Chapter 277 The Caravan (Part 2)
The caravan slowly started advancing through the path carved on the ground, maybe because the carriage was being pulled by the flying fishes or because Daimon chose one of the best carriages that were being sold in that noble store, but the travel was really smooth.
Seeing the girls chatting between themselves, Daimon took out his sigil lector and tried sending a message to all of his classmates, but he didn't get an answer from any of them, which probably meant they were in one of the other three seas.
Daimon looked at the crystal that Aura extorted from the Greenwich Sage, which was supposed to not only extend the range of the sigil lector, but also ignore interferences to a certain degree.
'That feeling I had about this thing not working isn't there anymore… but that would mean that Arianna was in the second layer of the magic ruin, from the very beginning?'.
Earlier when Stella gave him the crystal, he was going to use before they went to fight near the island, but he refrained from doing it, because he had the feeling that it wasn't going to work which would have just wasted the crystal.
He checked a second time after listening to the plans that Adam and Marcus had, as he knew they will be going to another place, but it was the same, when he thought of using the crystal, he had the sensation that it wouldn't work, something probably related to the sixth sense passive skill.
His instincts have never failed him before, so he went through and kept the crystal for late, it's just that after all the situation with the dimensional tunnel and the whirlpool, he forgot about it until now.
And to his surprise that feeling was no longer there, which meant he could now use the crystal and there was a high chance that it worked.
Daimon inserted the crystal and after finding Arianna's sigil, which was a wolf howling to the moon, he started the call.
The Risha sisters and Aisha, stopped what they were doing upon seeing the sigil lector properly working, and focused their attention on Daimon.
"Is that you, Daimon?", almost immediately, Arianna's voice could be heard coming from the sigil lector.
"Yes, no time to explain, in which one of the four seas are you?", answered Daimon, the crystal wasn't designed for the second layer, so although it was working, he could feel the connection was going to last less than what it was supposed to.
"Seas?".
"I'm indeed in a place that is underwater… but there is no way to leave, so I don't know what's around me, besides the sea of course".
"That little girl from the Jolbaris was dragged here with me as soon as we entered the magic ruin, we are under a dome of some kind which keeps the water outside, there is a huge castle and a small city which has been abandoned for quite some time, but I don't know if it's visible from the outside, also there are sea magic beasts of the Lord and Arch ranks roaming all over the place so we had to hide ourselves".
Daimon frowned, almost all this planet was covered in water, so it was going to be tough to find a dome under the sea which isn't already in use by the natives, he was sure it wasn't in the Mermen Sea at least, since they made use of their territory mainland or underwater, as they could thrive in both.
Then an idea struck Daimon like a bolt.
"Can you get yourself in danger, enough to threat your life, while you are sure to escape from it, the little gift I gave you will let you more or less feel my current location so I can lessen the possible places where you two might be".
…
There was a small silence before Arianna answered
"Yes, the beasts don't chase after you as long as you don't get close to the castle", judging by Arianna's voice she was already running towards those beasts.
"Booom!", there as loud sound coming from the sigil lector, and Daimon saw cracks starting to appear on the crystal.
"Damn, Arianna, the connection is about to end and I won't be able to call you again".
"Sorry I was catching up my breath, we are straight to the south of your current position, the dome can't be affected by Arch…".
Arianna barely made it on time to tell Daimon where to look for them before the connection was lost, the crystal turned into thin dust which Daimon had to blow away from his sigil lector.
"Of course, it had to be the damn Maelstrom Sea", mumbled Daimon, the Blackfin city was Built at the border of the Mermen Sea which is situated at the north of the Maelstrom Sea, so the only thing at the south of the Blackfin city had to be the Maelstrom Sea.
That also explained why no one had found wherever they were, thus the abandoned city, navigating through the Maelstrom Sea was already a pain in the ass, exploring it underwater required a lot of manpower.
"I'll buy whatever these guys use to communicate with each other, maybe I can make the sigil lector work with the other seas, luckily I spend some time in Liz's workshop", mumbled Daimon.
Although he isn't an expert like Liz, he learned the fundamentals of magic forge and runes through the book section of the shop, and practiced assisting Liz in some of her experiments and projects.
He still needed to practice more to be able to buy the low mastery knowledge book, but his main focus was battle so he left it for his free time, while he mostly spent the past eight years training.
Daimon then took out the one-liter bottle he got from the shark guy, unlike all the others he had bought, the content of that one was on another level, with every ten milliliters of the Shark Blood liqueur, the amount of the "Armored Shark" lineage, increased about 0.01%.
And at this point he has reached a 0.35% after the competition at the hotel, but he could tell the liqueur in the bottle he got from that tiger shark merman would increase it more than what he already had, in a single go, but he was also sure it would require some effort on his side this time.
'Mom, I'm going to be out for some time, if anything happens you are in charge', he said directly to Aisha through their mental connections.
'Ok, darling, I know there are some pests following us since we left, but nothing to worry about, leave everything to me~'.
Daimon nodded at his mother and then turned to see Liliana.
"Lili, can you build a dome with your strongest ice for me, I'll give you some of my mana too?",
Liliana's generally emotionless expression, melted away as soon as she heard Daimon call her "Lili", she didn't mention it, but she was a bit jealous of Yvonne since she got him to call her "Yvi" prior to all the situation with their lineages.
"Mm".
Daimon placed his hand on Liliana's shoulder and lent her some mana, she was the last one to use a combination spell with him, and she couldn't help but be surprised as to how smooth was the process of lending some of Daimon's mana.
'It's even smoother than with mother', she thought, but she came out of her daze, feeling the gazes of Yvonne and Leslie piercing her back.
Daimon chuckled, his magic core was a bother some times, but the mana that was stored inside which hidden from curious eyes, was purer than any Arch rank Erin or Aura had seen before, which made sense considering that when he gathered mana the absorption ratio was on par with Arch ranks.
A beautiful pair of ice wings appeared on Liliana's back and with a gesture, she casted a spell around Daimon surrounding him with an ice dome, before she dispelled the wings.
Daimon could still see them from within the dome and vice versa, because Liliana's ice when she used her wings was completely transparent like crystal.
Daimon inspected the dome for a couple of seconds and nodded, while strength wise it cold at most block early-stage Lord rank attacks, it was cold enough to suffocate way stronger fire, which was what he needed, as his body was about to get really hot due to the blood boiling effect.
"Here we go", Daimon took out the bottle and opened it, a strong alcohol scent filled the dome, luckily, he wasn't affected by it, or he would have gotten drunk just from the smell.
Daimon looked at the liquid inside of the bottle and unlike the one he has drank before, this one was redder, but he didn't feel any adverse towards it, so he simply gulped down the whole thing, before closing his eyes and isolated himself from the outside.
Not even a second later Daimon felt a warm sensation running through his body, it wasn't unpleasant but it was indeed way stronger than what he previously experienced.
Outside of the dome the Risha sisters saw Daimon literally exploding red flames, and they turned to see Aisha with slightly worried expressions.
"Is he… alright?", asked Leslie.
Aisha giggled while she nodded.
"Yeah, believe it or not, I have seen him bath in magma before, Aura's training was quite something back then".
Needless to say, but the Risha sisters were dumbfounded, upon hearing that, even Leslie was sure she couldn't resist such a strong heat with her bare body.
"Really what kind of mythical magic beast is he", mumbled Yvonne.
"Pffft…", the four girls laughed and then continued with their conversation, bringing some stories from their past, they even asked Aisha about Daimon's younger years, since they had a large gap in age, meaning she took care of Daimon when he was little.
Ignoring the kind of ashaming stories Aisha was discussing with the Risha sisters, Daimon suddenly found himself in some kind of imaginary place.
He looked at his surroundings, he was standing on the water without sinking and besides a red sky, there was nothing but an endless sea.
Daimon came out of his trance upon hearing the unmistakable sound of a notification.
[Ding]
[Welcome to the special space of the Lineage Temple, here the host will have to tame the lineages that have reached a certain threshold in order to awaken an ability, (it is possible to leave at will, but the next threshold will be harder to reach) good luck]
"Oi Eve why didn't you tell me about this, it wasn't on the description of the function either?".
… Daimon waited for Evangeline to answer, but apparently, she couldn't hear him here.
"Whatever, let's start", with Daimon's approval, the waters parted to leave a giant shark with black bone plaques all over its body, appear in front of Daimon, the pressure exuded by the thing was on par with an Arch rank, and was clearly trying to suppress Daimon forcing him to bow.
"Hoh, I will never be afraid of a magic beast again, bring it on!", although the pressure was quite heavy, he could tell the shark itself wasn't that strong, maybe middle Lord rank, which was still manageable with Demon Light.
Having said that, Daimon's body exploded in white flames and he jumped towards the shark.