dark magic, Jax tried to bind them for a small moment as he used sound-enhancing in conjunction with 'Fearful scream' to paralyze them for a short moment and confuse them. Simultaneously, Jax used his nature magic to the maximum to try and bind their legs directly on the group as he shot fireballs, lightning bolts and wind slashes at them.

By the time the effect of 'Fearful scream' stopped, the three wyverns were dead, and the Blizzardvern was tied even if it wasn't going to hold off for much longer. Using his earth, nature, dark and water magic, he tried to bind it while using his water magic to englobe his head, trying to make it panic and make a few errors.

Time proved that Jax made the right decision as the draconian beast used his wings to push the water aside. It was all Jax needed as he sent all the attacks possible to the gap in the gray monster's armour.

As the attacks landed, the monster seemed to lose its strength as Jax carefully bound it with all of his magic possible and let it die by itself as it was already quite bloody. It didn't take more than two minutes as the monster finally died. Collecting the body of the monsters, Jax turned towards the celestial spirit keys and received them all. It was apparent that someone had placed them there to create the monster horde. He knew that collecting so many celestial gate keys would take time for any organization. As such, he decided to gather them and count them as his loot.

Counting the number of keys, Jax counted a total of 120 silver celestial spirit keys. Even when he searched for them actively, he had only found slightly above 52 keys in about seven months. It hadn't been easy, and had it not been for taking jobs all over the continent; he wouldn't have had the chance to gather so much of them.

After Jax finished cleaning up the battle scene, he gave another look and saw a grey egg with red patterns on it. "This should be the egg of either the wyvern or the blizzardvern as the only other creatures in the mountains are the Vulcans who don't lay eggs," Jax said to himself as he took a look at the egg. "Well, let's take it. Who knows, it could be nice to have this creature as a mount. It's not nice to always fly. At the same time, if it's the egg of their boss, it has the chance to become as strong as an S-rank mage which would be a good partner." Jax said to himself with a smile as he took the eggs in his arms and flew towards Shirotsume. It was a pity that he wasn't able to let living things stay in his shadow. Of course, he was an exception as he could breathe in his magic, but others couldn't. As such, he would have to transport it back by himself.