Chapter Ninety-Eight: Exchanging Information and Gaining a Harvest

Seeing Jens teasing his newly acquired pet, Lando curled his lip.

“I want to ask you about someone,” he said, then described Alice’s appearance.

Jens glanced at the others on his team. After seeing them all shake their heads, he replied, “Sorry. We’ve never met the girl you’re talking about. But I do have a piece of news that might help you find her.”

Lando nodded to show he was listening.

“I don’t know who started it. We ran into another squad once, and they said that in about three months from now, us descended archmages can gather at the Crystal Plains Ruins to exchange information or form teams. Whether you go is entirely up to you. If you meet others, please spread the word. The more people know about something like this, the better. You might find the information you want there.”

“In three months... at the Crystal Plains Ruins?”

“Right. Let’s exchange maps.” With that, he took out a crystal sphere, and a holographic map unfolded before them.

Lando looked it over. It overlapped in part with the map he had obtained, but it was far more complete. However, there was no information on the crystal creatures. That made sense; for them, crystal creatures above the seventh tier were rare resources, so it was only natural not to show such things.

Lando also took out his recorded map and, after some manipulation, shared it with the other side.

“Oh, and let me remind you of something: unless it’s absolutely necessary, never venture deep into any superlarge tribe. The Crystal World right now is a little strange.”

“Strange?”

“Mm. I can’t really explain it. I only know that several very powerful teams have been ‘eliminated’ because of it.”

Lando nodded to show he understood. After chatting a little longer, he took his leave and departed.

Watching Lando’s retreating figure, Jens murmured to himself, “Lando of the Silver Tower? Interesting indeed.”

One of his teammates asked, “Lando of the Silver Tower? Is he famous?”

Jens explained, “He’s a somewhat prominent figure in the Silver Tower. But that’s not the main thing. What matters most is his teacher—the newly risen grand archmage Odo, who has been very famous in the Empire lately.”

“That one... sir?”

The teammates all changed color.

...

Lando and Leia moved away with rapid teleportation, and only then did he have time to inspect his spoils.

[Crystal Winged Divine Dragon, Purple: Swift Shadow, Purple; Crystal Skin, Blue; Riding the Wind, Blue; Wind Element Manipulation, Blue]

[Swift Shadow, Purple: Greatly increases your own speed and grants perfect control. When speed reaches a certain level, afterimages will appear.]

[Crystal Skin, Blue: Generates an invisible layer of crystal skin with a degree of defensive power. Before it is broken, there is a chance it can reflect elemental damage.]

[Riding the Wind, Blue: Any current of wind can become a boost, allowing your speed to grow ever faster.]

It had not been easy. Lando was nearly moved to tears. This was the second purple soul he had encountered, excluding remnants. Though it might only be a threshold-level purple soul, it still filled him with excitement.

He removed the soul of Wind Prince Locke, Blue, and stored it deep within the system, then directly equipped Crystal Winged Divine Dragon, Purple. At once, a surging power of wind elemental force rose around Lando, and he felt his own speed explode by several orders of magnitude in an instant.

He stopped traveling and sent Leia off to hunt down some prey for dinner. Leia skipped away happily.

After closing the mindscape space, Lando prepared to test his newly acquired talent.

A wisp of wind rose around him. He took one step, and his body appeared dozens of meters away, leaving behind an afterimage that slowly faded.

Soon, dozens of Lando’s figures filled the area. Then, all of them suddenly froze and vanished, leaving only his true body standing where he was, as if he had never moved at all.

Lando was very satisfied with this. With his newly gained talent, his short-range movement speed now surpassed teleportation, and at full speed he could still control it with ease, changing direction freely.

The so-called “ever faster” in Riding the Wind was, unsurprisingly, likely limited.

Crystal Skin, Blue, was also much stronger than the green talent of the same name.

At that moment, Leia returned at a brisk pace, grinning, with a crystal rabbit in each hand. Lando was not surprised; this had become her favorite prey lately.

...

At that moment, Alice was somewhere in the Crystal World, sitting on a stone and swinging her legs as she stared into space.

“What are you daydreaming about, Alice? Don’t tell me you’re thinking about your junior again?”

The teasing voice beside her snapped Alice back to reality. She turned her head and saw, sure enough, the sisters Shade and Jenna, whom she had met in the World of Awakeners. Beside them stood a handsome, delicate-featured man—also an old acquaintance of Alice’s.

The man was called Carvo Mason. The merchant guild managed by his family was one of the partners of Alice’s family and owned about five percent of that floating city. Carvo himself had once been one of Alice’s most ardent suitors.

Originally, Carvo had also been due to join the Silver Tower school, but during the aptitude test it was unexpectedly discovered that he possessed talent suited to the art of evocation. Thus, through family arrangements, he entered Ferris Academy, which belonged to the evocation branch.

The four of them meeting like this could only be called a coincidence.

Hearing the sisters’ teasing at Alice’s side, Carvo narrowed his eyes slightly and felt, for no clear reason, a bit more hostility toward the boy named Lando. Although he currently had several targets at Ferris Academy, Alice was undoubtedly one of the more prominent figures in his pursuit sequence, and he did in fact have some genuine affection for her. So of course, learning that the girl he had set his sights on seemed to have an ambiguous relationship with someone else would make him unhappy.

Still, once he learned that Lando was Odo’s disciple, that hostility immediately faded somewhat, and so did some of his thoughts toward Alice. Of course, he still had to maintain appearances.

“What are you all talking about?” Carvo asked with a smile as he stepped forward.

Shade grinned and said, “Who else but Alice’s handsome little junior? Didn’t you see someone here spacing out and thinking about him?”

Carvo feigned surprise and disappointment as he joked, “Oh? So Alice, you already have someone in your heart? I’ve liked you since we were children, and now suddenly I don’t have a chance?”

After speaking, Carvo kept watching Alice’s expression, but seeing not the slightest change, he clicked his tongue inwardly and understood that he truly had no chance.

Still, he was quite willing to accept that. If he really ended up with Alice, the family would be the biggest beneficiary. As for himself, he might not gain all that much. Though his family’s merchant guild owned five percent of the floating city, whether it lived or died was nothing more than a single sentence from the Diaro family.

A capable son-in-law could be magnificent and overbearing indeed; an incapable one would probably be condemned to a life of dutiful male virtue until death. Carvo had confidence in his future, but he did not believe that his current talent was enough to make Alice’s two families behind her look at him differently.

At that moment Jenna interjected, “Carvo, you’re not bad, but compared with Lando, you’re still a little lacking. Heehee.”

“Oh? Really? Then if I get the chance, I’d actually like to meet this... junior Lando.”

First, let me thank all of you readers here. Every bookmark, recommendation, reward, and comment is a tremendous encouragement to me. As a newcomer, I never expected to achieve such good results, and it is also the driving force that keeps me moving forward!

And let me mention the update schedule again. Before, I wrote as much as I felt like and released as much as I had. Now I’ll set it clearly: for now, until the book is put on sale, there will be two chapters a day. That way I can also build up some manuscripts, and after it goes on sale, it will definitely start at three chapters a day. As for the specific extra-chapter rules, I’ll talk about those once the release time is confirmed. That’s all.

Love you all!