Novel Full Chapter 723 723 Knowledge and Power
Risa was left to spread the message that Wolfe would be gone for the next few days, while he made his way directly to the Eastern Mountain.
Logically, the home of the Noxus Family seemed like it would be the more obvious choice for this progression, but as it was currently at the bottom of the ocean, being guarded by water Fae, the nature of the Family’s ancestral home had changed, and whatever was in the Eastern Mountain was drawing him in.
The spot was a newly formed volcano, created during the reconfiguration of the continent after the Great War, but it had only erupted once, during its forming, and it was considered to be mostly dormant now, with no signs of pressure buildup.
As he passed through the boundaries of the Frozen Wastes and into the mountains, Wolfe felt the shift of the spells lingering from the war. In the wastes, they had been almost entirely broken now, thanks to the influx of protective barriers and cleansing effects created by the new guardians, but here in the mountains, there were very few villages for anyone to look after, so the majority of the area hadn’t seen any changes at all.
Even this early in the year, the mountains were still covered in snow, the temperatures were well below freezing, and that was before you got to the higher altitudes.
Up near the peaks, where Wolfe was flying to avoid having to detour around every hill and obstacle, the air temperature was getting close to a hundred degrees below freezing, so cold that even if they had wanted to, the mundane armies couldn’t have come this way for fear of their fuel freezing.
Even the jets, with their heated fuel tanks for high altitudes, generally avoided this place, just in case they got caught in a lingering ice magic zone, and it overwhelmed their technology.
“It shouldn’t be too far now.” Wolfe mumbled to himself as he searched the area.
His body was leading him somewhere very specific, and he could tell increasingly clearly where the spot should be as he travelled east. It was at a higher elevation, so it was most likely on the side of the only actual mountain in the far Eastern end of the range. Hopefully, it was somewhere preserved from before the war, like a house, cave or something comfortable.
Breaking through on the side of a frigid mountain didn’t seem like the most enjoyable of events, and it wouldn’t make for much of a story. Or perhaps it would. Telling the others all about how he nearly froze into a popsicle while he tried to become a Saint, or was that Overlord to the Magi, might actually be memorable enough that it would become a local legend.
As he got close, the spot became clear in Wolfe’s mind. He was headed for the interior of the Volcano, a cavern deep inside the mountain, and he just needed to find the entrance.
[Detect Hidden] found the side of the mountain riddled with caverns and tunnels, but it didn’t have the penetration ability to help him navigate his way to the centre of the mountain. All that he could do was to pick a more promising looking one and then follow it as far as it went.
Unless this feeling was leading him to some sort of treasure, he would just need to get close enough to the source that he could finish his advancement, Wolfe assumed. Risa had said that it was all about the environment, and that all of Forest Grove would be perfect for the Fae that were visiting to break through to Rank Seven at.
Relying on [Detect Hidden], Wolfe circled the mountain at supersonic speeds, looking for a cave that was different to the others. There might not be one, as the mountain was artificial, and the caves were formed by the eruption, but Wolfe got the feeling that he would know when he saw it.
There, a very normal-looking cave mouth, slightly larger than he was tall. That was where the feeling was coming from.
Wolfe landed in the snow outside the cave mouth and was immediately hit with a wave of warm air. It didn’t seem to touch the snow below, nothing was melting around the cavern, but the air that was coming out was pleasantly warm and incredibly inviting.
The interior was just like the exterior, nondescript. The cave was a natural magma vent, lined in volcanic rock melted smooth from the fury of the Volcano’s eruption. It was also incredibly straight, running directly down into the heart of the mountain, where Wolfe could see a faint glow of deep red light.
He had never been in or even around a volcano before, and Wolfe wished that he had taken the time to grab one of the magically reinforced cameras that would work in a mana rich environment. Being able to show this to everyone back home would have been far better than just telling them about it.
Step by step, he made his way to the heart of the volcano, and the Fire Element began to dominate the energy in the air. At first, it was just warmth, but the further he went, the less that the other Elements could compete and the more intense the Fire Element became, until it was the only one that he could feel.
Wolfe could feel the affinity for the Fire Element growing by the second, lending him insights into all the wonderful ways that he could have been using it if he had only been a bit more creative than explosion spells. From huge and obvious methods, like imitating the natural heat of the sun on the plants in the garden, instead of just warming the air, to much more subtle methods to alter the heat content of a small area to disrupt and shape air flows to counter wind magic.
The two were normally somewhat disconnected from each other, as Air Magic worked fine no matter the temperature, but an artificial imbalance, created by the presence of Fire Magic could cause Air spells to go astray, or even decrease natural air density to change the lift on one side of a plane’s wings to either help it fly more easily or bring it crashing to the ground.
It was the subtleties of Fire that he had been lacking in his knowledge. There were even medicinal uses of Fire Magic. The body’s core temperature is incredibly important, not only to the survival of the person, but the survival of bacteria and viruses.
Many of them could only live for a few minutes in an environment that was the wrong temperature, and Fire Magic could simulate an extreme fever that would kill the virus in the bloodstream or respiratory system, without affecting the rest of the body’s organs. At the extreme level, it was almost as good as dialysis for cleansing the blood.
“Beautiful. There is so much that I missed. But some of these methods still look incredibly painful. Maybe if you mix them with Witch Magic, they could still be used, but nobody would volunteer for having their lungs burned clean of viral infection unless there was no other option.” Wolfe silently noted, then wrote on his notepad, just so he wouldn’t forget to tell someone.