Chapter 204

  Over the Summit (X)

  I thought that, with the changes my little body underwent thanks to the breakthrough, the climb up to the summit and over would be a breeze.

  Well, not a literal breeze, but as close as it can get.

  Nope.

  Fat chance.

  This is hell.

  No, seriously, somebody should erect a sign--screw it, I'm doing it. Under the confused looks of the kids, I stopped, took out a thick log of wood from the ring, chopped it into the shape of a sign, and then carved 'This is hell' straight across it before planting it to the side.

  "Pfft."

  As the kids stifled laughter, I admired my little creative project before taking in my surroundings yet again.

  It felt as though the world took to exponential changes with each few dozen yards crossed upwards--while the weather in the castle was largely stable (if gravely unpleasant), here? It wasn't. I mean, it was still gravely unpleasant, but it was no longer stable in any capacity.

  Within the last 30 minutes, we've experienced a blood-chilling blizzard, a rain of hail so thick it looked like someone was throwing daggers at us, and a fog so thick and gray it was like walking through Delhi during one of those pleasant, 'it's not fog, it's smog, baby' days.

  Beyond that, however, it was just... different.

  The ice under our feet repeatedly cracked--no, cracked isn't the right word. It crunched. And it was loud as all hell.

  Hairs in my nose froze as an added benefit, and no matter how many times I blew warm Qi to defrost them, they'd freeze back up in a few seconds, so I just stopped trying.

  Oxygen levels were kind of abysmal, and even I could recognize it. Though, in fairness, they weren't exactly optimal in the castle, either, now that we were about two hundred yards up from it, it felt like I had to breathe in thrice just to get one lungful of oxygen (I know that's not how it works... or, well, I think, at least, that's not how it works).

  We also had to take frequent breaks--and this time, thankfully, it wasn't just for my benefit. Whenever the winds would take up their speed a notch (or a few... dozen), we'd immediately hike to the nearest, tallest jutting rock we could see and use it as a shield. Starting a fire was pointless (impossible), so we'd each just coat ourselves in as thick of a Qi layer as we could muster, enduring.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Everyone started with just two layers of clothes (including me), and now we were up to six each.

  Honestly, I was beginning to think this was a bit of a suicide--we still had at least four or five hundred yards to go, and I legitimately don't know if we have it in ourselves.

  I whipped out the small wooden toy and played with it in my hand for a moment, pondering. Could it endure these conditions? I don't actually know.

  Despite it blowing my mind that I now have a flying artifact, I am also very much aware that it's probably not a world beater or anything like that. It's likely close to the first car that you get--some beaten-up rust box from 1991 that's being kept alive with pixie dust and prayers, but it can still get you places, somehow.

  So, my thinking is--do I really want to baptize what's probably one of the worst flying artifacts around by bringing it out for the first time into these conditions? And, more importantly, what if it literally just folds and bends under the weather? It'd be one thing if I just lost the artifact, but if we happened to be in it too?

  Phew.

  "What's that, Master?" Xi Zhao asked.

  "This? Uh, the last resort, you could say." I replied vaguely.

  "It's not easing up at all," Dai Xiu said, peeking out for a moment--which was enough for her bushy eyebrows to become immediately covered with frost. "If it keeps this way, it might take us days to cross over."

  "Maybe we can dig into the mountain and just go straight?" Wan Lan suggested.

  I actually thought about it--for precisely 3 seconds--before discarding the notion. If I knew anything about mine shafts, I knew that even with modern-day tech and extremely precise stabilizing rods or pillars or whatever they are called, things can still go really badly really quickly.

  "Who would dig? None of us have any affinity with Earth," Dai Xiu said. "Are you volunteering, Junior Sister? To dig out a however-many-miles-long tunnel with your bare fists?"

  "If I use you as a shovel, we can do it in half the time."

  "Just the half? I bet if Master used me as a shovel, we could do it in a tenth of the time!"

  Okay, first off--why are you so accepting of being used as a freakin' shovel?

  Secondly--stop. Stop with this glazing! Oh my God, it's the most embarrassing thing I've ever experienced in my life!

  "The tunnel would have to be at least four miles long at this altitude," in one of the rarest instances of anything, our dear newcomer actually spoke up. I don't think he uttered more than three sounds since we departed from the castle, so to see him speak up was... well, strange. As confirmed by everybody whipping their heads sideways to look at him. "It would be impossible to stabilize it, so we'd experience death by having the entire mountain collapse on top of us."

  "Oh? You're quite knowledgeable, Junior Brother!" Dai Xiu commented.

  "No. It's just common sense." It actually was, but all that comment did was make Dai Xiu pout, huff, and look away.

  "Have you ever crossed the mountain before?" I asked him.

  "A few times," he said. "Not this way. Iryan... that thing, I mean, would take me over the Eastern Crossing. We only did it in the middle of the summer, however."

  "You have a nice voice," Light said, shuffling over toward him and looking up at him rather wide-eyed. He flinched and pulled back in confusion.

  "T-thanks...?"

  "Tell me a story," she insisted.

  "A story? What story?"

  "Any story."

  "Uhm..."

  "You don't have to indulge her if you don't want to," I chimed in from the side.

  "No, it's fine. A story, huh? There once was a pretty scary dragon..."

  As Rayce regaled her with the tales of a dragon who befriended a human and mellowed out, I kept wondering... just what the hell will I do with him?

  If he truly was just some random, ordinary Shaman, I would have probably just escorted him to the Silvercrest City as promised, and then we'd go our separate ways forever, but seeing as he wasn't some ordinary Shaman but a rather talented one...

  Haah.

  Life is never simple, is it?

  Not in this world, anyway.