12 - Goodbye Continent

The months passed. Lévant learned that I had been going around the empires, and wherever I passed there just so happened to be a robbery at the imperial treasury and major families. He pieced things together.

Still, he didn't believe I could steal from right under his and all the other apostles' eyes, and truth be told he was probably right.

So, he still gathered the other apostles and informed me when they arrived.

When they were all there, I found myself once again at the cathedral tower, at the top floor.

Lévant introduced me to the other 4 apostles, and led me down to the ground floor alongside everyone.

Then, we took the passage to the hall to the right, instead of the left as I had lreviously gone, which went to the elevator and then up the tower.

The right hall went to a lounge, then an open area garden, on the left and right sides of which were manors for the 5 apostles, 2 on each side, and at the end was the head apostle's manor which also had the vault underneath.

Entering inside, there was a broad space, and the door to the basement floor was right in front of us on the other side of the large entry room of the manor.

Opening it, we headed down. When I saw the treasures piled up in the back, my heart beat.

8 things that didn't matter, just more of the usual.

But the last 2.

One, a book with the title [Sealing magics: From Basic to Advanced, Vol. 1].

My vision had been enhanced by my physique, then further by my cultivation realm and mana, and then further again by my equipment.

So I could make out the title halfway across the room.

Next to the book, I saw a black key letting out wisps of black energy. It seemed like...mana? But, something felt off.

Well, obviously something was off, it was black mana.

It made me uneasy.

Still, I was excited. I had a lot of sealed books by now, and it'd be great if that book could help me unseal them.

Still, there were no building materials, which was just unfortunate.

I didn't really care about the other 8 things, but the last 2, especially the book, were vital.

"Gentlemen. Why don't we do a trade?"

I'm sure you've all read that book, and that key seems ominous. I'll take them off your hands, and provide you all with something equivalent in exchange."

The apostles grew weary.

The head apostle, Davon, spoke first.

"By something equivalent, do you mean...?"

"Yes, it is exactly as you think. I'll be giving two treasures just like what you have here. Surely, rather than two useless treasures, having two useful ones would be better, no?"

The sealing magic in the book was, nonetheless, magic. It required mana, which the apostles did not have. Although they had the blessings of the goddess, that wasn't enough.

The apostles looked apprehensive, and Davon asked to see what I'd be trading first.

I told them I'd have to go back to the inn I was staying at to get the things, and they followed me there.

I showed them some simple treasures, but they only had 10 treasures anyhow, so they were still amazed by the effects by certain treasures that I now found trivial.

Accepting the trade, they pretended to go back to the cathedral while secretly circling around to watch my actions after they left.

Of course, I could tell I was being watched, in so many different ways by now.

My raw senses, Ixtra's warnings, the compass map showing me the entire nearby area, and a couple others.

They could never hide from me.

Still, I didn't care. It just meant I'd have to be more careful for a while.

Even if I stole the other 8 treasures , it'd be a minor increase to the end goal of 1000, so I didn't even bother to go back and steal the other 8. Obtaining these 2 most important ones diplomatically was enough.

Vince had long gone and bought himself a mansion, hired maids and everything. Turned out he had always been ambitious, so instead of settle down for the rest of his days, he tried starting some business ventures instead. I gave him some more money before I planned to leave.

I had explored the entire continent by now, and there was really not much else for me here.

Perhaps, I could luck out and find a treasure in the wild here and there. The compass' range was pretty large by now too.

But there was no way I'd get anywhere close to 1000.

So, it was time to take a trek into the mountains.

As mentioned previously, the east side of the continent was engulfed by a large mountain range that extended from the top of the continent to the bottom, and noone who had crossed it had ever returned.

Well, I reckoned I'd be ok. Hopefully.

I enjoyed the capital for a few more days before setting off.

Vince was overjoyed at my leave, but tried his absolute hardest to pretend he was saying goodbye to a dear friend.

The apostles seemed confused, since I had really just come, traded, and gone just like that. It really was merchant like.

The only thing they couldn't understand was where I had gotten the money to give to Vince came from.

They tried to pry it out of Vince, but Vince was no fool. He would never open his mouth about what he had seen that day, no matter what. As for the money, he also had no idea where I had suddenly pulled it out from.

The apostles decided to send one of them to keep an eye on me personally. Unfortunately for them, I managed to lose him soon after leaving the capital.

When he finally found out he had been following the wrong carriage, the apostle threw a fit before returning untriumphantly to the capital.

***

The journey to the mountains took multiple months, and nothing special really happened.

I read the sealing magic book front to back, but actually putting the knowledge to use was difficult. I managed to learn a simple spell to seal shut a door, but it could be broken with a moderate amount of force.

It was really mediocre. My talent in spells, that is. Maybe sealing magic just wasn't my cup of tea. Besides that, I steadily made my way to the edge of the mountain range.

The black key turned out to be used to unseal something, but not any of the books I had that were sealed.

Once I got to the mountain range, I made my way in, only to find a few days into the journey that I had found a golden spot on the map.

It was deeper in, so i just kept going in the general direction.

Another 2 days passed, before I looked at a lake with a flower growing in the center of it.

The flower had an oddly shiny pearl as its core. That was the treasure.

Seeing that it was a natural treasure, I got excited, since one of the best treasures I had gotten so far had been the mystical fruit, which was also a natural treasure.

Swimming up to it, I suddenly sensed something pounce at me from below.

It was a crocodile.

Ixtra immediately came out and easily subdued it for me.

He looked like a kid, but damn were looks deceiving nowadays.

Quickly beating it up and throwing it to the side, he hid in my shadow again.

I swam all the way up to the flower and took the pearl at the center.

Immediately placing it in the treasury, I asked Tom what it was.

He said it was a pearl filled with mana, equal to several hundred days worth, at my current stage, of accumulation, usage, and re-accumulation.

'This should speed up my practice sessions.'

It was a nice little thing, but I quickly calmed down and continued on my way.

I had the compass map, and even without the map component, the compass itself also functioned as, well, a regular compass.

So, I never got lost.

I went in a straight line from west to east.

I found 2 more natural treasures as I went that were also holding vast amounts of mana, before finally finding a treasure in a cave.

It had been a few weeks, and I was a good amount into the mountains by now.

This newest treasure was in a cave, but what was more surprising than the treasure was the cave itself.

Well, no, I didn't know that. I hadn't seen the treasure yet.

But I was stunned looking at the cave entrance.

It looked as if someone had purposefully dug into the cliff wall.

Walking in, it was spacious, but not too much so.

After about 50 meters, I reached the end, where there was a small workbench with nothing on it.

I looked around, but all I saw was a small stick on the ground.

Looking at the compass map, I was dumbfounded to discover that the treasure this time was actually the small stick!

How could a small stick be a treasure?

Well, I'd have to see.

I showed it to Tom, and he started freaking out.

"Kid, where did you find this?!"

"Huh? In a weird looking cave. Why? You know what it does?"

"Not a clue."

"???"

"Which means, think about it, this is a treasure of a higher tier than I'm able to examine, like the treasury. Well, I doubt it's at the level of the treasury, but still, it should be pretty good. No idea what it does though."

Now that he mentioned it, I supposed that was the case. I had gotten uses to Tom knowing all the answers for ehat things did, so I hadn't thought about that aspect of his abilities when he first said he didn't know what it did.

'Guess I have to figure it out through trial and error.'

Holding the stick, I felt an odd feeling that it was kind of like a really weak sword. I don't know why I had that feeling, but as soon as I did, I tried swinging the stick towards the cave entrance.

Nothing happened.

'Well, yeah. Of course not. It's a stick, what kind of lunatic uses a stick as a sword?'

Resolving myself to figure it out later at some point, I stored the stick and continued east.

In this case, that meant climbing the cliff wall. It wasn't that hard for the me at that point.

At the top of the cliff was a savanna spanning several kilometres, before turning into a dense forest in the distance. Up until here the mountains had been a forest as well.

'Well, guess I'll just keep walking.'

***

A kilometer away from Merca's spot at the cave.

A group of wolves were fighting 2 bears.

The wolves were winning, when all of a sudden an attack came out of nowhere and sliced several wolves in half, then into pieces.

Yes, it was first into half, then into pieces. Like a delayed two-part burst of slashes. The first to cut in half, the second to cleave into bits.

About half the wolves were torn apart instantly.

The other wolves quickly ran, without understanding what had happened.

The bears similarly looked startled and confused, but when they saw the remaining wolves running, they became enraged and chased after them. Unfortunately, they couldn't catch them, especially as they scattered.

If one was to carefully watch what had transpired, they would notice that the attack seemed to cut as if a blade were right next to the wolves, despite there being no such thing.

There had been no blade beam or anything similar, the attack just manifested out of thin air right onto the wolves' bodies, as though it had locked onto them.

Slowly, the wolves remaining bits experienced a third series of slashes, reducing them to mere dust.

If one stayed there for a few days, they would notice the dust, too, turn to nothingness, even less than dust.