“Were you with Neo?” Felix suddenly asked with narrowed eyes.
Jack was surprised by the accuracy of her guess.
“I was. How did you know, though?”
“Venyth told me,” Felix replied. The snake spirit, visible only to her, coiled lazily around her shoulders. “Why did he leave without meeting us?”
“He said he was busy.”
His words dampened the group’s mood.
The warmth of the food now seemed less comforting.
It was clear Neo was involved in something dangerous again.
He hadn’t met them because he didn’t want them to worry.
If it had been before, Felix and the others would have been angry.
They would have demanded to know why Neo hadn’t told them what he was doing and insisted they could help.
But that wasn’t possible anymore.
They were too weak to stand alongside Neo.
If they tried to help him, they would only become a burden.
The realization stung.
It left a bitter taste in their hearts.
Jack noticed the heavy atmosphere and decided to change it, forcing a grin onto his face.
“I don’t think it’s something dangerous,” he said. “Remember Professor Anna? She’s also on leave.”
Felix’s eyes flicked back to him.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Morrigan told us Neo met with her. He bought her a plushie,” Jack said with mischievous expression. “Hehe, I bet something is going on between those two.
“They must’ve gone somewhere together. Somewhere they can…”
Jack trailed off.
His knowing smile stretched wider.
His implication caused the others to exchange awkward, confused glances.
A faint flush of embarrassment crept onto the faces of Sean and Nathan.
Arthur cleared his throat, breaking the silence.
“I don’t think Professor Anna would be involved with a student. She doesn’t seem like someone who would do that.”
“No, I think Jack is right. Those two always had this weird air around each other.
“Also, you might not have noticed, but Professor Anna was always biased in Neo’s favor,” Felix said and then thought, ‘Even during the S-rank mission slot competitions, Professor Anna went against the principal and took our—Neo’s—side.’
The group began to whisper among themselves excitedly.
The tension from earlier melted away, replaced by the lighthearted distraction of gossip.
Jack, pleased with himself, eagerly added more fuel to the fire.
His gestures exaggerated as he recounted other “clues” to support his theory.
He knew Neo was going to absolutely thrash him later.
He decided to leave the future problems for the future him and have fun now.
They suddenly stopped talking when Morrigan put the spoon down with force.
It made a loud noise.
“I’m full. I’ll go train now.”
Morrigan left without another word.
The group was left in a stunned silence.
“No way…. No way….” Felix muttered with a shocked face. Her wide eyes darted towards the door. “Don’t tell me she is jealous—”
“That’s just your imagination. This is Morrigan we are talking about. Even the reason she became Neo’s fiancée was for food,” Clara said.
She looked at Morrigan’s disappearing back and continued,
“I think she is worried her free-food fiancé ticket will disappear if the news about Professor Anna and Neo is true. There is no way she is jealous.”
“Why not? Maybe she had a crush on him.”
“No sane person will have a crush on that madman,” Clara rolled her eyes. “Their first meaningful interaction was Neo grabbing Morrigan and jumping down from a cliff.”
“Y-yeah,” Felix smiled, recalling that day.
…
Neo felt a chill crawl up his spine.
“Why do I feel like someone is talking bad about me?”
He glanced around before he shook his head, dismissing the thought.
He focused on the task in front of him.
The small shop in front of him had a flickering neon sign above the door.
He entered and bought a super extra-large singing set along with tens of thousands of songs downloaded on the device.
The shopkeeper gave him a strange look but said nothing, quickly completing the transaction.
The Angel inside his Shadow Space, Velkaria, complained almost immediately when he gave them to her.
‘The material of the music set is not made from Void-resistant material. It will break soon.’
“It’s time you learnt how to control your Void affinity. You are always blasting it in all directions like there is no tomorrow,” Neo said. “If you can’t do it and the music set breaks, I won’t buy more for you.”
‘Fuck you, bastard. I asked for something that would entertain me. Not a training device,’ Velkaria shouted at irritably.
“I’ll take it back if you don’t want it.”
‘Fuck off.’
Neo left the Shadow Space after settling the matter with Velkaria.
He chuckled as he thought how the Angel would be caring about a device that was not even one-tenth of its size.
He started to move towards the southernmost point of the continent.
The Shadow Jump Spell allowed him to travel at high speed, but it wasn’t enough.
An hour later, he stopped.
“This isn’t going to work. At my current speed, it will take me a few days to reach the destination.”
Neo didn’t have time to waste.
He needed to be fast if he wanted to save Elizabeth.
He took out his Grim Reaper badge, and spoke into it.
“Cerberus, can you tell Veldora I called for him?”
The badge shook as if nodding, its faint vibrations echoing through his palm.
Without hesitation, he moved towards the towering mountain range in the next city. It would be a disaster if Veldora arrived inside a city.
The badge began to glow as soon as Neo reached a clearing near the mountain’s base.
A pale black light shot out from it, piercing the sky.
The light seemed to shatter as it hit the heavens, scattering like broken glass before reforming into a swirling black portal.
Shadows danced around the edges of the portal as an oppressive presence filled the air.
With a mighty roar that shook the earth, Veldora descended from the portal.
His immense form blotted out the sun.
“I need your help to go somewhere,” Neo said as Veldora landed with a thunderous impact.
The ground trembled beneath his weight.
The dragon lowered his head, bowing before him.
“It will be my pleasure, Prince.”
Moments later, Veldora took to the skies with Neo on his back.
There rush no winds just like last time, and the world below turned into a blur of greens and browns.
The Ancient Dragon’s speed was astonishing.
‘We need only an hour at this speed,’ Neo thought. ‘I might be a Paragon, but my combat strength should be around early Exalted.’
He glanced at the massive form beneath him.
‘Veldora is also Exalted rank.’
‘Both of us are around the same rank, but the difference between our strength is like day and night.’
‘He only needs an hour to cover the distance that would take me days.’
Neo closed his eyes, steadied his breathing and mediated on Veldora’s back.
The rhythmic beating of the dragon’s wings was soothing.
He began to read the information Sphinx had given him.
It told him how to transform Obitus into a complete Sacred Treasure.
‘Condense your [World Energy] into [Essence],’ the instructions read. ‘Fuse that essence with your Sacred Treasure until it is completed.’
Neo re-read the information.
‘Isn’t this too simple?’
As if responding to his skepticism, a Moon’s Intent spoke directly into his mind.
Its words transformed into letters that appeared before him.
[It’s not simple at all.]
[Worlds take thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, to complete the Sacred Treasure.]
[Your case is a bit different, of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to be simple.]
Neo waited, expecting more information.
But it never came.
“Why did you stop talking?”
[Stop talking? I thought it was the end of the convo lol.]
Neo’s brow twitched.
“…Just tell me why my case is weird.”
[You really wanna know?]
“Yeah,” Neo said, suppressing the feeling that Moon was getting more relaxed with him and going to say something absolutely moronic.
[Pay me with one hour of bed action scenes if you want the information.]
“….What?”
[Sex,] it said, as if Neo had not understood its connotation. [Let me watch some good old fucking.]
“…”
Neo closed his eyes.
He focused inwards, shutting out the absurdity of Moon’s demand.
His Will surged like a torrent. It condensed into World Energy, and he tried to condense even more.
[…Is it me or did you just ignore me?]
Neo ignored the text.
[Bah, stop acting like a saint. There is no swordsman who doesn’t like to swing his sword.]
The corner of Neo’s lips twitched.
‘Swinging his sword’ was the last thing on his mind.
He had a lot of things to accomplish, and he was short on time.
Moon’s Intent harrumphed.
It stopped talking when it realized Neo wouldn’t reply.
If Neo was going to be stubborn, then Moon’s Intent could do the same.
It refused to give any information until Neo ‘ploughed a holy land.’
Of course, it would still fulfill its role as a blessing.
The information it could give, however, was not part of the blessing, which was why Moon’s Intent demanded a price for it.
Dozens of minutes passed as Neo concentrated.
Beads of sweat rolled down his nape, dampening his shirt.
World Energy began to manifest around him.
It looked like white flames, flickering and wavering in the still air.
But a closer look revealed something else.
The flames were not flames at all but were instead formed from thousands of thin threads of energy gathered together.
Neo grunted as he pushed himself further.
Stay connected via My Virtual Library Empire
His muscles tensed, and his focus sharpened.
Each thread of energy bent to his will as he tried to condense the white flames into Essence.