‘…Again?’ Michael stared with widened eyes at the sight in front of him.
A bunch of undead, less than last time, however, they appeared to be a little bit stronger.
It seemed like Astraea had noticed them as well, they were still a distance away, but they were heading straight for them.
Before Michael could say anything, a small black thread escaped from Astraea’s fingertips and headed straight for the incoming undead.
And in just a moment, they disappeared from the map.
Michael’s eyes widened at the sight ‘The hell was that?’
Hmm… A special affinity of some sort, I can’t quite figure out what it is but she has at least two affinities.
‘2 affinities? I thought you could only have one..?’
Well, it’s mostly luck or because of a bloodline, I don’t have much information about Archangels besides the surface knowledge, I can’t assure you that you might have more, but there is certainly a chance.
‘I don’t know.. they are written as some sort of beings of light, I doubt they have anything else going for them..’ Michael thought while looking at Astraea’s back.
She went forward with Orin as if nothing happened, yet he had felt that those undeads were are the very least in the middle of Tier 1.
Safe to say, they were fairly strong.
Beings of light or not, they wouldn’t be called Archangels if they were the same as the other angels.
‘I guess you are right..’
As the group walked on, they finally got out of the forest, a small pathway was visible ahead, branching out in several directions.
Michael glanced at his map and made sure to follow the correct road.
The others all led back to the forest for some reason, it seemed a bit strange but he was not one to nitpick medieval happenings.
‘Well.. medieval might be a stretch’ He thought and remembered the people he saw back in the sky islands, they were organized and strong, technology would just be a quality boon for them.
Orin seemed pretty calm ever since he left the forest, he expected the flat surroundings to remind him of bad times, yet he seemed unphased.
They followed along the road and came across a few buildings that looked abandoned, it almost seemed like they had gone through some type of catastrophe.
The windows were completely shattered and the houses were tilted in an unnatural way, it would fall under different circumstances, but for some reason, they aren’t.
Michael was not sure why he was paying this much attention to simple architecture failures.
You are not wrong to think that, the houses have very faint traces of mana.
‘Huh?’ He stopped for a moment and focused more mana into his eyes, finally noticing what the system told him about.
The houses were entirely covered in some sort of mana that he couldn’t quite gauge fully.
Astraea stared at him with a confused look as she watched him walk up to one of the houses and place his hand on the broken down wooden door.
What are you doing?
‘Give me a moment..’ Michael said as he slowly channeled his mana into the door, however, nothing happened.
But he was not discouraged, as he began channeling the mana of his inner mana core and surprisingly, something did happen,
Much like how he willed his mana to take shape, the faint mana surrounding the entire house solidified, the bent houses immediately turning normal.
What was most surprising was that the windows which were previously broken, began repairing themselves.
Until eventually, the house looked as good as new.
While Michael expected something to happen, at most, he assumed the mana was going to solidify and destroy the house completely, not fully repair it.
‘Systempedia, you got any leads?’
While he did say that sarcastically and was not expecting a serious answer, he was definitely not expecting total silence.
‘You do know something, don’t you?’ Michael asked in a frustrated tone, however, the system quickly replied, its tone a bit off.
Shut up for a moment, I am trying to cross reference this to something, if it is what I think it is then you should probably head back.
‘Tell me.’
The system remained quiet for a moment before it replied.
It might be a rift, it is similar to a dungeon but it’s more dangerous as instead of a small area, it’s like a whole different world filled with strong monsters.
Michael tilted his head in confusion ‘And this so called rift influenced these houses how exactly?’
It forms by absorbing a lot of mana from the surroundings, it might have accumulated the mana of everything around here, causing the houses to get caught in the process.
‘But you are not 100% sure?’ He asked for confirmation.
I am 99% sure, I am just checking to see if the last 1% adds up.
‘Well, good luck..’ Michael decided to leave it at that and went back to his group, earning a faint smile from Astraea.
He didn’t know what might have been the cause for that smile, but he didn’t dislike looking at it.
‘She is such a mystery…’ Michael sighed and rechecked his map, making sure they were really going on the right track, before turning his attention to the party.
“Let’s keep going.”
They began walking once again while checking out the surroundings, even though it was fairly flat, there were a bunch of beautiful white flowers scattered across the fields.
Michael turned to look at Astraea for a moment before quickly looking away.
‘Why am I avoiding her gaze…’ He thought before the system’s voice once again resounded inside his mind.
Done, well, not really, I couldn’t figure out the last 1% no matter how much I tried.
‘Then do you know what might be the cause for that 1%?’
Hmm… yes, you see, the reason these two worlds combined with each other was because their mana matched a certain wavelength and a rift formed, however, instead of it leading into a world with dangerous monsters, it created a pathway from one world to another.
‘I see… so on the off chance that it doesn’t connect to a dangerous location, it would connect to a different world entirely?’ Michael wondered, it seemed a bit too abnormal.
Pretty much, the mana is being absorbed and a rift should form soon, whether it would be a different world or not, I am not sure.
Michael listened intently before a thought popped into his head ‘Say.. can you artificially speed it up? Like, provide your own mana?’
Technically, you could, however, it must be mana that is the result of a fight, normal mana is pure, chaotic mana is what makes the absorption possible.
‘What if someone has that type of chaotic mana as a result of their affinity?’ Michael dug deeper.
That… yes, I see.. that’s the 1% I was looking for, I was only searching for natural causes, no wonder I couldn’t come up with anything.
Michael rolled his eyes at the system and noticed a small city in the distance, it did not look as grand as Vivum, however, it was definitely not simple.
Anyways, it takes ages for the rifts to open, just do what you want to do, you have been training for 5 days and walking for 1 and you still have 8 days of freedom before Amanda comes.
‘Oh.. right’ He face palmed as he almost forgot about her, he had to prepare enough so as not to go over the deadline, she was busy doing nothing, so she would definitely be strict with him.
Michael nodded at the two behind him and proceeded to walk in the direction of the city, he just hoped his 8 relaxing days stay relaxing, he would prefer to not fight anyone.
‘But knowing my luck.. it’s a bit unlikely..’
