"H-haaa!"
I exhaled deeply as I opened my eyes to the world, feeling sensations I had lost slowly return to me.
The soft touch of the wind on my skin, the scent that the air carried, and every sensation the body could offer that my soul could not accurately recieve… I felt them all at once.
"Haa… haaa…"
My golden eyes took in the world around me, and I nearly collapsed due to the influx of so much information at once. Any other person would have probably gone into shock, but for me it was only a few seconds of disorientation.
"Hey, Jared!"
"You look pale, what's wrong?"
"Did it work?"
"Jared, are you okay?"
I heard the voices of my friends overlapping as they converged close to me, surrounding me with their warmth.
It seemed I was back in the present, and the familiar faces of my allies soon registered in my ahead, as well as the details of what happened prior to this point.
"It worked… and I'm fine." Shaking off the last remaining vestiges of my [Time Immersion] side effects, I rose from my knees and sighed.
'It took a lot more Aether than I calculated. Is it because of my interaction with Neron? Damn… this amount of energy is no joke.'
I was once again reminded why Neron had so much energy stockpiled within himself.
My eyes felt tired for some reason, and my mind was processing a lot of information at this point. It took a while to become composed enough to tell the eager audience what I had seen.
However, once I was ready… I told them everything.
"I don't know what happened. Neron refused to tell me."
To be honest, now that I thought of it, I didn't really have any valuable information for thr group.
That didn't mean my trip was useless, though.
"Neron seemed to be unable to tell me what happened. Either due to some external interference I was unawae of, or a reason that should work to our advantage sooner or later." I iterated, hoping to quell some of the rage that Kuzon was already displaying.
"The crux of the issue is that we have to investigate properly and obtain clues ourselves. Neron told me how urgent our predicament is, so I'm sure he would have told me the truth if he could."
I explained to them how Neron told me we had to be more thorough in our investigation. He also seemed worried about something, and there was a sense of urgency I couldn't quite explain.
It made the situation seem more pertinent than I had given it account for.
"So, what now? Our only clue was Neron, and now that he has refused to cooperate, what next?" Kuzon sighed, nearly slapping his palm on his head.
I coul sense his genuine frustration.
"Could you travel back and deliver a message to him from us? Maybe it can be a bit more convincing."
Kuzon should have known better than to think that would work. Neron had proven time and time again that he had our best interests at heart.
"I believe we should solve this ourselves. I also think Neron didn't give us the answers when we met him because of this very reason."
In the end, we just had to put in the work.
"Where should we start, then? Since this is urgent business, that means we have to hurry, right?" Aloe asked, to which I nodded.
"Yeah. I recommend splitting up and searching inependently. There's a chance we missed something through sensory perception alone, so I think we can start off by being thorough."
We were currently five on this team, and all of us were considerably good at sensory perception. The worst one among us in terms of ability had to be Ciara, but even she had proven to be strong enough to pull her own weight.
'With Jerry's location being on the line here, I reckon she'll have more than enough motivation to give it her all.'
And that was all I needed to see.
"Kuzon, take the North. Aloe, the East. Ciara, the West. Edward, the South." I promptly assigned everyone their tasks, going further as to explain the guidelines for a detailed exploration of the land.
"What about you, Jared?" Kuzon asked. "What will you be doing?"
A small smile coursed through my face as I gazed above.
"There's something I want to find out, so I'll take to the skies for a while. It might end up yielding profit."
"Alright then." He nodded, seemingly satisfied by my response.
Since everyone understood their duties, as well as how to go about fulfilling them, there was no longer any need to huddle together.
It was time to depart.
"Ciara, maintain a telepathic link between all of us. If any of you find anything, contact the rest through the link, and we'll converge in your position.
"Well, just don't stray too far. My range is limited to the immediate environment." Ciara murmured, itching her head a little.
Ah, that could end up being a problem.
"What's the limit of your range?" I asked.
If it was too short, I would just have to use an Arcana to do it myself. The reason I didn't suggest that, to begin with, was because I was trying to recover my lost energy.
Using Magic and fully absorbing Energy at the same time was impossible, unless I used separate cores for varying roles.
Unfortunately, most of my energy resources had been depleted, so I couldn't afford to spend any more on a Spell that my colleague could easily use with her Original Magic.
"Well, anywhere within the planet… ah, and just the immediate surroundings of it."
… Huh?
"What did you just say?" My eyes twitched as I stared at Ciara with a certain look of disbelief.
Perhaps I heard wrong.
"I can link us together as long as we don't travel beyond this planet. That's my limit for now."
I didn't hear wrong, after all.
Ciara's range… the same one I was thinking would be insufficient… ended up being far more than even I had expected.
'It seems I have underestimated this girl.'
How could I have forgotten what kind of a beast Ciara Epilson was? The same girl who could use Mage Mode and Original Magic at just 13 years old.
'She's a monster.'
"W-well, it's more than enough for our purposes." I managed to leak out a smile as I stared at her.
Damn Genuises. If I was as talented as her, wouldn't I have reached Neron's level by now?
Ah, well… it wasn't good to jump to conclusions yet. But, I knew I would be much stronger than I was now.
'I heard her ancestor is one of the Apostles of Aether. It's the opposite of me, who comes from a household that hasn't had a proper Mage for generations.'
How unfair life was.
"The search involves this planet anyway, so your range is perfect." I explained with a strained smile.
"And what of you? Aren't you leaving the area?" She asked, her brow raised.
"I won't be going very far, don't worry."
"Ah, okay then. I can manage that."
For someone who didn't spen 100 years training exclusively in the arts of Magic, who also didn't have some sort of secret method of getting stronger, it sure was easy to make such statements such as 'manage'.
Then again, I had already accepted this part of life.
'As long as I can close that gap by understanding the more fundamental laws of the world… not even talent will be able to compete with me.'
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[A/N]
Thanks for reading.
Let us hope their investigation turns up good results. Yes, the beginning parts may appear slow, but don't worry… all this buildups get good payoffs.
