Chapter 63: Towards the Dragon Peaks
It had been nearly three months since Vince first walked out of the sleepy, mundane borders of Oakhaven.
Back then, he was a magicless human relying on raw instinct, a brand-new taming system, and the desperate need to survive in a world that treated his kind like livestock.
Now, as he walked the jagged northern paths with the Crown Princess of the Canopy at his side and an ancient elven Queen bound to his absolute will back in the capital, the memory of Oakhaven felt like a lifetime ago.
He was no longer just surviving the world; he was actively bending it to his will.
By the afternoon of their second day of travel, the pristine, moss-covered paths of the elven empire had completely vanished.
The terrain was brutal—a relentless ascent over jagged, loose shale and uneven volcanic rock that bit into footwear with every step.
Lyrielle, despite her best efforts to maintain her proud, regal posture, was losing the battle against the elements.
Her delicate silk travelling cloak was shredded at the hem, caked in dark grey dust, and her soft leather palace boots were thoroughly ruined, the soles practically splitting from the sharp stone.
Vince stopped on a flat ridge, looking back at her with an amused smirk. He wasn’t breathing hard, completely unfazed by the climb.
"Need a break, Princess? Or are those boots finally throwing in the towel?"
Lyrielle shot him a mock glare, panting slightly as she caught up to him.
"The boots are an administrative casualty, Vince. Not me."
She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, then smirked as she raised her slender hand.
"Besides, I told you: I am an researcher. I don’t suffer inconveniences for long."
With a graceful flick of her wrist, she channeled a concentrated stream of green mana. The air rippled as she opened her conjured dimensional space, pulling out raw, enchanted fabrics. She closed her eyes, murmuring an elegant, ancient elven incantation.
The green light swirled around her body, dissolving her ruined palace garb and reweaving the enchanted threads directly over her skin. Within seconds, the light faded, revealing her dressed in practical, form-fitting hunter-green leathers, reinforced with durable drake-scale lining around her shins and a short, sturdy cloak that wouldn’t catch on the rocks.
Before Vince could comment, Lyrielle pointed her finger at him, her emerald eyes flashing playfully.
"Your turn. You look like a rugged mercenary, and not the high-tier kind."
The green mana enveloped Vince before he could protest. He felt a strange, pleasant warmth hum across his skin as his standard trousers and tunic were seamlessly upgraded.
The magic reinforced his gear with dark, flexible leather that perfectly contoured to his muscular frame, adding lightweight, shock-absorbing treading to his boots that perfectly gripped the loose shale.
Vince flexed his shoulders, genuinely impressed by the seamless fit.
"Not bad, Lyrielle. I could get used to having a personal royal tailor."
"Don’t get cocky,"
She replied, her cheeks catching a slight tint of pink as she turned to keep walking.
"It’s purely utilitarian. I can’t have my traveling companion looking unkempt."
---
As twilight painted the barren northern sky in deep shades of violet and ash, Vince set up a small camp in the hollow of a protruding crag. The crackle of the campfire was the only sound echoing across the desolate foothills.
Sitting across from each other by the dancing flames, the heavy atmosphere of the palace completely dissolved. Lyrielle sat with her legs pulled to her chest, staring into the embers, before her emerald eyes drifted up to Vince.
"Vince..."
She began quietly, her voice losing its playful edge.
"Can I ask you something? Back at the palace, you said you had to hide your identity to protect yourself. How did you... how did you get this powerful? I’ve never heard of a human that could command mana like you do. Where did you come from?"
Vince leaned back against the stone wall, twirling a small piece of volcanic rock between his fingers.
He kept his expression neutral, his sharp mind carefully filtering the truth. He couldn’t tell her about the cold, mechanical interface of the System, nor his ability to structurally tame women.
But he could give her the raw emotional truth of his existence.
"I don’t know who my parents are,"
Vince said, his voice dropping into a quiet, serious register that caused Lyrielle to look up instantly.
"I woke up in this world with absolutely nothing. No name, no family, no status. Where I come from, humans like me are looked down upon, despised, and treated like completely expendable pests. If you don’t have the power to control magic, you are nothing but a stepping stone for the rest."
He looked into the fire, his purple eyes reflecting the flames.
"I spent a long time being treated like garbage, hiding in the shadows just to breathe. Until... one day, something shifted. A latent power awakened inside me. I realized that if I didn’t want to be crushed under the boots of people who thought they were better than me, I had to become the one holding the power. I had to become too strong for anyone to ever look down on me again."
Lyrielle listened in absolute, breathless silence. As she stared at Vince’s fierce, unyielding profile, a profound wave of empathy crashed through her chest.
She had grown up surrounded by luxury, hidden behind ancient wards and doting servants, completely ignorant of the brutal reality a lone human had to endure just to survive.
The thought of Vince—the man who had held her securely while she wept, the man who offered her freedom—being despised, hunted, and entirely alone tore a sharp ache through her heart.
Deep within her soul, a quiet, fierce resolve locked into place.
I will make sure he never has to feel that way again,
She thought to herself, her emerald eyes softening with a deep, protective affection.
As long as I am with him, he will never be alone.
She reached across the small space between them, her small hand gently resting over his.
"You don’t have to hide from the world anymore, Vince. Not around me."
Vince looked down at her hand, then met her gaze. For a brief moment, the cold, calculating metrics of his strategic mind softened.
He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, a genuine, quiet warmth settling between them in the cool night air.
---
By the third day of travel, the journey slowed to a crawl—but not because of fatigue.
Lyrielle, completely liberated from her royal cage, had turned the expedition into a full-scale scientific field study.
Every single unique rock formation, glowing moss variant, or sulfurous puddle captivated her intellectual mind.
"Vince, look at this!"
She called out, kneeling beside a jagged fissure oozing a faint, glowing orange vapor. She pulled out a small glass vial from her dimensional pocket, carefully capturing a sample.
"The mana density in this volcanic residue is entirely different from the Canopy’s botanical flow. It’s highly chaotic, yet structurally dense. If I can analyze the thermal properties, I might be able to craft an entirely new defensive magic!"
Vince stood a few feet away, his arms crossed as he watched her scribble furiously in her research journal. His passive Aspect of the Canopy was already registering the thinning of botanical mana, replacing it with the heavy, oppressive weight of fire and ash.
He let out a dry chuckle.
"We’re trying to reach the peaks in the shortest time possible, Princess. If you analyze every rock we pass, the dragons might die of old age before we get there."
"Science requires patience, Master Mercenary,"
She shot back, sticking her tongue out at him playfully before capping her vial and hopping back to her feet.
"Alright, alright, I’m moving."
---
Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, back within the deep, dark forests surrounding Oakhaven.
Inside a hidden, underground laboratory illuminated by the eerie, pulsing blue glow of unstable alchemical cauldrons, a sudden, explosive shatter echoed through the stone room.
Rin, the Second Dread Commander, exhaled a jagged breath, wiping a smear of dark blue residue from his cheek.
He stood over a massive, intricate iron table lined with hundreds of successfully stabilized, glowing purple potions—the culmination of weeks of relentless, grueling labor.
His piercing eyes flashed with a manic, unhinged energy. He had completed his task.
The army’s enhancement supplies were secure, and his mandate in Oakhaven was officially fulfilled.
"Finally,"
Rin hissed, his voice scraping like rusted metal in the quiet laboratory.
He didn’t care about the territory, nor the administrative duties. He is finally ready to go after Vince.
"Hmmm... I can feel your aura moving further north. You’re leaving the forest."
Rin stepped up to the center of the laboratory, slamming his hand onto a massive, carved obsidian runic circle embedded in the floor.
He poured his immense, volatile mana directly into the stone. The runes howled, bleeding a violent, tearing purple energy that ripped the fabric of space itself apart, forming a churning, unstable dimensional portal.
Without a single look back at Oakhaven, the Second Dread Commander stepped directly into the tearing vortex, the portal collapsing into nothingness behind him.
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